Faith And Storms (Mark 4:35-41)

Okay, so before we get started here this morning, I want to pose a question to you.

How do we, as believers, as followers of Christ, how do we build our faith?

And I'm not talking about faith in the sense of coming to faith in Christ, into a believing relationship and our salvation through Christ.

I'm talking about faith in regards to trust and faith in regards to hope.

How does God build that in us?

How does he help us increase our faith in him?

So keep that in mind as we're going through this story, and I hope we all have a really good answer for that by the time we get to the end of this verse.

But let's stand, if you're able, for the reading of God's word.

We're in Mark chapter 4, starting in verse 35, and we'll read through 41.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

It says, On that day when evening had come, he told them, Let's cross over to the other side of the sea.

So they left the crowd and took him along, since he was in the boat, and other boats were with him.

A great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion.

So they woke him up and said to him, Teacher, don't you care that we're going to die?

He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Silence be still.

The wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Then he said to them, Why are you afraid?

Do you still have no faith?

And they were terrified and asked one another, Who then is this?

Even the wind and the sea obey him.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for this specific passage that you've given us here this morning.

Lord, I pray that you would speak to each one of us, that we come before you with humble hearts, with open minds, open ears to the things that you want to show us, the things that you want to convict us of, the things that you want to encourage us in.

Lord, that we would just continue this process of becoming just like our rabbi, just like Jesus.

Lord, work on us, shape us, and mold us here today.

Use me as your mouthpiece.

Speak through me through the power of your Holy Spirit, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.

You may be seated.

So I really want to set the scene here of our scripture that we're looking at here this morning.

So Jesus has gone through a really long day of ministry.

And from everything I can tell, I went back and I and I looked at it and I doubled and triple checked it, looking through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

And from everything I could tell, the scripture that we're in today, Jesus is here after pulling an all-nighter.

So he went and he stayed up all night in prayer.

And then he chose his 12 apostles.

And then if you go through everything from that scripture that we covered weeks ago till now, all happened in the same day.

So Jesus is coming off an all-nighter and then a really, really full day of ministry.

So if you wonder how Jesus could sleep through a storm in a boat, he is physically and mentally exhausted at this point.

So let's jump into verse 35.

It says, On that day, when evening had come, he told them, Let's cross over to the other side of the sea.

So remember, Jesus is fully God, but he's also fully man.

So he experienced exhaustion in the exact same way that we do.

You know, we've seen him try many times to get alone and to do things and to try and just step away for a moment just to catch his breath.

But the disciples and the crowds just keep finding him and they're begging for his healing and they're begging for his teaching.

And for most people in ministry, this is either when burnout or sin will start to creep into the person's life.

But Jesus just keeps loving.

And he keeps loving these people, and he shows an incredible amount of patience and compassion towards them.

So who here, as an example, who here has been prayed for by the laying on of hands?

I would say, yeah, probably most of us.

Now, I always think of these hard times in ministry or these tiring times in ministry in this sense.

If you've been prayed for by the laying on of hands, if you were standing up, you have like ten people around you, very well-intentioned, that are putting their hand on you.

And after a couple minutes, then they start to put a little weight on you.

And then a little more, and before you know it, you have ten hands like pulling down on you.

And you're like, just get me out of here.

You know, stop praying for me.

I'm done.

But I always like that analogy because I think that's what it's like in ministry sometimes.

Whatever ministry it might be, however you may be serving, that there's very well-intentioned people that want to come and pray for you specifically, but unintentionally, you start to feel the weight of everything that's going on around you just kind of pulling down on your shoulders.

And I imagine this is what Jesus is experiencing right here.

Well-intentioned disciples and followers and people in the crowds not realizing it are placing a very heavy weight upon him.

But the thing is, is Jesus never complains.

He never lashes out in anger.

He never runs away and hides and says, I'm through with you people.

The most we see is Jesus getting up really early and slipping away to pray with God.

He's lacking sleep, he's lacking time to refresh, he's even lacking time to eat, as we saw a couple weeks ago.

But through the strength of the Holy Spirit, he continues on in compassion for these people that are in great need.

So if you are in ministry in any capacity, there will inevitably be once or twice a year where you're gonna feel like what Jesus is feeling on this day.

And this typically comes because you're really busy, but you're busy doing things that are really good.

It's not because of bad things that are happening, it's really good things, and you're just going and you're going and you're going.

