The Storms Of Life

THE STORMS OF LIFE

TEXT: Mark 4:35-41

PROP: We must remember to have faith in Jesus.

Let me tell you about a man named Steve. Steve was living what some people might call the American Dream. He had a great wife and two wonderful children. He lived in a beautiful house on a quite street, and had a job that most people would love to have. However, upon coming into work one day, Steve found out that his job in management had been eliminated. And as the bills grew higher and higher so did the tension between Steve and his family. The things that Steve and his family are going through could be summed up in four words, and they are “The Storms Of Life.” And that’s what I want to talk about today!

Have you ever experienced storms in your life? Those times where things just didn’t make sense. Times where your problems seemed so big and your faith seemed so small. Times where you felt so swamped and so afraid that you were going to be taken over by the storm. I think we have all had feeling like that! Jesus’ disciples were no different. If you have your Bible turn to Mark 4:35-41. And lets just see how the disciples dealt with the storm.

*Read Mark 4:35-41*

After reading this text, there are some major points that we can apply, between our Spiritual Storms and the Disciples Physical storm. The first point that I see, is that:

I. THE STORMS WILL COME!

-- Even if everything is going great right now, I want you to remember to have faith in Jesus, because the storms will come. It only takes a split second for everything to change for everything to be flipped upside down. Maybe you lose your job, or a family member is in a serious accident, or a tornado rips apart your house, you fill in your own personal storm, because the list goes on and on and on.

-- For the disciples it wasn’t a spiritual storm, but rather a physical storm. When they left the docks that evening, everything was fine. However it only took a split second for things to go horribly wrong. The winds picked up and the waves crashed over the boat, and the disciples were afraid. When the storms come they bring emotions of fear, anger, frustration, and uncertainty.

-- If we know that the storms will come, we have to ask ourselves the next question- How do we deal with these storms when they come? The first thing we need to do is to never give up. We need to take the storm that is plaguing our life for what it is, and that is a test or trial or temptation. We must remember to never give up!

-- The next thing we need to do to deal with the storms is to keep focused. It’s so easy when times are hard to lose our focus from the things that are really important or the tasks that we need to accomplish. And isn’t that how Satan traps and entangles us? By putting other things in our life to break our focus and to make us lose sight of our goal. Sure it is! That’s why we need to keep focused.

-- The third and final thing we need to do in order to deal with the storms in our life is that we must remember! We must remember to have faith in Jesus! With faith in Jesus we can be assured that no matter how bad things get, the storm will not stick around forever. And that leads us to our next point.

II. THE STORMS WILL GO!

-- I don’t know about you, but I have ever seen a storm that struck around forever. I know that when we have a lot of snow and it’s cold and miserable outside, it feels like the storm may last forever, but what eventually happens? The SUN comes out, the temperature rises the snow melt and before we know it, the storm is over. We can always take hope in the fact, that no matter how bad things get, the storms will pass.

-- Jesus’ disciples saw the same things. They thought that this storm may last forever, or at least long enough to put an end to them. But what do we see from the story, the SON not the SUN come out and calms the winds and the waves and the storm that they were so worried about is over.

-- And isn’t that the way it usually goes! When we realize that we can’t do it on our own, that’s when we ask for help. That’s when we start looking for Jesus. And why do we do that? We do that because we know that Jesus will always be there to calm the winds and the waves of our spiritual lives. He will always be there to strengthen and comfort us.