On you. You'll never forsake us, never leave us nor forsake us. A firm foundation. We can stand, we can lean, we can depend on you. And that's not just because of yesterday or what someone else said, but it's because of your word. We can depend on the solid rock that is Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh. In him is our hope, is Him. In him is our dependence. In him is who we walk upon the water to be with him, to trust him when the storms of life and everything surrounds us. It is you, Lord, who is firm. It is you who is not swayed back and forth by the news, by what's happening in our present circumstance. You, Lord, are a firm foundation. Today, tomorrow, forever. And so thank you, Jesus, for demonstrating for us who to follow, who to give our life to, who to depend on when this life is crushing us. We give you praise in these songs we've sung and the words we'll read this morning through Pastor Addison's message. May we depend on you as the firm foundation, the one who we can stand beside with. On the promises of God. In the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you, Pastor David. We're reading today From Luke, chapter 4. Luke, chapter 4, verse 35 to 41. Is it helpful I pick this up? Are we good? We're good. All right, cool. Luke, chapter 4, 35, 41. I'll be reading from the NIV that day, when evening came, he said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along. Just as he was in the boat, there were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, teaching, don't you care if we drown? He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, quiet, be still. Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? They were terrified and asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obeyed him. I want to give you a new vocabulary word, if that's okay, if you're on Jeopardy. I do feel entitled to a commission if you win on this one. But the vocabulary word is what's called the Lucretius problem. And what the Lucretius problem is, is it's actually named for a Roman poet who observed that a fool assumes that the tallest mountain in the world must be the tallest one he's ever personally seen. And the Lucretius problem matters because emergency managers run into it constantly. When wild wildfires poured through Canada and crews would go house to house, they had a hard time getting people to evacuate. It's not because the people were reckless or were just trying to be difficult. It's because they believed that they had seen fires before and they knew what fires do, and they couldn't believe that there would be a situation where their house would catch fire and they wouldn't people have time to get out because it just wasn't something they could imagine. The same thing happened on the Gulf coast before Hurricane Katrina. People had ridden out Camille and had a mental picture of what a hurricane cost you. So the warnings didn't fit inside it. Their experience isn't ignorance, but it is a problem. The worst thing they survived became the definition of the worst thing that was possible. And it's call the Lucretius problem. See, our faith does this same thing. Our faith boat, if you will, is sized for the worst storm that we have ever weathered. We think of the worst possible thing that could happen to us and we say, sure, I could trust Jesus through that, or sure, I could believe that God is for me and that God is with me, Me in the midst of that, and then holds. And our sea hangs in there until the day it doesn't. Until the day a storm comes up that we weren't ready for. Until a day a storm comes up that we don't have space for. And that's the disciples in Mark chapter four. These are professional fishermen. They're on water that they've worked on their whole lives. They've lived here, they've grown up here. They're from with it. They know the smells and the depths and the nature and kind of everything that they are engaging. You see, they weren't ignorant to what they were dealing with. But this storm goes past everything that their confidence was built for. We're continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark, and we've been journeying with these new disciples as their faith is defined. Right. And the Gospel of the Bible of Mark, as we talked about, is written by Mark, how he came up with the name, and he was a companion of Peter, who was a disciple. Many people believe that this mark is the same mark. If you're familiar with the crucifixion narratives, it talks about a young man who ran naked from the garden of Gethsemane in fear and that it was John, Mark A lot of people believe that's the same Mark and that he was a companion and disciple of Peter and that the Gospel of Mark is kind of the memoirs of Peter. As Mark learned from Peter what his stories were about Jesus, he wrote them down and kind of condensed them into the Gospel of Mark. And it's likely written primarily to Roman Christians who are being persecuted for their faith. Right? And we kind of go from story to story. And if you've been reading it through, as we go through, it feels like, man, there's not a lot of filler in this guy. We're going verse by verse by verse. And it's just because that's the way Mark, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, structured his story. And I say it that way because that's helpful to remember when you read scripture. It is inspired. But as we read these stories, we're not getting. It's not like how we would read a biography, Right? You know, like, when you read a biography, you assume, okay, you know. You know, just because it's the most recent biography I've read, like 10 years ago, okay, Walt Disney was in Missouri, and now he's not in Missouri anymore, and he's on his way to California. And then he started the company, and that company failed, and then he started another. You know, that tends to be the way we read biographies. The Gospel of Mark, and any gospel is going to be structured in a way under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the author is trying to make a point or trying to spin a narrative or trying to help us to understand what's happening. So we've gotten these parables all together, and now we're going to kind of transition into these miracle stories. And Mark tells us right in the beginning of his gospel what he is trying to do