What do you fear? So before you see a picture, no picture yet Ivan, Ivan's ready. I want to show you something in a moment. I want to show you a picture of what I fear. But I want you to reflect upon what do you fear? Maybe you have a phobia. Phobias are those kind of diagnosed type fears people have. Perhaps it's arachnophobia. Perhaps it's another phobia. What do you fear? For me, it's height. And before the picture goes up, I want to tell you a little story about how I had to meet this fear head-on. A few years ago, my wife Amy and I were travelling in Western Australia with a couple of friends. And I was driving the vehicle, and we were heading from Perth down to this kind of forested area, and the whole trip, my dear friend Drew, you know Drew, he's an elder at St. John's on Presbytery, you've met him before. Drew kept saying, I want to climb this tree. We need to go and climb this tree. So heading down towards Esperance, but we're going to go and climb this tree. And he kept saying it, we're going to climb this tree, we're going to climb it, it's so great, we're going to climb this tree. And I thought, sure, we'll climb the tree, whatever. I thought at best it might be a gum tree. As in, the kind of gum trees you see around here, just out there. That kind of height, we'll climb the tree. Fine, we'll climb the tree. We're getting out of this forest, and this tree has a name. It's a special tree. It's called the bluster tree. I don't know if you've heard of it, but we get there, this is the tree he wanted to climb. That tree is 58 meters tall. Straight up. It is the second highest fire-spotting tree in the world. And what that means is, back in the 50s, technology was different and you had to do things in different ways, but to actually spot fires, not so much helicopters or drones or satellites, Someone, who wasn't afraid of heights, spent their job putting in those iron bars. They'd hammer the iron bar in and they would climb the tree to the top and they would stay there all day looking out for fires over the treetop canopy. That was their job. So someone's put those bars in, you see. And up until, well, at least 2010, 9, 10, I'm trying to think what year it was, 2009. Up until 2009, at least, it was in our country that has so many laws about occupational health and safety and so much concern about that. In our country, that was totally legal. So we arrived at this tree and I look at this thing, right, I've climbed silos, farm silos, because I've had to, silos with cages, you know, you can't get on a farm machine without there being certain regulations. That thing totally, the only thing stopping me climbing that tree, in a law sense, was a sign saying, if you have a heart condition or you are under 12. I have neither. I have a fiancé and a couple of friends, and the first friend, Drew, starts climbing the tree. He's climbing that tree, just like that man there you can see, and there's a young woman behind him, just starts going up the bars 58 meters up that tree. What more freaked me out was there were tourists going up and down the tree, and you guessed it, they have to climb around each other. No cages, no safety, just a sigh. So Drew goes up the tree. Right? I have not told anyone my fear of heights. He goes up the tree. But then Amy, my fiancée, goes up the tree. And she's climbing it like it's fine. Like there's no problem. No issue. No fear of death. You know, one slip, you're climbing around someone. I don't care whether that tourist is from Australia or from Holland. One slip, it's dead. You're on the news, and then you've forgotten the next day. And so I start climbing the tree. And I get to bar number seven. I said, darling. Yes, darling. I can't climb this tree. That's okay, darling. And I guess I thought maybe she would come back down. She didn't. She kept going up the tree. So I went down the tree after seven bars and sat there and watched my friend Drew and my fiance climb the Gloucester tree. We get back in the vehicle. No comments were made. It was no pressure from anyone else. But we drove down to our campsite and I said to Amy, as we're walking on the beach, I need to go back and climb that tree. And she said, don't do this. This is pride. This is senior heart. I said, I know. But, if you climb the tree like that, or something like that, and you're into trouble, and I could not get up and help you, I could not live with myself, I need to be able to serve you, protect you, care for you, rescue you, in whatever scenario I can think of in my mind at that time. She said, don't do this, you are not to do this. I said, I'm going to do this. I said to my friends, OK, I know we're heading east, but I'm going to get up at four o'clock in the morning and drive the two and a half hours back. I'm going to climb that tree and then I'll come back in time so we can pack up the campsite and go head back east. And all I had with me were my RM boots at the time. So they're just heel boots like this and a pair of thongs. So I chose the RMs because it would give