The Storm Calming King

Mosaic Boston - Sermons

Heavenly Father, we recognize that we live as fallen people in a fallen world. Yes, it's all because of our own rebellion and subordination of trying to reject your authority. Lord, we understand that we live in a world that is under the curse. Lord, in this world, we do experience suffering and pain and we experience trials and tempest. Sometimes life becomes tempestuous. Storms come. Lord, in those moments when the storms do come, I pray that you give us the power of the Holy Spirit to stand unflinching on the gospel and the word of God. That you are a great God, there's nothing outside of your control. You are sovereign and that you are good God. You love us and you long to bless us. Sometimes you bless us by protecting us from the storms.

Sometimes the greatest blessing is your own presence and protection within the storm. Lord, I pray from the holy scriptures today, remind us that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace. That we are to be a people who are characterized, defined by peace, the tranquility of heart, despite the storms. Lord, when the winds of this world blow and they blow against us, I pray that we are not blown from one doctrine to another, but we stand fast and hold on to the anchor of our souls, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's beautiful name. Amen. We are continuing our sermon series to the Gospel of Mark. We've entitled this, "The Gospel of Mark and The Secret of God's Kingdom."

The title of the sermon on this communion Sunday is the Storm Calming King. One of the most accurate gauges for how strong your faith is, is to take an inventory of your current fears, anxieties, and worries. What worries you the most today? Perhaps the state of the economy or your own personal finances. How are we going to keep paying the bills? Perhaps it's inflation or politics or war or disease or perhaps you're more concerned about finding love or keeping love, about losing health or aging. For the wellbeing perhaps of your children, you're most concerned, or not measuring up intellectually, physically, financially. Or how about death? Do you experience fear when you consider death, of what it would mean to meet the living God?

The Holy Word proclaims that God gave us the spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. The spirit of fear is not from God. God doesn't want you living in a constant state of panic. Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So we are to be calm and cool, even in the face of storms. The most effective, sustainable way to counter our fears is with a greater fear, a fear of God, and to truly believe in God, to truly know Him as He is to fear Him. Our text today is Mark 4:35-41. Would you look at the text with me? "On that day when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was.

And other boats were with him and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And when they woke him up, they said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Be still. Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.

Three points as we walk our way through the text, a great storm, a great calm, and a great fear. First, a great storm. Jesus had called these disciples by coming to them and commanding them, "Follow me." His very first sermon, both to them and to everyone else, was the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe. What he's saying is, "I am the king. I'm the king of everything. The way you enter my kingdom is repenting of sin and believing in me." Those are the two most important lessons of the Christian faith. This is how everything begins and this is how everything continues. Repent of your sin and believe and follow Jesus Christ.

Then Jesus spends in chapter four, parable upon parable explaining to the disciples, trying and impress upon their hearts the importance of paying attention to God's word, of listening in a way that you actually hear and heed and obey the word of God. So after teaching his disciples lesson upon lesson and preaching, now comes the test. You've all taken tests. Are you a good test taker? What makes for a good test taker? Is it just the power of recall? It's more than that. It's the power of recall under pressure. In particular in a pop quiz, you weren't ready. Pop quiz, here we go. Do you know the information? Have you mastered it? We learn about truth, the truth about God and who we are from the Holy Book. Then we're called to apply this truth in real life.

That's the real test. Can you apply the truth in real time? Often God does test our faith and he does so with sudden unexpected storms. Will your faith be blown off course? Usually, the storms come in the form of some pain, some suffering. Can you continue trusting God when the skies have darkened, when lightning strikes, when you feel like you're sinking? Can you trust God, believe in God when it matters most? So Jesus administers the test in Mark 4:35. "On that day," it says, "when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'" On that day and in context, we see what happened on that day in Jesus' taxing life of ministry.

