Hi, good morning, everyone. Hopefully, you're starting to connect here. We're going to start in a few minutes. I've asked my son Noah to play a prelude for us. So let's listen to him play the piano now. so so so Well, good morning, everyone. We'll give people a few more minutes to connect if you're still trying to log on here. And I will remind you if you're watching this live and then it starts to cut out some, you start to have some problems, you can't always just wait until I've completed the message and then you can watch it on Facebook or on YouTube a little bit later. You might have less problems that way. I do encourage you to have a Bible with you. We're going to be looking mainly at Mark chapter 4 today, but we'll also be turning to Philippians 4 and also to 1 Peter 5. So know that we're going to be turning to those passages today. I encourage you to look at the at the church email that goes out each Thursday. I put a lot of things in there this Thursday, different ways for you to connect. And so I hope you'll take the time to look through that, especially carefully these days when we can't meet together in person, but there's a lot of opportunities there to connect in other ways. So please look through that in detail. Another thing I put in the weekly email this week are some discussion questions related to this passage in Mark 4. So I encourage you to look over those, take some time to reflect on this passage personally and to talk through this with your family or maybe call up someone else from the church and just talk through some of those application points. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and get started then. If you want to take your Bibles with me and turn to Psalm chapter 4, this will be our Old Testament reading this morning, Psalm 4. Psalm 4 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself. The Lord hears when I call to Him. Be angry and do not sin. Ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord. You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. And then let's turn to our New Testament reading, which is also gonna be the sermon passage for this morning, Mark chapter four. Last week we were looking at some of those passages in Mark one and two, and this morning we turn now to Mark chapter four, and to the end of Mark four, I'm gonna begin reading in Mark four, verse 35. Mark four, 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 him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose. And the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he awoke and rebuked the wind. and said to the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said to them, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Let's pray together. God, we thank you this morning that we can gather in this way. It does sadden us that we can't gather in person right now, but thank you that we are still the church and you've called us to worship you and to spend time in your word. And so thank you that in this way, through this live stream, we have the opportunity to at the same time be gathering around your word, and we do pray, God, that you will teach us from this great passage in Mark 4. Help us to trust in you more. I pray that our faith will grow, that our fears will diminish as we look to you, and we pray that you'll be glorified in all of these things. And we pray for whoever else might be listening today and watching this, participating in this, sermon this morning. We pray that you'll be at work drawing people to yourself and granting that miracle of faith in you. So we pray that you'll be glorified in all of this. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, this morning we're going to consider this relationship between faith and fear. And we're going to look at this memorable and astounding miracle of Jesus Christ as he calms this raging storm. Last Sunday, we focused on some portions of Mark 1 and Mark 2, looking at Jesus' authority and just looking to trust in Him, knowing that He is in control, He has authority over all things. We saw that authority coming across so powerfully in His teaching and preaching, as people recognized that, that He had authority like no one else. We saw his authority to cast out demons. We saw his authority to heal. And this morning, in this passage in Mark 4, we'll see Jesus' authority over nature as well. We continue to see Jesus manifesting his divine power. His glory. And my hope for us in these uncertain times, in these scary times, is that we will fix our eyes on Jesus and that we will trust in His authority over this situation. You know, the coronavirus is not outside of His control. So as we look to Him, as we have faith in Him, that should help us to deal with the fears and the anxieties and the worries that we're facing. And I imagine for most of us, if not for every one of us, there are those fears, there are those anxieties and worries that are on our minds, maybe keeping us up at night, maybe just there very present in our minds throughout the day, maybe consuming a lot of our thoughts, maybe making us feel discouraged, despairing, maybe depressed. If we're given over to fear, there are going to be some harmful consequences that that has in our lives. In fact, the fretting, if