Amen. Please remain standing and opening your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark. You'll find our passage on pages 839 and 840 if you're using a pew Bible. We come to this beloved story in Mark chapter 4 of Jesus calming the storm. And before we hear God's word, let's pray together. Father, we find ourselves faithless this morning. So strengthen our hand and open our minds to once again receive the word of truth by the Holy Spirit to point us to Christ, the end of the law, the one who kept it perfectly so that we can know and be comforted that we are surely his. So make Jesus beautiful and believable to us from this passage we pray in his mighty name, amen. Mark chapter 4, beginning at verse 35, this is God's holy, inspired, inerrant, and life-giving word. 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. 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. 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? The grass withers, the flowers fall, the words of the living God will stand forever and ever. Amen. Please be seated. About 27 years ago, after my freshman year in college, my roommate at the time, who ended up becoming the best man in my wedding and remained a lifelong friend, Knew I needed a summer job, and his dad owned a construction company, and I'd grown up doing stuff like that. He was like, do you want to work for my dad this summer? And I said, sure, let's do it. And I didn't realize that the kind of construction company his dad owned was retrofitting wastewater equipment for major industrial projects. So about a week later, I found myself grading ditches and installing 10 to 12 foot concrete pipes in the still, I think, one of the top three hottest summers on record in South Carolina. And one night, what I had to do is just take wheelbarrow full after wheelbarrow full of concrete down and grout these pipes together. And if you've ever mixed up concrete, you get a lot of dust on you. And the guy I worked for, my friend's dad, Big Al, as he's affectionately known, he liked to start the workday at about 6 a.m. and about 8.30 p.m. And maybe you did lunch. So I came home one night about 9 o'clock to our apartment, and I walked in the door, and apparently I hadn't looked in the mirror, and my roommates were like, you literally look like a mummy. So and I didn't care because the one thing I remember about that is I came in and I was disgusting and filthy I Collapsed on the floor of my room and slept until my roommate woke me up the next morning to get back to work Didn't eat nothing I'm sure all of us have done something like that in our lives where you just work yourself to the point of exhaustion and That's where this story begins here this morning Jesus has worked himself to the point of exhaustion, and this is important because we've come to a turning point in Mark's gospel. Remember, it started off, and he's telling us, here's who Jesus is, he's the son of God, and he's got all power, and we've seen him demonstrate some of that power in casting out demons and healing. And then we got those parables in summary form, and now at the end of this chapter, and then in two stories in chapter five, so a total of three stories, What Mark is doing as a master storyteller is saying, here's the parables of the kingdom enacted. Remember the parables showed us the kingdom coming in power, it was teaching about that. Mark said, Jesus has taught you about that, now let him show you what it looks like. Let him show you his power. But at the same time, as he's been so concerned to show us Jesus as the divine son, as we begin this section this morning, we meet Jesus fully human. Remember that he was not Superman. He was fully God, but he was also fully man. And he got tired. And that's where the story begins, and here's what I want us to see from that this morning. When he calms the storm, Jesus, the greater Jonah, teaches us how he saves us and cares for us. That's the point of this story, I'm convinced. Jesus, the greater Jonah, as He calms this storm, teaches us how He saves us and cares for us. So we'll look at this text under two headings. In verses 35 to 39, one greater than Jonah. And then in verses 40 and 41, one question we all must answer. Now, if you look back there at verse 39, at 1 greater than Jonah, you say, well, where does that come from? Well, notice first of all what's happened. It says, on that same day. So it's likely that the events of chapter 4, verses 1 to verse 34, We're all happening in one day, a full day of teaching, public and private, maybe some healings. But nonetheless, a full day, and Jesus is exhausted and wants to get away for some rest, and the Sea of Galilee is right nearby. Now we need to understand something of the geography of this sea. It sits about 700 feet below sea level. By contrast, New Orleans sits about 20 feet below sea level. And then about 32 miles to the north of the Sea of Galilee is Mount Hebron from Old Testament fame. And that mountain is 9,200 feet high. So roughly about four times as high as Lookout Mountain. It's a big mountain. So what you have happening on the Sea of Galilee is the cool mountain air meeting up with the really warm air coming from below sea level, which produced sudden and violent storms. And that's what's going to happen in this episode. But notice what Jesus says, let's go to the other side. That detail is important as we work through this story. So they get on the boats and a storm comes that apparently is so bad. Remember, three of these