MASTER OF THE STORMS
Mark 4:35-41
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: HONESTY IS NOT ALWAYS THE BEST POLICY
1. Today is Shirley and Ben's 30th wedding anniversary. After exchanging kisses and presents, Shirley said to Ben, "I have an important question to ask you." "So ask me already," said Ben.
2. "Please tell me," asked Shirley, "and be honest, please tell me how do you think I look after 30 years of marriage with you?"
3. Ben looked at Shirley for a while, then replied, "You're A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K." "And what, may I ask, does all that mean?" asked Shirley, looking puzzled.
4. "It means," replied Ben speaking slowly, "that you're ... Adorable, Beautiful, Cute, Delightful, Elegant, Foxy, Gorgeous, and Hot."
5. On hearing this, Shirley's face lit up. And smiling, she said, "Oh, that's so romantic, Ben. But tell me, what about the I, J, K? What do they stand for?"
6. Ben replied, "I'm Just Kidding!" [Note: Please don't worry about Ben. The swelling under his left eye is going down.]
B. TEXT
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat.
There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mk. 4:35-41.
C. VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj0cVBYKaEg
TITLE: “MASTER OF THE STORMS.”
I. DESTINED FOR STORMS
A. PARABLE
From the earliest days of Christianity, this account has been thought to also be a parable of the Church, which is destined for storms. (Tertullian, Ignatius).
B. “Let us go over to the other side”. Mk. 4:35.
1. Jesus had told them to go forward; it was His will.
2. The Church can’t fail, though the tempests toss it.
3. It will arrive at its destination, victoriously. The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church!
C. TRIALS WILL COME
1. In this account:
a. A Great tempest arose, Vs. 24
b. Waves washed over ship repeatedly.
c. Ship became almost filled with water.
d. The disciples, though good sailors, were terrified.
2. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” I peter 4:12.
3. Purposes:
a. To test the metal we’re made of.
b. To give us the opportunity to rise up in faith.
c. To drive us to God.
4. Joke – “Christians are like tea bags: you never know what kind you are until you get into hot water.”
II. CHRIST WAS ASLEEP DURING THE STORM
A. DOES JESUS CARE? SOMETIMES IT SEEMS LIKE GOD IS ASLEEP
1. Sometimes it seems like, when our trials hit, that Christ is asleep. We don’t hear His voice; we see little of His face; His eyes appear closed.
2. Mk. 4:38, “Master, don’t you care if we drown?” Sometimes we doubt God’s love for us. But Jesus was in the boat.
3. In pioneer days, a father sent his son alone to school, though he had to walk through thick woods. The boy felt vulnerable & afraid. But over time fear left him. One day, a bear approached him. Suddenly a shot rang out. His dad stepped out of the brush. “I followed you every morning, and waited, hidden, every afternoon. I’ve been with you the entire time”.
B. THEY CRY TO THE SAVIOR
1. Mighty distress often leads to mighty prayers.
2. How slack, complacent, compromising the church has been until the Lord has allowed some persecution.
3. The Lord didn’t hear the sound of the storm, He heard their cry for help; ours too.
4. ILLUS. A man visited a sheep farm in Australia during sheering time. He asked the shepherd if he’d ever seen anything noteworthy about the sheep. He replied, “Yes! Watch this”.
He took one little lamb from the weaning pen (where the little sheep are encouraged to get off milk and begin eating grass) and took it to a pasture with thousands of sheep. The noise of all those sheep bleating and baahing was almost deafening. He placed the little lamb down and walked away.
The lamb remained still for a while, then it cried, and its cry was answered by its mother at the other end of the pasture. Instantly, the mother and the little lamb began approaching each other and met in the middle of the enclosure.
The lesson the man learned was, “Don’t think that you are beyond the reach of God. He sees and hears you as if you were His only child in the world”.
C. STORMS YOU MAY BE EXPERIENCING
1. Loneliness 4.Rocky Relationship
2. Loss of loved one 5. A hurting child
3. Financial battle 6. Confusion/ fear
YOU MAY FEEL THAT GOD IS FAR AWAY, THAT YOU’RE DESERTED, BUT TRUTH IS, “HE WAS THERE ALL THE TIME”.
III. POINTED TO HIGHER FAITH
A. WHAT THE DISCIPLES HAD TRIED
1. The disciples had surely:
a. Tried to set the sails
b. Tried to steer around waves
c. Pulled at the oars
d. and bailed water
2. The disciples were:
…bailing water when they had Jesus in the boat!
…afraid, when they had Jesus in the boat!
…letting the winds & waves buffet them when they had Jesus in the boat!
3. ARE WE DOING THE SAME THINGS? Sometimes we just try to cover over the symptoms of our problems, instead of getting down to the root causes.
4. BUT JESUS DIDN’T WANT THEM TO “MANAGE THE STORM” BUT TO STOP THE STORM! TO TAKE AUTHORITY OVER THE STORM! US TOO!
B. CHRIST’S REBUKE
1. Christ did not at once stop the storm! First He rebukes the “little faith” of the disciples (Matt. 8). (“little faith” Vs. “Great faith”)
2. Lord Jesus was surprised when they didn’t use the power available to them. He often encouraged them to step out in faith:
a. Before He feed the 5,000, He challenged them, “You give them to eat” (Greek, Mk. 6:37).
b. He told Peter to walk on the water.
c. He told them to raise the dead & heal the sick.