The day started where he's casting out demons and then the Pharisees and the scribes of the Pharisees, they accused Jesus of doing the work he was doing by the power of Beelzebub or Satan himself. Jesus says, "No, you saying that is actually blasphemous." There's tensions. Whenever there's a conflict, whenever there's tension, there's all adrenaline pumped exhaustion. That's what Jesus went through. The second event of that day was when his mother and his brothers came to take Jesus by force almost. Then Jesus turns around and He looks at his disciples and He says, "Who's my mother? Who's my brothers? Who's my sisters? It's those that do the will of God." Then He spends all day preaching to the biggest crowd yet.

There were so many people that He was forced to back off from the shore and start preaching from a boat using the boat as his pulpit. So after exhausting day of ministry in the hot sun, Jesus says, "Let us go across to the other side." The Greek tense reveals a note of urgency in Jesus' decisions to depart. Perhaps he's hit a wall physically where you just can't continue. He didn't have the physical strength to go on. So He tells the disciples, "Let's go out to sea." Whose idea was this? This is important to notice. Whose idea was it to get in the boat that evening and to go into the sea that night? It was Jesus' idea. It was Him taking them right into the storm almost as if it's a setup and it is.

He's setting them up to test their faith. He loves them and He wants to strengthen their faith in God and fear of God. God does not promise that when we serve Him, when we obey Him, when we believe in Him that we're going to lead a life of smooth sailing. Jesus doesn't promise to protect us from experiencing storms. He promises to protect us in the midst of storms. The sermon of the Mount in chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says this, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. Great was the fall of it." But notice in both of these paths, the people that obey God, the wise people and the people that disobeyed God, the foolish people, they both experience storms. The question isn't, "Are you going to experience a storm?" The question is, "Will your faith weather the storm?" Obedience to God takes them right into the heart of the storm, into the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. This shows us that service to Christ even does not exempt us from storms.

The 12 disciples seem to be doing all the right things, forsaking everything, following him, listening to his teaching, growing in their faith, doing all He commands. They're as obedient as you'll find. Jesus says, "Let us go to the other side." The other side was predominantly the Gentile Decapolis, a region where most of the people there were Gentiles, they were pagans. They did not believe in Yahweh. So Jesus here is showing us that He's the prophet similar to Jonah being sent to the Gentiles except Jesus did it willingly. Verse 36, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was and other boats were with him." So He's been preaching in the boat and then He just goes to the back of the boat and to the stern, finds a cushion, and goes to sleep.

What kind of boat was this? It was probably one of the ordinary 15-passenger boats, 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, 4.5 feet high, with a little platform in the stern that protected from the elements. Also, notice it says that other boats were with him. The other boats aren't mentioned later in the text. It does nothing to further the plot. Why is this detail here? Because it's just showing us this is eyewitness account as they remembered this detail. So Jesus is exhausted from his day, climbs into the back of the boat. The boat hoist sail and begins the five-mile trip across the lake. Verse 37. "And a great windstorm arose, and waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling."

The sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level and it's surrounded by mountains, by Mount Herman and the Eastern Shore. The mountains go up about 9,200 feet above sea level. So there's about a 10,000-foot difference between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the sea. What happens is cool air sometimes rushes from the top of the mountain down to the sea, which is warmer and it creates this thermal buildup. Tremendous storms, violent changes of weather were known in that area, come out of nowhere severe and treacherous. We know that God is creator of all things and He is the controller of the natural world and natural phenomena.

This is also the God that once in a while, He tames or uses creation in order to provide salvation for His people. For example, when he's leading His people out of the exodus and they get to the Red Sea, an east wind was sent by God and dried up the waters. Already Mark has shown that Jesus is the Son of God. At His baptism, the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus. God the Father speaks, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." Jesus has already proven that He's king over demonic by exercising demons. He's proven that He teaches with a new ring of authority as if it's His word, which it is. He heals the sick, which shows that He has power over sickness. Here Jesus shows us that He has power over creation, but not yet.

He waits until the disciples are unnerved. A tempest arises. The waves are breaking into the boat and the boat is filling up with water. The verb translated breaking in is a strongly expressive verb, meaning literally hurled upon. The description of the storm reminds Biblical readers of the story of Jonah. Note the similarities between the two narratives. There's departure by boat, a violent storm at sea, a sleeping main character, badly frightened sailors, and a miraculous stealing related to the main character, and then a marveling response by the sailors. Even the vocabulary that's used is similar. We're about to die or the sea died down or they feared a great fear. But also, we have a significant difference between this text and the Jonah's story.