you think about it, the fretting and the worrying could end up doing even more damage than the actual things we're fearing. Maybe you will get COVID-19. Maybe you are already experiencing financial hardships in your life right now. But if you think about it, letting that anxiety and that worry fester inside of you, that could be even more detrimental to you than those other things that you're fearing. So this is an opportunity for us, brothers and sisters, a unique time in our lives when we're corporately enduring this hardship as the entire world really is facing this crisis. And so this is a chance for believers, for us to examine our fears and to see what those fears are telling us about our faith. And it's an opportunity for our lights to shine as we trust more and more in Jesus. So, the question that this situation can cause us to ask as we reflect on this is how deeply are we really trusting in Jesus? Or, by contrast, is this situation revealing that our security has been resting quite a bit on health and money and those types of earthly comforts and securities. When health or money don't seem very secure, when we're forced not to take those things for granted, what happens in our hearts? And I'm not trying to minimize the concerns that are out there. Don't hear me to be saying this. I don't want this to come across like, you know, you're a wimp if you're scared right now. No, not at all. I mean, we can all see that this is a very concerning situation, as the death toll continues to rise, as the cases of this virus continue to spread, as jobs and the economy and the stock market are so impacted by all of this. There are some really frightening things happening in our world. So the question for us as Christians is, how does our faith in Jesus help us to deal with those very real fears? And how can our faith grow in the face of these fears? How is God wanting to sanctify us in the midst of this trial? You know, it's actually a kindness of God to allow hard things in our lives in order to expose our sinful attitudes. Maybe he's allowing us to see that we have some very real fears associated with our health, with our money, with our possessions and our comforts, showing that maybe we're idolizing some of those things. And as he shows us how fragile those things in fact are, It makes us squirm. It makes us really uncomfortable, very fearful. There is another fear, though, as we're going to look at in this passage. There's another fear, a great fear that drives out every other fear. And it corresponds to a treasure that is more satisfying than anything else, more satisfying than any other pleasure imaginable. And it is the fear of the Lord, a reverent fear, a holy fear, a joyful fear that causes us to tremble in the presence of our Almighty Lord, a reverent awe that renders us speechless in view of His majesty and the beauty of His greatness. That's the fear of the Lord. And we'll come to that toward the end of this passage in Mark 4. So in this amazing story of Jesus calming the storm, we're going to see faith and fear. We're going to see Jesus as, first of all, Jesus as a profound model of faith, a kind of faith that erases fear. And then we'll see the disciples just full of fear, just terrified at what's going on, which shows their lack of faith. and then we'll see the authority of Jesus over this storm, displayed in a way that should create an appropriate fear of Him. and faith in him and a delight in him. So here's how we'll break up this passage, how I'll summarize this in these four points as we walk through these verses. First of all, asleep in the storm. Jesus is asleep in the storm. Secondly, afraid of the storm. The disciples are afraid of the storm. The third point will be authority over the storm. Jesus manifests his authority over the storm. and then fourth and finally, afraid after the storm, and that's that other type of fear, the fear of the Lord, a fear that the disciples sense after the storm. So let's start with our first point then, asleep in the storm. This is quite an event that happens here. There's this unexpected and violent storm that comes upon the sea here. It's just all of a sudden the waves are breaking into the boat. The boat is filling with water. What makes it all the more dramatic is the fact that Jesus is sleeping in the middle of this storm. What's the significance of this, Jesus sleeping in the storm? Well, one thing we notice here is Jesus' humanity. We need to remember Jesus, he's fully God. He's also fully human as he came into this world as a human being, 100% human. like us in so many ways except without sin. And what we see here, this gives us a glimpse into his humanity. This is a picture of Jesus' humanity. He is worn out as a result of his ministry. He's been teaching and preaching and healing people and casting out demons and all these crowds have been following him. And he is now utterly exhausted. and he falls into such a deep sleep there on the cushion in this boat, that even as the waves are crashing over the sides of the boat, he is still sound asleep. Well, another really important reality that we see in this is that this is a profound picture of faith in the midst of the storm. As we look at the context here in Mark 4, we see a bit earlier