"The Storm Is Not The Problem" - Mark 4:35-41

We've already gotten past my favorite part of the service this morning.

I know I say it all the time, but we love being a singing church.

I think in a lot of ways, there's two sermons preached every time we come in here.

One, for better or worse, is by me usually, but one that always amazes is the

words that we sing together, that we preach to one another as we sing out loud

to one another in the room,

proclaiming together things like in Christ alone, how great is the greatness of our God.

Those things that we do together corporately, I think in many ways matter even

more than some of the things that I'm doing right now.

But I would say partly because if I asked you, again, what I preached on two

months ago, most of you probably couldn't tell me what that was.

Now, some of you take notes and I appreciate that, mainly because I realize

I'm not the easiest person to take notes with.

Very rarely do I throw you a bone. I'm like, hey guys, three points this morning. One, two, three.

It's usually like, here's point one and nine subplots that you can try your

best to follow if you like.

I remember one of y'all early on asked me like, hey, can I have your notes?

I'm like, that's pointless. That is going to make no sense to you.

It's like highlighted in pink. And you're like, that must mean something.

And it probably just means don't forget that. That's all that really meant.

But again, I just want to take every chance I get to remind you what a blessing that is.

If nothing else to me, before I get up here to speak, it's wonderful to hear you sing.

I love doing that. So again, Mark 4, Jesus calming the storm is a story you've

probably heard a bunch of times.

And by and large, the takeaway is often, hey, we all have storms in our life

and Jesus can calm the storms in your life. Let's pray and get out of here.

And I think much like last week where we talked about the parable of the mustard

seed, and I don't mean this to

be rude or act like I've got some hidden knowledge or anything like that.

I just mean to say, I tell you, I tell you, I tell you, I tell you,

I tell you, I tell think if that's your ultimate takeaway from this story,

you completely missed the point. You completely missed the point.

I think Jesus calming your storms is an application.

I think it's a way to take something from this and go, okay,

that's something that could happen, but I don't think it's the point of the story.

I don't think it's the reason that Mark gives us this.

This is one of the stories in Mark where he actually gives us more details than other people do.

I think partly because as we've talked about a few times, Mark is really walking around with Peter.

And for all intents and purposes, this is a lot of Peter's gospel that Mark's writing down for him.

And Peter is obviously in the boat when this happens, right?

He's giving him a firsthand account of, man, what it was like to be in this

life or death situation.

And I think all of us have been in a situation like this.

I can remember, I always forget which place we were going. Kareth will correct

me. But we were flying down to Panama.

Yes, Panama. I nailed it on a mission trip.

And most of us had flown before, but we're on like Air Mexico or something.

I don't know. I don't know what it was. Is Air Mexico a thing?

It was. This is why it was. So we were on Air Mexico and most of us had flown before.

And we get the call like, hey, we're going to hit some turbulence. It's like, no big deal.

But it wasn't just a little turbulence. Like it genuinely was pretty violent.

Kara's sister forgot to put on her seatbelt, her fault. And she got dumped out

of her seat into the aisle. So it was intense.

But there was one girl on this trip with us who had never flown before.

And she's losing her mind. I mean, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Sorry, youth pastor's name was Kyle. And they're going, Pastor Kyle, Pastor Kyle.

And of course I'm dying laughing now. Like all the fear has left me.

And I'm like, if we're going out, this is a good way to go. Like,

this will be a fun story on the way down.

She's screaming and like she's grabbing Kyle's wife's hand so hard that like it's turned in blue.

But I thought what was interesting is all of us who had flown before started lying.

We all started lying to a T. We're looking at this little girl.

I'm not going to say her name for just in case you might know her and put this together.

But we look at this little girl like, hey, this is completely normal.

This is no big deal. This is every flight, you know? And then we would walk

away and be like, we're dying.

We're all dying. Like it's not, you know, but we're in these moments where like,

we're, we're genuinely trying to figure out, like, I don't know,

there's nothing you can do.

There's nothing you can do. You're however many thousand feet in the air.

If it goes down, it goes down.

Right. And so you have a couple of different reactions. You know,

you can yell pastor Kyle as if our youth pastor is going to turn into some sort

of paratrooper that might save your life in this situation and God love him.

He's the last person you would want to depend on to save you in a situation like that.

Or you can just accept your fate. You've seen people like that that's just like,

hey, man, I'm ready to go all the time. No problem here.

And of course, all of us teenage boys were acting like we're not scared at all.

