The Master of the Wind

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Transcript:

Well, turn with me to Mark chapter 4. I appreciate that song, Brother Buford. As he was talking, I was listening to what he was saying, but I was sitting there thinking about how so many times we feel like we’re expected to come to church and just act like everything is wonderful.

We have no problems, or that people are going to somehow think we’re less spiritual if we’re open about the hurts in our lives, if we’re open about the burdens that we have. But folks, the Bible tells us to bear one another’s burdens, and we can’t do that if we don’t know about it. The Bible nowhere tells us to put on our church face and come in and pretend with one another.

And I’d be lying to you if I told you this morning that I wasn’t heavy hearted. I know some of you are as well. I’m still heavy hearted because in my hometown, a week ago tomorrow, seven families sent their kids off to school not knowing they wouldn’t be home that night.

I’m heavy-hearted because a little boy close to Madeline’s age went into a cooler at a gas station with his mom because she thought they’d be safe in there from the storm. And we stood there and others stood there as they pulled those two and a third person, and I heard later a fourth person, out of the wreckage of that gas station. I’m heavy-hearted because so many people I know lost everything.

And yes, it’s just stuff. But when you go from everything being okay in the morning to you don’t know where you’re going to lay your head that night, where your children are going to sleep, where your next meal is going to come from, it means something. I’m heavy-hearted from the shell-shocked looks of people who came out of what used to be neighborhoods and now just look like an atomic bomb went off.

I know many of you are heavy-hearted this morning also. You may have lost a loved one recently or even not so recently, but it still feels like the wound is fresh. some of you may be heavy hearted this morning because you’ve been hurt very deeply by someone you care about some of you may be heavy hearted this morning because you don’t know how you’re going to pay your bills or because you don’t folks you may not know where the next meal is coming from and I hope if that’s the case you’ll tell us because that we can fix people are heavy hearted for a lot of reasons and you know we’re not told to come in here and pretend that we’re not I don’t want us to be heavy hearted all the time we’re supposed to also rejoice together but it’s okay when we’re heavy-hearted.

But whenever there’s a tragedy, like the one in Oklahoma, or the explosion in Texas, or Sandy Hook, or Hurricane Sandy, or any of these things, or even a smaller tragedy in our own lives, it seems to be a common question that people ask, well, where was God when this happened? I’m not saying you’re asking that. Most of the time, we as Christians don’t go that route.

But I also know that there are times when our circumstances seem to weigh us down so much that even the most devout, faithful Christian can have those moments where they think, God, where were you? And the world asks that question, and sometimes God asks that question because, folks, in spite of the good things, and I do enjoy life, I hear people talk about life like it’s nothing but drudgery and pain all the time. I enjoy my life.

But that doesn’t change the fact that storms come up all the time. literal storms, or just the storms in our lives. And I thought this week a lot about this subject of people suffering and being heavy-hearted and wondering where God is, and it wasn’t until I was already almost finished with the message that I realized, hey, we’re talking about wind here too.

It’s fitting for the last week I had. But in Mark chapter 4, starting in verse 35, it says, In the same day when the even was come, he, meaning Jesus, saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. See, Jesus had been out preaching, and he’d preached most of the day, and sometimes I think Jesus just needed to get away from the people.

Now, we don’t think of Jesus that way a lot, because Jesus came to minister, he came to serve, and he loved people. But folks, in his human nature, I’m sure Jesus got tired sometimes. And so he says, let’s get on a boat, and let’s go over to the other side.

Now, part of it could have been being tired and needing to get away. Part of it, I know, was because of the miracles he knew that he was going to do on the other side of the sea. But he tells them, let’s get in a boat and let us pass over to the other side.

Verse 36 says, And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. And I hadn’t paid attention to this part before.

Maybe I’d been reading it out of Matthew and Luke. I don’t know if they mention the other little ships. If people try to say that the miracles of the Bible were just made up, they have people in the little ships who were their eyewitnesses to the things that went on.

It always amazes me when I find little things like that in there. There were also with him other little ships. So Jesus and his disciples got in a boat, and some other people got in some boats, and they went to follow him.

I don’t know if they were with him or if they were just following him like the paparazzi. We want to hear more about what Jesus is going to say. But they followed him over to the other side.

In verse 37, as you know where we’re going if you’re familiar with the story, and there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. And reading on this this week, the Sea of Galilee, which they were going across, is known for some violent, violent storms. And apparently storms that can just come up without warning, much like many of the storms we go through. And the storm was such, it said it was a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship.

They weren’t just lightly, it wasn’t a cool breeze and the waves lapping at the side of the boat. The waves were blowing the boat all over, tipping it back and forth. And the waves were pounding on the boat.

Folks, I know they knew what they were doing when they built their boats, but their boats were still made out of wood. I don’t know how confident I would feel about being in a little wooden boat in the middle of a violent storm like this when the waves are just beating the boat to death. and they beat into the ship so that it was now full.

