Have You Still No Faith?

All right, if you would, open your Bibles to Mark chapter 4. We'll be in Mark chapter 4 today.
It's the second book of the New Testament. It's the second of the four gospel accounts that we find
in the Bible. So if you would stand, we're going to stand and read God's Word together this
morning. Before we do, let me pray and ask for the Spirit's help to illuminate this text to us.
Heavenly Father, we confess that we are a needy people. Father, we need your word to feed us and to
sustain us. Father, we can't understand your word unless the Spirit reveals deep truths to us from
it. So, Father, we ask that your Spirit would illuminate this text to us this morning. Father, we
thank you for revealing yourself to us through your word and for preserving your word through the
ages that we can know it is trustworthy and true. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right,
we'll be in Mark chapter 4, starting in verse 35 through... Verse 41,
this is the word of the Lord. 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 they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we
are perishing? 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.
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,
Obey him. May God add his blessing to this reading of his word. You can be seated.
Bob and I talked a couple weeks ago about what passage I would be preaching on this morning.
He gave me free reign, free pick of that. So I had two suggestions that I gave to him.
He said either would be fine. So I won't tell you what the other passage was because by definition
that would be another sermon. We'll save that for another time. But no, I quickly settled on this
passage for Mark chapter 4. This is a passage I had read just in my personal quiet time earlier
this year, and it was a great comfort to my own soul. Now, I will reveal something about myself to
you. I'm sure I'm the only one out there, but I can be prone to bouts of anxiety.
So I know no one can relate to that. It varies across different seasons of my life.
It can be things from being anxious about how we as an elder board are going to work through.
issue X that's facing us. Or might be being anxious about what my co-workers would think about me
if I don't get my tasks accomplished in exactly the right way. Or it could even be being anxious
about if our deck can sustain the weight of the inflatable pool that we put on it. So that may seem
trivial, and it is trivial. Laura can attest to that. Laura's my wife. She can attest to that. It
produced a lot of great anxiety in me and really revealed ways that I was trusting in my own
strength and power and not in the Lord's power. But when I read this passage earlier this year,
it was a great comfort to the specific anxieties I was facing at that time. This is a familiar
story to us. It's kind of one of those classic Sunday school stories of Jesus calming the storm.
Just reading it afresh this year, the Holy Spirit really gave me illumination to see it and to
apply it to my own life, to meditate on it in new ways. And I hope that you can see that in new
ways as we study it together today. Anxiety is something that I have to fight daily,
and it's a sin that I have to put to death constantly. Passages like this one from Mark chapter 4
really help in the fight against anxiety. For me, meditating on this passage and seeing that it was
Jesus that led his disciples purposely into the storm, and then he's the one that calms the storms
for them. And then to apply that to my own soul, to know that Jesus can calm the storm and deliver
me from the storms I'm facing, was of great comfort for me. And so while that's true,
that this passage does show us those things, that we can rest in Jesus' care and trust his power.
over us, that's not the primary point of this passage. It's a true application of this passage,
and we will get there and we'll spend some time dissecting that this morning, but that's not what
is of primary importance. This passage is true, and that application is only true because of what
this passage reveals to us about who Jesus is. And so before we can understand how it applies to
us, we have to understand what's true about Jesus. You know, we can be so familiar with stories
like this because we've read the Bible, we've studied them in Sunday school, that we can kind of
miss what's actually being said in the story. So I want you to flip back to Mark chapter 1 at the
beginning of this gospel. And actually right before chapter 1,
if you look up at the top of your Bible, I don't know about the copy that you have in your hand or
on your phone, but at mine it says, The Gospel According to Mark. Now,
I think we're used to just talking about Matthew's gospel or John's gospel. But really,
they are the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John's accounts of the gospel. And so, let's read verse 1 of Mark chapter 1.
It says,
So again, we see a distinction there, the gospel according to Mark, but as Mark says, this is the
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel, the good news about Jesus,
about who Jesus is and about what Jesus has accomplished. But look at how Mark ends that sentence.
It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
we can be so familiar with the gospel story that we just kind of pass over that statement, the Son
of God. And that is a radical claim that Mark is making at the beginning of his gospel account.