right in the beginning of his gospel, Mark 1, 1, the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. So what Mark is trying to do is he's trying to show us that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. And he's communicating that to his audience. So we've wrapped up kind of this parable section. And if you remember, the parables were about short stories that tell a point about the kingdom of God. They have one big point that we're supposed to learn about the kingdom of God. And if you remember the reaction to the parables, the Jesus would teach a parable, they would get confused. They would go to Jesus, and Jesus would explain the parable, and that becomes kind of the nature. So, and for Those who didn't choose to come to Jesus, their heart was hardened because they were like, that guy's confusing. I'm not going to follow him because that guy is confusing. He confuses me. And so that became kind of the story of the parables, right? Those who follow Jesus would go to Jesus and ask for him to clarify the confusion. Those who were being pushed away from Jesus would turn away from Jesus and say, he's confusing, I'm not into this. And now we're going to turn to these miracle stories that start in the end of chapter four and continue all through chapter five. The stories were designed to trigger curiosity. And the job of the listener was to hear them and say, jesus, help me understand the miracles. Show us the power of, of Jesus. And Mark starts with kind of a really big one here. And if you're like me, you've heard this story kind of your whole life, the idea of Jesus calming the storm. But there's a lot of interesting stuff here that we can miss if we're not careful. I mentioned already these men were fishermen, right? These men were fishermen and storms were not new to them. And like I said, the book of Mark is kind of distillations of the first hand accounts of Peter. So Peter told Mark and Mark kind of captured it. All right, so what I want us to do as we read through this and we understand this is as we're listening to it one more time, I want to read through it. I want you to kind of imagine Peter telling the story to Mark because you can kind of hear notes of it where he's like, he's like, Mark, we were terrified, you know what I mean? It's like, like we're out there and a storm comes up. We start going, where's Jesus? He's sleeping. And we wake him up. We say, jesus, what are we doing? What are you doing? Sleeping, you know what I mean? And so I don't know why I'm doing a pa. Dutch Saunder accent. That's the accent I use for Alyssa's Dad. Anyway, mark 4:35 that day. When evening came, he said to his disciples, go over to the other side. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There were other boats with them. A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said, teacher, don't you care if we drown? He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, quiet, be still. Then the wind died down and was completely calm. And he said to his disciples, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? They were terrified and said to each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. Now, like I said, we're familiar with this story. You know, it's pretty straightforward. They're on a boat, a storm comes up. Jesus is asleep. The disciples are terrified. The disciples wake Jesus up. Sarcastically. Jesus calms the storm. He says, don't you believe in me yet? And they, and then, I love the end. They're still terrified, but now for a different reason, because they're like, we're hanging out with a guy who can just tell storms to shut up. Are we all okay with that? Like, like I'm a little less scared of the storm now and more scared of who that guy is. But the first thing to notice is a storm that came up that they weren't ready for, it scared them. And the parables were one thing, right? Because the parables, it's a confusing story. And you go to Jesus and you say, jesus, we don't understand, but this is a storm. You see, it wasn't we don't understand. It was, we are going to die, right? We are going to die. In their fear, whatever faith they had falls apart. Whatever faith that they had in this guy that they were newly following in this movement, right? They had seen him heal sick people, they had seen him cast out demons. But this happens and it's like, okay, now we're at risk though, right? When I was just watching him teach, I could just kind of, if he said anything too weird, I could just kind of do one of the, you know, but, but, but now I just, I don't know. Now it's my safety that is at risk. Now it is my peace that is at risk, right? All of a sudden, the disciples owned all of this risk and they turn to Jesus and they say, we are going to, to die. The second thing to notice is Jesus response to the storm. He simply gets up and calms it, right? Like, and again, these guys had experienced storms their whole lives. We have to understand how shocking this must have been for them because that's part of why Mark tells the story. And one of the commentators, N.T. wright, captures it really well. He says, this tale though, isn't about. And this is so interesting, this is probably my favorite part of the story. This tale though, isn't about danger and rescue. Behind stories like this, Mark's readers would have probably heard older echoes Think of Jonah. Instead of doing what God told him, he was sailing away in the wrong direction. A great storm arose which was only calmed when at his prompting, the sailors threw him overboard. Or think of the Israelites coming out of Egypt when God made a way through the sea. Think even further back to the stories of creation when God's order, God's new world emerged from the dark and primal sea. The psalms several times speak of the creator God who rules the raging of the sea, telling its rough and threatening waters to quiet down. See, this is a theme in scripture that it can be called any number of things. One of my favorite resources, the Bible Project that calls it the Chaotic Waters. So if you want to nerd out about this, if you're like, I got six hours, don't know what to do with it. If you're like on the road for a chunk of time, download the bibleproject app, search the Chaotic Waters. They have three hours of podcast on the Chaotic Waters. I was gonna say it's interesting. It's not. It is. Everybody I've ever turned onto the bibleproject podcast is like, that's rough, brother. And I'm like, I know, it's great, right? You know what I mean? It's dense, it's academic. They always are like apologizing to me. They're like, I listened to it and I'm like, yeah, it's academic, right? And they're like, yeah, it was kind of boring. I turned it off. One time my wife and I were sharing headphones at the gym. I turned on the Bible project and she's like, I need you to change this. I need, like this has to change. Like this is the least inspiring thing that's ever happened. So. But if you want to look into it, you can. So the Chaotic Waters is this theme that exists throughout scripture and I'll distillate it, right? That is basically, it starts right there in Genesis 1:1, right where it says the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. So in the pre creative state before God has put any order into the world, the world is personified as chaotic evil water, right? And then what happens? Land comes up out of it. The water in this culture was a dangerous place. I mean, it kind of still is, right? Like you is go to the beach with toddlers and all of a sudden you properly respect the water. And they do not at all, right? They're just like running out there like it's not gonna kill em and you're just like, ugh. You know, and so this theme of the chaotic waters, right? Other cultures around them would have had stories of their deities beating back the sea. And if you just think about how they would have viewed it, right? They would have taught their children to fear and respect kind of the chaotic water. They themselves would have had a fear and a respect of the chaotic waters. After all, the sea is unconquerable, right? If I'm on land, I can clear, you know, with a sickle, some brush and some trees, and I can bring the land into submission. I can't do that with a sea, right? Like, I can't. There is something that is inherently dangerous, inherently evil, inherently chaotic about it. And we see this theme throughout scripture. And again, it's a dense kind of study, but it's fun of like, you know, Genesis 1:1, the flood narrative of Noah. And then, you know, and the idea the Israelites passed through the sea to get away from Egypt and, you know, and that the enemies of Egypt and the water are tied together and all this stuff, right? And so with all of that in mind, this guy that they think might be at very least a good teacher suddenly gets up and just like a couple chapters ago in Mark 1, he actually uses the same words in Mark 1, he's speaking to a demon and he says, and he rebukes the demon and says, be quiet. And then the demon listens. And then a couple chapters later, the waves start to come up. He rebukes the waves and he says, be quiet. And the waves listen. And so Jesus in this story shows power over their very personification of what evil and chaos is, right? Like they would have. This is why they were terrified is because they're going, the water is the scariest thing we have. And he just told it what to do, right? And so there's this. Jesus shows power over it. And then we see where the disciples end up. Jesus says, do you still have faith? And the answer is, no, Jesus, we don't have that kind of faith. I didn't think you could do that. I don't know how I feel about the fact that you can do that. Should I trust you to do it again? Was this a one time thing or what are we dealing with here? Right? Like we, you know, and then verse 41 says that they were terrified and they asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. How could it be possible that this, this man has power over even this? And what type of power does he hold that? This thing I've been afraid of my whole life bows to him that this Thing that has killed my friends, that this thing that I have taught my children to never mess with this power in our world, that he is able to bring it into submission. And so we kind of capture the power of this story that Jesus has a power over their very personification of chaos. Understand how the original audience would have heard it, but let's get honest about us for a minute, because the past two weeks we talked about parables. And the issue with parables is the lack of knowledge. And we said, be curious, don't harden your heart. Come and learn. But when we look at storms, storms are different. The disciples that were still with Jesus, when they hit up against lack of knowledge, it pushed them to curiosity. But when they hit up against fear, it pushed them to accusation, right? When they hit up against lack of knowledge, it pushed them towards curiosity. But when they hit up against fear, it pushed them to accusation. Parables made them say, jesus, we don't understand. But the storm and the fear made them look at Jesus and say, don't you care about me? And that's our story too, right? We're the same way. I'm afraid that God isn't going to come through for me. I'm afraid that God doesn't care for me. I don't. Jesus, it's one thing to struggle with the facts of it, right? It's one thing to say, do I really believe this? Do because of a set of knowledge. But when reality hits up against our faith in the form of a storm, we find ourselves at that place where we say, jesus, my faith wasn't built for this. A storm comes up and we aren't ready for it. I asked Pastor Mike this week how he was closing this same message over at gcc. And it was a helpful conversation. He talked about Peter and. And he said, you know, years later, what Peter would write in 1st Peter 5, 7 is meaningful to me. He said. And what Peter would write is he would say in five, seven, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. He said, addison, the question is, where do I go when my storms come? Where do I go when my storms come, right? Because curiosity naturally pushes you to Jesus. It makes you say, jesus, how do I understand this? But when our storms come, we can make ourselves small. We could say, I'm afraid that God isn't going to come through for me, and I'm afraid that God doesn't care about me. And the message is quite simply, he will come through for you, and he does care about you. But it is difficult sometimes to believe so the question is, where do you go when the storms come? Because what we tend to