me some heel lock into the bar. If you know what it's riding a horse is like, you need that kind of thing. and I drove back and Amy said, you go, I'm coming with you. So she did. So we drove back two and a half hours and I climbed that tree. Now here's the next shot. That's what it's like going up and that's what it looks like going down. You can hardly see the top as you're going up, right? So I got up the tree, the next slide, this is what it looks like looking down. So I said this morning to our media team, I said to Heather, because we had to turn the projector on, I said, I'm afraid of heights. I've seen other people turn that projector on by leaning over with the remote control. I don't do that. I look at pictures like that and my heart rate increases. And that's just a picture. I would never do that again. That was pride. It was sin. It was ridiculous. I don't tell that story because I'm a hero. I tell that story because that was pride and sinful and I should not have done that. But that's my fear. We all have fears. They've now since banned the climbing of that tree, due to safety measures. It may remain closed permanently. It's got 150 spikes. Only 20% of the visitors that start it finish it. And a very sinful man in his pride. But I shouldn't have. And the reality is we all have fears. We should realize our fears and take them to the right places. take our fears to Jesus, because my fear ultimately, friends, that day was not a fear of heights, was it? It wasn't a fear of heights, was it? What was it a fear of? It was a fear of identity, a fear of really in my heart, scratched beneath the surface fear of heights, really was a fear of having to feel like I had to be worth or prove myself to someone. And often that's our deeper fear, isn't it? That's our deeper fear. We all have fears. What's yours? Yesterday at men's breakfast, we had a very helpful discussion from the text we're in, the table group that I was at. We're in the passage looking at what frightens us. And to see men opening up and talking about what frightens us, that was a profound moment. It was an apologetic moment. Apologetics, defense of the faith, giving a reason for the hope that you have in the face of fears. Friends, I'd encourage you, men, get to men's breakfast. That was really fruitful yesterday. and women get to the women's brunches. Really fruitful for us to actually talk about these things with the Bible open. What do we fear? Why do we get so afraid? As we continue in a series in the Gospel of Mark, the passage we read is a bunch of connected scenes, but those scenes are all about this. Do you fear or do you know that Jesus is king over everything and he comes for the perishing? Jesus actually asked this question, why are you so afraid of his disciples? But the reason he asked the question is, do you notice, they're asking this question in their fear. Jesus, don't you care that I'm perishing? Jesus, don't you care? Do you not care about me, Jesus? And these three scenes we have, Jesus, we first see, does care for them. He's king over storms. The king of everything, he comes for the perishing. He already was king. He's the son of God. And he comes from heaven in flesh to be king in and of this earth. He's king over storms. In Mark 4, we pick it up in verse 35. We see it is a very normal evening. As normal as it can be for Jesus, because you see there's such huge crowds around, he gets into a boat. There's other boats there we see in that scene. That's a bit of historical detail. In other words, why is that there? Because you could say other people saw this. They're the eyewitnesses to this event. And as they get into these boats, the reason for that being told us it's an eyewitness event is this is not a fisherman's tale. This is not, the storm was this big. and no one else saw it. This is a story of fishermen in real trouble. For in verse 37, we read this, in verse 37, have a look in your Bibles, and a great windstorm arose. I want to point out something to you here. Here's a little bit of Greek New Testament. The word for great that's used is a Greek word. You'll never guess what word we get from it in English. It is this word. It's megas. Megas. Can you guess what word we get from that word? Mega. This is a megastorm. This is not just, hey, it's great. How you going? I'm great. That was a great storm. I know words have meaning in context. This is a megastorm. A megastorm arose. And that's important because these men are fishermen. They've seen storms. The Sea of Galilee, which is famous for its storms because of the mountains, the hills around it, and the way the wind moves and the weather changes so quickly, they're used to storms. The point is, this is not the sort of storm they've seen before. This is a mega storm. And they are in mega trouble. Verse 38, they go to Jesus. What's Jesus doing in this mega storm? He's sleeping like a Jonah. The stories are so connected, aren't they? Of course, the Bible is coherent. Both the incidents are very similar. We see Jonah is asleep in