Not only are they being tossed around, not only are they being pounded by the waves, they’re taking on water, and they’re going down. And a lot of times we critique and we criticize the disciples for their lack of faith, but I can, if I was a betting man, which I’m not, but I would just about bet any one of us in this room would be terrified in this circumstance. Even if Jesus was asleep on the boat, we’d be terrified, because it’s a terrifying ordeal to go through.

It says, he, meaning Jesus, he was in the hinder part of the ship. He was in the back of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

Folks, it seems to me like they asked and answered their question in the same statement. Do you not care that we perish, but you called him master? If Jesus was their master, which they professed him to be, and they knew that Jesus was a good master, he was a kind master, then obviously he cared whether they perished or not.

They said, Master, do you not care that we perish? Do you not care that we’re about to drown? And he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, Peace, be still.

Now in every rendition I’ve ever seen of this in those cartoons they make of the Bible stories or of movies or things, Jesus steps up and in a quiet little voice says, Peace, be still, in a whisper. I don’t know. If it says somewhere in the Bible that he whispered that, then I’ll change my theory on it because the Bible’s right and I’m not when I’m in contradiction to the Bible.

But I don’t remember it saying that. I’ve always imagined him shouting at the wind and saying, Peace, be still. And whether he shouted or whispered, it doesn’t diminish his power in any case because the fact is that he still spoke to the wind.

And it says here in verse 39, And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. All the disciples together, all of these other people who were with them, even in their well-constructed boats, could do nothing even to stave off the effects of the storm. They couldn’t keep themselves from being tossed around.

They couldn’t keep themselves from being beaten. They couldn’t keep themselves from taking on water, let alone do anything about the storm. They were completely at the mercy of the storm until the master stepped forward and said, Peace, be still.

And it’s no wonder. It’s no wonder that the winds and the waves obeyed him. Folks, this was the one who spoke the entire universe into existence.

He’s the one who in the beginning said, let there be light, and suddenly there was light. It’s not as though either that he said, let there be light, and a light bulb came on somewhere. He was the inventor of light in the first place.

He created the planets. He created the universe. He created us, and he created the atoms and building blocks that he made all of those things out of with the words of his mouth.

No small wonder that he has power over the wind. So he says, peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? Turns around and asks them, Why are you so afraid?

Do you still not have any faith? And folks, this was toward the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but these people already had some idea of who Jesus was. This was early in his ministry, but it wasn’t his first miracle or his second.

Not only had they seen him turn water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana, but they had seen him heal numerous people. I went back just for my own curiosity’s sake this morning tried to look at it in chronological order, and it seems like they had seen about, depending on the order, there’s about four to six healings that are recorded in the Gospels already. And these aren’t the things like you’ll see on the heresy channel when you go home and turn it on, where it’s somebody with some kind of heart problem or some kind of internal problem that you can’t see, and they say, I’ve got it, there’s no proof they’ve got it.

And then they say they’re healed of it when there’s no proof they had it in the first place. Folks, these are healings of things externally like leprosy. These are healings of things like blind people.

These are things like raising people from the dead. Verifiable. They had seen actual miracles that Jesus Christ had done.

So I don’t want to be too hard on them because I’m not sure I would be any better. I’m fairly certain I would have been afraid too. Folks, Monday I was underground in a storm cellar.

I knew we were going to be okay and I still was terrified. Even praying, knowing God’s not going to let anything happen to us, especially while we’re underground, it’s still a terrifying ordeal. I know I would have been hugging the mast of the ship and screaming my head off, probably. But from God’s perspective, it was a lack of faith on my part and theirs.

It was a lack of faith. He says, why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?

You’ve already seen him do incredible miracles. You already know he’s not just any other man. How is it you still have no faith?

And they feared exceedingly. Folks, they go from one fear to another here in just that long. They feared exceedingly and said one to another, What manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Folks, they probably should have feared God in the first place. Well, I can’t say that. I don’t know that they didn’t have fear of God.

That they went from being afraid of the winds and the seas and everything else, and they called on Jesus, and Jesus does exactly what they asked, and now they’re afraid of Jesus. It says they were exceedingly feared, or they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this that even the wind and seas obey him? Well, what manner of man is he?

He’s not any ordinary man. He is the God of the entire universe. He’s the creator of the entire universe who stepped into human flesh and walked among us.

No ordinary man. Our master is no ordinary man. And the storms in our lives, whether they’re a tornado or whether it’s a family problem or something in between, folks, the storms of our life can be just as violent as this storm and they can come up with just as little warning.

Some storms have no warning. They just come out of nowhere. We were fortunate Monday.

We had about 15 minutes warning. Something was said about the Joplin tornado and how it killed so many more people. They had zero warning.

Sometimes you just don’t know. Sometimes you can be plugging away through life and everything seems fine and then you go to the doctor and you hear the C word, cancer. The storm just came out of nowhere.

You can be going along and everything is fine and somebody loses a job. suddenly everything’s not fine. Folks, the storms we go through can be violent and they can come up out of nowhere.

And the first point, if you’re following along with the blanks in the bulletin this morning, not only can they be violent and come up out of nowhere, storms can occur even when we are in the center of God’s will. That’s a very important truth you need to know this morning. Storms can occur even when we’re in the center of God’s will.

