Commanding the Storm

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But Charla reminded me of a story this week that happened several years ago. I don’t even, it seems like it was pretty recent, but it had to have been several years ago. One of these shows where people go on and they audition for singing, and I can’t even keep them all straight.

I don’t watch any of them, and I can’t keep any of them straight. This one I heard about, though, because it was on the news the next day. Was it Britain’s Got Talent?

Okay. Britain’s Got Talent, and I think they’ve got the mean judge from the American Idol. Yes, okay.

You can tell I’m so on, I’ve got my finger right on the pulse of pop culture. If they haven’t been dead for 200 years, I don’t know who they are. But, so on this program, I remember seeing the clip.

This woman walked out to audition, and because of the looks of her, because of the way she carried herself to use some of the words that were bandied around. She was kind of frumpy, kind of homely, and they just kind of made fun of her. I mean, in some regards, they were merciless.

As they let her audition for them, you know, they were kind of smirking and expecting this was just going to be a big joke. And then she opened her mouth to sing a song from Les Miserables, and they were just blown away. And the woman, many of you already know who I’m talking about, but the woman’s name is Susan Boyle, and she’s got record deals now.

I mean, they didn’t know who they were dealing with. They completely underestimated her because they were going by her looks, and they didn’t know anything about her. And so not knowing anything about her, they just assumed that this was going to turn out one way, and it was something completely different.

And tonight we’re going to look at a story that is a lot like that with Jesus and the disciples. The disciples had been around Jesus quite a bit at this point. I don’t know that it had been a very long time, but they had been around Jesus certainly longer than those judges had been with the lady that was auditioning.

And yet it’s clear from the story that they still didn’t know who they were dealing with. They still didn’t know who they were traveling with. they still didn’t fully understand who he was because they, if they had their expectations, probably would have been different.

And so we’re going to look at a story tonight from Matthew chapter, I’m sorry, Mark chapter 4. And if you would turn there with me, I heard the sounds of Bibles already turning. If you haven’t turned there, you can get there from your bulletin or it’ll be on the screen for you.

But if you would stand with me, if you’re able to without too much difficulty, as we read about this time that the disciples underestimated Jesus because they really didn’t know who they were dealing with. We’re going to start in verse 35, and we’re going to go through verse 41 tonight. It says, On the same day when the evening had come, he said to them, Let us cross over to the other side.

Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was, and other little boats were also with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. But he was in the stern asleep on a pillow, and they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. But he said to them, Why are you so fearful?

How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? And you may be seated.

Now, this is a story that we’ve all heard numerous times. I’m sure if you’ve been in church for any length of time, as Christy said a minute ago, if you’ve been around for a while, and I turned back to Charlie, I said, does she mean around at this church or around on this earth? Because that could be two different things.

And I haven’t been around the church for all that long, but I still knew the song. So if you’ve been around any church for any length of time, you’ve probably heard this story. And honestly, I came to it in the text tonight and thought, could I just skip this one?

Because I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about it fairly recently, and I’m sure they all know it, but we’re going section by section through the book of Mark, so here we are. And as I was reading it again, as I was studying it again, I was struck by it’s not just that they don’t believe, because that’s the I normally take in reading this story, in teaching this story. But again, coming to this in order, I realize that this is still fairly early in Jesus’ ministry.

If this was, you know, the week before the triumphal entry, I might say, how do you not get this? How do you not believe? And Jesus does critique their lack of faith.

But looking at it in the context of everything we’ve read up to this point, they are still learning. They are still experiencing who it is they’re traveling around with. And it made me realize they didn’t have the faith that they needed because they still at this point didn’t understand who they were dealing with.

Now, they had seen some incredible miracles. They had seen him do some incredible things. But I think at this point, they were still just a little overwhelmed by everything that they were seeing.

Have you ever been in a new situation where you just feel overwhelmed by all the information that’s thrown at you. And it takes you a while to process it. I was here Friday night for the wedding and was down here talking to one of the wedding guests.

And they were talking about, oh, there’s all these people here and I’ll never learn all the names. And I said, when I came here, I felt like I was just being bombarded with new names. All these people to learn at one time.

And the only thing that helped me, honestly, was that it was at the height of the pandemic and everybody was masked and Polly had all of you labeled because she had made so many of you the masks with your names embroidered on it. That saved me a lot of work early on. By the way, Polly, if you’re watching at home, I appreciate you for doing that more than you will ever know.

I know that was not your purpose in doing it, but I appreciate it more than you will ever know. Just the names alone, But on top of that, everything, I only just this last week learned how to turn on the sound system here. I still feel like I’m just on information overload sometimes.