in Mark 4, in verses 26 and 27, the farmer scatters seed on the ground, and then does what? He goes to sleep. That's part of the parable of the growing seed. Verse 27 says, he sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how. And what a beautiful picture that is of faith. We are to faithfully sow the seed of God's Word and then we are to rest in God and trust in God and have faith that He's gonna work and He's going to accomplish His purposes. So we have that image there in the near context of Mark 4. We have that image of sleep going along with faith. What we're seeing here at the end of Mark 4 is a vivid illustration, a perfect illustration of this truth. Jesus Christ is a model for us here of what perfect trust looks like. I mentioned this last Sunday as well as we were looking in Mark 1 35 about Jesus going away to a quiet place by himself in order to pray to the Father. And we understand, first and foremost, Jesus is the object of our faith. He's the one we trust in for our salvation. But we also see this in the Gospels of Jesus as a model of our faith. We are to trust like Jesus trusts. Throughout Jesus' life and ministry, He demonstrates this perfect trust in His Father, which is seen in His perfect obedience to the Father. This is why we should pray to become more and more like Christ. We want to be conformed into His image, into the image of our Savior. We want that kind of faith and that kind of obedience. And what a great thing it is that the Gospels give us all these pictures of Jesus and how He trusts completely in the Father. So Jesus asleep in the storm is this perfect picture of perfect trust. The storm is raging all around and Jesus is entirely unafraid. I mean, he's not worried at all. There's not even a hint of fear with him. No worry, no anxiety, no fretting, no panic whatsoever. He is perfectly at peace. Don't you want to have peace like that? Recall those wonderful exhortations from Philippians 4, 6 and 7. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." What great exhortations and promises there for us. And as we think of those verses in Philippians 4, do you know where Paul was when he wrote those words? He was in prison when he said those things and I imagine he was preaching those things to himself just as much as he was sharing that with the church in Philippi. He was clinging to those realities. He was pursuing the peace of God even in a very uncertain and scary time for him being in prison. James Montgomery Boyce in his commentary on Philippians He makes an important observation, listen to what he says. Have you ever noticed that the verse does not say that we shall necessarily receive the things we ask for? Do you notice that in Philippians 4, 6 and 7? It doesn't say let your request be made known to God and God's going to give you exactly what you ask for. It doesn't actually say that. It says, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So Boyce, he says, we have to notice, it doesn't say we'll necessarily receive the things we ask for, but he goes on to say, however, God does promise to give a supernatural peace to those who share their real needs with Him. And as I think about Boyce's own life, I mean, that's a meaningful statement, knowing that James Montgomery Boyce himself, he died of liver cancer at age 61. He had to cling to those words as well, just like Paul was clinging to those words in prison. Boyce, I'm sure, was clinging to those promises as well in his time of suffering as he faced the reality that his life here on this earth was coming to an abrupt end. It was on Good Friday in the year 2000 that Boyce received the news that cancer had been detected in his liver. And then it was on June 15th, just eight weeks later, that he passed away and went to be with the Lord. And I remember this impacting me as a young man. I had met Dr. Boyce. During my senior year at Wheaton College, I had gone along with one of my philosophy professors, Mark Talbot. We drove into Chicago with a few other students to listen to some lectures by Dr. Boyce. And on that occasion, I had the opportunity to meet him face-to-face and chat with him for a few minutes. And I remember James Montgomery Boyce's writings being very formative to me. as I was preparing for pastoral ministry, and his writings and ministry continues to have an impact on me, and I find his commentaries very useful. But I remember during that time, just after graduating from college, hearing that Dr. Boyce had been diagnosed with cancer, and then just a few short weeks later hearing that he had died. In a letter to the congregation of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, which is where James Montgomery Boyce ministered for many, many years, Phil Reichen recounted these events, sharing these things with the congregation there, and shepherding the congregation through that time of knowing that their pastor was about to die. Reichen was writing this just a few days before Boyce died. Reichen says, Dr. Boyce addressed the congregation on May 7th, at which time he encouraged us to trust not only in God's sovereignty, but also in his goodness. And listen to this, Dr. Boyce, rather than praying for a miracle, he encouraged us to pray that God would be glorified through