But we have a choice in these times.

We can allow it to lead to burnout, or we can allow it to lead to a deeper dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

And Jesus is giving us the perfect example here of being completely dependent upon God.

Even when he's losing sleep, and even when he's skipping meals.

So his compassion for the people never wavers, and Jesus never loses it.

Like I said, he never says, I'm through with you people, I'm done, I tried, I gave it my best, you're just too much to handle.

And praise God for Jesus, for his patience and his compassion that he has for every one of us.

And praise God that he hasn't changed for us today, just like the people that he showed that same compassion to so long ago.

Jesus even says in Matthew 11, 28, he says, Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So Jesus is encouraging us in those times to cast those cares and burdens upon him.

And then we see in 1 Peter 5, 6 through 7, and see if you can find the common thread here between 1 Peter and Matthew.

But it says, Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

So do you see the common thread between those two verses?

It's humility first, then casting our burdens and our cares upon Jesus.

When we get frustrated with people, or we get frustrated with God, or we start to feel like we're experiencing burnout in some capacity, it truly comes down to being because of pride.

Because we're caring more than God asked us to.

We're trying to do things in our own strength instead of through faith.

And this is really the theme of our text here this morning.

It's faith.

Faith that God is in control and he doesn't need my fleshly efforts to advance his kingdom.

Faith to cast our cares and our burdens upon him, even when we're in the middle of our own storms.

And to know that our worry doesn't help anybody.

Our own worry doesn't help us, it doesn't help the people around us, it sure doesn't help God out at all.

And worry, as we're gonna see, is the opposite of faith.

It's trying to do things under our own effort, which really comes down to pride on our part, where we feel like we can help God, where we feel like, well, God isn't gonna come through, so I'm gonna need to step in and help him out a little bit.

So we see over and over again, Jesus showing us the correct example of how to serve God perfectly in faith.

We see the example of Jesus being completely humble.

He's putting his full dependence upon the Father constantly, and he just continues to move forward in faith.

You know, Jesus' willingness to lose sleep and go without meals is humility in action.

It's just an act of selflessness that we see him doing over and over and over again.

And then we see Jesus going to the cross.

And that's the ultimate act of humility.

The ultimate act of selflessness, laying down his own life in place of ours.

So after a long two days of selfless, humble ministry, Jesus says, Let's cross over the Sea of Galilee and get to the other side.

And we pick up in verse 36.

It says, So they left the crowd and took him along since he was in the boat, and other boats were with him.

So remember, the scene here is Jesus is teaching these parables that we went through over the last two weeks to these large crowds, and he's using this boat as his stage.

And it comes to the end of the day, and he says, Okay, I'm done.

Let's turn around, let's cross the Sea of Galilee.

And I just imagine that boat turning around and the people from the shore looking, and Jesus is in the stern and it's going away, and Jesus just kind of going like that, just falling over and going right to sleep because he's exhausted.

Has anybody here ever pulled an all-nighter?

Uh huh.

I tried it once in college and I swore I'd never do it again.

But think of that feeling that you have that following day of just the blurry eyes, maybe even the stinging eyes.

And if you close your eyelids for more than a couple seconds, like you're gonna fall asleep.

That's kind of where Jesus is right now.

And he that whole day where he felt like that, he was teaching and ministering and he was healing, he was walking, he was going into people's houses, he's doing all this stuff, and now he finally gets a chance to get a little bit of rest, and so he falls asleep in the stern of the boat.

Verse 37.

A great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

So if waves are crashing over the boat, you can see the magnitude of this storm.

It's a big one that they're in.

And there was an archaeological find in the 1980s where they actually found a fishing boat that they were able to date back to right around Jesus' time.

And the size of that boat, that that fishing boat in the Sea of Galilee was 27 feet long, about seven or eight feet wide, and about four feet deep.

So it's not a big boat, especially when you know when the winds are going and the waves are crashing.

And if it's getting swamped, it means that it's starting to retain water.

The waves are crashing and it's getting a little more full and a little more full.

And this is not at all where the disciples want to be right now.

This is the last place on earth that they want to be.

This boat's rocking, they're probably drenched, they're probably chilled because they're wet, and all they want to do is just try and live another day.

And then we get to verse 38.

And he, Jesus, was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.

You know, in most cases, a traditional fishing boat at this time didn't have a covered stern.