the storm, and Jesus is now asleep. But here's something different. Because Jesus is different, Jesus is the solution to the storm. We preached through Jonah a few years ago. But you know, Jonah, what is his solution? He'd rather get away from God, and he would do anything to do that. He would rather go to the bottom of the sea than go near God, who loves him. His solution is, kill me. but Jesus is the better solution to the stall. So we see in verse 38, things are getting to a breaking point, literally a breaking point. They wake him up and they cry out, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Do you not care? Do you see their fear? Do you see their danger? They know that they are meeting their unexpected death that day. Do you not care, Jesus? They might as well say, they're not saying no, they're not saying we might die. Notice that, notice that in the verbs. They're not saying we might die. They say we are dying. We are perishing, present tense, now, we are dying. Have you ever been in that moment yourself? Literally, necrosis has not set in. Their cells are not dying. They still have a heartbeat. They still have breathing. They're not even near resuscitation. They're not in need of getting the war out of their lungs. They're not at that point, but it's the feeling, the literal feeling, this is the end. This is all I can do. Have you ever been in that moment yourself? Yes, you have. Haven't you? You have felt that whatever it is, pressure, slander, Things being said and done, you just, I can't do this anymore. And Jesus, don't you care? Don't you care that I'm languishing? Don't you care that I'm perishing? You've been there. You know that. Cry. Because you've said it. Yourself. Now what did they expect the teacher to do? They say, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? What do they expect a teacher to do? No offense to teachers. They call him teacher, don't they? They don't say, Lord, at this moment. They don't say, oh my God, like the Psalms, would you help us? They don't look for their help to their heels. Who is my help? The Lord maker of heaven and earth. They don't do that Psalm 121 style. They say teachers. So what do they expect the teacher to do? Okay, okay guys, here's what I'm gonna do. I got it, I got it, I got it. I'm gonna conduct a swim school. We've already got some water in the boat, so we're going to do some practice. Peter, I know you struggle with water and depth, and so you go down to the shallow end, and everyone else, and John, yeah, I know, I know, John, okay, they're good swimmers, but you need to, you know, and does he conduct a swim school? And I'm going to teach you, it's like this. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Okay, no, you're doing it, is that what he's doing? That's what a teacher would do. Or do they expect him to be a teacher like many of the teachers of our religious worldviews of the world? The self-help gurus. Is that what kind of teacher they're after? Where that teacher would say, friends, the storm is not real. It's not there. Listen to my meme. Put it on Facebook. When you face the storms, it's not there. Or my favorite, which I do kind of like, because I like military stuff. You know, when the devil whispers in your ear, you can't face the storm, hey soldier, whisper back, I am the storm. That's a cool one, isn't it? I am the storm. Ha ha. Smoke that one, devil. You see, this self-help stuff, it doesn't work. You're not the storm. I'm not the storm. And the storm is there, it's real. That's why we just cried out on perishing. Don't tell me the storm's not real. Don't give me a pretty meme and say it's not real. Help me, Jesus, help me. What do they want the teacher to do? The storm is real, they're really perishing, they need saving. So what does Jesus do, verse 39? He stands up and he rebukes the storm. Peace, be still, he says. It's like Jesus is rebuking the storm as if it was his pet dog. Sit down! Shut up. And do you see what happens after Jesus just says a few simple words? What happens next? We read this, verse 39. 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. You'll never guess what word is used for the word great. Mega calm. Like a calm you have never seen before. Water like glass. Not a breath of wind. Have you ever seen anyone speak to the weather? I have, because I did it. My dad and I, I don't know, for various reasons, we have similar interests. The word dad and son. He likes rain. I love the rain. It's going to rain on Thursday, potentially zero to three mils, 24 degrees. It's going to be lovely. Today's a hot one, but the rain and the cool weather is coming. Autumn is coming. What we hate, though, is strong wind. Because rain's got a purpose. Even drying out the ground has got a purpose. All in seasons. Wind! We've always struggled with wind! And so you can find a grinter like Eric Grinter, my dad. I'm son of Eric. Or Russ Grinter. walking in the farmyard or down the paddock and the wind is blowing and it's blowing against things and you see the