You know, we just know and assume that Jesus is the Son of God if we have been believers for any
amount of time. But that claim ultimately got Jesus killed. that he claimed to be the Son of God,
and that the rulers, the Pharisees, didn't like that, and they ultimately put him to death on the
cross for that. For the original readers of this gospel account, it was of primary importance for
them to know that Jesus was the Son of God. J.C. Ryle, the 19th century Anglican bishop,
said, These words, the Son of God, conveyed far more to Jewish minds than they do to ours.
They were nothing less than the assertion of our Lord's divinity. They were a declaration that
Jesus was himself truly God and equal with God. Mark makes this claim at the beginning of his
gospel account, and he will spend the whole rest of his narrative supporting this claim,
and we ultimately see this summed up at the end by the centurion at the cross in Mark.
15, he said, truly this man was the son of God. It's easy for us,
I think, to believe. just assume that Jesus is the Son of God because we benefit from the completed
and closed revelation of Scripture. We get to see the whole story. We get to see the whole story of
Jesus' life. But for his disciples, they were just getting this progressively revealed to him as
they were walking alongside him daily in ministry with him. And so this episode,
this story in Mark chapter 4, is an acute moment for them to understand and have revealed to them
who Jesus was and who he claimed to be. That the one who calmed the wind and the sea is the Son of
God. And as we understand that Jesus is the Son of God, we come to understand that we can trust...
God's care alongside us and his power to deliver us in whatever circumstances he leads us.
Let me say that again. Because Jesus is the Son of God, we can trust his care alongside us and his
power to deliver us in whatever circumstances he leads us. So we'll unpack why that's true as we
study this passage today. So let's flip back over to Mark chapter 4. As we follow through the
passage, you might have picked up as we read through it earlier that this passage revolves around a
series of questions back and forth between the disciples and Jesus. And that's how we'll make our
way through the passage this morning. The first question raised by the disciples was, do you not
care? To which then Jesus responds and answers, have you no faith?
And then the disciples respond to themselves, who then is this?
So let's look at why the disciples asked that first question in verse 38. Teacher, do you not care
that we are perishing? So how did they get here? How did they get to asking this question?
Well, first off, they're in a boat. Jesus has actually been in this boat for most of the day.
At the beginning of chapter 4, Jesus begins to teach beside the sea, as he was prone to do. And
Jesus stood in the boat. He asked for there to be a boat, and he got in the boat. kind of serve as
a platform for him to stand on, to be elevated, to speak to the people. He's been speaking to them
in parables, and at the end of the day, he calls the disciples to him and says, come on, let's go
to the other side. And so the disciples get in the boat. There's other boats with them,
presumably other followers that have been with Jesus, and so they're going out across the sea. Now,
if you're like me, you might have wondered, what did this boat look like? So there was actually an
archaeological discovery near the Sea of Galilee. So that's, I didn't say that, that's the sea
where the story takes place, the Sea of Galilee. There was an archaeological discovery that found a
boat that's dated back to around the time of Jesus. And so we've got a picture of this boat.
Now let me say, this is... We're not assuming that the boat they found was Jesus' boat. It was just
from around that time, so let me be clear about that. But based off of the boat that they found,
this is what they think it would have looked like. It's about 7 1⁄2 feet wide, about 26 1⁄2 feet
long, and about 4 1⁄2 feet deep. It could fit about 15 people in the boat,
and so Jesus and the disciples could have, I don't know if comfortably fit, but they could have all
fit in the boat together as they would make their way across the sea. So it's not a large boat,
but it could have fit them. So again, they're on the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is about
eight miles wide and about 13 miles long. It's about 700 feet below sea level.
And so one of the things I read that just said, because of that topography, it could be prone to
sudden wind storms and strong waves. And so it would make sense for a storm to come about based off
of the, like we see in this passage, based off of just the topography there.
So the disciples are in this small boat. They're on the sea. They get caught in this storm.
Massive waves. It's dark. The stars are likely covered because of the clouds.
They've got no GPS to tell them where they are or where they're headed. They've got no radio to be
able to communicate with the other boats in their fleet. You know, their immediate concern is to
get water out of the boat. They said it was already filling because of the waves. They don't want
to sink. And what's Jesus doing?
He's asleep. That's right, Matt. He's asleep. He's asleep on a cushion, in a boat,
in a storm, getting pelted by rain, amongst 12 other guys that are trying to get water out of the
boat. Jesus is asleep. And so they cry. Do you not care that we're perishing?