guys have been on this lake a bunch. This is not their first rodeo with a storm. But apparently this storm is so bad that they're terrified. They're worried about their lives. The boat is taking on water. And where's Jesus? Don't you love this? He's in the front asleep because he's that tired. He wasn't faking it. It wasn't like he was kind of laying there and like peeking his eye open to see if they'd finally noticed there was a storm coming. This wasn't just a miracle trick he was doing. He is dead dog tired and they have to rouse him when he's in the equivalent of about a category three hurricane in a rowboat outside. Anybody want to do that? I didn't think so. Me either. And as they wake him up, we need to realize there's something going on here more than some terrorized disciples, a tired Messiah, and a treacherous storm. As commentators have pointed out, Jesus did this on purpose, and it has inescapable parallels with the story of Jonah. And we'll see why that's important at the end, but just think about it like this. Jonah and Jesus both get on a boat, both fall asleep at the front. A storm arises in both cases. Both have to be woken up by the passengers. Both are asked, don't you care? And then what seems to be the biggest difference is that Jonah is thrown overboard and then the sea calms down, whereas Jesus just speaks and then the sea calms down. But clearly Jesus is doing this on purpose. There's a parallel here that's so important for us to grasp, and that's why he could say in Matthew's Gospel chapter 12 verse 41, behold, one greater than Jonah is here. He is the greater Jonah. That's why there's those parallels. Now again, we'll come back to that, but for the moment, recognize this. As this storm is going on, the disciples who've seen him heal and cast out demons and do all these mighty works, they are in the middle of this storm and their faith evaporates. And one of the reasons Mark puts this in here is because he's teaching us about discipleship and reminding us we're a lot more like they are than we are like Jesus in these instances. When adversity hits our lives, don't we often become practical atheists? We can sing and worship and come to Bible studies. Let some adversity strike us and the first thing that will come to our mind is not, well, God is faithful and he's taken care of us. which is what the disciples should have done. Now, the first thing that comes to our mind is essentially what they asked, don't you care, God? And that brings us to the second point, one question that we all must answer, even though there's a bunch of questions here. So what does Jesus do? He wakes up and he uses the exact same Greek words that he's used, they're translated differently here, peace be still. He's used those same exact words on the demons when he casts them out. And he does that on purpose to remind them, you've heard me speak like this before. And when he does, remember these are Jewish people. And as one of my professors put it once, they didn't like to see too much. You don't really find histories of like, you know, great accomplishments of ancient maritime peoples in Israel. That's not like books that were written. They didn't like to see. And as he speaks, it becomes dead calm immediately. Now, you children, maybe you've been to some of the great and beautiful lakes around our community here. And if you go to one of those lakes, and let's say the water is kind of still, and you throw a rock into it, what happens? It starts to ripple. You watch those ripples go out, and then what happens? They keep going. It takes a long time for that water to smooth out. I want you to think about, again, if you've ever seen a storm-tossed ocean that goes from that to perfectly calm as glass, tranquil. That's actually what the Greek word means there. Tranquility, perfectly clear in one moment. And when that happens, again, there was no allusion to these Jewish hearers. They knew from reading the Psalms that only Yahweh could speak and the storms would be stilled. They knew that only Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, had the power to still the storm with his voice. So they went from seeing a tired Messiah to seeing a terrifyingly powerful God-man in front of them. And then he does something that I think's even more difficult than calming the storm. Once the storm's calmed, and that happened in a second, he realized he had a much more difficult task ahead of him. And that was calming the hearts of his anxious disciples. And he asks two interrelated questions. First, one that might make us incredulous. Why are you so afraid? Now imagine, you've just been through, again, something like a category three hurricane outside, and the boat's about to sink, and you're watching your life flash before your eyes, and Jesus' first question is, okay, tell me about that fear. What would you wanna say immediately? Well, I don't know, Jesus, because I thought I was gonna die. I was scared. We can sympathize with them. Most of us, I think, would have that same reaction, like, what do you mean, why am I afraid? It's kind of like if you're going on, you know, walking down a field and you hear gunshots going off and you hear shot flying all around you and you drop to the floor and you realize you've dropped to the ground, you realize you've walked into like a bird shoot and one of the hunters comes up and says to you, man, what are you worried about? I don't know, getting shot? You can imagine the disciples kind of feeling like that and Jesus