These men were in the center of God’s will. The storm occurred when they were out on the Sea of Galilee in the boat, and you know why they were in the boat? Because Jesus told them to be.

They weren’t running away from God like Jonah was, they were right where God told them to be, and the storm came up. I’ve heard people say before that the safest place you can be is in the center of God’s will, and I understand the point they’re trying to make, but tell that to people in Fox’s book of Martyrs. Tell that to people today who are doing exactly what God has called Christians to do in countries like China, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, and are being martyred for it.

Tell me that there are no storms in the center of God’s will. But equally wrong as saying that in the center of God’s will we’re absolutely safe is the assumption that if something bad happens, it automatically means we’re outside of God’s will. And folks, that poisonous, despicable cult from Kansas that likes to protest the funerals, have already been over there in Oklahoma protesting the funerals of little children and saying it was the wickedness of Moore, Oklahoma that sent the tornado.

Folks, if God wanted to destroy Moore, Oklahoma with a tornado because of their wickedness, he’d be fully within his rights to do so. But I’d like to think he’d have other places to start with. Folks, sometimes God does use tragedy and calamity to punish or to discipline or to get our attention, but it’s wrong to assume that any time something bad happens, it automatically means we’re outside the center of God’s will.

Folks, sometimes when the storms happen, they happen even when we’re right where we need to be. And when we’re convinced that we’re doing what God has told us to do, when we’re convinced that we’re doing the right thing, it would be exactly the wrong thing to come up against a storm, to come up against some kind of opposition, and stop and say, wait, we need to change course, because obviously this isn’t what God wants us to do. Folks, I’m not so much into reading signs as I am into reading what God’s Word says.

and God had told them to get in the boat. It would have been a mistake for them to say, we should have never gotten on this boat. Obviously, God doesn’t want us out here.

No, God told them to get in the boat. And I tell you this because some of you are going through some difficult things. Yeah, God might be trying to get your attention.

That can happen. But I also don’t want you to assume automatically that if you’re going through a family struggle, you’re going through financial problems, you’ve lost a loved one, that God is necessarily punishing you for some reason. Folks, the most important thing is that we make sure we’re in the center of God’s will.

Because if you are, that’ll help you understand whether it’s a punishment or whether something else is going on here. So storms occur even when we’re in the center of God’s will. Second of all, the Master is present and cares for us even when we don’t see Him.

See, we can get in the middle of the storm and that’s all we see is the storm. Yes, they knew Jesus was sleeping in the back of the boat, but they weren’t focused on Jesus. Even when they go and talk to Jesus, they were still focused on the storm.

storm all around us don’t you care that we’re dying they were still focused on the storm around them and sometimes we get surrounded by it if you’ve ever seen pictures or diagrams of a hurricane they had this eye in the middle and I guess if it were small enough all you could see were the would be the wall of the I don’t think they ever do come this small but all you could see were the clouds around you if you could stand in the middle of a tornado all you could see would be the clouds and the debris around you folks we can get in the middle of the storm and all we see is the storm swirling around us and forget that the Master is there with us in the middle of the storm and He still cares for us. And it’s easy to say, well, my family’s fallen apart. My finances are falling apart.

I’ve lost my job. I got sick. Why does God not care about me anymore?

Folks, there’s not a thing that we could suffer that even compares to what the God of this universe has suffered for us already. And we think God doesn’t understand our pain. Folks, the Master loves us.

He cares for us and he’s with us, even when we’re in the midst of the storm, just like Jesus was on the boat there with them. Jesus didn’t put them on the boat and send them off in the middle of the storm just to leave them and abandon them while they were there. Third of all this morning, as we’re getting close to closing, the master, the master is more powerful than even the greatest storms. As I said to you earlier, no small wonder that when he opened his mouth, the wind had to obey him.

He created the wind in the first place. He created the elements. I can’t even figure out the periodic table, and he designed it.

And he’s in charge of all of this. He’s in charge of everything around us. Does that automatically mean everything’s going to be happy and wonderful and glamorous?

Obviously not. I missed that memo. But folks, it means he’s ultimately in control.

And if we know that he loves us, and if we know he’s trustworthy, and we know that he’s in control, what really do we have to fear? Folks, when we serve a master who’s more powerful than the storm. Now, I’m not saying I would have had the foresight to do this, but it would have been most correct for them to go back to Jesus and say, Lord, we know that you are in control of this storm.

Would you do something about this for us? They would have gotten the storm taken care of, and it would have demonstrated their faith. Now, again, I can’t tell you I would have done that, that I would have said that.

But folks, when we’re in the middle of the storm, we need to focus on the Master. We need to trust the Master, because He’s in control of everything, and He’s stronger than the strongest storm. told the wind to be quiet.

I can’t even make my own child be quiet. I think I just got an amen from my wife. I can’t even make my own child be quiet or my dogs.

He made the wind be quiet. That’s incredible. Folks, there’s no storm in my life or your life that can stand up to our God.