Uh most of them just had like a bench in the back with a cushion on it to sit or to rest.

Um, but almost all the Bible translations say that Jesus was in the stern.

So we don't know for sure if he was actually in an enclosed area or if he was up on top.

But what we do know is if the boat's getting swamped, Jesus is most likely wet.

And regardless of whether he's covered or not, he's getting tossed around.

I mean, this boat is going up and down and it's rocking back and forth a lot.

And he's sleeping.

Through all of that, he's sleeping.

And then the disciples decide, we need to wake up Jesus.

We've done everything under our own power.

We need to wake him up.

And I just picture it.

You wake him up.

No, I'm not gonna wake him up.

You go wake up.

I woke him up last time, but no, you go wake him up.

And then one of them finally gets the courage and like, okay, I'm gonna go wake up Jesus.

And I just kind of imagine it like a young child coming into their parents' bedroom way too early on a Sunday morning, you know, and they come up and the dad's trying to sleep, and the kid's just like, Dad, dad, dad, you know, and the kids and the the father's laying there like this just kind of opens his eye a little bit, like maybe if I just ignore them, they'll go away.

You know, kind of imagine this is the scene right here with Jesus.

But in reality, what is happening is yes, Jesus is tired, but Jesus is so secure in the Father.

He has so much faith in him that he can sleep through a storm.

He knows that his time has not come.

He knows that God isn't going, that God is going to take care of him in this, and he just wants to sleep.

And I don't know about you, but when things are hard in my life and when things are not looking so good, and I feel like I'm in a storm, so to speak, sleep is usually the first thing that goes.

You know, you go to bed and you just can't turn your mind off, and you're tossing and turning, and the wheels just are going, you're imagining every worst-case scenario that you possibly can, and that's the first thing to go.

But Jesus is in a storm and he's sleeping, no problem.

He's in a legitimate real one where like his bed is going like this, and he's able to fall asleep because of the faith and the confidence that he has in the Father.

Jesus' faith is so strong that he doesn't struggle with all of those cares that we so often do in the storm.

Let's look at the second half of verse 38.

It says, So they woke him up and said to him, Teacher, now listen to this.

They said, Don't you care that we're going to die?

This really sounds like an accusatory tone, doesn't it?

It sounds very dramatic as well.

And remember, we're talking about four of these disciples being professional fishermen that grew up on this sea.

And if they think they're going to die, it tells you how bad this storm really is.

But like we've been saying, we can't be too hard on the disciples here.

These guys had death on the line, and it appears as if God is sleeping.

Think about that.

They had death on the line, and it appeared as if God was sleeping.

Have you ever been there before?

I've been there.

You know, God, I'm praying and I'm praying, and it just seems like you're asleep.

It seems like you're not listening.

It seems like you just don't care right now.

Don't you even care that I'm feeling like I'm going to die?

But as we'll see, God allows us to be in this position for a purpose.

Which we're going to talk about once we get to verse 44.

But first, we're going to talk about what Jesus does with this accusation from his disciples.

Verse 39.

He got up, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Silence be still.

The wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Whoa.

That's some serious business.

Jesus is showing the authority that he has.

Verse 40.

Then he said to them, Why are you afraid?

Do you still have no faith?

And this is the why that we get right here behind the storm.

The why, because uh the why, the purpose of this storm is to build the faith of the disciples.

You know, years ago, a professor from Biola University came and he spoke at this regional staff conference that we're having down in Oxnard, and he stood before a bunch of Calvary chapel pastors, some real Bible heads, and he stood before them and he asked them this question.

He says, How does Jesus define faith?

And then he just sat there and he let these poor pastors just give the wrong answer after wrong answer after wrong answer.

And he just sat there and he kind of chuckled once everybody gave up because Jesus never defined faith.

He never said, This is what faith is.

He only pointed it out when he saw it, and he pointed it out when he didn't see it.

Like right here in our text today.

Like when the paralytic was lowered from the roof, he says, you know, seeing their faith, the friends of the paralytic, he said, Friend, your sins are forgiven.

And then when the centurion servant came, or the centurion servant was sick, and the centurion came to him and said, Just say the word and they'll be healed, Jesus says, I tell you, I have not found so great a faith even in Israel.

Or when the prostitute washed Jesus' feet with her tears and her hair and anointed him with the alabaster jar, Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace.

In our scripture today, do you still have no faith?

