Introduction: Have you ever been in a storm? No, I mean a REAL storm! One where the lightening flashes and you feel the electrical charge from miles away? Or where the thunder crashes so loud, it seems every window is about to shatter? Or the rain falls so heavy that you can’t see a foot in front of you?
Years ago, my wife and I were returning from Pampa, Texas – up in the panhandle, and traveling back to catch a flight out of Amarillo following the funeral of her grandfather. It was late afternoon, and about a half-hour into our drive, the dark skies unleased rain like we’d never experienced. It was so heavy, I had to stop the car because I couldn’t tell where the road was! As we sat there, the rain pounding fiercely on the car, the wind had also kicked up, and was now rocking the car back and forth and driving the rain sideways. Then suddenly, the brilliant flash of lightening in front of us, followed by an ear shattering “BOOM” of thunder. We thought we might be in the presence of a tornado! To say we were getting a bit concerned would be an understatement. We truly believed we might not survive that storm. (Obviously, we did . . . )
Ever been in a storm like that? Then perhaps you can appreciate the circumstances the Apostles found themselves in on the Sea of Galilee. Turn to Mark chapter four in your Bibles, or on your phone, or read along on the screen with me. I want to talk to you this morning about “How to Handle the Storms of Life.”
Text: 35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” [Mark 4:35-41 NRSV]
I. The Severity of the Storm. It had been a full day of teaching there north of the Sea of Galilee, with lessons in great parables, like the Parable of the Sower, and the Parable of the Mustard Seed. The later, a parable about the power of just a little faith; a lesson they were about to be tested over! It’s evening time, and Jesus wants to go across to Gerasene (Mk. 5:1). So they load up in a boat, and some others crowd into other smaller boats for the journey. They start out, and Jesus goes down to the stern of the boat and falls asleep on the cushion. For those living near this body of water, a fairly routine beginning to crossing the lake.
A. The Winds: But then trouble blew in – out of nowhere. If you read commentaries, or study the geography of the Sea of Galilee, you’ll learn that this is a common occurrence. Given the structure of the mountains, the cool, moist air coming in from the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the hot, dry air coming in from the desert to the East, these winds meet and sink into the Galilee basin, with a lake some 600 feet below sea level. These winds can converge and whip up a storm in a heartbeat, and you can still see this happen today. It was probably this type of situation that turned a routine trip across the lake into a fight for life & death.
B. The Workers: One observation I make about this – the people on board. At least four of these men, Peter, Andrew, James, and John were professional fishermen that grew up on this body of water as fishermen. It’s highly probable that these men had witnessed or been in a similar situation before. Phillip and Nathanael were also from the area. I can imagine the four fishermen yelling out orders of what to do in order to maintain control of the ship. Someone was controlling the rudder; maybe a couple or three managing the sail. Verse 37, however, tells us that the boat was filling, or “swamping” with water, which means it was close to sinking. The picture Scripture paints here is that whatever they’re doing to work through this situation isn’t enough.
C. The Worry: There comes a point where all of the effort, now probably profound exhaustion, have led to a very dangerous place emotionally. We hear a sense of helplessness and hopelessness in the few words we read. They were giving up. How do I know this? The words in v38; Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing? The word for perishing, ?p????µa?, means “to destroy.” They confront Jesus, waking Him, and in a panicked state, ask Him, “Don’t you care that our lives are being destroyed?” Helpless: Unable to use what they know to stop harm from coming. Hopeless: Resigned to the fear that death in inevitable. It’s clear that the situation was dire, it was beyond their ability to remedy, and all was on the verge of being lost.
II. The Scare of the Situation. Have you ever been through a storm like that . . . but it was on the inside? The tears fall like a torrential rain; the emotional pain flashes through you like a jolt of lightning; and there’s no life preserver that can stop you from going under? You feel like you’re sinking down; drowning in fear, sorrow. You feel that sense of helplessness – that there’s nothing you can do about your situation. You feel hopeless: That nothing will ever get any better. I know what that is like.