It's terrible. Who cares? No big deal. I love getting in plane crashes.

It's one of my favorite things to do. I just do it for fun on the weekends.

And there's all the different emotions in between.

And much the same here in this story, the disciples are going to be asked to

go out in this boat that they've gotten very familiar with.

That's probably somewhere between 25 or 30 feet long. It's not a really small

boat. It's not a really big boat, but these are all guys that are used to being on the water.

And they know that when this storm comes up, as they're in the middle of this

body of water, like us in the plane, there ain't nothing they can do.

There's nothing you can do when that happens, right? You are at the mercy of the waves.

There's no motors for them to say, there's nothing for them to do. They have no life rafts.

Like if this thing goes down, they're dead. They're dead, right?

So let me, as we've set this story up, let me just read.

I'm going to start in verse 33. I think it's important. So Mark 4,

33, we're going to read all the way through 41.

So he says, with many such parables, he, that's Jesus, spoke the word to them

as they were able to hear it.

He did not speak to them without parable, but privately to his own disciples,

he explained everything. Now, again, that's important.

It's important because the people that we're going to see in this storm are

those people, the private group, right?

That Jesus goes up on stage and he gives his message and then he grabs his inner

circle and takes them back to the green room, as it were, and he's going to

explain every little thing to them, right? They get his commentary on every parable.

Verse 35, 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 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.

That's the back for you nautically challenged. All right. So Jesus is in the

back of the boat, asleep on the cushion.

And they woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

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 he said to them, why are you so afraid?

Have you still no faith. They were filled with great fear and said to one another,

who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

There's a word in this parable that we're going to reference a few times.

I'm going to go ahead and put this in front of you.

In my translation, it's the word great. If you have an older translation,

it may use the word exceedingly in some of these places.

But it's the Greek word meghas.

Meghas. You see where this is going? It's where we get our word mega.

Okay, y'all failed. All right, so it's where we get our word mega.

But think of it, you could even put this in your Bibles if you want.

It's a mega thing. It's a big thing. It's an exceedingly great thing.

There's three times that this exact word is used in this story.

Number one, there is a great storm, a mega storm.

Number two, there's a mega, a great, an exceedingly great peace.

And then there is an exceedingly great fear, exceedingly great fear.

And that fear doesn't come from the storm. It comes from something else.

But just put that in your brain, log that for later.

But before we even get started into what goes on, what gets the disciples to this point?

Why are they in the boat? Why are they in the position they are in?

Why is this happening? Because again, a lot of these guys are fishermen.

They grew up on the water, right? They're used to these situations.

In fact, they may have even been looking at the weather and been able to tell,

hey, this doesn't look like a prime night for getting on the water. So why are they there?

Well, they're there because Jesus told them to go there. He told them to do it.

Now, why is this important? Why is this important? Because the storm is not a punishment.

The storm is not something that happened to them because of something they did wrong.

This isn't Jonah, right? Jonah runs from God.

God has him in a boat and there's a storm. What is there a storm for?

Because Jonah's running. What is this storm for?

This storm is purely obedience.

They are obedient.

Jesus says, hey, let's get in the boat, go to the other side. And they say, yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Don't really know if I want to be out on a boat in the middle of the

water at night when it looks like this, but yes, sir.

And I say that because this is the Bible's testimony over and over again.

So often we equate storms with things that we've done wrong or something that

somebody else has done wrong.

And we go, well, they're going through certain things because of what they did

or what they chose to do. And sometimes that's true, like Jonah.

But God is with Noah and it doesn't stop him from being ridiculed. Right.

God is with David. It doesn't stop Saul from trying to kill him.

God is with Job. It doesn't stop his life from falling apart.

God is with John the Baptist. It doesn't stop him from getting his head cut off by an evil ruler.

God is with the apostle Paul. It doesn't stop him from being persecuted.

He doesn't take the thorn from his flesh.

It is their obedience that has brought him there and has brought them here.

And as often the case, we assume our obedience should equal peace.

We assume that if we're obedient, that if we do what we're supposed to do and

what we're asked to do, then we should receive in like-mindedness.

In other words, I did this, God, so you do this.

I've worked hard at my job, therefore I should get the raise.

I've done everything you've asked me to do this week with my family.

Therefore, my kids should obey me, right?

I've done my part. I've given the money.

I've served, right? You can do this in churches too. You see this all the time,

right? We're doing what we're supposed to be doing.