Can you imagine being there with Jesus and seeing the things that they saw, hearing the things that they heard, all the things that we’ve talked about just in the last few weeks? Several of the last few weeks that we’ve, or the last several weeks that we’ve been in have all been the same day. where Jesus talked about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the parable of the sower, the parable of the lamps, all of these things.

This was all a one-day period for them. Imagine having. .

. And theologians have spent centuries parsing these things out and trying to understand. And they’re trying to take it all in in one day.

So I say all that to say, let’s not fault them too much for their lack of faith. I think they were still trying to understand who it was that they had gotten mixed up with. But the disciples were fearful because they didn’t fully understand who was in the boat with them.

He said to them, yes, in verse 40, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? Part of that is because they were so focused on the storms. They were so focused on the wind and the rain and the seas and the waves.

They were so focused on all of that instead of being focused on Jesus. And they didn’t understand that He was more powerful. It says in verse 37, a great windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling.

Now, years ago, when I was preaching on this story, I don’t think it was from the book of Mark, but I was preaching on this story and read up a little bit on the geology around the geological formations of the Sea of Galilee. And I don’t remember everything I read, but I do remember reading that the way some of the slopes are shaped, that the wind would just kind of tumble down into the valley and it would cause larger storms to brew in the Sea of Galilee than what you would think were possible in a body of water that size. And so they were looking at pretty wicked storms. I mean, I’ve been out in the middle of Lake Texoma on a little fishing boat when storms arise and it’s frightening.

It can be frightening depending on the storm. But if that’s what we’re thinking of when we read this, it’s a completely different situation. Yes, they were on basically a large lake, but because of the way the winds and all of that worked, it was like being out at sea, being out in the ocean.

They were being battered around. The boat was already filling with water. And so they looked at that, and of course it’s terrifying.

Any one of us would be terrified by that situation. And they looked around and they were perplexed. They were puzzled by Jesus’ response.

This was not a normal response. You know, we, growing up in Moore, we had neighbors who had seen the destruction of the last F5 that had come through and still wouldn’t, the tornado sirens are going off. They still don’t want to wake up and get out of bed and go down to the cellar.

To me, that’s crazy. Some of y’all might be in the same boat. But to me, that’s crazy.

Okay, I don’t understand that. The cellar is five steps out your back door. Go, but there they are.

lying sound asleep in bed and it never made any sense to me. I think that’s their response to Jesus. The ship is going down and there he is lying asleep and they just don’t understand any of it.

He was in the stern, verse 38 says, asleep on a pillow and they awoke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? So in their relative newness of walking with Jesus, they still didn’t understand everything about who he was. As a matter of fact, toward the end of their time with Jesus, there was so much they still didn’t understand.

I was struck this week by that in Acts chapter 1, as Jesus is about ready to ascend, some of them ask, are you about to restore your kingdom to Israel now? How many times have he said, my kingdom is not of this world?

I read that again this week, and it struck me for the first time what they were asking, and I thought, how do I to go back in time 2 000 years and to shake that disciple and say how are you still not getting this all right but I would probably be the same one so I want to cut him a little bit of slack but this point early on in in jesus ministry they still don’t understand who they’re dealing with all they see is that the storms are raging all around them and they don’t they don’t understand him yet well enough to realize he’s more powerful than the storms and by the way in our lives we have to ride out some storms with Jesus before it really sinks in for us that He’s more powerful than the storms. And understand, I don’t mean necessarily literal storms, although some of that too. But I used to think I trusted Jesus until I went through some things that required me to trust Jesus.

And I have a much better understanding of what it means to trust Him on the other side of that. And I don’t look forward to going through things that will make me in years say, and I trust him more now than I’d rather just have that trust infused in me without having to go through the storms. But that’s the reality of it. We go through the storms with him and then we learn who he is by experience and we trust him more than we did before.

And it’s clear how little they understood him when their question is, do you not care that we’re perishing? We have the benefit of hindsight to be able to look back at this and say, his entire purpose for being on earth was that he cared that we were perishing. He came to earth knowing He was going to go to the cross, that He was going to be tortured to death, that He was going to be put to death in the most shameful way possible.

He was going to endure the greatest of all torments that the twisted mind of humanity has ever come up with. He knew that He was going to endure all of that for us, and His entire reason for it was that He cared that we were perishing. They didn’t understand any of that yet.

They didn’t fully understand who was in the boat. If they did, they would have known Jesus had the power to command the storms and expect them to obey, because that’s exactly what He did. It says in verse 39, He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. You’ll notice two things that did not happen in this verse. Jesus did not wake up and say, Oh no, what do we do?