A. Testimony: While I was a student at Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, I was working at a church just north of the city. I left the church at 5pm and made my way back to the duplex on campus where we lived. It was May 17th, 1990. As I entered our Seminary housing, I reached for the mail on the coffee table and called out for my wife. Thursdays were our “fun night,” as part of a couples bowling league. I called out and asked if she was ready to go; no answer. I made my way back towards the bedroom and saw her on the bed with one leg hanging over the side. I smiled and called out, “You resting up?” But as I drew closer, I saw things weren’t right. Then I saw the blood. I saw her open eyes and the face of death. Time stood still.
Then I saw the handgun beside her.
In that moment, the winds of the storm hit me like a hurricane. I understood and could comprehend that she’d taken her own life, but the sight was too much for me to handle. I screamed out at her; I fell to my knees – refusing to accept what my eyes were showing me. I crawled back out of the room and wept bitterly as I lay on the floor. My world came crashing down in that moment. Short of breath, panic in my heart; the tears fell so heavily that I couldn’t find the phone to dial “911.”
Through the next couple of hours, the police came, detectives, then the coroner. As I sat there in shock, the coroner came in from our bedroom and told me what the detectives and he had discovered. He then had me sign a form, and from a small envelope, poured her wedding ring onto my hand. The finality of that moment hit me so hard; it was real – she was truly gone.
Frankly, it shook my faith a bit. I was much like these apostles; telling God in my heart that I couldn’t handle this. Asking God “why,” trying to make any sense of what was going on. Helpless, hopeless, destroyed. Have you been there? Have you ever experienced such a storm in your life, or ridden out a storm like this with someone close?
III. The Supremacy of the Savior. For the apostles, there was one saving factor: They had Jesus in their boat! The moment they brought Jesus into their panic, the storm ended.
A. The Savior’s Salvation: With the words in v39, he rebuked the wind with the words, “Peace; be still,” and a dead calm fell upon the once violent sea. The sea settled, the boat settled, and the fears settled. The living Son of Almighty God had spoken, saving those men who would later face many more storms to come. Today was not their day – Jesus had more for them to learn. They had been saved for a purpose.
B. The Savior’s Scolding: The wind wasn’t the only thing that was rebuked that evening! He then turned to these men and asked them in v40, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” The final parable of the day – the grain of mustard seed – a parable about faith; did it fall on deaf ears? The story is also in Matthew and Luke, and in each instance, Jesus had performed miracles before this one that defied explanation – had they forgotten the power of God flowing through Jesus? Or was it the fear? Did they, like Peter would do later, take their eyes off of Jesus, and allow their vision to focus on the storm at hand? Not to criticize these men in any way, but that’s very easy to do – isn’t it! When we’re hurting, where does our focus go? To the hurt – that’s right. Sad but true to say that our first inclination isn’t always to look to the Lord. We tend to do what these men did: Use all of our own strength until we don’t have any left. THEN we turn to God.
C. The Savior’s Sovereignty. In the New King James, the result of what they’d just seen is met with understandable awe and wonder. Verse 41 says, “And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” It was an eye-opening experience to be sure! If you go back and look at the previous miracles to this point, Jesus had healed mostly “one on one.” Casting out demons, healing lepers, a man with a withered hand, and various other sicknesses – all one person at a time. But this; by comparison, it was controlling the very elements. The greatest display of power they had seen. In jaw dropping astonishment, they ask – “Who is this?”
IV. The Sufficiency of the Savior. I’ll tell you who this is: It is JESUS! He IS the one who calms the storms, and he calmed the storm in my life!
A. Hope: In a world that no longer made sense, and with a deeply broken and shattered heart, the staff of my church gathered me up to take me out of the house before the coroner took her body out. As I left our duplex, the sun was setting over more than a hundred people out on the lawn. Other couples that lived near us were there, on their knees, praying together. Professors and other students were standing, arm in arm, praying for me. Tears still well in my eyes to think about that moment. It was a moment of hope. It was in the moment that it first settled in my heart, “I’m going to get through this.” It felt as if Jesus were at the end of that sidewalk, His hand lifted over the violent tumult in my heart, speaking those very words to me; “Peace. Be still.” I felt, as Paul said it to the Philippians, that peace that surpasses all understanding. A small flicker of home glimmered deep inside. Let me tell you this: Nothing, no one, no person can provide a peace that deep, that powerful, and that complete. In the measure of my need, God’s peace was there.
