Harmony Christian Church

Week 4 - Calming the Storm (section 87)

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Have you ever struggled with trusting God?  What’s that about?  How do you get past it? Tune in to Kent’s sermon and learn how you can turn and trust the one who can still the wind and the waves and redeem our story. Jump in with us in Sections 87 of the Gospel Harmonies @ https://www.harmonychurch.cc/tracking-jesus-timeline/. IT’S EASY TO GIVE at Harmony, text any amount to (859) 459-0316  to get started (or give online @ my.harmonychurch.cc/give ).

ILLUSTRATION:

The first time I ever swung a golf club was at a driving range.  I knew nothing about golfing except they had given me a long stick to hit a small ball.  So, naturally, as a 20-something kid, I thought, “Hit it as hard as you can…”  Man, I was swinging that bad boy as hard as possible, trying to muscle it.  And you can guess what was happening, it was terrible – the ball was slicing, and then sometimes barely moving.  At one point, it literally went sideways.  Finally, a guy came over to me and said, “It’s not about how hard you hit it, it’s about having good form and follow through”…

I stopped and watched all these other people hitting the ball, I watched them with grace, hit the ball, and follow through with their club and it hit me, I couldn’t get a hit because I didn’t know what I was doing…

WE:

We all know what it’s like to not have good follow-through on something, right?

-Some of you have a boss that takes things to like 90% done and then switches to a new project and it drives you nuts – nothing’s ever finished

As humans, we know what it looks like for someone to not follow through on an implied promise.

b

I think the secret struggle of lots of people when it comes to God, is feeling like God fails to follow through.

There are a few points in people’s lives where they tend to walk away from God

The sermon I’m about to preach is one that can cause people to walk away from God.

 b

Can I preach it, and then walk you back through why people walk away and what we can do?

Check it out…

THE SERMON:

One of the things I think Jesus was doing was redeeming the history & story of Israel.

Let me explain – do you know the story of Jonah?  

God called Jonah to go to a non-Jewish nation and call them to God.  He didn’t want to do it, so he ran – he got on a boat with a bunch of religiously pagan sailors and set off for a distant land to run from God.  Jonah went down into the boat and fell asleep.  While he was sleeping, a huge storm broke out.  The sailors, guys who knew what they were doing on the water thought they were going to die.  They finally wake up Jonah and end up realizing he’s the reason – he’s running from God.  They throw Jonah over the side of the boat and the storm stops.  The sailors end up worshiping God and sacrificing to him out of fear.

Alright, let’s jump into the gospels (section 87), cause I want you to see how Jesus redeems this story..

Mark 4:35-41

³⁵ That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 

Now, you don’t know this at this point, but I”m preaching on it next week.  Jesus is actually going over to the other side of the lake to a non-Jewish man who is suffering from demon possession…  Jonah ran from the non-Jewish people, Jesus is running towards him.

³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 

Luke tells us they were in great danger…

These guys have spent their entire lives on the water and they know they are in serious trouble – sound familiar?

³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

Jesus is asleep during this chaos.  It’s funny, I picture him rolling over like one of my teenagers and being like, “5 more minutes…” covering his face with his cloak…  🙂

Now, remember at this point in the story of Jonah, they throw him over board and the storm stops..  but not with Jesus!

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

with a word, Jesus speaks and the waves stop.

I was on a boat on the sea of Galilee and felt the waves on just a windy day, I kept thinking, what would would you think of someone who could really do that – control the ecosystem with a word – that’s God-level power…

In both stories, God stops the storm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

These guys recognize who he is in their fear…

So, here’s the sermon I’d normally preach, ready for it?

God is in the business of writing stories of redemption.

b

Jesus redeems the story of Jonah and He can redeem your story

b

All you have to do is turn and trust the one who can still the wind and the waves.

b

You just have to trust and have faith.

Hit pause, cause maybe you’re thinking

Kent, I don’t get it, where’s the problem with that sermon?

Here’s the problem.

b

The implication of that sermon is that God is going to “follow through” for you if you have enough faith – He will move whatever mountain you need moved.

b

And lots of you… have experienced the exact opposite.

b

You had faith, you trusted and the mountain remained.

And the temptation is to just walk away from Jesus.

Ugh…

Can I just tell you a couple quick stories?

Because I believe God is in the business of redeeming stories

I believe and have 100% faith and trust in Jesus.

Did you know the one person we know of that Jesus knew died and didn’t raise from the dead was his cousin?  

Did you know that Paul the apostle healed lots of people but was brutalized and put in prisons?

Did you know that all the apostles – even the ones who were in the boat that day and thought they would die but were rescued, that they all died even worse deaths at the hands of violent men?

Listen, your confidence in God can’t be bound by your circumstances.

b

Yes, God sometimes will answer prayers in miraculous, mind-bending ways, but at other times, He will be strikingly silent.

b

Jesus was God while He was sleeping and they were terrified and He was God when He was standing and commanding the elements to back down.

b

God doesn’t sleep, but God can be silent – it doesn’t mean He doesn’t care, it just means He is up to something you don’t understand yet.

b

God’s gift to mankind is not to remove us from our circumstances but to walk through them with us.

b

“Then how can I ever have confidence in prayer with God?”

1 John 5:14

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

b

God is always following through, He’s just following through on His will – which is complex, multifaceted, caught up in time and space trying to bring as many into relationship with Him as possible.

CLOSING ILLUSTRATION:

A few years back there was a heartbreaking story of some worship leaders at a church whose 2-year-old daughter passed away suddenly.  The church prayed for several days for this little girl to resurrect.  It was heartbreaking.  

Can I tell you something, I believe God could do something like that, I’ve even prayed for it.  But it doesn’t destroy my faith if God doesn’t do it.  As a matter of fact, the entire book of Revelation is written to show us that God DOES have a plan to restore these wrongs.  

It is ok to both admit that what you have gone through is terrible and wrong AND to still trust God in the midst of the storm.

Jesus Himself entered into those kinds of places – when His friend Lazarus died.  Jesus knew He was going to raise him from the dead, and yet Jesus still cried.  Some of you, need to let down your guard and cry.  Some of you need to return to Jesus and realize you had bought into some implications about God and how He works that were just never true…