Now, don't forget how they got here. They didn't stumble off into this storm.
They didn't... off track, and choose their own path. They were obedient to Jesus' command to go out
into the ocean. Jesus purposely led them into the storm, and they were obedient to his command.
They followed him, and they still ended up in the storm.
Jesus knew what he was doing. He had a purpose in mind for them, that he wanted to show them
something in the storm. But can you ever relate to that? Does your life ever feel like that?
Are you faithful? to God's word, that you're being obedient to his commands, that you're choosing
to live your life in the way that Jesus would have you live rather than the way that the world
would have you live. And it seems like the hits just keep coming.
We feel wave after wave fill our boats. For us,
it was like having premature twins and then having two more kids that had severe food allergies.
It's like having, not on that same scale, but it's like having a really busy week at work that's
filled with deadlines, and that's all you can focus on, and then the air conditioner goes out, and
you've got to call somebody to come take care of the air conditioner. Or even last night as I was
finishing up the sermon, I'm wrapping it up, getting ready to go to bed, and our two-year-old
starts crying. It's like, okay, are we ready for another late night filled with a kid that doesn't
sleep? You know, these circumstances, however big or small, can weigh us down.
They can drive us to feeling isolated and alone. We can start to feel like we've been left or
forgotten. You know, it's okay to be honest with those feelings.
We don't have to hide those. We have a Heavenly Father who wants us to cry out,
and he wants to hear our concerns. And Bob talked last week. about different types of love that God
has for us, and one of the things he talked about was God's incarnational love. It's love that came
down, love that came near, love that came near in the person of Jesus, one who could sail in a boat
and fall asleep on a cushion. I said at the outset that we see here that Jesus is the Son of God,
which points to his divinity, but we also see from this passage Jesus' full humanity,
that he was both fully God and fully man in the same person. He's asleep.
Psalm 121 tells us that God never slumbers or sleeps, and so for Jesus to be asleep,
we get to see his full humanity here. In the person of Jesus,
we have a God who came near to us so that we can draw near to him.
We can cry out like the disciples, do you not care that we're perishing? That might seem like harsh
language for us to use towards God, but the book of Psalms... is full of language like this.
The Psalms can help us put to words feelings that we have that we don't know if we have permission
to say to God. They give us permission to use these words of crying out towards God.
I've got some examples I'll pull up. I won't have the full text of the Psalm, but just some
selected passages we'll share. But I'll read some extended sections of the Psalm. Psalm 69.
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire where there is no
foothold. I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out.
My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. What about Psalm 88?
O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you.
Incline your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am a man who has no strength.
Like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you
remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me. You overwhelm me with all your waves.
The psalmist goes on to say, but I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning. My prayer comes before you.
That's striking language. I'm not prone to feel like I can use those words towards God.
And Psalm 88 is an interesting psalm. It doesn't have the normal turn at the end that we expect
from psalms of lament where there's this crying out and there's a turn towards reminding our soul
of who God is. Psalm 88 doesn't have that turn. It is... of anguish. Now, the psalmist still here
understands that it's the Lord who brings about these circumstances on him. So it still knows who
God is, but it is honest about the feelings that the psalmist faces. And lastly,
let's look at Psalm 22.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my
groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer.
And by night, but I find no rest. This is likely a familiar psalm to us because we're familiar with
Jesus quoting the words of this psalm on the cross. His anguish, my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?
Jesus is the perfect example of someone who was obedient to God's command and suffered because of
it. He followed God's will. and was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
So, when we are burdened by the trials, and we are anguished by the circumstances we face,
cry out to God. When we feel His crashing waves, use these psalms to cry out to God.
Cast your burdens onto Jesus, because He cares for you. We are not left alone.
We have a God who walks beside us, and sometimes, he will take his children into storms and
sufferings. So the question is, will we have faith when we are pelted by the winds and the waves?
James tells us in chapter one of his book, count it all joy, my brothers,
when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces
steadfastness.
Jesus purposely... the disciples into the storm so that he could reveal himself to them,
so that he could show his care for them and his power towards them. And today,
God still does the same thing for us. It's not by accident that we face trials and tribulations.
God will bring trials to us so that we can more fully know his love for us.