suffering, which was the way that he glorified himself in the life and death of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Raiken goes on to write, like any disease, Dr. Boyce's cancer is an evil thing in itself. Nevertheless, it is part of God's good plan and God is using it to glorify himself. Now, I would say it's not at all wrong to pray for a miracle. We can certainly pray for healing and pray for those things, but what I find encouraging about Boyce's example here, about his faith, is just that, that his hope was in the Lord, and whatever the Lord would be pleased to do in that situation, Boyce's hope was not in miraculously being healed from cancer. I mean, that's certainly one way God could have chosen to glorify himself in the situation. He could have chosen. to heal Jim Boyce of that cancer. But Boyce, instead, he was at peace to accept whatever God's plan was, even if that meant not being healed from the cancer, but rather that God would grant this supernatural peace in the midst of suffering and death. Well, these are some evidences of God's grace. We see it in the life of the Apostle Paul. We see it in the life of Jim Boyce. And most of all, what we're seeing here in this passage in Mark 4 is we see Jesus as the perfect example of being at peace, being asleep, resting peacefully in the midst of the raging storm all around him. Well, let's move to our second point now. Afraid of the storm. Afraid of the storm. In stark contrast to Jesus' peaceful sleep in the storm, the disciples, on the other hand, they're terrified by this situation. They are afraid of the storm. And we have to remember, I mean, these guys, they are experienced fishermen, right? I mean, being out on the boat, on the sea, this is not unfamiliar to them. They're very familiar with the Sea of Galilee. They know the kinds of storms that can happen out on that water. And undoubtedly, they've experienced some pretty bad storms while being out in their boats over the years of their careers as fishermen. But apparently, they haven't experienced anything quite like this because they're terrified at this storm. And we shouldn't miss the irony of this scene. We have these experienced sailors, fishermen, in a boat, in a storm, and they're turning to a carpenter for help. Of course they're realizing they understand there's something more to Jesus than just being a carpenter. They know he's way more than a carpenter. They're not yet comprehending exactly who he is, but they are observing that he has some kind of amazing supernatural power and authority. They have observed that. In the middle of verse 38, we read about their reaction to this storm. They woke him, they said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? This is a pretty rude way for them to speak to Jesus, but it's just evidence of their lack of faith. They are totally panicking here, freaking out. I think it's helpful to point out that just because these men are with Jesus does not mean they bypass the storm. that they're in the storm, Jesus is with them, and they're in the storm with Jesus. They're in the same boat with him and they find themselves in the middle of this fierce storm. And I would encourage us to reflect on this as we're in the midst of a storm right now. We're in the midst of this worldwide storm of the coronavirus pandemic. But if you're a Christian, If you're a Christian, if you are repenting of your sins and you're resting in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, if you're united to Christ by faith, trusting in Him for your salvation, then you can live with this assurance, knowing that Jesus is with you in the midst of this storm and in the midst of every other life storm. This is our experience as believers. We go through the storms of life with Jesus right here in the boat with us. It's like that song we have sung at Vacation Bible School in years past. With Jesus in the boat, I can smile in the storm. Some of you remember that song we used to sing at Vacation Bible School? With Jesus in the boat, I can smile in the storm. And yeah, there's those motions to it, and we sing it faster and faster. Great, great song, and a great truth to that song. With Jesus in the boat with us, on the one hand, that doesn't mean we're going to bypass the storms. It doesn't mean it's always going to be smooth sailing. But on the other hand, it does mean that Jesus is always with us, and therefore we don't need to fear, but we can trust in Him to see us through the storm. We shouldn't be like these disciples who are filled with fear. Instead, we should be filled with faith. Consider the words of Scripture in 1 Peter 5. Verses 6 and 7, and you might want to turn there. If you have your Bible with you, turn over to 1 Peter 5. I want to point out a couple of things in these two verses. 1 Peter 5, 6 and 7. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you. And then it says, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. Casting all your anxieties on Him. because he cares for you. Tom Schreiner in his commentary on 1 Peter points out the connection between the participle there in verse 7, casting, casting all your anxieties on him, that participial phrase, and the connection back to the main verb, the exhortation at the beginning of verse 6, to humble yourselves. Okay, so seeing the connection between verse 6 and verse 7 shows us that casting all your anxieties on him is a specific way in which we are to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. You see that as you look at verse 6 and then verse 7? Schreiner spells out the implications of this. He says giving into worry is an example of pride. You may have to look at those verses a little more carefully and closely. But if you see the connection between humility and casting your anxieties on Him, the flip side of that is that worrying is an example of pride. The Shriner goes on to say, because we might be asking, well, how? How is worry an example of pride? Shriner writes, worry is a form of pride because when believers are filled with anxiety, they are convinced that they must solve all the problems in their lives in their own strength. The only God they trust in is themselves. By contrast, though, when believers throw their worries upon God, they express their trust in His mighty hand, acknowledging that He is Lord and Sovereign over all of life. Have you ever thought about this before? That worry and anxiety can actually point to a prideful posture that we have in our hearts? We need to humbly cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. What happiness there is in humility. And I want more of that happiness and more of that peace in my life. And maybe that's what God is doing. Maybe that's a big part of what God is doing in many of our lives right now is to humble us in the midst of these uncertain times. In a situation like this, it becomes painfully obvious that we cannot control things. The problems facing us are too big for us to fix on our own. And it's so freeing to just admit that, to admit that before God, and to bow before Him, asking for His help and for His guidance, and then to just be at peace with whatever He allows to happen, knowing that it's all part of His sovereign plans. He's working all things according to the counsel of His will. Now, there's another thing I want to address here briefly, and this may seem like a bit of a tangent, but it's been on my mind as I think about fear and worry and anxiety. Here's the question I've been wrestling with. What's the difference between worrying and planning? What's the difference between worrying, fretting about things, and simply planning out carefully? Many of you might say, as I'm prone to saying as well, I'm not worrying. I'm not fretting about this. I'm just planning very carefully for every possible contingency. I mean, if X, Y, or Z goes wrong, I want to know what plan A, B, and C is going to be depending on these different contingencies. You know what I mean here? You'll have to think through this for yourself, but I'll just share a little bit of how I've been thinking about this personally for myself. What I think I'm realizing is that if I'm carrying those anxieties on my own, on my shoulders, acting as though I must solve all the problems in my own strength, well, that's going to max out my emotional resources. And then if I'm tapped out emotionally due to anxiety, I'm not going to have much patience or kindness or thoughtfulness to show to others. I was thinking about it this week in terms of emotional bandwidth. You know, some people right now are maxing out the bandwidth on their home networks because, you know, maybe college students are home and they're working on their studies and high school students, middle school students, elementary students are all at home and people are using the internet for a lot of different things. Parents are working from home. There's just not enough bandwidth to keep everything running smoothly. I mean, videos are going to stop and skip and buffer all of that. Hopefully, this video isn't doing that for you. right now but we in terms of emotional bandwidth we all have a certain amount of that bandwidth in terms of you know for me in terms of my capacity to function smoothly without stopping or skipping or buffering. Worry and anxiety we realize that can take up a lot of emotional bandwidth can't it? And here's where I can tell for myself the difference between planning and worrying. Planning is good, it's necessary. And it can be very exciting and rewarding and energizing. I can give a lot of thought to planning and preparing for things coming up in life. And if I can do that walking by faith, casting my anxieties on Him that I should be able to do what I can do and do what I'm called to do, and then trust in God's sovereignty and be able to show patience and kindness to those around me and to be at peace. But if I'm fretting about the things that may or may not be about to happen in life, If that's where I'm at emotionally and that's maxing out my emotional bandwidth, then my patience is going to be very short for other problems that might pop up unexpectedly. I mean, someone spills milk at the dinner table or a disagreement with my wife. If my bandwidth is maxed out due to worry and fear and anxiety, then I'm much less likely to handle those situations the way I ought to. So what I'm saying is this, the way I treat others around me, especially those closest to me, is usually an indicator of the level of anxiety in my