Fear or Faith

if you have your Bible with you I will would ask you to turn to the Gospel of Mark mark chapter 4 we're starting a new series today I was planning to do a series a few weeks ago on the holiness of God the holy holy holy was the title of that series but with everything going on in our world with coronavirus and the stock market collapsing and and so much fear and the pandemic that is hitting our world a shutdown that is coming to every city in our world I wanted to talk about storms so we're kicking off the series today storms what to do in troubled times you know we are obviously all together collectively facing a storm with what's going on in our world now you might be facing an individual storm that the death of a loved one or some very serious illness or a financial hardship or a marriage crisis and and we know that many are facing storms like that but we're all in the same boat so to speak with this coronavirus and economic downturn turn and so God has a special word for us concerning these storms what are we to do how are we to respond to the troubled times so to kick off our series I want to talk about a storm that the disciples experienced with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee it wasn't just any storm it was a big storm a sudden storm a frightening storm and to top it all off in the midst of the storm Jesus is asleep he's asleep in the boat in the storm and they can't figure that out at all mark chapter four I'll begin reading in verse 35 and on that day when evening had come he said to them Jesus said to them let us go over to the other side the other side of the sea of Galilee the lake that's called the Sea of Galilee it's a freshwater lake it's not a salt water but they call it the Sea of Galilee the lake janessa Rhett and leaving the multitude verse 36 they took him along with them just as he was in the boat and other boats were with them and there arose a fierce Gale of wind and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up and he himself was in the stern asleep on the cushion and they awoke him and said to him teacher do you not care that we are perishing and being aroused he rebuked the wind and said to the sea hush be still and the wind died down and it became perfectly calm and he said to them why are you so timid how is it that you have no faith and they became very much afraid and said to one another who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him now here's our question for today question to ponder in the storms of life will you walk in fear or will you walk in faith I want you to notice three discoveries from this powerful account in the life of the Lord Jesus and the life of the disciples discovery number one storms are an inevitable part of life you can't get away from storms it's just a part of the human existence job 14 one man who is born of woman is short lived and full of trouble job five seven man is born for trouble as sparks fly upward Jesus said to the disciples John 16 verse 33 in the world you have tribulation you have troubles problems pressures difficulties that's part of this world that's part of the human existence so storms are an inevitable part of life now here's the background Jesus has been in Capernaum that was headquarters in his ministry there in Gao the town of Capernaum it's not even an inhabited place now it's just a place of ruins but back then that was a small city I mean most of those cities around Galilee were small but that was headquarters and he had been teaching all day and teaching and preaching that is exhausting it's exhausting mentally emotionally and spiritually he'd been doing that all day and when evening came he told the disciples let's get in the boat and go across the Sea of Galilee and while he was crossing while they were crossing he fell asleep and after he fell asleep there was a great storm that hit the sea it says in Matthews account of this story Matthew 8 24 and behold there arose a great storm in the sea so that the boat was already covered with the waves now the Sea of Galilee is known for storms the Sea of Galilee is an interesting little sea we have a picture of it that we can put up on the screen you can see he was in Capernaum which is up at the north and they were gonna go south west or south east to a place called Girgis 'ah that's where he is going to meet the gathering demoniac but the sea of galilee is 13 miles long and about 8 miles wide it's about 41,000 acres it's not real big it's about 200 feet deep and it's it's 695 feet below sea level now to the east of the Sea of Galilee you have a mountain range the most notable is Mount Hermon Mount Hermon is ninety two hundred and thirty two feet above sea level so what happens is you have the wind that comes over the mountain those are snow-capped mountains there Mount Hermon is always snow-capped you have wind that comes over those Eastern mountains and it drops way down to hit the Sea of Galilee the Sea of Galilee is warmer so you have cold air hitting warm air and it makes for a great wind and a great storm and this is what happened there sailing along Luke says they're just sailing along and then Jesus falls asleep everything seems to be going great and then all of a sudden BAM here comes the storm and it's not a small storm it is a great storm now you can mark this down in your mind in your heart storms often come without warning that's what happened to them it just came upon them without warning behold as Matthew says behold is a word of surprise wow it's just all of a sudden everything was so smooth and now we are in this terrible horrible storm you know that can happen to us and does happen to us so often everything's going great and you get a phone call that says your loved one died everything's going great and you go to the doctor for a routine checkup and the doctor says you have cancer you get in your car you're just gonna drive to the store and you get in a major car accident I mean that's life just changes on a dime storms often come without warning and they sometimes come with great severity this is a great storm verse 37 says