In our study of Ephesians 3, Last week, Bob told us, now I think I've got a quote slide for Bob,
so I think Bob would be proud of this.
God told us, in the crucible of adversity, we experience the depth and the length and the height of
God's love for us. So I thought it was a great quote that needed a slide.
Let me tell you, in the crucible of adversity, we experience the depth and the length and the
height of God's love for us.
God reveals unique things to us in sufferings that we wouldn't get if we didn't face those.
I'm reminded of a quote from Rick Howe. I'm just thinking of it now, so I don't have a slide for
him. Rick Howe is one of our elders. He likes to say, you know, suffering is a journey that we
wouldn't pick, but suffering is a journey that we wouldn't want to miss. And it's because of the
way the Lord works through us in suffering. You know, as we pray during our sufferings,
along with praying for the Lord to care for us and bring us out of suffering? Can I challenge us to
pray that the Lord would show us more of himself while we are in the midst of suffering?
Can we pray, Lord, please provide a job while I don't have a job,
but while I wait, help me to see the many other provisions that you give to me on a daily basis.
We pray, Father, I feel alone and friendless when I'm at work. because I have co-workers who are
not believers. Father, help me to know more and love the body of Christ more and cling to Jesus who
is a friend to sinners.
We pray, God, I'm tired of holding this baby who's been awake for two straight hours.
Father, help me to be thankful that I have a baby in the first place. Thank you for the blessing of
children. What if we prayed for the Lord to grow our faith in the midst? of circumstances and
trials. We may be afraid to pray that prayer because that might mean that God leaves us in trials
longer than we want to face. But God is faithful to his word, as we saw from James,
that through trials he will produce steadfastness in us in the midst of trials.
In the middle of the storms, trust him. Rest in him. He purposely leads us into the storms.
Jesus tells us that he will never leave us or forsake us. Remember that you have a Savior who leads
you and cares for you as he walks beside you in the midst of trials. So don't lose faith.
Plead to him in your trials. He does care for you. So let's look at our second question.
How does Jesus respond to their question? In verse 39,
he says, 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.
And do you see what happened here? Jesus spoke, and the wind ceased.
Jesus spoke, and the wind obeyed.
Jesus spoke into the midst of turmoil, and there was a great calm.
I don't know if we think about the awesome power that's displayed here. At least we don't think
about it very often. A man spoke and the wind, the forces of nature,
obeyed. One instance there was chaos and the next instance calm.
Laura and I have four kids at our house. There's a lot of chaos at our house. And it would be very
nice to be able to speak into the house and say, peace, be still.
And all of the pretend family and the superheroes and the fighting would stop.
That would be really nice. But we know that that's not going to happen. But here Jesus spoke,
and
the sea and the wind stopped. It listened. You know, this story,
this display of power is nothing short of a claim and a display of Jesus' divinity.
It's a display of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. You know, he is...
things that God alone can do. Let's look at Psalm 107. I've got the slides that we can pull up.
In this psalm, we see a description of a group of Israelites who have caught in a storm on a sea.
And look at what it says here, starting in verse 23. 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 wit's 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 were quiet.
Sounds familiar, right? Storms, crying out, God speaking and calming the storm.
You know, Jesus, again, is displaying the same command over nature that God the Father displays.
And even Psalm 104 is another example of the same rebuking language that Mark uses when he
describes Jesus rebuking the storm. So in Psalm 104, 6 and 7, you covered it,
and that's the earth. You covered the earth with the deep as with a garment. The water stood above
the mountains. At your rebuke, they fled. At the sound of your thunder, they took to flight.
In Genesis chapter 1, God spoke and created the world out of nothing.
Let there be light. God spoke and divided the heavens and the earth.
God spoke and separated the waters and the land. And we see here in Mark chapter 4,
Jesus doing the same thing, speaking to the water and the storms. and them obeying and following
his command just like God the Father. Again, Jesus is showing his disciples who he really is.
They've seen some glimpses of who Jesus is along the way. In chapter 1 of Mark,
Peter, Andrew, James, and John get to see Jesus rebuke an unclean spirit. They then,
as they progress towards chapter 4, they see Jesus heal different diseases, and they see him heal
and cleanse lepers. Even in chapter 4, Jesus makes a claim towards divinity when he's brought a
paralytic to him, and he forgives the man's sin, which was not what they expected.