heart. And as I think about that, it also helps me to see that connection between anxiety and pride on the one hand, and the connection between humility and peace on the other hand. If I'm pridefully assuming that I can plan well enough to fix all the problems, If I'm bearing that weight on my shoulders alone, that's a far too lofty estimation of my own abilities. I need to humble myself and still plan and be responsible. Yes, for sure. But at the end of the day, I need to rest in the fact that God is the one in control, not me. And what a great promise at the end of that verse there in 1 Peter 5, 7, because He cares for you. What a comfort that is. We can cast our anxieties on Him. He cares for us. He cares about these things that we're so worried about. Well, the next thing, our third point, authority over the storm. We'll just go over this one briefly. Authority over the storm. That's the next thing we see at the end of Mark 4 here. Jesus is very patient with these men, his disciples, as he is patient with us. The disciples, they had spoken to him rudely and disrespectfully, but Jesus still responds to their cry for help. In verse 39, it says, he awoke and rebuked the wind and the sea. He said, peace, be still. Last week in Mark 1 and 2, we were looking at Jesus' authority over sickness and His authority over demons and the authority with which He taught and preached. Now we see that He is also demonstrating His divine authority over nature. He has the power over the wind and the sea to rebuke the wind and the sea and to say, peace, be still. The word great shows up three times in this passage in Mark. The first is in verse 37, a great windstorm. The second is in verse 39, a great calm, a great calm. Jesus supernaturally makes a great calm out of a great windstorm. It's not only amazing that the wind stops immediately, but there's also a great calm. The waves that had been breaking into the boat, those just completely disappear. The water that had been rising and falling and splashing this way and that way into the boat, it's all now perfectly still. This is a miracle. It's no coincidence here. It's not just a storm that happened to form quickly and then dissipate quickly. I mean, that would take some time. Even if the wind stopped immediately, it would take some time before the waves settled down. No, this is a great calm, all of a sudden, out of a great storm. And these disciples, these experienced fishermen and sailors, they recognize this for what it is, which leads to our last point, afraid after the storm. Afraid after the storm. The last thing we have to see in this story is that the disciples were afraid, again, after the storm calmed down. They had been afraid of the storm, Now they're afraid after the storm. And this is a different kind of fear. In verse 40, Jesus rebukes them for their lack of faith. And do you see the contrast there between faith and fear? Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? In other words, if you had faith, you wouldn't have been so afraid in the midst of the storm. But your fear, your panic in the storm shows your lack of faith. In verse 31, we see the fear that comes after the storm. And here's the third use of the word great in these verses. And they were filled with a great fear. The wording in the Greek is very emphatic. Literally, it says, they feared a great fear. They feared a great fear. And this is different than the fear they experienced in the midst of the storm. This is a whole new fear, a deeper fear. It's articulated in the unanswered question of verse 41. Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? You see, the only thing more terrifying than a storm all around your boat is the unexpected realization that God is inside your boat. It's not a light thing to be in the presence of God. It's a weighty thing and it creates a fear that is different and deeper than any other fear. Who then is this? That's a question I hope every one of us will be pondering. Maybe you're listening to this today and you're wondering that very question. Who is this Jesus? Who is Jesus? Well, the point of Mark's gospel is to show who Jesus is, that He is the Christ, He is the Son of God. His ability to command the wind and the sea shows that He is divine. He's no mere man. He's fully man, He's also fully God, and we're seeing that in these manifestations of His divine authority. And so we come back to the point that I mentioned at the beginning of this message, that the fear of the Lord will drive out every other fear. there is this relationship between faith and fear. Where we lack faith in Jesus, we will have many, many other fears. We will be afraid of the storms of life, but when we trust Him and fear Him as we should, we'll realize that we don't really have to, ultimately, we don't have to fear anything else. We will be like Jesus who slept peacefully in the middle of the storm. Let me ask you, what are the fears of your life? And how do those fears reveal the idols of your heart? How might God be using these current trials to make us more like Jesus? And to maybe reveal how prone we are to hope in earthly things. Lydia Brownback in her devotional called Trust, she has a chapter in that devotional entitled Afraid of the Pain. Afraid of the