Or we see the woman that was suffering from bleeding for twelve years, she reaches out and touches the hem of the garment of Jesus and she's healed.

And Jesus said, Your faith has saved you.

Go in peace.

Or when Jesus cleanses the Samaritan leper, he says, Your faith has saved you.

And then we have the blind beggar on the road to Jericho that keeps shouting out, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and everybody's telling him, you know, quiet, quiet, quiet.

Jesus tells him, Your faith has saved you.

So as you can see, there's no definition that we can find.

But Jesus points it out when he does see it, and he points it out when he doesn't see it.

He wants us to learn by example when it comes to faith.

And you can see from the examples that we just referenced that Jesus held faith in a very high regard.

You see, Jesus needed to teach his disciples how to have faith.

Because up to this point they didn't really need it.

It's easy to have faith if you're a disciple because think of all the things that they're seeing.

They're seeing all of these miracles happening day after day.

They're with God in flesh and blood, and he's right there.

But they didn't have practical faith yet.

They didn't have the I need to trust God in a storm kind of faith yet.

And Jesus knew this, and he knew that they needed to experience a storm so that they could see the weakness of their faith.

You know, true faith is trusting in God when you can't see him, when you can't hear him, when you can't feel him, when you can't see him working.

And this side of the disciples' faith had not been developed and it had not been tested yet.

And Jesus needed to give them an opportunity to see how weak their faith actually was.

And think of the other example that we have of the storm.

You know, this is the first of two.

In chapter six of Mark, we're going to see the second storm.

Where Jesus had sent them ahead across the Sea of Galilee so that he can go up onto the mountain to pray.

He sees the disciples struggling in the wind and the waves, and the Gospel of John tells us that from the mountain, he was actually looking at them, and they were out a couple miles onto the sea already when he could see that they were in trouble.

He sees the disciples struggling with the wind and the waves.

They're a ways out there.

And then what does the story say?

It says that Jesus, in a panic, ran down the mountain and sprinted across the sea, and then he ran on the water, right?

No, the story is called Jesus walked on water.

Think about that.

Jesus had to descend the mountain and then he had to walk a few miles out to his disciples on the water.

And he was walking, not running.

This could have taken anywhere from one to two hours for Jesus to go from the top of that mountain to go get out to where his disciples were.

And his disciples are struggling and they're rowing and they're fighting the storm just to stay alive.

And as we're going to see in Mark chapter 6, it says that Jesus would have kept on going if they didn't call him over to the boat.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

He was just not concerned.

He would have just kept on walking right by him.

But that makes us ask the question you know, doesn't Jesus care?

We're in the middle of the storm when we're fighting for life.

Doesn't he care?

Why does he show no evidence of concern for his disciples' safety in either one of these storms?

But the thing is, Jesus did care for his disciples, he cared.

That their faith was going to grow so that they could complete the calling that he had placed on their life.

And I want to say that again.

Jesus cared that their faith would grow so they could complete the calling that he had placed on their life.

Jesus was way more concerned about preparing them for what was ahead than he was concerned about them feeling safe in the moment.

You see, building faith is not a spectator sport.

You can't get better at shooting three-pointers by watching Steph Curry.

You got to get out there and start throwing up three-pointers if you want to get better at that.

And you can't build faith by watching other Christians.

Or by just listening to a pastor drone on and on and on on a Sunday morning and then just leaving.

So think about this.

The disciples would have been way safer if they would have stayed with the crowd on the shore.

But they chose to get in the boat.

Jesus said, shove off and cross the sea, and they said, okay.

And they did it.

They followed exactly what Jesus said, and it led them straight into a storm.

But after this, they could look back and say, you know, if he got us through that storm, he can get me through accusations in front of a bunch of religious leaders.

He can get me through being stoned and flogged on a missionary journey.

He can get me through being mocked by other Jews.

You know, something interesting is that in the first storm in chapter 4, Jesus is in the boat, and he's there to quiet the storm as soon as the disciples start to freak out.

In chapter 6, Jesus isn't in the boat.

He's still watching them and he's keeping track of them, but he lets them sit in the storm a little longer the second time around.

Jesus built their faith in the first storm, and then he's allowing it to be built a little bit more in the next storm.

Because faith really is like a muscle.

When it's used, it builds strength over time, little by little by little, until eventually you can lift things that you weren't able to lift a month ago or a year ago.

