Sermon points:
As people of faith, we need to:
1) Allow Jesus to Get On Our Boat
2) Understand The Storms Will Come
3) Believe Christ Will Bring Us Through the Storm Changed
We serve a great King, amen? Do you see why I get chills when I watch this? I can’t even explain it, but these declarations of victory in Christ culminating in the declaration of our great King just gets me every time. We serve a great King! Yea!
Now, like you’ve seen on the overhead and I’ve mentioned, this is kind of a two-part message. I say kind of because, really, it should be a six-week series, but I’m pulling it into two messages. In fact, I wrestled this week with which direction the Lord wanted me to go because there’s so much that we need to pull from the passage we shared last week.
As a short recap, last week, we went through a spiritual warrior boot camp. We shared how we can be a spiritual warrior and three characteristics of a spiritual warrior. Does anybody remember them? I’m seeing some nodding. This is good. They were a spiritual warrior knows his enemy. A spiritual warrior trains for battle, and a spiritual warrior knows the outcome.
This week, we are going to pick back up in the passage and add a new one for our discussion this morning.
If you have your Bibles with you, would you turn with me to Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 14: (NIV used, read v 14-18)
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Now, turn with me back to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4. We’re going to look at verses 35-41 together. And see if you can pick out the characteristic I want us to focus on this morning in this passage. (Read Passage)
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!”
When I was at Bethany Bible College, I was part of a worship team for the student-led Sunday evening services called “Encounter”. On our first meeting, our leader brought us out to the tiled entryway and went into the bathroom. When she came out, she was carrying a big mop bucket full of water. If that’s not odd enough, she told us to all lay down on our back with our feet in the air. Our feet had to be touching each other. She then said that she would set the bucket on our feet and the goal of the exercise was to have each of us remove on foot from the bucket, but keep the bucket in the air. Well, let me tell you something. I loved everyone on my team, but as for my faith in them, I couldn’t say I trusted them not to soak me. Somehow, we made it through the exercise dry, but looking back on it, it has implications in our day-to-day lives.
Have you ever taken part in a trust exercise? Like you stand in front of a co-worker or friend and the friend is supposed to catch you. Have you ever done that? It takes a lot of faith that that person is not going to let you fall and smack your head. I’ve seen this happen to people and it hurts.
The truth of the matter is, we live in a world where faith in each other; faith in “humanity” is gone. And our nature is now to distrust. And in a way, it has snuck even into our spiritual lives.
Now, sure, we say we have faith in God. And yes, we do believe, but so often it is in the good times that we make this claim. And so often, when the storms come; when the attacks come, we panic. Our faith is shown to be shallow.
In our passage from Ephesians, the New King James Version puts verse 16 like this: “above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one”.
In this verse, it is believed that Paul is utilizing the imagery of the scutum, which was a shield with which a soldier could completely conceal himself behind.
Adam Clarke, the great commentator, said on this subject, “And as faith is the grace by which all others are preserved and rendered active, so it is properly represented here under the notion of a shield, by which the whole body is covered and protected.”
Without faith, all of the other pieces of armor are rendered useless. When the disciples were on that boat and the storms raged up, they had righteousness, they had salvation, they had the word of God, but when their faith faltered, they went into despair.
This morning, we need to be people who have taken up the shield of faith. Looking at the story of the calming of the storm, I see three things we must do as people of faith. Three points of proof, showing us to have taken up the shield of faith.
#1, As people of faith, we need to allow Jesus to get on our boat. We need to allow Jesus to get on our boat.
Last week, we talked about the battle in the invisible world. And in this battle, there is no middle ground. There are no neutral corners.
This week, as people of faith, we need to be willing to allow Jesus to have control of our lives. The disciples wanted to be close to Jesus, so they allowed Him to lead them. They allowed Him to bring them where He wanted them to be, even onto a lake that was known for its fierce storms. And these guys weren’t naïve about this lake. Many of them had fished on this lake, but they followed Jesus onto that boat.
In our lives, we have been called to let Jesus guide our lives; to let Jesus on our boats.
And as Jesus leads us, there are going to be times when we don’t understand where he’s taking us; sometimes we don’t know why he’s leading us in a certain direction, but we must follow Him. We must allow Him to guide our ship. This is faith.
Hebrews 11:1 says “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”.
Now, some of you may have noticed by now that I love good movies. And there will be times that a movie will have a profound impact on me and I will feel the need to share it with you. Last week, I shared the theology of Rocky. This week, another classic movie comes to mind when talking about faith.
In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and his father are chasing after the legendary Holy Grail, the cup Christ was believed to have used during the Last Supper. Throughout the movie they are being pursued by the Nazis, who are also pursuing the Grail, which, legend states, would grant the holder of it eternal life.
At one point in the movie, Indiana and his crew are captured by the Nazis and forced to lead them to the resting site of the Grail. What lies before them is a cave laden with booby traps to ensure that only those worthy can access the grail.
At one point, Indy approaches a chasm which he must cross to continue, but there appears to be no bridge. To cross the chasm, he is required to take a “leap of faith”, which revealed a hidden bridge beneath the ledge and grants passage to the other side.
When Christ is guiding our ship, when we allow Him to take control of our lives, we are going to come to points in our lives that feel like we’re standing on the edge (or like my mom likes to say, the “precipice”), staring into an abyss and thinking, “I can’t possibly get across this”. But when we have complete confidence in Christ, we continue on because He is in control of our boats and we are allowing Him to guide our lives.
