Andrew Fountain - Trusting Jesus in the Storm

Sermon notes - Trusting Jesus in the Storm

• Overview of the 7 steps
  • Pray!
• tell the story dramatically
• empathize with disciples
• Here is the remains of an actual fishing boat from that time, that archeologists have found.

• They have reconstructed what it probably looked like

• This story takes place at the Sea of Galilee, a place where violent storms can suddenly arise

1. The Story

• It was evening, Jesus was probably exhausted, and they needed to get away from the crowds.
• A great storm came up
  • Galilee: Mountains & Lake, sudden storms
• But these were hardened sailors, this must have been even larger than...
• These men who earned their living on this lake, were now afraid for their lives.
• The boat was beginning to fill with water, but Jesus was lying there asleep.
• What would you have done?

• Well, first of all, it was wrong to accuse him like that:
  [“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”]
• To start with as I studied this passage, I thought that it was right for them to wake him, but it was the way they woke him that was wrong.
• But now I think it was wrong for them to wake him at all—it showed that they didn’t really believe that he was God.
  • After all the miracles he did...
  • Was if even possible that God would be drowned in a little lake in Palestine??
• I’d like to switch over now to thinking about us, and our storms:

• Sickness with throat 83% cancer
• Cam & Olesia travel problem
• immigration issue
• Personal betrayal—those who you think love and care about you stab you in the back
  • Suddenly you discover a whole lot of evil directed against you
• but I don’t want to give the idea that God always rescues Christians from problems
  • What if the answer is different?

• Even if we don’t actually say it, underneath we may feel
  “God doesn’t really care”
  • I think that every single one of us has thought this at some time.
• We believe he can help us, so why doesn’t he?
• Do we see God as a distant parent figure?
  • He desires our good in a dull kind of way,
  • after all he has saved us so he must want our good in some sort of way
• But if we left our lives totally up to him— (we feel:)
  • we could never go out for the evening, or have new clothes or anything new, or nice food, or anything that is not absolutely essential
  • God doesn’t understand how we feel and our deep needs?
  • Is that how we think??
• Most of all, God doesn’t understand about our need to be loved by others, our need for close friendship.
  • Is that how we feel?? Can we trust him here??
  • Can God be trusted in the deep areas of our lives?
  • We can end up with the attitude:
    • I’ll look after my needs right now, God can look after my eternal spiritual wellbeing
• It would be easy for me to tell you glibly that
  • “God will help you in the storms of life, just pray and everything will be OK!”
• Our problem is because God doesn’t seem to answer our prayers the way we want him to, we assume he doesn’t care
• But here is the core of the problem
• Many times I wanted God to behave in a certain way
  • and to my shame I was cross with him and felt that he didn’t care
• I wanted God to behave in a certain way and he didn’t
  • does he really care for me?

• All good things?
• Yes, faith is believing that!
  • But he does know your deepest needs and desires
  • He really cares! About you!
• What about faith?
• extend the drama to the next three
  • Next story - the man with 1000 demons
  • The woman with a flow of blood for 12 years
  • The dead girl
• Where is the faith? -is it necessary?
  • Men who brought the paralysed man —it was their faith
  • Could do few miracles in his home town —his supernatural power was not limited, they simply didn’t bring people
• Jairus’s faith—little, but enough
• Faith is not some kind of energy that powers the miracle
  • so that you need enough of it to make the miracle happen.
  • All the power comes from Jesus
• It is simply the trust that brings you to Jesus!
  • So no faith was needed for Legion, the demon-posessed man—he was already there
  • Jarius had enough faith to fetch Jesus. Although he didn’t think Jesus could raise the dead, his faith had already brought Jesus, so it was enough
  • The disciples had little faith, but it was enough to for them to have joined with Jesus
    • So because of that, Jesus was in the boat with them
    • and that made all the difference!
• Jesus says we only have to have faith as big as a tiny mustard .seed
  • But they must have had some faith, mustn’t they??
  • After all, they were hardened sailors and he was a carpenter, and they went to him for help!!
• Be encouraged! I was!
• Tim Keller’s story
  • The universe is so vast—God is not your personal assistant
  • so beware of that attitude
• I want to continue with the story of Mark...

Mark’s Big Story

• Each part starts with a theme story for that section
• The end is marked with a similar story

• You may seem to be doing very well, sailing along with no worries,
  • but there is a storm coming that has never failed to sink a ship
  • and that is the storm of death
  • Only those who have Christ in their boats can defeat death, for he defeated it when he rose from the dead.
  • After death comes the judgement and that is the biggest storm of all

• What did God say to me personally throught this passage?
  • The whole of your life is in some way like this voyage
  • You are worried if it will count for anything?
  • Will it be wasted like a boat sunk in a storm?
  • No, because I am in your boat!

Updated on 2017-09-26 by Andrew Fountain