We're going where we're supposed to be going. We're giving money.

We're helping people. And it just doesn't seem like anything's working out.

Listen, the storm, the storm is not the issue. The storm is the storm.

Trying to figure out every time something goes wrong in your life,

why it's going wrong is a moot point. It's a moot point.

You will spend your life, if you play the games of checks and balances,

trying to figure out, well, how can I rig this system to my liking?

How can I do everything that I can do to avoid the storm, to avoid pain,

to avoid bad things happening to me?

So we'll do everything we can to avoid a hard conversation. We won't give ourselves

over to people and love them well because, man, every time I do that, they hurt me.

We won't be vulnerable and talk about our sins and confess our sins one to another

like the Bible asks us to because, man, if I admit that out loud,

they're going to have information that might hurt me.

You will, as you continue to live that way, become incredibly bitter,

angry, because what you will realize is no matter how much you try and shield

yourself from a storm in your life, you will fail.

The storms are coming. The storms are coming.

Maybe you're young and your obedience hasn't landed you in the spot where you thought it would.

Maybe your marriage is harder than you wish it was. Maybe your family hasn't

ended up the way you wanted it to.

This great storm, this mega storm comes upon them because they are obedient.

And what do they do? Well, they go to wake up Jesus.

They go to wake up Jesus. I can imagine it's Peter or somebody goes to the back

of the boat and they're like, Jesus, really need you to get up.

These guys are really scared right I'm cool like I'm cool like I know like you've

got it but these guys so if you could get up and maybe take care of this because

I don't want them to be scared I doubt that's how it went I think it was probably

like the girl yelling pastor Kyle,

I think that's probably what it looked like right they didn't go back there

and like nudge him like hey bud.

Storm, you know? I think they probably ran back there and grabbed him and shook

him and said, Jesus, are you serious?

Are you serious? Like you're sleeping?

And this is why their first question is not, can you calm the storm?

Their first question is what? Do you even care?

Do you even care? Do you even care?

The fear of the storm creates doubt, right?

That's true in all of our lives. The second the world or the people in the world,

like we've been talking about in 1 John,

become the obsession of your eyes, the obsession of your heart,

the obsession of your mind, what immediately follows that is always doubt.

It's always doubt. It's always, God, do you even care? Do you even care?

I've been obedient. I've done what you've asked me to do. Now I'm caught in

this storm and you seem to just be resting.

And so you can't, there's no way you can care about me.

There's no way you could actually care about my life. In fact,

God, I think you're just using me to get what you want.

This is not new. It's the exact same thing that people of God have been doing

for thousands upon thousands of years.

Isaiah writing chapter 40, verses 27 to 28 says, why do you say,

O Jacob and speak, O Israel? Again, talking to God's chosen people.

Isaiah asks, why do you say my way is hidden from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God?

The people of God collectively crying out to God saying, our way must be hidden

from you. What we're doing must be hidden from you.

And what we desire is disregarded by you, O God.

What is Isaiah's response to that? Have you not known and have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

We're going to come back to that verse. So if you want to put a pin in that,

but mainly for this purpose right now, it's, this is how God's people have responded forever.

The Israelites only exist because of God's goodness.

God comes to a man named Abram, who is in the family of idol worshipers and

says, I'm gonna make a great nation out of you.

That nation ends up enslaved in Egypt and God hears their cries and what does he do?

I will deliver you. I will be your God and you will be my people.

They go to the wilderness. They don't trust him. They wander there for 40 years.

He delivers them into the promised land, the land that he told them he would give them.

Over and over and over again, God does what he says he will do.

And yet his people still cry out, our way is hidden from you.

And here Jesus is with his disciples, whom he loves, whom he cares for,

whom he's done to this point, everything for. He's called them to himself.

He's allowed them to be part of his ministry. They're part of the inner circle.

And yet the first time there is fear of the world in their hearts, what do they do?

You don't even care. You don't even care.

At this point, you would want to ask, well, if these guys don't get it,

who gets it? These are the inner circle.

Jesus has literally told us, these are the guys that have been given the secret

of the kingdom of heaven. They have the secret.

And yet still, they doubt. Still, they fear.

I think if there's one encouragement to take at this point is simply,

if you find yourself in this place, you're in good company, right? You're in good company.

And the point of this story, again, is not simply that he's going to calm these storms in their lives.

Again, spoiler alert, we know that he calms the storm, but for every single

one of these guys, there will be storms in their life that Jesus does not calm.