Pain. She writes, what is it we're so afraid of exactly? She tries to pinpoint, what is it really that we're afraid of? And how do we kind of get down to the bottom of what that fear is? She suggests asking the question, what's the worst thing that could happen to me if this actually comes to pass? Whatever that fear is, kind of play that out. What's at the end of that? What am I really afraid of? What's the worst thing that could happen? And she says it usually comes down to something like, will I'll be broke or I'll be alone or I'll be in physical pain. In essence, it comes down to the fact that we're afraid of suffering, we're afraid of the pain. She writes, none of us wants to suffer, certainly. But sooner or later, we all do. We might as well face it. But we don't have to dread suffering. because God has good purposes for our pain, and he sets limits on our individual trials too, allowing only what is absolutely necessary to prepare us to desire and to enjoy the life he has in mind for us. But the fact that our dread of disaster pulses in our hearts indicates how little we really want the life God has for us, if that life includes suffering. Well, that's a good heart check for each one of us. We need to remember, believers, we need to remember, church, that because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, the worst thing that could possibly happen to us, that most surely will not happen to us. If you're united to Christ by faith, then you can know, you can have assurance that you are not going to spend eternity in hell. Jesus has saved you from that. He's rescued us from that by dying on the cross for our sins in our place. And we can remember that because of Jesus' death on the cross, we know that the best thing that could ever happen to us is a rock solid reality. We're going to be with him forever in heaven. And whatever we experience during our time on this earth is meant by God to prepare us to enjoy that future inheritance to a maximum degree. Fellow Christians, may this be a time of revival for us. By God's grace, I pray that our faith will grow and that our fears will diminish all to the glory of God. And for those of you, I want to speak here at the very end just to any unbelievers who are listening to this message. For any of you who are not yet believers, I pray that the fears you are facing right now will bring you to faith in Jesus Christ. I pray that God will use your fears as a way of humbling you and showing you how much you need him. If you're not trusting in Christ, it is right for you to be afraid right now. It's good that you're afraid. In fact, you're not afraid enough. You're not scared enough. You're not fearful enough because something far worse than a virus, something far worse than financial hardship is facing you. The wrath of God against sin is far more devastating. and the punishment for sin is eternal. So I pray that you will come to fear the Lord who died to pay the penalty for our sin and who rose from the grave on the third day. I pray that these trials that we're all facing right now will bring you to understand your desperate need for a Savior and that you will repent of your sins, that you will cry out to Jesus for help. He is a wonderful and mighty Savior. Let's pray together. God, we thank you again that we can spend this time in your word. We pray that you'll minister to each one of us, each family, each individual who's part of Three Rivers Grace Church. God, we do grieve the fact that we can't gather together in person. We so enjoy those times of singing together and greeting one another and talking and visiting, sharing prayer requests. I pray that in this time when we have to be isolated from one another, I just pray that you will put these things on our hearts to be praying to you for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And I pray that you'll work in our lives as we spend time alone with you in prayer. God, do please revive us. And as we seek your perspective on things, I pray that your spirit will guide us and will reveal these things in our hearts, how these fears are maybe exposing idols in our hearts. And God, cause this to just bring us to a place of repentance and looking to you and casting all of our anxieties on you. God, thank you that you care for us, that you invite us to cast our cares upon you. And God, I do pray for any unbelievers who are listening to this, that you'll use the words of your scripture, the things that Jesus did and said. Use these things. God, work powerfully to draw people to yourself. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thanks for being with us this morning. Again, I encourage you to look over the weekly email from this week, reach out, look for those opportunities to connect with others. We do have a number of small groups that are meeting. through video conference call this coming Saturday. We normally have a men's breakfast the first Saturday of each month, so we won't be able to actually eat breakfast together, but we are gonna connect over a video conference call this coming Saturday morning. So if you're looking for those fellowship opportunities, please reach out and we wanna keep you connected and please stay in touch with others. God bless, have a good week.