Andrew Fountain - Trusting Jesus in the Storm
- Artist: Andrew Fountain
- Title: Trusting Jesus in the Storm
- Album: Newlife Church, Toronto
- Track: 3
- Genre: Mark in a Month
- Year: 2017-09-24
- Length: 37:51 minutes (15.19 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 56Kbps (VBR)
Link to Video:
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
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