Unlike Jonah, Jesus is not fleeing the will of God no matter how hard it is. No, He's actively involved in accomplishing God's will. Also, the disciples don't ask Jesus to pray to the Father. They go to Jesus directly. So they had faith that He could save them. That's why they're asking for the help. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that He has power over creation. So Jesus is more God than Jonah. Life storms are like this. The disciples had smooth sailing for a bit, and then out of nowhere, immediately a storm is upon them. In life, this happens often. Everything's fine and then you get that one phone call. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? It means to be a learner and there are infinite lessons to learn. Sometimes those lessons are learned by reading.

Sometimes those lessons are learned by weathering storms. Though the disciples were mostly oblivious to this in the moment, the terrifying storm was actually God's grace and teaching them more about God and more about God's power in their lives. Storms and hardship are an adversity, are essential in our spiritual development. God is a loving father. He does not give us a life without difficulties or trials or stresses or pain or suffering or setbacks or failure. Why? Because He wants us to be strong. He wants us to be as strong as possible in the faith. Verse 38, "And he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'"

By the way, these are very experienced fishermen. Peter and Andrew had their own fishing business, and John and James had their own fishing business. They've seen storms, but here this one terrified them. So it must've been some storm. They're freaking out and they wake Jesus. There's a hint of resentment, of reproach as they rebuke him. It's almost as if they're mad at Jesus for allowing this situation. Jesus, we did all the right things. We did everything that you told us to do. Why would you allow this to happen in our life? Jonah, for example, Jonah's situation, yes, that storm was punishment for his disobedience, but they had been obedient. That's why they feel aggrieved. Jesus is in the stern. I love the detail that he's asleep on the cushion, climbs in there, just finds a pillow.

He's like, "This one's for me," and just goes into comatose, so a nap, just a tremendous nap. By the way, be like Jesus once in a while, take a nap. There's something here that's majestic about this detail if you meditate on. Jesus, He did get exhausted in His human form. He's God incarnate, but in the human body, He's bone tired after an exhausting day of ministry. Even the storm couldn't wake Him up. In a moment from now, Jesus would calm the storm, but first, He slept in a weary body. Here we have a grand display of the opposites of weakness and omnipotence coalesced into harmony too magnificent to be the product of human imagination. No other religion, no other worldview, no other ideology comes even close to something.

God incarnate, God becoming one of us, remaining fully God, yet fully human. There's something so reassuring here that Jesus knows the human experience from the inside. He's been through it. He knows what it's like to be human, and we know His sleep is intentional, thus the cushion. So He is completely in control. He controls the weather, therefore He could have foretold the weather. So this is all a setup. It really is a test. God loves saving at the very last moment, in the 11th hour, when the odds are insurmountable where it just seems impossible. So Israel, as they're coming out of Egypt and the Exodus, they get up to the Red Sea. You got the Egyptian army breathing down their neck. They're trapped, they're doomed.

Then in the last hour, God saves them. Or Gideon's army or Sarah or Ruth or widow loses her son or even Lazarus. Jesus goes to Lazarus' funeral and they're like, "Why are you here? If you came a little sooner, you could have healed him. Why are you here? It's too late." It wasn't too late. Jesus resurrects him. Jesus sleeping here indicates His calm trust in God. Psalm 4:8 says, "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." The disciples call out that Jesus as they're awakening Him. They call him teacher or rabbi. Rabbi's been teaching them and they don't realize that the rabbi's continuing to teach them. They cry out, "We're perishing, we're about to die."

This verb, the identical form in the Septuagint and the Greek translation of the Hebrew is used in the Jonah story. Then the crux of their question is, "Do you not care? Do you not care?" The question uses the negative particle in the Greek, ou. It's asked in a way that makes clear. They think they know He cares, but at this moment, they're not sure. "Jesus, you care, right? Jesus, you care for us, don't you?" That's what they're saying. I think we've all felt this. We've all had moments in life where it feels like God just disappears. God just hid His face or it feels like God is asleep and they're crying out, "Lord, save us. We're about to die, we're overwhelmed, we're crushed."