How do we handle this and have to sit down figure it out. He woke up and immediately it’s like, what’s the big deal? Stop it.

Jesus knew exactly what to do. Jesus was in charge. Even when he was asleep, he was sovereign over that storm.

And so they wake him up in a panic. He didn’t enter the same panic. He just did what was natural for him to do.

And the other thing that we don’t see happening here is that the storm puts up any argument. He didn’t have to tell it twice. He said, peace be still.

And there was a great calm. Not just things settled down, there was a great calm. And what Mark is explaining to us, because Mark has the benefit of hindsight here as well.

Mark is not writing these things down as they happen. Mark was writing about 25 years after the fact. I know that seems to us like a long time, Because if you’re like me, I have trouble remembering what I had for lunch today.

If you were to ask me where I was and what I did on a certain date, I may not be able to withdraw that information easily. But there are certain other dates that stand out, right? If you gave me the date of my wedding and asked me what I did that day, what order I did things, I remember that day very well.

I remember sitting on the curb outside the church having Chick-fil-A with Benjamin and helping him get his tie straight. I remember eating Brahms because there was nothing else we could find on the road as we left for our honeymoon. You ask me about what happened the day Jojo had surgery.

I remember that day vividly. As a matter of fact, we were talking about that at lunch today. Charles said, I just had such a piece about it.

I slept through the whole surgery. I said, I had such a piece about it. I binge ate old-fashioned donuts the whole time she was in surgery.

Certain details stand out. There are certain things that stand out in our minds because they are so momentous. And Mark is writing down about 25 years later the highlights of what people experienced when they walked with Jesus.

In particular, it looks like he was writing down Peter’s experiences of walking with Jesus. And I’m sure that things like this stuck out in Peter’s mind. So set all that to say, people will tell you, well, the Gospels were, I read today where somebody He said, the Gospels were written by anonymous people centuries after the fact.

That is false information. That is fake news. All right?

I keep talking about my dissertation. I just wrote two whole chapters on how we know the Gospels were written by the people whose names they bear. All right?

If you want that information, I’ll give it to you because it’s important we know where this came from. He was writing down what the eyewitnesses saw. Mark has the benefit of looking back over the whole story as he’s writing it down.

So Mark understood the end of the story from the beginning and realizes who Jesus is. And the point Mark said, all of that to tell you, the point Mark is trying to make to us to help us understand is that Jesus Christ is God. Because Mark, looking back, unlike the people who are present in the story at the time of the story, Mark knew how the story ended.

And Mark is presenting here Jesus as, he’s making the argument that Jesus Christ is God. And by the way, don’t let people convince you the Gospels all portray Jesus in a different light. I’ve heard liberal scholars say that Mark, well, he presents Jesus as a man, and that’s the earliest Gospel.

John presents Jesus as God, and there’s a disconnect here. And so the idea that he was God grew over time. That is baloney.

Mark presents the idea of Jesus being God every bit as much as John does. It’s just John uses his outside voice consistently. Mark is making the argument here that Jesus Christ is God.

He’s presenting Jesus Christ as having an incredible authority that nobody else has. He says that Jesus rebuked the wind, and that rebuke word in Greek implies that you have the authority to do so. It’s not like people do nowadays.

You’ll be walking through Walmart, and somebody will be yelling at somebody else for something they did, like they think they’re their mama and have the authority to get on to them. No, he’s talking about somebody that has the authority to tell the winds and the waves to stop it, and they do because he has the authority. And then the words Jesus uses, peace be still.

One commentator said this was the Greek equivalent of telling somebody to muzzle themselves. This isn’t a request. This is saying, shut it down and knock it off. This is what you would say to your children if you’ve had enough, right?

So try that with your kids next time. Peace be still. It may not work as well for you as it did for Jesus, but it’s worth the tribe.

He rebuked the wind. He said, stop it. And the winds did.

Mark is telling us who Jesus is. It’s just they didn’t fully understand that yet. But this event and going through this event with Jesus helped them to understand that their master was no ordinary man.

Because it says in verse 41, when we get to the end of the passage, it says, they fear it exceedingly. I think that’s funny. Now, again, I don’t want to be too hard on them because I would probably react the same way if I was where they were instead of where I am.

But I think it’s funny. They were so afraid of the storm. And then it says they’re afraid of the calm too.

Like you can’t win with them. They wake him up. Don’t you care that we’re drowning?

He tells the storm to knock it off. The storm does. And then they’re afraid of that too.

But it’s probably normal for them to be afraid. looking around going, what just happened here? I don’t know if they woke him up thinking he was going to help them bail water or what they expected him to do, but they woke him up and he did what they needed done and then they were afraid because it’s not what they expected.

They feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and sea obey him? Now they had seen Jesus do some incredible things already, but this was kicking things up a notch. Even the natural world bends to his will.

And if we run across that kind of power, we should be in a kind of reverential fear over it too. They saw this and they could not believe what they had seen. Who can this be?

What kind of person have we gotten ourselves mixed up with that he has this authority, he can speak to the wind and waves and they do what he says. None of us have that authority. None of us can make the wind blow or make it stop blowing.

Stella came into my office the other day and said, she was concerned about the weather reports and said, can you join me in praying that it won’t snow, that this snow will pass us by? I said, Stella, I can’t do that. Well, why not?

I said, because I’ve already been praying for snow. Some of y’all are already mad at me for that. She got that look on her face.

Those of you who know Stella, why have you been doing that? It’s like, who works for who? But I’ve been doing that because Charlie snow ice cream.

And I promised him when it, if it snows this week, we’ll make snow ice cream. She goes, okay, I guess that’s okay. Stella, I don’t control what the, I mean, I can talk to the Lord about it like I’ve been doing, but I don’t control whether it snows or not.

I mean, that’s up to him. I did not add one flake to the snow that fell and I didn’t take one, one flake of it away. I can’t make, I can’t bend the winds to my will.

None of us can, but Jesus can and Jesus did. And the disciples they realized this was not normal. And so when they faced an authority and a power that were greater than the power of the storm, they were even more frightened by that than they had been of the storm. And as I said earlier, with Mark being the first of the Gospels, skeptical scholars like to say that he doesn’t present Jesus in the same way that John does.

You can’t read this story and walk away thinking Jesus is an ordinary man. You can’t read this story and walk away thinking that Mark’s is that Jesus is an ordinary man. Mark here is clear that Jesus is so much more than that.

He is making the case, piece by piece, brick by brick, that Jesus Christ is God. He presents Him here as someone who commands nature and bends it to His will. He presents Jesus here as being able to do the same things that God did in Genesis chapter 1.

Because all God had to do was say, let there be, And there was. He did that repeatedly. And by the way, he did that.

His authority is so great that he spoke to nothing and it had to become something. And Mark here is saying that same power, that same kind of creation, that same kind of bending nature, the physical world to his will, that same power that was on display in the first three chapters of Genesis is on display in Mark chapter 4 when Jesus told the storm to stop it. And Jesus created calm out of the chaos.

And so for us, I think the lesson here, which they eventually learned, by the time we get to Acts, they had it down pat, but it was a learning process just like it is for us. The lesson they eventually learned, and I think the lesson we need to learn from it, is that when we understand who Jesus is, we learn how to trust Him. And many times we lack trust in Him to deal with our situations, to deal with our circumstances, because we don’t really know Him.

I’m not saying that we’re not believers. I’m not saying that we don’t have that relationship with Him. But we don’t know Him as well as we need to.

We don’t know Him experientially. We haven’t walked with Him. We haven’t gotten to know Him.

And the less we know Him, the less we understand Him, the harder it is to trust Him. We all know that’s true just from practical application in life. If somebody, I’m not going to put my wife on the spot again.

I thought about it, but I won’t. I’ll give her a break. My wife trusts me when it comes to the finances.

When I say I’m not going to put her on the spot, I’m going to talk about her, but I’m not going to ask her questions. She trusts me when it comes to the finances. I’ve tried to talk to her about the bills, and here’s where we pay, and here’s where this bank account is, and she just doesn’t care, because she tells me, I know you’ve got it handled.

We got married, She just kind of handed that to me. Okay, that’s fine. There are other things she takes care of and I don’t have to think about.

It works for us. But she’s willing to trust me in that because she knows me. She has known me literally her entire life.

I met her when she was a day old, right? And I was three, so it wasn’t creepy. All right.

Not like I was 30 at the time. She’s known me her whole life, so she trusts me. If somebody walks up to her at Walmart and wants to know all of her banking account information, is she going to trust them with that?

No, because she doesn’t know them. And the same is true of any number of things. The more we know people, the more willing we are to trust them.

Folks, it’s no different with Jesus. The more they got to know Jesus, the more they trusted Him. The more storms they went through, the bigger storms they were willing to trust Him with.

Did they always do it perfectly? No, their behavior around the time of the crucifixion bears that out that they didn’t always do it perfectly. But the men who trusted him with their lives in Acts started out as men who didn’t know if they could trust him on the boat.

And the difference is they knew him more. And so for us, if we have difficulty trusting him with our circumstances, we need to get to know him. We need to learn more about him.

We need to walk with him. We need to trust him with the little storms so we can learn to trust him with the big storms.