windmill kind of, you know, you're wondering if something's going to break because they usually bust stuff. And dad or me will say something like, just stop it. Just stop it. I hate wind. I hate wind. Right? What happens? Nothing. Nothing. because no one can speak to a storm and it responds with obedience. Oh, except, hang on, Psalm 107, that was our Cross Revenge passage. Cross Revenge passage we read, Lauren read it, Psalm 107, except for that one, Psalm 107, verse 28. They cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storms still and the waves of the sea were hushed. So it's actually God can make storms go still. And so, The question the disciples have is, who's this? Do you see that's what they say? Verse 41. They watch a man speak to a storm. He's not a crazy man. He doesn't say it in a crazy, aggressive way. He just says, peace, be still. They're watching very few words. A man speak to a storm, treat it like it's his pet dog. And they now, in verse 41, say this, who is this? That even the wind and the sea obey him. And Jesus says, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? Have a look in verse 41. And they were filled with great fear. Never guess again. Mega fear. See, they were afraid before of the storm. They were afraid for their lives. Now they have mega fear for, who is this? Like, have you had that encounter with Jesus? Some people treat Jesus like he's our pet. Some people are like, Jesus, you're supposed to give me good things, be nice to me, Jesus. And Jesus, why don't you make my life better for me? And I'm disappointed in you, Jesus, because you haven't done that. And we don't have this attitude towards Jesus. Who is this? Who is this that's with me? Who is this? The disciples were afraid before, but now they have, literally, megaphobia. Everyone feels the words of verse 38 some stage in their life, in your life, whether it be shouted or spoken or unspoken. Everyone has real felt fear. But what we fear the most comes in the question is this, often is, don't you care Jesus? But we need to ask that question, who is this? And we get to see who this is in the next scene, because this is not just king over storms, this one is king over Satan. In chapter 5, they come to the other side, Jesus steps out of the boat, and immediately they're met by a demonized man. In our world, it's kind of become cool to kind of like, you know, hang out with the devil. The devil's kind of my leader. Satan, yeah, we can kind of mix and match with that stuff. That's all cool. That's fine. It's cool. Once I met an in-law of mine, you know, he was... coming into the wider family. I had also come in through marriage. So, you know, when you come into those families, you sort of, you have a whole new family and you meet a whole bunch of people. Well, we caught up with a wider family one Christmas and he knew that I was a Christian and he walked up and I said, I'm Russ. And he says, I'm, let's call him Bob. I'm Bob and I'm a Satanist. And it was kind of cool for him, he thought he was going to stir me and do that. I just think, look, if you've read the books on Satan, and there's a few books, but this one's probably got a lot on Satan, the Bible. If you've read the books on Satan, what does that look like to be a follower of Satan? And in the end, ultimately, what's that work out for? Look at this man. This man lives among the tombs. Sounds fun. Does it? Does it sound fun to you? Camping is fun, but can you imagine having to camp among the tombs in the cemetery? Not only that, but no one could bind him. Wow, that sounds powerful, doesn't it? That sounds real powerful. No one could bind him. Sounds powerful and free. Except he's mad, crying out, and he's cutting himself. You see, although Satan could give this man strength to break chains, he was more enslaved than ever. And the demons enslave people and dehumanize them. But when Satan meets Jesus, the demonized man falls down before Jesus and demons cry out, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? Do not torment me. See, the demonized man is so strong, isn't he? Fears nothing except he's got a phobia about Jesus. The demons have Jesus phobia. His name is Legion. They are many. And notice what they do. They beg Jesus. They beg Him. Do not send us out of the country into the pigs. And so Jesus, what does he do? He simply, with his authority, gives them permission. That is real authority, isn't it? To, with raw power like that, just give permission. And then in verse 14 we see, of course, they go into the 2,000 peaks, the 2,000 peaks go off into the sea. That's a huge loss for an agricultural community. So the herdsmen flee, people come see, the man is free, and the people are, what are they? Notice, they're afraid. And they then beg Jesus. There's more begging. Another man who has been free from oppression, he also begs Jesus. What is he begging Jesus for? I want to be with you, Jesus. I want to be near you, Jesus. You have freed me. Please, can I be with you? And in verse 19, Jesus, it's a beautiful