do, if I can be honest, is we tend to go to, you know, friends. We tend to go to a, you know, a person, right? I think something I've caught myself doing, maybe this is just me, because I'm a worse Christian than all you guys, but, you know, hang in with me. I tend to go to the person who I know is going to say what I already want to hear. You know what I mean? Like, when I'm going through something and I'm like, oh, I got to make a decision, I'm going to go through this person that I haven't talked to in six weeks, but I'm pretty sure he's going to say what I want to hear about this situation, right? And what Jesus would say is, no, no, no, come to me. I'm not afraid of your storm. I'm not afraid of your storm. The problem, I think, friends, at the risk of stepping on toes, is that we don't see Jesus as the Jesus that can calm the storm. You know what I mean? Like, we don't. We don't think he's that powerful, right? Like, we just don't. It's just like, oh, it's like a nice thought. But, you know, this is. This is real stuff, right? You know what I mean? It's like, you know, I got to deal with some big boy stuff. So, like, you know, and what Jesus would say to you in this story is he would say, didn't you see what I just did? Right? And the message of this story for the disciples was, that is, you can trust me because I can. You can trust me because I will come through. And the struggle is that we don't always believe that yet. And what I don't want us to miss about this story is that that's okay. You see, like, one of the commentaries actually points this out. And if you're familiar with the Gospel of Mark, it isn't until chapter eight, when Peter finally looks at Jesus and says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. But you know what happens in between. Jesus proves that he's the Christ, the son of the living God, over and over and over and over and over again. And the disciples aren't there yet. What the best part of this story is that at the end, he doesn't say, if you don't have faith, get out of the boat. You got to swim back to the shore. You're Out. You're out of here. You're not welcome here anymore. You can't be my disciple if you don't believe. I can calm storms. I'm sorry, that's not who Jesus is. What Jesus does is he invites us to go along with him. Yes, it matters where we go in our storms. But if you are still in process, Jesus invites you to be in process. Jesus invites you to be with him in the in between. The disciples in the Gospel of Mark are constantly seeing the power of God on display and constantly not quite believing yet Jesus invitation to come to him in a storm is not slap in the wrist that says, why aren't you better yet? Why don't you have better, you know, choices yet? Why don't you do the better thing yet? His question is, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? And it's not said with a tone of why can't you be a better Christian? It's a loving father looking at his children and saying, don't you see how much I love you yet? Don't you see that I am for you? Haven't you seen me work in your life over and over again? Don't you see that I won't let you drown? And friends, we're in process with that. And the truth is, is that I think we constantly are in process with that, right? Because I can feel like I'm at a pretty good place with it. And then something happens that I wasn't ready for, right? And then all of a sudden it's okay, well, Jesus, do I trust you to calm this storm? And Jesus lovingly and caringly walks with us and walks beside us and says, don't be afraid. Have faith. And he allows us to be in constant process. He allows us to grow. And the point is, is that we can't get out of the boat because Jesus isn't kicking us out. He's inviting us to stay in. So the question for us this morning is, where do we go when storms come? Do we go to our own solutions or do we go to Jesus? Would you run to him and make that choice? And finally, would you be okay with still being in process? Are you okay with that? Are you okay with walking alongside Jesus? And do you understand that that is his very invitation? That his invitation is to say, walk alongside me. Learn from me. It's okay that you're not there yet. I'm walking with you and I'm teaching you every single day. And that as we trust him with smaller storms and slightly larger storms and Slightly larger storms. We learn the reflex of trusting him with life's largest storms. Because he is good, because he will come through, and because he does care about us. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for this truth. We thank you that, Lord. No storm is too large for you. We thank you that, Lord, you see us and you know us and you care for us. And, Lord, that through the chaotic waters of life, Lord, you are. You are here and you are good. And Lord, I pray that as you speak to our hearts and as you speak to our minds, Lord, you would remind us, Lord, that there is no storm too great for you. That, Lord, you are with us and you walk with us. And, Lord, I pray that you would remind us, Lord, where to run in the midst of our storms. That we would run to you. That we would cast all of our anxieties on you because you care for. For us. And secondly, Lord, that we would. We would be okay with still being in process. That, Lord, we would realize you don't kick us out of the boat. You don't slap us on the wrist, Lord, you say you don't have faith, yet you will stay in the boat, stay by my side. And Lord, I pray to anyone within the sound of my voice that needs to feel your comfort and your peace, Lord, I pray that you would make that very, very real to them, Lord, that you are a loving father who cares for them and who walks alongside them. And, Lord, I pray that we would not just engage with this intellectually, but that we would engage with it emotionally and truly, Lord, that we would let you do work on our hearts and our minds to change what our reflexes are when the storms hit. That we would run to you and we would ask. We would ask, what would you teach me through this? And, Lord, help our roots to go deep. Because we choose to come to you in the midst of a storm. And as we worship together and then talk together, Lord, help us to just learn from you together and cast our anxiety on you. And we ask all this in your name. Amen.