5. How would GOD deal with your problem? Whatever God has done for others, He’ll do for us!
C. TRANSLATING THE WORD “BELIEVE”
1. A missionary in Africa experienced great difficulty in trying to translate the Gospel of John into the local dialect. He faced the problem of finding a word for believe. He continued to do his best, but he always had to leave a blank space when he came to that particular word.
2. Then one day a runner came panting into the camp, having traveled a great distance with a very important message. After blurting out his story, he fell completely exhausted into a nearby hammock. He muttered a brief phrase that seemed to express both his great weariness and his contentment at finding such a delightful place of relaxation.
3. The missionary, never having heard these words before, asked a bystander what the runner had said. "Oh, he is saying, ’I’m at the end of myself, therefore I am resting all of my weight here!’" The missionary exclaimed, "Praise God! That is the very expression I need for the word believe!" And so he was able to complete his
translation.
D. THE MIRACLE
1. "'s??pa pef?µ?s?", “Be quiet! Be muzzled!” Mark 4:39
2. Immediately the sea became as smooth as glass.
3. When a storm subsides, a sea is usually turbulent for hours, if not for days.
4. Mark says, “The men feared greatly”. WHY? The Awesomeness of the miracle indicated that this was no mere man! But something much more.
IV. WHO IS THIS JESUS?
A. UNPARALLELED IN HUMAN HISTORY
1. “In infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled the scholars; in manhood He commanded nature -- walking on waves as if on land, and hushing the sea to sleep. He healed the multitudes without medicine and fed huge crowds with a boy’s lunch.
2. He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the world couldn’t hold the books written about Him. He never founded a college, but all the world’s schools couldn’t hold his students. He never marshaled an army, but no army that ever marched could equal those who march with Him.
3. The names of the great men of the world of politics & science come and gone, but this man’s renown grows greater every year.
4. Herod could not destroy Him, the Romans couldn’t stop Him and the grave could not hold Him.
5. He stands forth as the most revered man of the human race: proclaimed of God, acknowledged by angels, adored by saints, and feared by devils -- the living, resurrected, victorious Jesus Christ of Nazareth, our Lord and Savior.” Lalachan Abraham (adapted)
B. WHAT MANNER OF MAN IS THIS?
1. Who can command FORCES OF NATURE?
2. Who can supersede the laws of the universe –
Walking on water, ascending into heaven
3. Who commands evil spirits and they obey Him
4. Who could feed 5,000 (multiply matter)
5. Who called people back to life – dead 4 days
6. Who healed sicknesses & diseases at will
C. ILLUSTRATION
1. When the first missionaries went to Japan, a young Japanese who wanted to learn English was given the Gospel of John to translate into his native language.
2. In a short time he became restless and agitated. At last he burst out with the question, “Who is this man about whom I have been reading, this Jesus? You call Him a man, but He must be God”.
3. He was right. He is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the Creator of all things, who holds all things in existence moment by moment!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. A new movie (2016) Ben Hur was released.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df2VrzS1HCs
2. GENERAL LEW WALLACE CAREER
a. Lew Wallace, who wrote Ben Hur, was born in 1827.
b. His father – a Soldier & Governor of Indiana.
c. Lew got law degree, became prosecuting attorney and state senator.
d. During the American Civil War in 1861, he rose from Colonel to Brigadier General. He fought in 3 major battles of the Civil War.
e. He served on the court which judged the 8 conspirators who assassinated President Lincoln.
f. Served as Governor of the New Mexico Territory, 1878-1881.
3. RELIGIOUS SIDE
Lew Wallace had treated Christ and the teachings of Christianity with indifference. He had not fully rejected them, but neither had he allowed himself to be deeply influenced. Attending church was something you did a few times a year as a religious duty, but played no greater part in his life.
4. MEETING WITH COL. ROBERT INGERSOL
a. Then, one day as he boarded a train and met Robert Ingersoll, the then well-known agnostic who had served under his command at the Battle of Shiloh.
b. For nearly two hours, Wallace was spellbound by Ingersoll’s intellectual and rhetorical ability—attacking Christ and His Church as fraud & untrue.
c. Wallace was so stunned, he skipped the cab and walked across the city in the dark.
5. Wallace later said, “To lift me out of my indifference [to Christianity], one would think only strong affirmations of things regarded holiest would do. Yet here was I now moved as never before, and by what? The most outright denials of all human knowledge of God, Christ, Heaven, and the Hereafter…Was the Colonel right?....As I walked on in the cool darkness, I was aroused for the first time in my life to the importance of religion….I resolved to study the subject…with results – first, the book Ben Hur, and second, a conviction amounting to absolute belief in God and the Divinity of Christ. [“Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ,” (http://www.christians.com/inspirational/
lewwallace, March 28, 2013).]
6. AFTER DEEP STUDY, Wallace later said, “I have seen the Nazarene….I saw Him perform works which no mere man could perform.” “The Gospels record the Life of Jesus and allows us to walk alongside with Him, witness His miracles, hear His words, and see His triumphal entry into Jerusalem…” [Daily Bread, Apr. 9, 2017].
B. ALTAR CALL
1. How many of you are facing a storm? Trial?
2. How many are dealing with symptoms instead of dealing with the real root causes of your problems?
3. How many want to trust in a Jesus who stop the winds and the waves and bring peace to your life?
4. All who need Jesus come forward & join me at the front for prayer!