there arose a fierce Gale of wind and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up with water fierce Gale of wind that's the Bible uses the word mega CGAs that means great we use it today for megabyte megaphone mega Smee pnes great and matthew when he is recording this story he uses the two greek words mega size mas mega size mas great quaking that's translated in matthew 28 as a severe earthquake when the lord rose from the dead he says there was a mega size most severe earthquake this is like an earthquake there on the Sea of Galilee this is not a small storm this is a major thing and storms come often without warning and sometimes they're very very severe I found out Thursday I got a message from a friend of mine he said have you heard about Glenn stone dr. Glenn stone the pastor of ma burly Baptist Church in Longview and I said no what happened to Glenn he's my friend we've known each other for a couple of years now and he said he died in a one vehicle accident he's just gone just like that beautiful wife three children 46 years old great Church great pastor great guy that's how storms come without warning often and then sometimes with great severity but they always come for our testing storms test us they test us to see what is going on inside they test us to see are we going to respond with fear or with faith now James chapter one this is our our joy flex t-shirt scripture joyful and flexible consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith various trials come for the testing of your faith and the testing of your faith produces endurance God is testing us and the Lord likes to give pop quizzes you know when I was in college you would get the syllabus and it would say hey you got a midterm and then you have a final maybe there's another test before the midterm but oftentimes to test midterm final so you could prepare for those now when I was in seminary I remember my first class in seminary the teacher would give pop quizzes and you had to be on your toes when you have a pop quiz because it's like I don't know when this is coming the Lord likes pop quizzes to test our faith so the very first insight storms are in an inevitable part of life secondly storms reveal our spiritual condition because storms test us and in any test you see where you are you see how well you have mastered the material because you get a grade I still remember when I was in college was in a math class with a friend of mine in college calculus and first test we didn't do very well I didn't do well he didn't do well the the grade was greatly curved because nobody did well and I remember we were studying for the final and my friend had a big he had a big 63 on his test paper and so he was thinking man you know a 63 is bad but with the curve you know I got a C so it's not too bad and we're studying and he's going through the the questions from his old test as we're studying for the final and he said you know I missed this one and this one and this one he goes I don't think they added this up right I didn't do as well as as what they said I don't think I got a 63 and then he looked more closely at the paper it didn't say 63 it said minus 63 he had a 34 and all of a sudden this final meant a lot more to him because he was failing the course but but we get a grade in the test and so the Lord is testing the disciples a pop quiz and he's going to show them where they are spiritually storms reveal our spiritual condition now when Matthew tells the story he tells it a little differently than Mark and you put them all together Matthew Mark and Luke because they all three tell the story John does not tell this story but you get the full picture and so they're sailing along the storm Jesus falls asleep the storm comes and they begin to freak out and they say in Matthew's account they came to him and awoke him saying save us Lord we are perishing and he said to them why are you timid you men of little faith and then he calmed the sea now Mark's account it's it he calms the sea and then he says to them why are you so timid how is it that you have no faith you say well that's a contradiction no it isn't he probably did both when they woke him up freaking out he said to them why are you timid why are you so afraid how you men of little faith how is it that you have no faith because they were saying to him Lord save us master save us teacher do you not care that we are perishing all those things are going on this isn't just one person hey you speak for the group these guys are thinking they're going to die they're not handling the storm very well they are afraid the boats filling up with water and their hearts are filling up with fear now remember this fear is the natural response to a raging storm the disciples are regular guys you know sometimes we read scripture and we we put people like Abraham and Moses and David we put them up on this pedestal and here's Peter here's James here's John here's Paul we put them up like they're they you know if you cut them they don't bleed they do they're regular guys the Bible says in the book of James that you know that they had a nature the Old Testament Saints they had a nature like ours Elijah was a man like us he had a nature like ours he's not in this Superman category and so these guys are facing the storm and they're afraid their hearts are filling with fear fears the natural response to a raging storm and whenever you face a raging storm whenever I face a raging storm and now we're all in the same boat facing a raging storm together with the coronavirus with the stock market collapse with oil prices dropping through the floor and we live in Texas we live in areas surrounding Texas Oklahoma and Louisiana we're affected by oil prices dropping through the floor because so many people have jobs that are oilfield related so all these things bring about fear bring about economic challenge and collapse and they caused our hearts to fear that's not an abnormal thing that's a normal thing what you do with the fear that is on you but you're gonna feel the fear I'm going to feel the fear and remember this about fear