scene, isn't it? Jesus doesn't permit him at that stage. Not at this time. You will be with me forever, but not yet. Not that close just yet. But we know, of course, as Jesus says later, he's with this man forever. You feel for this man for a moment, don't you? You feel for this man, he wants to be with Jesus, but then you feel for him and you see why Jesus is saying what he's saying. Because this man is now set free to proclaim Christ, before he shouted against Jesus, before he was crazy against God and the world, but now he's crazy for Christ. And Jesus tells him, go and evangelize. Speak how much the Lord God has done for you, how he's had mercy on you. And he proclaimed in the Decapolis, the 10 cities there. Friends, this is the response of someone who knows what Jesus has done to change everything for them. You can't get an evangelistic training course to move people and motivate them to go out and share the gospel like that. The best evangelistic course, apologetics course, defense, explanation, proclamation you can get is to reflect on how much Jesus has changed your life. Because if you don't start there, no matter what knowledge you've got or tricks of the trade or twists and turns or things you could quote or things you could say means nothing unless you actually believe it and you're lit up by it. This man is, he is free and able to speak of Christ's overflowing joy. And what does our world need more than more than just neat answers and angry Christians? Our world doesn't need any more angry Christians and our world doesn't need any more neat answers. What does it need? Joyful people who speak of Jesus. Cause you're on social media, I'm on social media. There's a lot of anger going around. We just, there's no point adding to it. We need joyful people say, look, I don't know about, you know, attitudes to X, Y, and Z. But I do know this. Jesus changed my life. Let me tell you how he's changed my life. He has really changed my life. He can change yours. Jesus is king over certain Satan's plans that seem so certain to him. He's also king of a certain death. in the scene starting in chapter 5 verse 21. They cross back over the water to where the episode started. There the crowd gathers by the sea and Jarius comes. He's a synagogue ruler, he's got some importance, but he falls at Jesus' feet. He's a man who's got a high-profile job, well-known, and he begs. He begs. My daughter is dying, come make her well. Look at this prayer. It's okay to beg in prayer. In fact, it's kind of meant to be our disposition. Not just to have the right words that we say or the right phrases or something like that unlocks Jesus' ear to us, but to come to him and ask him and beg earnestly, help me Jesus. And this man knows that Jesus can give what he needs to make her well, to save her. So Jesus goes with him, the crowd goes, and as they go, then there's a woman in the crowd and she's ill with a discharge of blood, verse 25. For 12 years, she's suffered and spent all she's had to doctors, but it's grown worse. And now she thinks, if I just touch his garments, I'll be made well, I'll be saved from this. And so she does, she touches and is made well. Jesus says in verse 30 who touched my garments and the disciples are like are you kidding right? Jesus like everyone's touching your garments it's kind of hard not to kind of brush against you but Jesus is not kidding for he knows someone didn't touch accidentally someone has touched intentionally And that woman comes in fear, verse 33, and she also falls down before him, telling the truth. And Jesus says, daughter. In other words, welcome to the family because you are saved by faith and now belong by faith. Daughter, go in peace and be healed. And the woman who was ceremonially unclean instead now becomes clean. And Jesus, who is in every way clean, doesn't become unclean. His power cleanses her. And we see Jesus. And this woman, what we're really seeing is fear gives way to faith. Yet just in the same breath that Jesus calls her daughter, do you see what happens? Verse 35, in the same breath that Jesus says to her daughter comes news to Jairus standing there and they say, your daughter is dead. And Jairus perhaps hears in despair as any father would, And then the people around are saying, why trouble the teacher any further? What can the teacher do now? Oh, if they have just seen, they haven't seen, if they've just seen what this teacher can do. He is king of everything, everything. Verse 36 is a key verse of this section of scenes in the whole episode of scenes, because overhearing what they say, even ignoring what they say, Jesus says, do not fear, only believe. And verses 39 and 30, Jesus, sorry, verse 39, where Jesus goes, he gets there, and amongst the commotion, he says, why are you making a commotion, everybody? Why are you weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping. And they laugh. They laugh because they think, Jesus, you can't handle this truth. You can't handle the grim truth of death, Jesus. Jesus, you don't really