Every single one of these disciples will have storms in their lives that Jesus

does not wake up and calm down.

They will be persecuted. They will be beaten. They will be ridiculed.

They will be ostracized from their family and friends.

They will live lonely lives in fear of the Roman government knocking on their

door and killing them and having no repercussions for that.

This is how these guys are going to live their lives. And Jesus knows that.

Again, it's so important that we understand that there are certain storms in

our lives that Jesus will not calm. He will not calm them.

There will things that will rage on in your life that you will hope and pray

that Jesus will take away that he may not take away. He may not.

It's one of the hardest things pastorally that you tell somebody is like,

hey, man, this may not ever get better.

They may not ever come back. That person you love so much, they may not ever love you back.

That parent you want so bad to have a good relationship with,

they may never want that from you.

That place that you want to go, that goal that you've set for yourself,

that thing that you also want to do, that struggle that you have,

that storm may not ever get ceased. that storm may not ever calm down.

Again, I think one of the greatest examples of this is John the Baptist as he

sits in prison and he sends his disciples to ask Jesus, hey, are you really the one?

And Jesus basically says, yeah, I am the one. And then John gets his head cut off.

Again, this is why it's so important that your takeaway from this story is not,

if I do what Jesus wants me to do, If I'm in the boat with him,

he'll calm every storm because he won't.

He won't. That's a very American way of reading this story.

There are Christians all around the world right now who would read this story

and know that that is not the takeaway as they meet in private places,

underground, fear of the government coming and knocking on their door and killing

their pastor and splitting up their families.

So what does Jesus do? Well, Jesus certainly does calm the storm.

Interestingly enough, he speaks to it as if a storm has ears, right?

As if a wave has a brain that he speaks to and the waves are like,

makes sense. Cool. Got it.

I encourage you to go home and try that. Will not work.

You'll end up like those crazy TV evangelists on stage saying like,

I'm going to blow on this and I'm going to get rid of COVID.

I don't know if you saw that video. It's insane, right? That's not how it works.

People don't get to do that. But I want to spend our last couple minutes here

on this last great, this last mega.

Jesus gets up. He says, peace be still. The wind ceases. And there was a great calm, right?

And we would expect at this point that the disciples would be relieved.

Amen. The thing that you thought was going to kill you a couple of minutes ago is gone now.

It should be fine. You're in good spirits now, right? That's not at all what the scriptures say.

He says, Jesus calms the storm. There's a mega calm.

He looks at his disciples and what does he say? Why are you so afraid?

Have you still no faith? And they were filled with a great, mega,

exceedingly abundant fear and said to one another, who then is this that even

the wind and the sea obeys him?

If the thing that you're scared of killing you, if the thing that you're scared

of taking over your life is all of a sudden overtaken by something else,

you know what you should be more scared of?

That thing, that thing, right?

If I'm in a cage with an animal that can kill me and another animal comes out

and kills that animal, my fears are not relieved.

In fact, it's like, well, now I've got a bigger issue. I was scared of that

thing that could kill me.

And now I'm in here with something that can kill that thing.

This is the feeling the disciples have where they're going, I don't even know

what to think about this guy anymore.

Now, we look at that and go, isn't that why you woke him up?

No, that is not why they woke Jesus up.

They had no expectation of Jesus calming the storm.

They just wanted Jesus to be mad with them. They wanted Jesus to freak out with

them. They wanted Jesus to be upset with them.

Listen, if you want a very practical takeaway from this, when someone in your

life comes to you and all they want you to do is to be mad, sad,

upset with them, say no, no.

Now, I'm not saying you don't weep with those who weep and mourn with those

who mourn. You most certainly do.

But when someone comes to you and says to them like, man, I hate that person.

Don't you hate that person?

Don't do that. This is not how Jesus responds to these things.

Because Jesus again knows the storm is not the issue. The storm is not the issue.

Great storm led to a great calm because there is a great savior that cares for his faithless people.

And the biggest issue that these people have is not a storm that can kill them,

but it is the fact that they do not know Jesus.

Now they know who he is. They've been around him. They can tell you things about

him at this point, but they don't know Jesus.

They don't understand who he is. They don't understand what he's like.

Again, the point of the passage is not that Jesus can calm your storms.

The point of the passage is you need to get to know who this Jesus guy is.

You need to do everything you can to understand and think about and consider who Jesus is.