As we are allowing Christ to guide our boat, and this is our second characteristics this morning, as people of faith, we need to understand that storms will come. We need to understand that storms will come.
As we allow for Christ to guide our boat, there will be times when he will lead us into stormy waters. We don’t always understand why, but he leads us there nonetheless and we need to anticipate these storms.
Jesus promised us that difficulties will come. In the Gospel of John, chapter 15, Jesus says to His followers: “Remember the words I spoke to you: ’No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”
The apostle James says in the introduction to his epistle, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
When I graduated from Bethany in April of 2007, I had to face a storm of my own. I left the school with a lot enthusiasm and expectancy, but what I didn’t realize was that His timing was not my timing. And because of that, I found myself unemployed with no prospects. Now for a guy who had just spend four years going through his schooling preparing for full-time ministry, this was not an easy task. I had to go and get a job in Fredericton to pay the bills and essentially wait. I would describe that summer as stormy. I was working, but felt unfulfilled. At times, I felt abandoned with $20,000 in student loans hanging over my head. I wondered if I would ever find a place to serve. At times, I questioned myself and my call.
But I came to a place in early fall. I had an epiphany, a eureka moment.
One day I thought to myself: self: maybe there’s a reason I’m here, at home. Maybe God wants me to accomplish things here. Maybe He just wants to see if I’m in this for Him or for myself. Did I want a church because it was where He was calling me or did I want a church because all my friends had churches? At that point, I made a choice. I said, “God, I don’t know how this is going to end. I don’t know what you’re doing through this, but God I’m going to allow you to guide me through this storm”. That point of surrender didn’t stop the storm, but in my weakness, Jesus showed His strength.
In 2 Corinthians 12:9 Paul shares a struggle through His own storm where Christ says to Him: “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
This morning, many of us, I’m sure, are going through storms, but we must continue to rely on Christ for His strength in our weakness. Oswald Chambers, in his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, shared in the August 12 devotional, “It is when a [these storms arise] that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to trust Him, the [storm] will reveal that we will go to the breaking point and not break in our confidence in Him”.
As people of faith, we need to have the confidence that the storms will come, but that Christ will guide us through those storms.
Our final characteristic of a person of faith this morning is this: A person of faith believes Christ Will Bring Them Through the Storm Changed. A person of faith believes Christ will bring them through the storm changed.
There was a quote attributed to King Arthur, though I’m doubt he ever said it, that went like this: “There is a peace that only comes on the other side of war”. In the same way, there is a calm that only comes on the other side of the storm.
Have you ever went outside after a strong thunderstorm? I’ve done this once or twice and it’s really something. There’s such a calm. Such a peace in nature. You breath it in, you look around and everything looks calm and still. The sun peeks out through the clouds and illuminates everything around you. It’s truly a wonderful sight.
There are times in life when you look around after coming through a spiritual storm in your life and you look around and you see the blessing God has given you and you feel the calm that only comes after a storm.
In our lives, there are things that Christ wants to do in our lives that can only be brought about through the storm.
When a goldsmith refines gold, do you know how he does it? When chunks of gold first come to him, it is full of impurities, dirt, chunks of rock, and bits of other metals. At that point, the gold is pretty worthless. It is impure. But the goldsmith takes that worthless gold and puts it into the fire. And as the gold heats up, the goldsmith is able to separate the impurities from the real thing. But he’s only able to that when the heat is on, when the fire is raging.
In the same way, there are things in our lives that can only be accomplished with the heat is on, when the fire is raging. The strength of a person’s character is revealed during the storm, not during the calm.
Through the storms of our lives, we need to able to trust that God will bring us through the storm, but not only bring us through the storm, but bring us through changed.
Like the goldsmith, we need to allow Him to use the heat to remove the impurities in our lives and make us more like Him.
The Bible uses the analogy of a potter in Isaiah 64:8, which says “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
In pottery, clay is only of value if it remains soft and pliable for the potter make something beautiful out of it. If the clay hardens, then it has no value and the potter cannot use it.
In our lives, we need to allow our lives to be like the soft clay and allow Christ to mold our lives. If we go through these storms and come out the other side unchanged, then we would have endured the storm for nothing. What purpose would a goldsmith have in applying the fire to the metal if the impurities remained after? There would be no purpose.
As we close this morning, there may be some here this morning that are stuck on one of these points. Maybe you’re stuck on point one and you are struggling with giving control of your life over to Jesus. Maybe you haven’t even let Him on your boat at all. If that’s you, I would encourage you to invite Him on board. Give Him control. He is far more capable to guide us than we are. In fact, He is the only one who can guide our ships to safety.
Maybe you’re in the midst of a storm and you’re struggling to trust God through it. Maybe you’re like the disciples and are questioning whether He even cares. I want to encourage you this morning that even though it is dark now, the dawn will come. The night is darkest before the dawn. Continue to trust Him. He has proven Himself to be trustworthy and He will see you through the storm.
Or maybe you’re struggling to allow Jesus to change you through the storm. Maybe there’s an impurity in your life and even though the heat has been applied and the fire has raged, you haven’t let go of that part of your life. I encourage you to let the master goldsmith refine you. Let yourself be soft and moldable for the potter. If you allow Him to work in your life, you will see amazing results.
Would you pray with me?
