God With Us Brings Peace Series

GOD WITH US BRINGS PEACE

An atheist was out fishing in Scotland one day, when all of a sudden a huge dragon type creature began to come out of the water. With snarling teeth it moved closer towards him. In desperation he shouted, “Dear God, please save me!” All of a sudden, everything stopped moving and the heavens opened and a deep voice said, “Save you? I thought you didn’t believe in Me?” To that the atheist responded, “I know, but give me a break. Two minutes ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster either!” On of the things that I have found to be true in life is that our beliefs (our faith) are tested most during trials. It is easy to believe in God and trust in Him when everything is going well, but what about when things get tough?

C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Narnia fiction series for children, wrote after the tragic death of his wife, "Where is God? You go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence." What do you do when life falls apart and God seems distant?

Today we are concluding our series God With us and I want to talk about peace. A couple of weeks ago we talked about the fact that our God is Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our Peace. To find true peace in our hearts we need to make the choice of acceptance, trust and surrender. As we end this year I wanted to once again talk about peace by addressing one of the things that often robs us of our peace, and that is doubt. Have you ever doubted the plan, presence or power of God in your life?

Mark 6:45 Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. 47 When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. 48 He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50 because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." 51 Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52 for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened

I am sure that you have heard the story about the man who fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down. He shouted out in desperation, "Is anyone up there?" "I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?" "Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can't hang on much longer." "That's all right, if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch." A moment of pause, then: "Is anyone else up there?"

In the story that we read this morning, we see that the disciples doubted 3 things;

1. Doubting God’s Plan (vs. 45-46) -

When we face hardships in life we often begin to question why these things are happening to us. We start asking questions like, “God, why is this happening to me? Why are you allowing this to take place?” In this story Jesus tells His disciples to get into the boat and to cross over to the other side of the lake. We are not told what the weather conditions were like that afternoon, but there was one of two possible scenarios;

a. Obeying Jesus when we know the road will be difficult

Perhaps the wind was already blowing when Jesus told them to cross the lake. These men were fishermen, they spent their lives fishing in that lake at night. They knew how to interpret the weather. Certainly there is a good chance that they knew from the signs that they were in for a rough trip across the lake that night.

Has there ever been a time in your life when Jesus told you to do something and you knew that it was going to be very difficult? It was clear that the wind would be against you? Has there ever been a time when you knew that obeying Jesus was going to cost you?