knows that and therefore asks the second question, which gets to the heart of the matter, the matter of their hearts. Where's your faith? Translated literally, and I think translated well here, do you still have no faith? You see, that's the real question that he wants answered from them and from us. So what they should have done is realized if he can cast out demons, very simple, logical syllogism here. If he can do X, then it follows he can do Y. If he can cast out demons, if he can heal with the word, then what could this storm possibly do? We know he's got all power over nature. We've seen him do it. But life doesn't work logically most of the time, does it? And so when a storm arises that you weren't expecting, the first thing you and I tend to do is exactly what they did, is not reason logically, it's to go, help, what are you doing to us, Jesus? And he's asking much the same question for all of us this morning. What in your life could possibly be so unbelievably overpowering that it'd be too much for Jesus? That's what he's asking, no matter what you're facing, no matter what I'm facing, you look at the circumstances, you take them down, you see them, and you say, there's nothing that can be done. And Jesus, meanwhile, the whole time is saying, what could I possibly not do for you? And then this section finishes with one last question, and Mark is such a master storyteller, isn't he? We started out with this emphasis on Jesus's humanity. And then the section ends in verse 41 with amazement at deity. So Jesus asks two questions, then they ask a question. And did you notice that this text was centered around and structured around three greats? A great windstorm, great calm, then verse 41, great fear in the disciples. That is on purpose, my friends. And the Greek word dare, I normally don't like to quote it, but you'll see where our English word comes from, megalay. Megalay fear, mega fear, okay? So as one author put it, the real question that comes to us from this text is this, why are they more afraid after the sea is calm? Because before they just said they were scared, now all of a sudden they're greatly afraid. Why are they more afraid after the storm is calm? And the reason is revealed in their question, who then is this that even the wind and the seas obey him? These were Jewish men. They knew the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, Proverbs 1, 7. That right fear of the Lord, that healthy awe and respect. But here's something else they realized. Here's something we all need to realize, as one commentator pointed out. You can control weather to some extent. You know it. Maybe you can't control it. You know about it. Yeah, storms happen. These guys knew that. Weather comes and goes. There's a predictability, and sometimes there's not. But either way, we know there's going to be weather. And we know that nature works a certain way. So you go through the motions and you know these things happen. What you can't control is a Messiah you didn't expect that takes you places you weren't planning on going. And you see the same call for these first disciples comes out to all of us today. Discipleship to Jesus means you lose probably the most precious commodity to most modern Westerners, and that is the illusory right to self-governance. And I chose my words carefully. Moderns prize their autonomy more than anything else, this illusion that we get to run our lives and do whatever we want. And the problem is that's on a collision course with the Jesus you meet in this text. Because when you come to him as a disciple, he says, you can't control me, and now I'm in charge of your life, and that is the one thing we do not want to give up. As crazy as that is, because let me ask you this, if that's where you are this morning, and you think like, I just kind of want to do my own thing and run my own life, how is that working out for you? And you might say, well, it's working pretty good, preacher. Give it some time. The storm's coming. The storm is coming. And so what Jesus says to them, what they realize in this question is, I can't control this man. He's nature's God, not something predictable like nature. And that's why they're afraid. They've met the Holy One of Israel, and when we meet him, we'll have the same reaction. So the same is true for us. Jesus will show us his power in unexpected ways as he takes us to places we hadn't planned to go. What does this all mean as we finish up here this morning? Here's the first question. Why did Jesus choose Jonah? Hundreds of Old Testament characters he could have chosen to illustrate this point. And after all, when Jonah's cast into the deep, if you remember the story, he just quotes a bunch of Psalms, most of them written by David. Why didn't Jesus choose David as he did in other occasions? And I think there's at least one reason Jesus used Jonah. One, because Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days, and Jesus says that prefigures my resurrection. But two, remember what Jonah was sent to do. Remember that? He was sent to Nineveh. Let me put it in modern terms. This would be like God coming to a US Marine and saying, I want you to go show mercy to Boko Haram. Bloody, violent people. That's what Nineveh was. The city's massive. It takes three days to walk across. You can do the math quickly. The average human being walks three miles an hour. Eight hours in a day, this is a big place. And what happens when Jonah walks across and evangelizes Nineveh? Do you remember? This