I'm going to get the reference wrong so someone can correct me later,

not now, but I believe Philippians 3, towards the end, this is Paul's famous

passage where he's saying, I count everything as loss, right?

I count everything as loss.

What does Paul count everything as loss for?

For the sake of knowing. Knowing what?

Knowing what? Knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection.

So many times, listen, I've read hundreds of books and I've listened to hundreds

of sermons that have told me again and again and again, trust Jesus, he'll fix your storms.

Trust Jesus, he'll fix your marriage. Trust Jesus, he'll help you with relationships.

Trust Jesus, he'll give you peace. But very few times has someone just sat me

down and said, you know what we're going to do?

We're going to spend an hour just talking about who Jesus is, who Jesus is.

That takes a lot more work. It takes a lot more work to know Jesus than to just

hear about the things he can do.

It's easy for me to stand in front of you and say, hey, Jesus can calm your storms.

Hey, Jesus can heal you. Hey, Jesus loves you. And that's great.

But the biggest issue that we face, and I would argue the American church is

we don't know this Jesus.

We don't know him. We don't know anything about him.

We know he's good and we know he loves us and we know he's this,

but he's like a grandparent that we've heard about, but never really met.

That sends us a thousand dollars on our birthday, but we don't know anything about him.

As much time as we spend talking about how we don't want law and we don't want

religion, it's about relationship, not religion and all these things.

Isn't it incredible how we keep coming up with new laws so that God will love

us, right? We're constantly coming up with ways that we can finagle God into doing what we want.

Say this often in here, but the number of times that people just come to me

and their question is not, I want to know who Jesus is.

It's, I don't really know who that guy is, but how do I get him to do what I want?

I really need him to do what I want him to do. I was listening to this guy on

TV and he says, if I give him a thousand dollars, then Jesus will do what I want him to do.

I was at this church and they said, if I came down front and I prayed and I

cried, and then I got baptized, then Jesus would do what I want him to do.

And I went to this church and they said, if I said five Hail Marys and then

listened to this guy pray over me, then man, Jesus will do what I want him to do.

The problem with that is Jesus will never do what you want him to do.

You don't get to control the sovereign God of the universe.

You don't get to tell the God of the universe what he should and shouldn't do,

where he should and shouldn't go, how he should and shouldn't respond to you.

The point of the storm in the disciples' life is not so that they would know

that Jesus will alleviate all of their problems.

It's so that they would know this Jesus is the sovereign creator of the world,

that he can heal whoever he wants,

that he can calm any storm he wants, and that eventually they will see him conquer death itself.

The point of these things is not so that they can go and tell people how awesome

the things that Jesus did were.

The point is for them to go tell people, he's the one who we have been waiting on since Genesis 3.

He's the one. And he has not come to solve all of our problems,

but he has come to save us from our sins,

to rescue and redeem us, to stand in our place, to fulfill the covenant that

we couldn't fulfill and to be treated like someone who didn't fulfill it.

Important question that Jesus is going to ask later on is ask directly to Peter.

When he says to Peter, hey, who do you say that I am? Again,

he doesn't ask Peter, what do you think I'm capable of?

How powerful do you think I am? He doesn't ask Peter that.

He doesn't ask Peter, what's the five-step process of knowing me?

He doesn't say, hey, disciples, if you were going to go tell somebody about

me, here's the Romans road, man.

Here's how we're going to get it done. Again, not opposed to that.

The point is, Jesus does not give them a system.

He does not give them a play card. He does not give them a way to figure out

how to get this Jesus to poke him just right to respond.

He asked them the most important question, which is, who do you say that I am?

You've welcomed me for a while now. You've seen me do some crazy things.

You've seen me calm the storm. You've seen me feed 5,000. You've seen me heal. You've seen me teach.

So who do you say that I am. And what is Peter's response? You are the Christ.

Not, well, you're the guy that calms our storms, Jesus.

You're the guy that fixes our problems. You're the guy that makes all this go

away. You're the guy that makes everything okay.

No, he says, Jesus, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And what does Jesus say to him?

What does Jesus say to him? Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood

did not reveal this to you.

Why is that important? We'll go back to the story, when Jesus looks at them

and says, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?

Again, our natural response to that is to say, have more of that.

Go get more. Just go get more faith, man. Have more faith.

As if you had more faith, Jesus would do what you wanted him to do.

That's not Jesus's point.

Jesus, when he asks questions like that, is trying to reveal in them,

hey, I know you think you know me. I know you think you're being obedient.