Worry in our lives comes from either forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm that He is great, or doubting his commitment to us in the storm that He's good. We either doubt that He's great or we either doubt that He's good. In those moments, I'd like you to remember three things. First, realize that feelings of anxiety or fear, trepidation, those are natural, but we are not to trust in our feelings. Our feelings are fallible. The size of the waves and the fury of the wind and the sight of the water accumulating at the bottom of the boat, the boat is sinking deeper and deeper into the water, into the lake. All of this makes the disciples almost forget everything they've learned about Jesus. J. C. Ryle says this, "Sight, sense, and feeling make even believers very poor theologians."

Here you got the theology of what's happening in that moment, in that storm, when all the theologists throw out the window. We have to pause, we got to meditate, because right now, here and now we are not in a storm. It's times of peace in which we need to study God's word and not just learn the truth, but embody the truth. Where the truth becomes so much part of us that we understand that God is in control. At this moment, you could have said to the disciples, "Hey, do you really suppose that God's plan for the world is going to come to an end in some unforeseen accident? Do you really suppose that the Messiah Himself would drown as He's crossing the sea of Galilee?"

Couldn't they see that no boat ferrying the son of God, no boat carrying the savior of the world was going to sink? Couldn't they see that high as those waves were deep as the water was getting in the boat, as wild as the winds were, there was no safer spot in the world than being in that boat with Jesus Christ? Faith knows that God is sovereign, but sight forgets it often. At these moments, we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Meaning don't just judge everything you see physically, but what do you see with the eyes of your soul, with your faith? Second, salvation isn't always from circumstances but through. We'll get to that in the second point.

Then third, even when you feel like you're drowning, even when you feel like everything is falling apart, you are sinking, just dismantling of everything, at those moments, it's okay to run to Jesus and wake Him up. No matter how much He was enjoying that nap. Have you ever had a nice nap and then someone awakens you? What's your first reaction? I know what mine is. It's irritation. You're just groggy. Jesus doesn't get irritated for them waking Him up. He is grieved by their lack of faith, by their lack of trust, but He doesn't rebuke them for their fretting cries for help. In these moments, we are to remember that when we run to God, when we cry out to Him honestly, from the depth of our soul, He hears those pleas and He will answer. So Jesus is awakened.

This brings us the second point of great calm, verse 39. "And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm." So He says to the sea, "Silence, peace." Then he says, "Be still." That's the same verb that's used in chapter 1, verse 25 where Jesus casts out a demon. He tells the demon, "Be still", but in the Greek, it's more than that. It's be muzzled, or one translator says, "Shut up." He's telling the storm to do what He says because He's king over the storm. He doesn't rescue them from the storm, but He stills the storm itself. Only the one who had initially created the sea and the wind, it's only His place to rebuke the storm and the storm and the wind's instant obedience show us who's in control.

It's God himself that's in that boat. It's Jesus Christ, the creator. In Him all things were created, through Him all things were created. He's also the redeemer. It's significant that when Jesus lends his authority to His disciples to go cast out demons and do miracles, He never gives them power over creation itself, over nature itself. That power belongs to the Son of God, king over the natural world. When the authors of the Psalms reflect on the fact that God doesn't just help us in the storms, He also sends us those storms. Psalm 46, for example, the Psalmist says, "God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. Though the waters roar and foam." Psalm 65 says, "He stilled the roaring of the seas and the roaring of their waves." Then it says, "There was a great calm."

That's the same verb that's used for the calming of the sea in the Jonas' story. Remember the other boats, there were other boats with them? Well, the text doesn't say anything else about those boats, but that detail shows us that the calming of the storm wasn't just for the salvation or preservation of these disciples, but also, it was a miracle of mercy in a wider scale. Psalm 107:23-32 is an incredible parallel passage to meditate on. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.