They wanted healing for his paralysis. But to show that Jesus had the power to forgive sins,
which is something that only God can do, God commanded the man to walk, and he stood up and walked.
Jesus has been progressively showing himself who he is to these disciples. And so how does he
respond to them when he shows them this display of power? Why are you so afraid?
Have you still no faith? He's saying, you've seen who I am. Why were you afraid?
Why were you so faithless? Did you not trust me like the disciples?
we can easily replace our fear of the Lord with fear of the circumstances in which He's placed us.
We can be more afraid of displeasing our co-workers than we are for being faithful to who God is
and where He has placed us. We can be more afraid... of the deck collapsing because of the pool
that's on it, than trusting the Lord and being faithful to His commandment. You know,
fear of the Lord is not being afraid of Him, but it's a proper reverence and obedience towards the
Lord. When we're facing the waves and the storm, we can easily forget the Lord's path of
faithfulness. We are forgetful people, and we are immediate people.
We can have tunnel vision just based on the immediate circumstances that we're facing. Again,
we turn to the Psalms to help us not be forgetful people. Psalm 136 is a wonderful retelling of the
Lord's past faithfulness to Israel. I don't have it on the slides, but I'm just going to read
through parts of Psalm 136 and just listen to the way that the psalmist and that the nation of
Israel would remember the Lord's faithfulness to them. The title of the psalm is,
His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. for his steadfast love
endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever. It then goes on to a
section to recall what the Lord did in creation. And after each stanza, it calls out,
for his steadfast love endures forever. I'll read just some of the things it says. I won't read his
steadfast love endures forever each time, but these are the things that they recall of what God
did. To him who alone does great wonders.
To him who by understanding made the heavens. To him who spread the earth above the waters.
To him who made the great lights. The sun to rule over the day and the moon and stars to rule over
the night. For his steadfast love endures forever. Then they moved to remember past faithfulness to
Israel specifically in the face of their enemies. To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt.
And brought Israel out from among them. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm. To him who
divided the Red Sea in two. And made Israel pass through the midst of it. But overthrew Pharaoh and
his host in the Red Sea. To him who led his people through the wilderness. For his steadfast love
endures forever. And then it ends with remembering specific provisions the Lord provided for them.
That he struck down kings. And he named specific kings he struck down. And that by doing that,
he gave them their land as a heritage, a heritage to his servant Israel. That he who gives food to
all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever. And ends, give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
Now think about yourself.
If you're thinking about what would your personal Psalm 136 be?
of besetting sin and struggle with pornography, for his steadfast love endures forever.
It's protection in a rollover car wreck with no injuries, for his steadfast love endures forever.
It's children from a womb that was once barren, now with four kids.
a fifth on the way. For his steadfast love endures forever. You know,
think about it. What would your Psalm 136 be? If I think about just for our church, what it would
look like. It's healing from cancer when we didn't think that there was a way there could be.
It's provision from a job when there was a sudden loss of that. I can think about multiple
instances where the Lord provided jobs. You know, it's restoration after significant moral failing.
Even our debt paid down earlier this year that the Lord provided over $600,000 to pay the debt on
this building. And we didn't think we could do that. For the steadfast love, for his steadfast love
endures forever.
Now don't just think about it. It might be helpful to write these things down. Have a note on your
phone that you can pull up when you're anxious about the trials. That you can remember the way that
the Lord has been faithful. If you're analog like me. It's a post-it note that you can put on your
mirror, on your monitor at work, that you can quickly glance down and remember how the Lord has
been with you and has been faithful in times past. If you're one who journals, which I'm not,
but Gwendolyn and Jade, you guys just got a journal, you might be able to write down the things,
the way the Lord has been faithful, and look back to your journal from a year ago,
two years ago, five years ago. See the things that you were praying about and see how the Lord has
answered that. And remember in current circumstances how he has been faithful to be with you and to
provide for you in the past. For steadfast love endures forever.
The Lord is faithful, especially in our storms. Will we still have faith?
We move now to the last question that's presented in this chapter.
verse 41 about the disciples, 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?