I know you think you've got this figured out, but you're scared of a couple waves, man.

And in your own life and in my own life, when you find yourself looking at God

and going, God, I think I'm going to die. I'm so scared.

I don't even think you care about me. And he looks at you and he says, do you not have faith?

What he's trying to get you to do is not go get more faith. What he's trying

to get you to do is realize you don't need anything but me.

You can't do this on your own. You can't have enough faith. You can't garnish

this on your own. You can't figure this out on your own.

You've seen me do all these things and you still don't have faith.

So he answers that riddle for them with Peter. Blessed are you,

Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you,

but my Father who is in heaven.

Do you know who Jesus is? Not do you know what he can do.

All of us can tell stories about what he can do and what he's done,

what he's capable of. And that's great.

And I'm not at all saying if you've got a storm to not go and bend Jesus's ear

and ask him to solve. I'm not saying that.

We did that this morning. We do that every Sunday. We pray for God to heal.

We pray for God to do things that we can't do.

But what we need more than anything else in our own lives as a church,

as families, we need to, like Paul,

count everything as lost for the

sake of knowing him and the power of his resurrection. Just knowing him.

Knowing this Christ, knowing this Jesus, knowing this sovereign God who's able

to calm storms, heal sickness and raise people from the dead?

Do you know Jesus?

And listen, this is usually the time where I would say, hey,

if you don't, do you want to know him? Come on down, man. Let me challenge you

just a little bit differently.

If you would say, Brady, I think I know a lot about what Jesus can do and can

do, but I just don't know Jesus that well.

Sing this last song, just pray. Pray that God would reveal who Jesus is to you,

that he would open your eyes, that he would open your ears and soften your heart to who Jesus is.

Because me and you could get together every week and talk for two hours.

We could read through the Bible. We could read Augustine. We could read Luther.

We could read Ignatius. We could read Polycarp. We could read Clement of Rome.

Some of those names may not mean anything to you. Totally fine,

by the way. That doesn't make it any different. We could do all of those things.

But ultimately, if you want to know who Jesus is, then you need what Peter needed

and what every single Christian has ever needed.

You need God to reveal him to you.

Flesh and blood will never reveal who Jesus is to you, ever.

You can go to church for 50 years and still be as unbelieving and bitter and

angry as you were the day that you walked forward and got baptized. It does not matter.

You need God to reveal Jesus to you.

I would be glad to pray with you and I would be glad to meet with you and talk

with you and work through the scriptures.

I would love to do that, but I am under no impression that I can do something that only God can do.

So again, what is the point of this story? Next time you hear it preached.

I hope when they go, the point of the story is that Jesus can calm your storms.

I hope that you do what Matt says he won't do and just stand up and be like, wrong, not true.

When you think of this story that your takeaway is, I need to know that person.

I need to know him. I need to figure out who he is. I need to figure out why he can calm storms.

I need to figure out what it is that makes him able to heal.

And I need to know that I will never have enough faith in and of myself to know

that, that I need God to do that on my behalf.

Good news. God is gracious and kind.

He is willing and able to do that for you. Let me pray. We're going to sing one more song.

Father, thank you for this morning. As always, thank you for the chance to be

here. Thank you for every single person that's represented in this room.

God, I pray that as we think about this story of Mark, that our takeaway is

not simply, again, that you'll heal our storms, that you'll fix them,

because God, there's times that you won't.

And it is in those times that we need to know who you are, that even the disciples

that are in this boat, most of them.

From being fearful of some waves to standing toe to toe with the greatest empire

in the world and looking at them and saying, I'm with Jesus,

and I don't really care what you do to me.

You can imprison us. You can persecute us. You can tear us apart.

You can take our homes. But I know Jesus. I know the power of his resurrection.

And so it doesn't matter if the storm goes away.

He has promised that I will be with him forever.

What can man do to me? God, I pray that you would raise up that heart,

that kind of heart in us, both individually and as a church.

And we would be unapologetically people that just say out loud,

often, I know who Jesus is.

God has revealed Jesus to me. And no matter what life brings my way,

that is enough. It is enough to know him.

It is enough to be in the boat with him. It is enough that he has promised he

will be with me always, that the storms can be the storms.

The waves are the waves. The pitch dark night is the pitch dark night. It doesn't matter.

That we would love you. We would know you.

God, again, that you would reveal yourself to us every single day. May I pray, amen.