So what Jesus is doing is he's exercising their faith and he's giving them a little more and a little more and a little more.

Until, as we see in the book of Acts, through the power of the Holy Spirit, these guys have unmatched faith in God.

When we see the disciples in the first storm and we see the disciples in Acts, they're completely different people.

And yes, the Holy Spirit has to do with that, but part of it is the faith that Jesus allowed them to build while he was still with them.

But in the meantime, the disciples, much like us, they find themselves in this storm, and their gut reaction is, God, get me out of this as fast as you possibly can.

Their reaction is, Lord, don't you even care?

Don't you see what's happening?

But when we ask those questions, it's the opposite of God's purpose.

When we have that attitude, we completely deny the value of the storm.

We need to shift our focus from asking, why God, or why me, God, to what?

You know, God, what do you want me to learn?

God, what is the purpose of this storm that I'm in the middle of right now?

Can you see the difference between those attitudes?

One is whiny and dramatic.

Oh, God, why be?

Why now?

Why in this storm?

And one is very mature of, okay, God, I realize this is a tough time.

Can you please just show me what you want me to learn?

How you want me to grow in the midst of this trial?

You know, I think the correct response is, you know, God, this is hard.

God, I feel like you aren't there.

God, I feel like you don't care, I feel like you don't see me.

But I know that you are there.

And I know that you do care.

So would you show me what you want me to learn and how you want me to grow through this situation?

And then get me out of it ASAP.

So none of us enjoy that.

But if we can do this, it'll really change our perspective when we face adversity.

If we're willing to look at storms and ask what instead of why.

And I think that is a huge mark of maturity in our walk as believers.

Now let's look at the disciples' response to all of this in verse 41.

It says, and they were terrified and asked one another, Who then is this?

Even the wind and the sea obey him.

So the good thing is that the disciples are in awe of Jesus and they're in awe of his authority.

The sad thing is that they didn't respond to Jesus' question.

Jesus' question of, do you still have no faith?

They're thoroughly impressed with Jesus' miracles, but they kind of missed the whole point of all of this.

This was a faith-building exercise, whether they realized it or not, and they're left marveling at the miracle, and they missed the rebuke.

The miracles may have given a boost to their faith for a moment, but true faith is trusting that when God says go, that he's going to pave the way.

That when Jesus said, get in the boat, let's go across the sea, that he's actually going to get them to the other side of the sea.

That when God says go, that we don't allow doubt to creep in.

To know that he's got us, even when it doesn't feel like it.

Because he's preparing you for great things ahead.

Great things that you could never do with a measure of faith that we have right now.

Our faith needs to grow if we want to do greater things for God.

And maybe you're here today and you've been asking, you know, why isn't God using me to do amazing things?

Like I have that desire, but I don't feel like it's happening.

Well, I have a question for all of us.

Do you hear Jesus' teachings and then stay on the shore like the crowd did?

Or do you hear Jesus' teachings and then get in the boat with them and follow him to wherever he's leading you?

Because if you get in the boat, as we see in the story today, it's not going to be easy.

You can expect difficulty and you can expect storms to have, but you can also expect great and wonderful and amazing things as well that God wants to do in and through you.

He wants us to be in a place where we can look at insurmountable odds and we can hear him say, peace be still to the storm.

And he wants to use each one of us, he's calling each one of us to do great things for his kingdom.

I mean, look at the ragtag group of disciples that he's assembled.

He's using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

And he's taking this group and he's turning them into the building blocks of the church to use them to help write the scriptures that we're holding here today.

You know, these guys had no formal training, they had no amazing abilities.

Jesus was choosing the foolish, like I said, the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

He's choosing people that people could only point and say, that's gotta be God, because I knew Peter beforehand.

And that's not the same Peter.

And what that means is if God can use these 12 disciples, it means that he can use any one of us to do great and amazing things for his kingdom.

So we really have no excuse.

He wants to use you and he wants to train you.

But we have to step in the boat and we have to go where he tells us to go.

That for some of you, that might be just going to work, and he's gonna use you for great things there.

It could be going to school and he's gonna use you for great things there.

It could mean that he's calling some of you to be missionaries, or he's calling some of you to be church planners, and he's and he's just saying, follow me.

Get in the boat.

And all that we need to do is surrender and say yes.

And have faith that if he's placed that calling on our life, that he's gonna be faithful to complete it.