B. Healing: Over the days, weeks, months, and years that followed, God healed the hurt within me. Do you know how? BECAUSE I HAD JESUS IN MY BOAT! As often as the pain would surface, and as often as depression and darkness would creep in, the Word of God gave me such a measure of peace in every instance of need. I learned an awful lot about faith through this. I realized that my faith would either see me though this, or it was all a lie. Well, let me tell you it isn’t a lie! The Father who watched His Son in anguish on a cruel Roman cross knew my pain. The Savior who took upon Himself my sins and failure knew my pain. And it wasn’t that I was in good company; it was that I was immersed in their love. Professors prayed for me; students throughout campus prayed for me, and I could sense the power of the one who calmed the raging sea was at work in my heart and mind.
C. Help: With an undergrad and graduate degrees in psychology and counseling, I had no reservations seeking out professional help to deal with this. I attended a support group called “Survivor’s of Suicide.” I also received some admonition from my mentor in the ministry, Dr. Adrian Rogers. Not long after my first wife’s death, he called me into his office to counsel me and pray with me. He reminded me of the death of his son Phillip so many years earlier and how incredibly difficult that had been. But, it had opened the door to minister to others who had experienced that same type of loss, and to share with them God’s love and sustenance. He showed me 2 Corinthians 2:4, that reminds us we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received. In time, over the last thirty years, I have facilitated multiple Survivor of Suicide support groups; not just as a therapist, but as one who has personally been through it. I have witnessed hundreds of others going thought this type of “storm,” and in addition to the therapeutic elements – I’ve been able to share with them about the one who still quiets the storms today. Isn’t God’s word amazing? Who would have thought that such a horrible experience in life could be used of God to reach others.
Conclusion: If you’re in the midst of a storm today, I want you to know that you are not alone. Indeed; you are never alone. You have a Savior who is in every way familiar with our suffering and our struggles. You have a God who loves you and is near; waiting for you to reach out can call upon Him. And you have people like me: People who have found peace in the midst of the storm. Did you know that every support group out there was started by someone who went through the problems they now help others through? In every church I’ve pastored, as I come to learn about the lives of my members and community, I hear their greatest joys and deepest heartbreaks. Cancer survivors; families who’ve lost children to accidents; parents of missing children; and so many others. At times, I have introduced those whom God has brought through the storm to others in the middle of one. It is the way that we, as brothers and sisters in Christ can “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
If you or someone you know is going through their own personal storm right now, I want to close by sharing a couple of things with you.
First, you need Jesus in you boat. Sitting in the funeral home beside the casket of my dead wife, I asked myself – “How does someone without Christ make it through things like this?” For some, it hardens them and they turn from God because of the pain and hurt they’ve endured. But the love of God is much bigger than that. He knows, He understands, and He has witnessed the evil lavished upon His only Son. If there were ever anyone who knows what you’ve been through – it’s God! He can give you the peace that nothing and no one else can. What God has to offer can’t be found in a bottle, in a pill, a snort, or illicit behaviors. God can give you real and lasting peace within – only God can do that.
Second, don’t try to right the ship by yourself. Allow others to walk with you in the storm. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to accept help. Allow others to minister to you and help you to grieve in a manner that is healthy and whole. There are indeed things that are beyond us; things we can’t bear alone – and you don’t have to. There’s a verse that’s often misquoted in 1 Cor. 10:13, in which people tell someone hurting that “God will never allow you to go through more than you can bear.” (That’s not what that verse says). When someone said that to me at my wife’s funeral, I responded in the moment of hurt and pain and said, “Then why do we need God?” If we could handle every storm in life, then what use is God? The truth is that there are plenty of things that are beyond us – but never beyond God! He’s given us Himself; He’s given us each other to celebrate joy together and bear one anothers burdens.
Who is this man? The one the sea and wind obey? That man is Jesus! And He still quiets the raging storm today!