wicked pagan king goes, we repent in sackcloth and ashes. And Jonah is really upset about that. No, God, don't show mercy to those people. You don't know what they did to our people. And what Jonah didn't realize, and what Jesus is fulfilling here, my friends, is that Jonah got the privilege of being the forerunner of the Great Commission. The gospel was always meant to go to the nations. And why Jesus is greater than Jonah is because Nineveh went back to its ways after this massive revival. The one who's greater than Jonah brings us the calm and the peace and the new hearts we need that will never turn away from him again to fulfill the promise God made us in Jeremiah 31 about the new covenant, writing his laws on our hearts, bringing us back to himself so that we will be always with him. That's at least one way and one reason why Jesus is greater than Jonah. But just two last things. Let's frame them in the questions that were asked here. Don't you care? Think about it this way, my friends, when we're tempted to ask that. Who took them into the storm? Jesus. And do you notice what he said there in verse 35? Let us go to the other side. Notice I said pay attention to that. In other words, getting to the other side was never in doubt. He said, we're going to get there. Let's go to the other side. He didn't say maybe. He didn't say when. He said, let's go to the other side. And what did they think? Well, this is how we'll just go about our lives. We've always crossed the sea. We know storms might happen. Then this storm hits, and it shakes their faith. And here's the thing Jesus is trying to teach them. I will always get you to the other side. because I've promised you to do that. And what happens in the middle of the journey is not up to you or up to me. And you must trust me that we will get to the other side even when you can't see past the waves in front of your face. That's the lesson they had to learn. That's the lesson we had to learn. We didn't want the storm that we have right now. We didn't expect it. It came out of nowhere. That's how storms like this work. But Jesus says, yes, I do care. And how do we know he cares? You see, the question of verse 41 finally answers the question of verse 38. Who then is this? The greater Jonah, God in the flesh. Don't you care? Yes, I do. Why? Because the very reason he's on that boat, my friends, is precisely because he does care for them. Precisely because he does know exactly what they need and what we need. Because remember I said that it seems like the major difference in the two narratives is that Jonah was thrown over and Jesus wasn't. But Jesus was thrown overboard, my friends. He was brought in a worse sense to greater deeps than Jonah was cast into because he was going from this lake to the cross, years down the road. And at that cross, God pours out the flood torrent of His wrath upon His Son, our substitute. And He doesn't just go into the ocean. He takes on the full flood of the wrath of the living God in perfect justice, executed upon Him precisely because He loves us, precisely because He wants to take away our sin, precisely because He knows He will always get us to the other side. And he himself knew he would get to the other side, to the shore of resurrection. And the storm of God's wrath had to come in between. And he survived that for our sakes and was raised again for us after his death and burial and resurrection so that we could have the ultimate hope that no matter what storms arise, he will bring us to the other side. and he will bring us there safely. So the one who loves us so deeply has all power, all wisdom, and all might to still the storms in our lives with one command. And whether you're on the shore or whether you are in the storm, he says, do not worry, we will get there. If I have to take you through a storm, I've told you, and I will be in the boat with you. You say, the water's coming over. It looks like it's going to sink. He says, yes, I know. But remember, he's the God of Israel who neither slumbers nor sleeps. You don't have to wake him up. Isn't that good news? He hears your pleas and your cries as one of his beloved children. And isn't it wonderful that as we fail like these disciples so often did, that he never gets tired of coming to us in the storm. You will never exhaust his patience in the boat, and he will never let it sink with you aboard. He will get you and I safely to the other side. So you and I have someone with us. What are you facing? What is tempting you to give up on your faith this morning? Where do you need to be reassured? I am not alone. And I can have the same kind of assurance that Jesus had. That's the ultimate goal, my friends. You see, he keeps bringing us into the storms because we keep reacting like the disciples. We take a long time to learn. And the reason he keeps bringing us and being patient with us is because he eventually wants to bring us to the point where we begin to react like he did. Calm, no matter what happens. As he changes us from the inside out and remakes us to look like him. So discipleship comes with storms and storms come with saviors. Let's pray together. Father, thank you that you never let us down. You never leave us alone. You come to us when we least expect it. So help us, Lord, as we come to the table this morning to feast on the one who was thrown into the deep for us, that we would be once again reminded we will make it safely home. And this is the bread and meal for our journey. In Jesus' name, amen.