They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters are quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders." Whenever you are experiencing a storm in life, let us never forget that with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything can change in a second. With the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing is impossible. No stormy sins are so strong that He can't tame them or He can't save us from them.

No conscience is so disturbed that He can't speak peace to it and make it come. No despair is so deep that it can't be replaced with unspeakable joy. No sinner, not even one is beyond the reach of our savior. Christ can speak so to any stormy soul, "Peace! Be still!" Scripture says, "Greater is he that is in us than he who is in the world." Matthew 4:40, He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" After conquering the external threat of the storm, Jesus turns to the internal threat. This is His follower's unbelief. After rebuking the storm, He now rebukes His disciples and He says to them, "Why are you so afraid?" The word for afraid here is deilos, which means cowardly. So Jesus here is rebuking them for their cowardice, for their timidity, for their lack of courage.

They challenge Jesus by saying, "Don't you care?" Now He's challenging them by saying, "Why are you so cowardly? Why are you such cowards?" By the way, what would your answer be if you were the disciples? We almost died, Jesus. That's why we were cowardly. We were almost dead, wiped out. Yes, you are the God of the world we know, but in that moment, come on. There's a reason for it. So why is Jesus calling it out? What He's doing is He's pointing out that a secondary fear has become a primary fear on their hierarchy of fear. He says, "Why are you so afraid? Why are you so cowardly?" Meaning you are afraid of something more than God. You fear something more than God. What was that in their case?

Perhaps suffering, perhaps pain, perhaps drowning, perhaps death itself. They fear death itself more than fearing the God that was in the boat and that's why they rebuked Him. The Lord rebukes cowardice. Here are a few points just to point out. As believers, we are to grow in courage. This is what it means to be encouraged. God infuses courage in our hearts. Sometimes for that courage to grow, we need a nice rebuking and Jesus Christ rebukes his disciples. If you have a Jesus that never rebukes you for anything, that's not the Jesus of reality, that's not the real Jesus. If you have a God that never contradicts anything you do, never calls you to repentance, never calls you to change, you don't have a God that's the real God of reality.

The real God does rebuke and we are to look to scripture for training and for teaching and for encouragement and edification. But we are look through the scripture and say, "Lord, rebuke me. Teach me where I need to change." Proverbs 24:10 says, "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." This is what Jesus is rebuking them for. The Lord's sleep did not only show His very natural weariness, it also showed His tranquil faith. He did not doubt that God is sovereign. Here Mark shows that faith and fear are mutually exclusive in scripture. It was because of their lack of faith that they feared that they were about to drown. So it was for a lack of faith that they are rebuked. The command and scripture that has reiterated more than any other is do not fear.

Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? And then have you still no faith? Don't you have faith yet?" Here Christ is showing that He, God, takes our craving and fear as a personal insult. Where is your faith, disciples? Is it in me? If it isn't me, I'm right here. I didn't go anywhere. I was right there with you the whole time. So we need to hear from time to time from our savior that our faithless ways, especially in light of the Lord's demonstration over and over years in our lives of his faithfulness, our faithlessness is inexcusable. It's actually a sin that we must repent of and put to death. There is no excuse for us to not understand that when we experience troubles and trials and storms of life, it's because God allowed them in our life. They passed through His hands.

If He is for us, then who can be against us? So we need this rebuke and the rebuke itself is a powerful encouragement that we can grow more courageous. We can grow out of our cowardly ways and we can become deeper believers. In our passage, faith seems to have two aspects. On the one hand, it's a trust like Jesus. Here He is exuding a basic confidence in God's provident care. On the other hand, faith is also trust in Jesus. By the end of our passage, faith has come to mean a perception of who He really is, His cosmic stature. He is the son of God and the conviction that nothing bad can ultimately happen to the person who was with Him. In this text, we see this progression that Jesus moves just from being an example for our faith to actually being the object of our faith.

Isaiah 45:6 and 7, "I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I'm the Lord who does all these things." I want to walk you through Psalm 23, one of my favorite psalms, one of our favorite psalms, one of the most famous ones. I want to show you that all of these truths are right there in that psalm and just show you that transformation is promised when we keep trusting the Lord. Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that's where the faith ends. You come to the Lord.