They were filled with great fear. Matthew and Luke's accounts of this passage say that the
disciples marveled. The Greek word here for fear comes from the word phobos,
or it's the word phobos, which is where we get our word phobia. So you can think about that, and it
conveys a sense of fearful awe.
They were faced with great winds, and then suddenly great calm, and now great fear.
Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?
The disciples are starting to consider who's actually in the boat with them, and they're fearful.
I read someone this week, and I thought this was a great, great quote. First, they, the disciples,
were afraid of the sudden wind, and now they are afraid because suddenly there was no wind.
They are starting to see who Jesus truly is, and they're starting to understand that. You know,
they've seen in this encounter both his humanity and his divinity. They've seen him tired and
sleeping on a cushion, and now they see him speak to the wind, and the wind listen and obey to him.
And they've also seen his love and his power displayed here. His love and listening to their
concern, do you not care? And he acts towards that, and then his power as he acts in calming the
storm. Ultimately, they have seen Jesus for who he is, the Son of God.
Jesus is not the Son of God. then he's not able to calm the storm that they faced.
And he's not able to calm the figurative storms that we face. If he's not the Son of God,
then this story is not true. And Jesus cannot be trusted. If he is not the Son of God,
then ultimately we have no hope for salvation. Jesus can only be the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world if he is the Son of God. If he is not the Son of God,
then our sins are not paid for. Our sins are only paid for because the Son of God died on the cross
for our sins.
But if Jesus is the Son of God, if he is who he claims to be, then those claims demand a response.
It's not just some trivia fact that we file away and can recall at various points of time.
So let me ask each of you today, have you considered who Jesus is?
Have you really considered who he is and who he claims to be as he claims to be in this passage?
Have you responded to the claims that Jesus is the Son of God, who put on human flesh,
who came as a baby, who walked a perfect, sinless life in obedience to God's law,
who died on the cross on behalf of sinners, who was buried, who was raised on the third day,
and then ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God? Is that something that you
have personally taken hold of, that you have believed in, that you have committed your life to?
If that's not true of you, if you haven't done that, I would implore you today to repent and turn
to Christ. Consider who he is. As the old spiritual says, come ye sinners,
poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, love, and power. Consider Christ.
Turn to Him and be reconciled to God through Christ.
If you have turned to Christ, though, have you still no faith?
If you are feeling faithless or feel like your faith is not strong, consider Christ.
Consider Him anew today. See Him as the Son of God. Rest in His power and His love.
Don't be burdened by the winds and the waves. Regularly meditate.
on the person of Christ. Reading through the gospel accounts helps us see his miracles and his care
for people, and that helps us understand his love and his power for us in the circumstances we
face. Reading the story of the crucifixion shows us his love and his care for sinners,
that he would die in their place, and so that is of great comfort to us when we are in storms.
Reflecting on Jesus' triumphal return at the end of the age, gives us hope in a broken and sin
-filled world that He is in control and one day all will be made new.
So consider Christ. Consider who He is. Consider that He is the Son of God.
And because Jesus is the Son of God, we can trust His power to care for us and His power to deliver
us in whatever circumstances He faces us. We don't have to be like the disciples.
We can have faith in the midst of the storm. Like the Harpers face the trial and the loss of an
unborn baby. We can have faith. We can stand firm in our faith. We can mourn and be sad.
But we can not be shaken like Mason and Whitney are not shaken. That they remain strong in their
faith. Like Jim Brown last year. facing cancer we can We can be heartbroken by the toll that that
takes on our body, but we cannot be shaken knowing that God holds us and will be faithful to carry
us through to the end. And even we can pray like Jim did for healing and God provided healing to
him. God may not always provide the physical outcome that we desire,
but we can have faith. And not be shaken. And pray that he does. No matter the outcome.
Because we know that God will carry us to the end. Because Christ died on the cross for our sins.
We see that proven at the cross. And we can trust him to carry us faithfully to the end.
We don't have to be like the disciples. So if it's asked of us, have you still no faith? Let it be
said of us. They remain faithful. They trust in the Lord.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, how awesome it is to see your power displayed in your Son,
Jesus. What loving care he brings us in the midst of trials.
We pray that you would reveal yourself to us in new and deeper ways through the sufferings and
trials that we face.
May the deliverance we receive from trials bring you much glory and honor.
as we see your power displayed in our lives. Father,
we thank you for your faithfulness to us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.