care. You're just like those gurus. But do you see, from Jesus' perspective, death is like sleep. And he who can put a storm to sleep can wake up the dead. Verse 41, he speaks in the language of the day in Aramaic, showing the eyewitness accounts again. What happened? Who was there? And he says, little girl, I say to you, get up. I love how the ESV describes it, the ESV translation. It says they're overcome with amazement. And then I love again, looking, you'll never guess what word is used. This is, today's sermon is brought to you by The Word. Literally, it is this. Ecstasy. Megalay. Ecstasy. They're ecstatic. Megalay. They're mega ecstatic. Jesus the Christ is the king over everything, storms, Satan, certain death. So friends, why are you so afraid? Why am I so afraid? That's what Jesus says to them, but he also says to us. Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? Now, it may be this morning you may not know Jesus that well yet. And you might be thinking, I'm not afraid of anything. I don't care. I'm not afraid of anything. But friends, if you had a moment of honest self-reflection, you are afraid. I'm afraid. See, I'm not just afraid of heights. I'm afraid of what people think of me. And I think you are too. Deep down, we all have that fear. Honest reflection means we would look at a world, and our world is a smorgasbord of fear. It's like a buffet. You know, the containers of food that have been there for a while. That's our world. It's been there for a while. All the fears you could take from in our world. Our world is a smorgasbord, a buffet of fear. You have fear of the storms of life. You get through one storm and you think, well, I'm glad that's over. Nothing like that will happen again. And then there's another one, and it's worse. You have fear from that which oppresses you. Perhaps you are demonized by the power of sin and guilt and shame within. It torments you. Perhaps you fear sickness. You fear certain death. Well, the medicine for crippling fear is Christ. For if Jesus is King of everything, you can have faith in Him, and move from fear to faith alone in Christ. Mark's gospel has been showing us something ever since the beginning and in a few weeks time, towards Easter, we're going to see the middle of Mark's gospel is the big question in chapter 8. Who do you say Jesus is? Who is this? The question the disciples asked the day in that storm. And the answer we see so far is, He came for the perishing. Namely, He came for you. He came for you. He comes for the fearful, Do you see the storm fell down, the demons fall down, Jarius fell down. Death, which took his daughter, falls down too. Will you by faith fall down and trust in Jesus and be free and repent from anything else that would hold you from trusting in Jesus? See, if you've not believed in Jesus yet, see this. I want you to notice this. We read Jonah 1, Jesus, is the Jonah, who is thrown overboard into judgment and death. Three days in the depths of death, dead and buried instead of us, Jesus is the one who, instead of pigs who take all the sin and shame and fall of evil, he takes it on himself on the cross and his fall. on that cross becomes our way of being free. And Jesus is the one who restores our brokenness, gives life and hope, even in death, because he is the one who goes into death and back for us. See, if you know this King, if you know Jesus, then you'll know he does care for the perishing, because he's done all that for the perishing. you'll know that he's the only one who ever, ever spoke to death and said, where is your victory? Sin, where is your steam? Friends, be saved and safe through faith in him. There's no need to be afraid now. Instead of being fearful of being liked or not, in and out of the crowd, what people think of you or say of you, you can now have faith in Jesus and that'll change everything in the face of those things. It will. Instead of fear of failure or past failures, have faith in the one who gives grace to failures. Instead of fear of the unknown, have faith in the one who knows everything. In fact, he's mapped it out. Instead of fear of loss of control, trust the one who is sovereign over all. Instead of your fear, whatever that fear is, put your faith in the one who's got it covered. From now on, friends, after this word today, you don't just say, who is this anymore? But you can tell everyone else who this is. And you can do that with mega amazement because you have been moved from mega fear to behold faith in God, Jesus the Christ, the mega King. Let's pray, friends. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, your kingdom come. And please keep showing us who this is, who is Jesus in the face of all our fears. Show us the real Jesus in the face of real fears. We pray, we ask, because we can, we can cry out to you. And we pray by your Spirit's power that we would move from faith to fear in Jesus Christ. We need this, we need Jesus. For it is his great name, his mega name we ask. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.