He's your shepherd and He's going to take you in bucolic green pastures, delicious running water. He takes care of all your needs. That's awesome. No, that's just the beginning and then the story continues. Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they come from me." How in the world did we end up from green pastures... Bucolic running water is tremendous. How do we go from there to a valley of the shadow of death? The shepherd led him there. The good shepherd led him into the valley of death. God loves us and bad things happen. Both are true. Jesus was perfect and bad things happened to Him.

David here, he doesn't fear that despite seeing only shadows, experiencing near death, he takes comfort in the fact that the shepherd is close. The shepherd has been leading me. He continues to lead me and He will surely lead me through and out. Jesus doesn't always lead us around danger or protect us from danger. Sometimes He leads us into green pastures. Sometimes it's into danger and sometimes He protect us by means of danger. Perhaps the valley of shadow of death was to train David, to learn, to grow in wisdom, to not go through bigger valleys, deeper valleys of shadow of death. He allows us to experience present pain often to protect us from future pain.

In verse three, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." So the path of righteousness sometimes goes through green pastures and often it goes through valleys of death. Most importantly, David didn't lose sight of the shepherd. I just want to point out that his relationship deepened with the shepherd after going through the valley of the shadow of death. Look at how he changes the way he addresses the good shepherd. In verse two, "He makes me lie down. He leads me besides still waters." Verse three, "He restores my soul." Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of shadow death, I will fear no evil for..." It doesn't say he, it's no longer he. It's for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil and my cup over overflows. His relationship with his shepherd changed. It became more personal, it became more real. God became more present, and this is the universal experience of God's people. If you ask a believer, "At what times in your life did you experience the presence of God like never before?", and they will no doubt tell you a time when they had to walk through a valley of the shadow of death. Charles Spurgeon said, "I've learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." God doesn't always shield us from danger, but He shields us in the danger, sometimes with the danger and leads us through it all.

Sometimes He does it all so that we get a cup that overflows with comfort for others. Sometimes He sends us affliction so that we learn to be comforted to pass through the affliction and then we become even more useful instruments in His hands to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 2:3-6 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer."

What a difference it would've made if the disciples had exercised faith that night. Imagine if they got a take two. Jesus, let's do this again. We are terrible at that first pop quiz. This is awful, but imagine if the next storm, all of a sudden, Jesus is in the cushion. They were like, "Jesus, we know what you're doing." All the storm comes, it's filling up. I'd be standing right next to Peter. Peter would be the wild man. Just be fishing off the boat, just enjoying it, just maniacal smile, laughter. All of a sudden, the suffering, the storm turns into an adventure. No matter what, I'm in the hands of God. No matter what, until Jesus says we are invincible, we are immortal until our job is done. Imagine being brought to the brink of death but preserved. That would've been the gift of a deepened faith.

Point three is a great fear. In verse 41, it says, "They were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" They were filled with the great fear. That's the same idiom that's used in the Jonah's story when the sailors saw the power of God. Here Jesus' great authority leaves them in awe. The word for fear here is different than the previous word for afraid. The word for fear here is phobos, which is the proper response to a manifestation of the divine. They see that God is with them. Whereas the other word, deilos was cowardly. It was reprehensible because they didn't trust in the Lord. The disciples respond to Jesus' question about their cowardice with another question, "Who is this with us in the boat?"

Well, who is this? This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God, the one that Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18. He said, "A greater prophet is coming after me. Obey him." The idea here has been magnified. Magnified because obedience is rendered to Jesus, not just by people, but even by creation itself. Even the wind, even the sea, they obey Him and leaving the disciples stunned. If the storms obey Him, if the sea obeys Him, if the wind obeys Him, then who are we to disobey Him? That's the sentiment here. Who are we to defy Him? This is the fear that they're experiencing. He is creator. We are creation and they stand in fear and on reverence of Christ. Do you stand in a right relationship with your creator? That right relationship must include a healthy respect for God.