And that's really called faithfulness.

There's a sign that we have hanging in our house.

We've had it there for a couple years.

It says, go where you're sent, stay where you're put, and give what you got.

And to me, that is just a perfect illustration.

That's a perfect saying of what faithfulness truly is.

And just like Ben was talking about last week, faithfulness, taking the seed that we are given, having the faithfulness to cast it out and to sow that seed, and then leaving the results up to God.

But we have to be faithful to sow those seeds in the first place.

We have to be faithful to take that step into the boat.

Any one of us can do great things for God's kingdom.

It's just a matter of having the faith and then being faithful.

So here are the questions that I hope we leave here today asking ourselves.

The first one is, are we humble enough to have faith that God is in control?

Because it takes true humility to have that attitude.

So that's the first question.

Are we humble enough to have faith that God is in control?

And the second thing is, are we on the shore or are we on the boat?

Are we just listening to Jesus or are we following Jesus?

So that's the second one.

Are we on the shore or are we in the boat?

And the third one is are you willing to allow God to build your faith?

That prayer is a dangerous prayer because it's like praying for patience.

It doesn't get downloaded.

If you pray for patience, God's going to give you opportunities to be patient.

If you pray for faith, God's going to give you opportunities to trust him.

And then more opportunities to trust him even more.

And it's a scary prayer, but man, is it worth it to follow him and to have that calling and to jump in that boat with him?

And as I was saying, following Jesus is not easy.

But it is the most exciting adventure that you could ever go on.

And it's God's desire that we go on that adventure without doubt and without fear, because doubt and fear just ruin the whole ride for us with Jesus.

Jesus didn't show visible concern for his disciples' safety because he wasn't concerned.

He knew God was in control.

He knew that God was good, that he was going to take care of every detail, and that was good enough for Jesus.

And if it's good enough for Jesus, it better be good enough for us as well.

What it really comes down to is a matter of letting go and surrendering everything that we have, everything that we are, and just saying, here it is, Jesus.

And just stepping in that boat with him.

And if you're sitting here today and you realize that you've been walking with the Lord for a long time, but you've never surrendered to that extent.

And you're thinking, you know what, I want to step into that boat, but I don't know how.

It's a matter of surrender.

You don't have to have a master plan.

You don't have to have a 10-step process.

It's just a matter of saying yes to everything that God asks.

And he'll show you how to get into that boat.

And then he's going to tell you what's next.

And you need to trust him with everything that you have that he'll bring you to the completion of the calling that he's placed on your life.

And he has placed the calling on every single one of our lives.

I guarantee that.

Or maybe you're here today and you're hearing for the first time that Jesus loves you and died for you.

And wants you to follow him.

You know, it won't be easy, as we've talked extensively about here today, but I guarantee it'll be the best decision that you've ever made.

No one will ever love you as completely as Jesus.

Jesus' love for you is exponential.

It's phenomenal.

He loves you, he has a plan for you, he has a calling, he has a purpose for each one of our lives.

He wants to forgive you.

He wants to fill that void in your life that you've felt your whole life.

That void that you've tried to fill with wealth and alcohol and porn and relationships.

And that void just keeps feeling bigger and bigger.

Surrender to Him today and start living to the fulfillment of why you were created in the first place.

God desires you.

He died on the cross for you.

Just tell him today, regardless of who you are and how long you've been walking with him or not walking him, just tell him, I surrender, and he'll say, Welcome to the family.

Step into the boat.

Let's go on our journey.

Will you pray with me?

God, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you so much for the care and the concern that you have for each one of us.

Lord, but we realize that that care and concern is in different ways than we desire.

Much like these disciples.

But Lord, I pray that we would, even in the silence, in the midst of a storm, even when we don't see you, Lord, I pray that we would know that you're still working, that you still care, and that you want to build our faith, that you want to grow us in that way, so that we can successfully complete the calling that you've put on each one of our lives.

Lord, if anybody sitting here today doesn't know what that calling is, I pray that they would just be faithful to take that next step of saying, Yes, Lord, I surrender, Lord.

And that you would lead them right into that calling, whatever it might be.

Using us for the re for the purpose that you created us.

God, we love you so much.

We desire to follow you.

We desire to grow in you and to become more and more like you.

Do great and amazing and wonderful things in each one of us, Lord, in this church as a whole, for your glory and for your kingdom only.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.