fear always wants to project the worst always so a fear works fear and worry they're Siamese twins they go together and they always want to project the worst Lord do you not care that we are perishing Lord we're done our goose is cooked we're going we're going under the Sea of Galilee Thomas I asked him if he thought we could be saved he said I doubt it and he's already writing our obituary that's what's going on in their head because fear projects the worst I was about thirty years old three kids when I noticed working out one day I noticed this this lump in my arm in my forearm I thought that's weird I wonder what that is is it wasn't very big but it started to get bigger started to grow and I said something to Debbie about it I said I don't know what this is she said I don't know what it is either but you need to get that checked out and we had had a friend that had just gotten diagnosed with skin cancer and some other friends that had cancer and so cancer is kind of you know floating around there in in my brain and all of a sudden I have this lump in my arm and I was like I need to get that checked out so I remember calling the the doctor setting an appointment and as I started to talk to him about this lump in my arm I could feel the fear start to rise up and then I could hear the the thoughts coming from fear the voice of fear saying you know that's cancer I said I mean having this conversation with myself but it it's kind of the voice of fear speaking to Jeff you know that's cancer I said it is yeah it is oh you what do you think well I think you're gonna have to have chemotherapy really chemotherapy you think I'm gonna lose my hair yeah you're gonna lose your hair but worse than that you're gonna lose your life I'm gonna lose my life yeah and I'm driving down 1960 in Houston no lie and I'm already thinking what my funerals going to be like I see my wife and children crying because their dad is dead that projected out the worst fear always does that I went to the doctor got it cut out it was nothing nothing a little lipoma that didn't have any bearing on life or or any problems at all so fear is one of those things that you and I are going to have to deal with fear is the natural response that always projects the worst and it must be confronted with faith you have to confront fear with faith you know fear what is fear f.e.a.r false evidence appearing real fear knocked at the door faith answered and no one was there you have to confront fear with faith David said in Psalm 56 verses 3 & 4 when I am afraid I will put my trust in you he doesn't say if I ever get afraid he said no when I'm afraid Lord that's when I put my trust in you in God whose word I praise and God I've put my trust I shall not be afraid what can mere man do to me so these guys didn't handle this storm well jesus said you're men of little faith and then it comes a storm and then he says why are you so timid how is that did you have no faith now some of the group had little faith the other of the group had no faith so both of those things are true what Matthew said is true and what Mark said is true so we don't want to be people who respond to storms in fear we want to be people who respond to storms with faith and the Bible says Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen and the Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Romans 10:17 so here are some things about faith how am I going to respond when fear knocks at the door how do I respond in faith well first of all faith trusts the Lord's word it's connected to the word faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God so faith trusts the Lord's word what did the Lord say verse 35 and on that day after we've been teaching and preaching all day and he was exhausted on that day when evening had come when night was coming he said to them let us go over to the other side let us go over to the other side we're gonna go from Capernaum to the land of the gadarenes let us go over to the other side he didn't say we're gonna go under he said we're gonna go over and so it's very important when you face the raging storm to remember what the Lord has said to remember what the Lord has promised to remember what the word says and cling to the word cling to the word we're not going under we're going over now some practical things for us today I think that many people are very very nervous about their their finances because they think about their job employers are concerned how am I going to pay my employees because if we are on lockdown and we're on shutdown I don't have money coming in I'm not made of money so I can only do this for so long and then I run out and and the fear gets going and people start projecting out and they project the worst some good scriptures to cling to in this time of storm Psalm 37 verse 25 psalm 37:25 david said i have been young and now i am old yet i have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his descendants begging bread god will provide for you philippians 4:19 and my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus God will provide he's Jehovah Jireh Yahweh Jireh the Lord my provider the Lord my provider and when you feel the fear come in Isaiah 26:3 is a great verse you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you Paul said in Philippians when he was in prison rejoice in the Lord always again I say rejoice let your forbearing spirit be known to all men the Lord is near be anxious for nothing worried about nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus hey faith trusts the Lord's word secondly faith believes the Lord's love and care faith knows the Lord loves me the Lord cares for me did you notice in the storm the question that was asked it wasn't meant to be a cruel question it was a question that that arose out of panic because the fear had gotten all over the disciples and they just knew that they were going under and they asked the question in verse 38 as they awakened Jesus teacher master master Lord teacher do you not care that we are perishing do you not care that we are perishing I mean here we are and we're in such difficulty and you're asleep and you seem to be totally indifferent because you're asleep and we are facing the last moments of our life and you're not doing anything because you're asleep you're totally out of it you're totally indifferent hey that's not faith to ask the Lord do you even care about me faith says god I believe that you love me because your word says so because the cross proves it that you love me now you've heard me say before and it bears repeating you cannot let your me ology determine your theology what is me ology me ology is what happens to me don't view God through the lens of circumstances through view circumstances through the lens of God and build into your life and build into your children a bedrock a foundation of these three things God is good God loves me and God is faithful when Solomon was getting ready to dedicate the temple or in the process of dedicating the temple the glory of the Lord fell on the house of the Lord so much that the priests couldn't even enter to minister and they just fell on their faces second chronicles chapter seven verse three and they said truly he is good truly his loving kindness is everlasting God is good and God loves me Psalm 100 verse five says for the Lord is good his loving kindness is everlasting and his faithfulness to all generations when Jesus comes back revelation 19 on a white horse he is called faithful and true because the Lord is faithful and true he's the God who is good always he's the God who always does everything out of love because he is love he's the God who you can whom you can trust because he is faithful God who reigns forever so faith trust the Lord's word faith believes that the Lord is love and the Lord cares and faith keeps on moving forward see Jesus said to these guys why are you so timid how is it that you have no faith and so the question comes in what would have been the faith response if those guys that had great faith you know when Jesus would say a couple different times in Scripture he marveled at people's great faith remember the the woman that was saying help Lord my daughter is cruelly demon possessed she was as syrophoenician woman a Canaanite woman and Jesus said it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs in an effect he in effect he called her a dog and what did she say she didn't get mad she didn't say well gosh I come to you for help and you don't give me any help forget you she said yes Lord that's right but even the children feed on the crumbs that fall from the table even the dogs feed on the crumbs that fall from their master's table and he said woman your faith is great be it done to you as you've requested I mean he marveled at her great faith well what would have been the great faith response it wasn't their response freaking out Lord do you not care that we were perishing the great faith response would have been this he said we're going over to the other side I know the storm is raging and I know it's scary but I'm not going to put my eyes on the storm I'm gonna put my eyes on the Savior would it have been right to wake Jesus up yeah that's fine that's fine we call upon his name but we don't wake him up in a panic we wake him up to say Lord we're in trouble and we need you but we trust that you're going to bring us through the faith response you keep rowing the boat you keep moving forward with God listen with what's going on in our lives which what with what's going on in your life specifically the Lord knows everything he knows that last night some of you may have cried yourself to sleep the Lord knows that he knows every tear that falls he knows and he cares and he says listen you need to keep praying you need to keep praising you need to keep serving you need to keep asking you need to keep seeking you need to keep knocking you need to keep giving you need to keep rowing the boat you need to trust me I like what your Hashem phat says in 2nd chronicles chapter 20 when the armies have gathered together the armies of the enemies have gathered together to come upon him and destroy Jerusalem and Judah and he cared that they're like the sand of the seashore there's so many enemies coming at him and he calls upon the Lord and gets the people to call upon the Lord he's feeling fear but he responds to the fear and confronts the fear with faith and he says in his great prayer Lord will you not judge them for we are powerless against this great army coming against us neither do we know what to do but our eyes are on you but our eyes are on you that's the faith response that's the faith response says in Psalm 123 verse 2 as the eyes of servants looked at the hand of their master as the eyes of a maid looked to the hand of her mistress so our eyes look to the Lord our God until he shall be gracious to us hey storms are an inevitable part of life storms reveal our spiritual condition and thirdly storms help us see Jesus more clearly verse 39 and being aroused he rebuked the wind and said to the sea hush be still and the wind died down and it became perfectly calm and he said to them why are you so timid how is it that you have no faith and they became very much afraid and said to one another who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey his voice storms God uses them to help us see him more clearly now notice in this story that Jesus is completely calm in the storm everybody is freaking out it's panic and pandemonium on the boat everyone is afraid their hearts are filled with fear the boat is filled with water Jesus is calm he's sleeping in the back of the boat he's calm in the midst of the storm now Jesus sleeping in the boat it shows you that Jesus truly was a man he's the god man but he's as much man as though he were not God at all and he's been teaching and preaching all day he's exhausted he's been giving out and giving out and giving out and he goes fast asleep even in the midst of the storm there is no panic in heaven there are only plans the Lord doesn't pace about heaven he rules with his feet propped up so to speak he is totally at peace he's totally in control you don't need to wonder what is he doing have things gotten out of his control no he is calm and he is at peace completely calm in the storm he's more than able in the storm now those guys had seen Jesus perform all kinds of miracles they saw him heal the sick they saw him cleanse the leper they saw him cast out demons they saw him restore the paralytic they saw him heal withered limbs they saw him raised the dead but they didn't know he could do this they didn't know that he could speak to the wind and to see I mean who can speak to the wind and the sea and caused it to just shut down like that only God can do that one liberal theologian he was commenting on this passage and he said well it just happened to be coincidental that when Jesus got up and said hush be still it's just coincidentally the wind died down no no it became perfectly calm here's the thing you need to remember when the wind whips the water the wind can stop but the water has momentum the water is going to keep going Jesus spoke a word and he shut down both the wind and the waves became perfectly calm BAM just like that just like that that's what blew those guys minds how can anyone do this who is this man that he could do that now notice in mark's account and i love this the little word i told you about Megas it's used three times in this passage it's used to describe that fierce Gale of wind it was a mega gale of wind it's used to describe the calm that comes after Jesus spoke hush be still it became perfectly calm Megas calm and then it's used in verse 41 to describe the fear where it says says they were very much afraid they were Megas afraid Negus Negus Negus what does that teach us teaches us this there are great storms in life and Jesus can speak a word to your great storm and bring about a great calm for what purpose so that you might have great fear great all so that you might see that he is the Great God who can do anything in your life anything in any situation Jeremiah 32 27 behold I'm the Lord the God of all flesh is anything too difficult for me and the answer is no nothing is too difficult for God now to him who is able Ephesians 3:20 to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we asked to think according to the power that works within us to him be the glory he is able I like what John MacArthur said about this passage these guys are freaking out in panic over the storm and when the Lord says hush be still and it became perfectly calm their fear went up but it wasn't to fear the storm it was the fear and the awe and the knowledge that we are in the boat with God we're in the boat with God why would that make you afraid because he knows all about me and and it's it's like Peter when he had the realization Luke chapter 5 that Jesus is God he said depart from me Lord from a sinful man Manoah who is the father of sampson when he and it had an encounter with the angel of the lord the pre-incarnate christ and he saw he had a conversation with him and then he went up to heaven he said to his wife we're gonna die because we have seen god it's a frightening thing when Moses had the encounter with the burning bush you're bush God said take your shoes off Moses the place on which is standing his holy ground and Moses made haste to get low to cover his face before the Lord Hey he is more than able and he's all we need in the storm he's all we need in the storm because he's God I got a phone call this week from my nephew my nephew Josh lives in Salado in between Waco and Austin and he and I talk probably every three or four weeks five weeks something like that he's his mid-30s has beautiful wife three beautiful children he called me and I said hey Josh how you doing and he said I'm just calling to say thanks and as a voice started to break and I could tell he was crying I had him on speakerphone Debbie and I were both listening and I said okay and he said you know with everything going on right now he said I don't I don't know if I'm gonna keep my job or lose my job he's a manager at a tractor store he said I'm gonna have to let some people go and business is slow and he said I don't know what's gonna happen I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep my house or not he said but I wanted to thank you because you invited me to the weekend to remember marriage conference and he said Jessica and I came up to your room on that Sunday morning because we had to leave early and he said you and Debbie prayed for us and he said I wasn't a Christian when I went to the weekend to remember conference but he said after that day after praying he said everything changed and he said I want to thank you for helping me come to know Christ because although everything is so scary right now he said I have peace I have peace and I know that's coming from Jesus because he's in my life you don't need to fear if Jesus is in your boat if Jesus is in your life if Jesus is in your heart and that's the big question is he really there see what is the storm reveal the storm reveals your spiritual condition it reveals if you really have a relationship with Jesus because if you are freaking out and panicking and you cannot find peace anywhere I don't care if you've been a member of this church or some other Church I don't care if you've been baptized ten times those things don't make you a believer and if you cannot find peace I want to introduce you to the Prince of Peace the god of the universe who died for you in agony and blood he'll save you just like he saved me just like he saved my nephew Josh if you'll give your heart and life to him if you're really surrendered to him he'll come in and save you and change you he's the Prince of Peace he will give you peace is Jesus in your boat and maybe you say well he's in my boat but I still don't have peace it's because you're not letting him lead you're not letting him sit on the throne of your life you're not surrendering control to him and maybe you need to do that right now

Channel: From His Heart Ministries

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Length: 39min 8sec (2348 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2020