You can fear God without loving Him. That's what the demons do. They fear God. They know God but they don't love God. But you can't love God without fearing Him. To truly love Him is to truly know who He is and to truly know who He is to fear Him. What is the fear of the Lord? It's not just pure dread, it's not just shrinking back from Him in terror. You can obey God because you're terrified of him or terrified of the consequence. But if that's the only reason why you obey, then you don't really know God either because God is a loving God. He is God the Father. We are to fear God in the sense that we are to fear offending Him, displeasing or grieving Him. Therefore, our relationship must not be glib or flippant. We are to fear His rebuke more than just respect or reverence.

The word does use the word fear. In Exodus chapter 20, Moses comes down from the mountain given the 10 commandments of God. The people see this. They see that God has been with Moses. Moses has been with God, and they say, "Moses, don't have God speak to us. You speak to us." They're in trepidation. Then this is what Moses says in Exodus 20, "Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." Do not fear but fear. What is he saying? He's saying, "Do not fear approaching God for mercy. Do not fear looking at the 10 commandments and realizing that you have transgressed the commandments." What are we to do? We deserve the infinite eternal condemnation of God upon ourselves for rebelling, for insubordination.

Here Moses says, "Do not fear coming to God for mercy." This is what Christ says. Do not fear coming to the cross asking God for forgiveness. But once you do receive Jesus Christ as savior, recognize that He's also your Lord. As you approach this God, we are to fear kindling His wrath against sin. We are to fear His rebuke. Psalm 25:14 says, "The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him and he makes known to them his covenant." It's incredible that the Lord would offer His friendship, but this is what the Lord's saying. He's like, "I would rather just be friends." This is why I tell my kids. I got four daughters. I hate the rebuking. I hate the discipline part. I hate that. I hate that. Can't you just do what I say first time?

What I want to say is can't you just know what I want you to do? Can you just read my mind? Haven't we been together long enough and then we can just be friends? We can just hang out. This is what God is saying. He's like, "Do I want to stand over you and tell you what to do?" I want the word to be planted in you so that you don't just learn these truths, but you embody the truths and then your relationship with the Lord is a relationship of friendship. Martin Luther made a distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile comes from Latin servus, which means slave, and fillus means son. He says, "Sometimes people have the servile fear of God where they're just slaves and they never understand the relationship with God as children."

Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. Hebrews 10:31 says, "It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." It is, and this is why we need Christ. So we don't fall into the hands of God's wrath. But also, once we are forgiven, it's like we are in the hands of God the Father and still a very fearful thing to be held lovingly by these same hands. Psalm 130:1-4, "Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared."

That last verse is fascinating. With you is forgiveness that you may be feared. Why include fear with forgiveness? Well, because you begin to understand what it took for forgiveness to be procured. It took the cross of Jesus Christ. The bloody cross was the terrible price for our sin, for our disobedience. We have broken God's commandments. We deserve His eternal wrath. Yet God sends Jesus Christ to the cross, Jesus Christ, fully obedient who did the will of God from the heart perfectly. This same Jesus goes to cross to pay the penalty for our lawbreaking. On the cross, what does Jesus say? He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I'm perishing. God the Father, why are you allowing me to perish?"

God the Father allows the son to perish so that we do not. What do the disciples say? We're perishing. Do you not care? What does Jesus say with His life? How long until you truly believe that I have come so you do not perish. I have come to perish so that you'll be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, so that whosoever believes in Him, in Jesus would not perish but have eternal life. The good shepherd is the one that lays down His life for His sheep. Friends, hell is real. It's reality. The lake of fire is real and the condemnation is for eternity. The suffering is for eternity. Jesus Christ came to save us from the ultimate storm of God's judgment, which is hell. The cross of Jesus Christ is as close of a glimpse of hell that true believers will ever get.

That's hell, God the Son experiencing it. Why? So that we would never have to. All we have to do is turn to Him, turn from sin, repent and believe. What is the storm? The storm is an expression of the curse. The curse was pronounced upon all creation when the first Adam sinned and fell. The ground was cursed and the fabric of creation was disordered and chaotic and became dangerous. Then Jesus is second Adam, the God man came to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found. He did what the first Adam did not do. Jesus kept covenant with God perfectly. He obeyed. He bled and He died and the curse fell on him. It was etched into Him and the storm of divine wrath engulfed Him and there was no peace for Him.

Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" The disciples were afraid that they would perish that night. They didn't understand that Jesus came to give them life and life eternal. He would perish that they might live and that's why He came to give us life at the cost of His own. The final question is, who really got woken up in the story? Who really got awakened? We see the disciples trying to wake Jesus up. They wake Jesus up. At the end, it's the disciples that got awakened. They're like, "Who is this? We're in the presence of God Himself." They fear Him with a good godly fear. If you fear God, there's nothing else to fear.

If God is number one in your hierarchy of fears, there's nothing else to fear. There's no one else to fear. This is how we fight lesser fear, secondary fears. We fight them with the greatest fear, fear of God that displaces all the others. Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is the Jesus that we worship. This is the Jesus that we follow. He didn't have to save our souls, but He did. He's a good God. If you're not sure where you stand before God today, if you're not sure if you die today where you'll spend eternity, today in your heart of hearts, cry out to Jesus Christ, "Lord Jesus, do you not care?"

He will respond, "Of course, I care. Look at the cross. Look at my death, my burial and my resurrection and my ascension." The moment you repent, the moment you believe, you are saved and you are given eternal life. One of our favorite hymns that we sing at Mosaic is Amazing Grace. We sing in particular when people get baptized. If you've not been baptized a believer, let us know. We can't wait to baptize you and then sing the song. In the song, it goes like this. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. How precious did the grace appear the hour I first believed?

I'll close with Psalm 42:7-11 before we transition to holy communion. "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning, because of the oppression of the enemy?' As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God? Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.'"

Well, we celebrate holy communion at Mosaic every first Sunday of the month. We celebrate holy communion as it was commanded to us by our Lord and Savior that we are to do this in remembrance of him. For whom is holy communion? It is only for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a follower of Christ, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. Instead, meditate on what you've heard. Or if you today repent of your sins and you become a Christian, you're welcome to partake. Then if you are a believer living in known unrepentant sin, please refrain from this part of the service. Instead, take time to repent and pray.

If you haven't received the elements and would like to, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring them to you. Would you please pray with me over holy communion? Lord Jesus, we thank you that you gave us this ordinance to remember your suffering, bread that you said is to remind us of your broken body. Your body was truly broken. You suffered on that cross and the cup was given to us to remind us of your blood, the blood of the Holy Lamb of God that was shed for us in order to make atonement for our sins, provide a way for salvation. Jesus, bless our time in holy communion now. We take this moment to repent of sin. We repent of pride. We repent of selfishness. We repent of our own desire to be our own gods, to define good and evil as we deem.

We repent of transgressing your commandments. We repent of not loving you with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and not loving our neighbor itself. Lord, we pray that you give us grace and mercy and pray that you forgive us and also give us grace to empower us, to fear you above all else, and to not be cowardly, to truly grow in our courage in particular when we testify to the world of your name. Bless our time in the holy communion. Now we pray this in Christ's name, amen. 1 Corinthians 11:23 says, "For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'

In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."

If this is your first time partaking communion with us, there's two lids, one at the top to open the cup and then one at the bottom to get the bread. On the night that Christ was betrayed, He took the bread and after breaking it, He said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." He then proceeded to take the cup and He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time of spiritual nourishment from the richness of your holy scriptures.

Lord, we pray that these lessons that we learned don't just stay in our minds, but we pray that they set roots into our hearts and that we become a people who are not just hearers of the word but doers of the word, because we embody the word. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you God incarnate, you showed us what it means to truly live a life of obedience to you and service to people, love to you and love toward people. Lord, we do fear you and we pray that you deepen our fear of you.

As we grow and fear of you, I pray, Lord, that we become more effective servants for you, courageously proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to all who would hear. Give us opportunities even this week to go and to share the good news, to share the fact that anyone who repents of sin and turns to Christ is forgiven, is given eternal life, and is welcome into an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will stand the test of time and no storms will shake. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen.