Mark, Mark chapter 4. We're going to go to Mark chapter 4, verse 35 to verse 41. We're gonna be looking at a story of Jesus and his disciples. And I am a young preacher, don't have much experience, but one thing that I do have that your pastor has is the word of God, amen? And I love to study the life of Jesus and allow him to teach us principles of how to live our faith-based Christian life. And this story here in Mark chapter four, verse 35, I'll read the first verse and I'll ask if you can please read the next one. And then so forth on to the end. The Bible says Mark 4 verse 35. And the same day when they even was come, he said unto them, let us pass over into the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him. and there were also with him other little ships. Verse 37, the Bible says in Mark 4, and there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou that we perish? And he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said one to another, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Let's pray, please. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Father, thank you for allowing us to be here together in your name as we come today, Lord, to worship you. And we worship you, Lord, because you are in my presence. And I think of so many church services happening throughout our country today, and you are in each one of them, and your presence is there. And thank you, Father, because, Lord, we praise you also for your protection in our life and your safety. We praise you, God, because you've given us the word of God and given us another chance, Lord, to keep living the Christian life and trying to be like Christ. And I ask you, that you can help us today. Holy Spirit, please speak to us. I ask you to remove me, take my pride away, Lord, and allow me to be humble and to be a blessing to the church family here today. Thank you, Lord, for Pastor Hanks and all that he's been doing here for years. We ask you, Lord, that you can be with us as we open your scripture today. In the name of Christ, we ask these things. Amen. Church family, the Bible teaches us here that at Jesus' initiative, the Apostle set out across the Sea of Galilee. Here it's about six or seven miles to the other shore. And the Bible tells us in verse 35, in the same day when the even was come, he said unto them, let us pass over unto the other side. So as they start heading out in this ship, the Bible teaches us that also other little ships follow Jesus, but he is setting out to the other side with his disciples. And I love here this story because after a whole day of ministry of Jesus and of teaching and of dealing with people and his disciples, the Bible teaches us that he's asleep on a pillow. Amen? I love to see the simplicity of Christ, of how he is a man at the same time. He is God, but He got tired. He slept on a pillow. And as he is sleeping here, the Bible tells us and teaches us that a storm arises. In verse 37 the Bible says, And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And as I study this story, church families, and I see this story here, I think about how the disciples are, they were fishermen by trade, by profession. They were professionals of being in the ocean and in the sea. It wasn't the first time for them being in a ship in the sea. You know, Jesus called them and they were fishermen by trade. This is what they did their whole life. But we see here that they get very, very anxious. They get scared. They go into Christ and they say, Master, carest thou not that we perish? In other words, do you not care that we are about to die? And the disciples come and wake up Jesus anxiously and afraid and ask him, do you not care that we are going to die? But as I think of this story and I see here, again, the disciples, they are fishermen by trade. They knew to do this, so this wasn't any little storm. The Bible says that the waves were hitting the ship back and forth, that it was now full. I think about when we went to the Dominican Republic. The first time that we ever went on a boat into the ocean, I remember my sister got very sick. And they told us, hey, if you've never been in the ocean, you know, you're probably going to get a little bit sick. So they told us to take some medicine with you, different things like that. But, you know, my dad was always, you know, he's like, I got this. It's okay. You know, my dad always would think, you know, many times we went also into churches. And my dad really wasn't a, he didn't know how to fish a lot, but traveling in the south past a lot of the churches, as soon as we got to like, you want to go fishing? My dad would be like, yeah, let's go. Yeah, I know how to do that. My dad didn't know at all, but he was just trying to really just fake that he was a good fisherman. And my brothers, we would always laugh, because we were like, alright, here goes my dad again trying to fish, and he would never catch anything. So we went to the Dominican Republic, and one time he took us on this little fishing trip. And I remember my sister got really sick. She was not used to it. We had to turn around and go back. And I think about the same way the disciples here, they come out in this storm, but by trade, they knew how to deal in the ocean. They knew, but it got to the point that they were so scared, this storm was out of their control. And they come to Jesus and say, Master, carest thou not that we perish? The Greek word bello means the same thing that The word appears when Martha and Mary, their sisters, are with Jesus when Lazarus dies and he comes into the house and one sister approves the other and tells, do you not care that the Messiah is here? We see the same thing, a voice of anxious and saying, do you not care? Does it not matter to you? And Jesus wakes up and I love what Jesus does here in this verse. The Bible says in verse 39, and he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. The sea church family in Jewish culture had always been a picture of wild and untamable power. And in the Jewish writings it was a place of darkness and evil. We see this also because a couple chapters later here in 7 and 8 when Jesus walks into the sea, into the ship where his disciples were, when the disciples see Jesus they thought that he was what? A spirit. And they were afraid because they thought Jesus was a spirit. And in the Jewish writings and in the culture, the sea was just a sea of, sorry, a place of darkness and evil. So when Jesus performs this miracle to the disciples as Jewish men, it was something different to them. It was something that They thought, wow, this guy is really, he has power. Even the seas, the Bible says in verse 41, and they feared exceedingly and said one to another, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Jesus had performed various miracles, a lot of different, he healed the sick, not to say that they weren't important, but at this time with this miracle, we also see that several verses later, he comes and he faces a demonic man. And here this power, this miracle that Jesus does, it amazes the disciples and they say, what manner of man is this? And that leads us to the first principle that we can see here. This storm comes into the life of the disciples and it reveals us two things of the disciples. The first principle is this storm reveals us the disciples disbelief. Please read with me again, verse 38. The Bible says, and he was in the hindered part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? The disciples come to Jesus in the midst of a storm, and they awake him and they say, Master, They say didoskos, the Greek word is didoskos, teacher, rabbi, doctor of the law. Teacher, do you not care that we perish? And then the Bible teaches us in verse 41, they say, what manner of man is this? This storms reveals and teaches us that the disciples still did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. They come to Him and they say, what manner of man is this? That even the Bible says, the wind and the sea obey Him. They were amazed. They said, what kind of man is this? And they come to him and they call him didoskos. They call him teacher. They don't call him Messiah. They don't call him the son of God. They call him teacher. Do you not care that we perish? The Bible teaches us that in the next several chapters here, I'll read right there real quick. I don't want to take you there because it's taking time, but Mark 8, verse 17. And when Jesus knew it, he said unto them, why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Mark 8, verse 18. The Bible says, having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember when I break the five loaves among 5,000, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They said unto him, 12. And when the seven among 4,000, and how many baskets full of grammons took ye up? Verse 20 in Mark eight, and they said seven. And then Jesus says in verse 21 in Mark chapter eight, and he said unto them, how is it that ye do not understand? Jesus addresses the disbelief of the disciples time after time after time after time. We see that even goes to the extent that Jesus tells them that the Son of Man was going to be crucified and the third day he was gonna rise again. And the disciples after the cross and after the crucifixion, we see that they're fearful and they still did not believe. The storm revealed the disciples' disbelief. And they went into Jesus and they said, teacher, And then when he performed the miracle in their life, they asked themselves, what manner of man is this? May I ask you church family today for us not to forget that Jesus is in the boat this morning. Jesus is in our life. The son of God, the creator, he lives inside of us. His Holy Spirit abides with us and helps us and wants us to be yielded to him. And when a storm arises in our life, we must remember Jesus is in control. I love how the disciples didn't go wake up Jesus to say, hey, can't you do something about it? Jesus, we just saw you perform all these miracles. We've been walking with you for many days. We've been walking with you for a while now. We've seen your power. We've seen what you've been able to do. No, they just woke him up and said, do you not care? Do you not care? And I wouldn't say that probably many times during a storm in our lives we raise up our hands to heaven and we say God do you not care? But many times in our actions or in our spirit is as if we tell Jesus, do you not care? And I've seen that happen in my life, that many times in a storm or a rise or a difficult time, it's like I forget that Jesus is with me and that he has the ability to help me. Also, I see not only that the storm revealed the disciples disbelieve, but in verse 39 and verse 40, the Bible says, and he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? Jesus addressed their faith because the storm revealed also that they allow this storm to overcome the spiritual solution. Jesus had a solution for this problem. And as soon as Jesus wakes up, I love his words, he says, why are ye so fearful? I'll never forget also in the Dominican Republic the first time we went through a hurricane, through a hurricane in that area. The electricity just went out, well that was a daily thing, they took the electricity out for six, seven hours every day, but the electricity went out for days, there was no water, you know there was just nothing to do, we just sat at home and just kind of wait for the problem to be solved. But I never forget that first night that we started hearing all this wind, Pastor. And I would look out the window and I would see, we were living in front of the Caribbean Ocean, and I would see the ocean by the strong power and the mighty waves would just throw rocks out into the highway that was right there in front of our house. And it would throw all these numerous type of objects out. And the wind was just so strong that the palm trees would bend. If you've never seen a palm tree bend, it's incredible. They bend all the way to the ground and they just go back and forth. And it's like a twizzler. Like the wind is just up and down, just moving it around. And I never forget seeing that out of my house and out of my window as a child. The hurricanes and just the many times the wind and the dangerous situations. And as I think of this moment here, Jesus wakes up and he looks at the disciples, church family, and he says, why are ye so fearful? That seems like a logical type of question, like what does that even mean? What do you mean why am I fearful? Do you not see this ocean, this storm around me? The Bible says in verse 37 that it was a great storm of wind and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. But Jesus wakes up, looks at his disciples and says, why are ye so fearful? He addresses their faith. And then Jesus says, how is it that you have no faith? How is it that you have no faith? Many times the same thing in our lives with the storm, there's always a spiritual solution. God does not allow us to walk through a trial or a storm or a difficult time that he doesn't have an answer for, that he doesn't have a solution for. But the storm in the life of the disciples overcame the spiritual solution. They set their eyes on the storm. And when they came to Jesus, they just asked him, do you not care? And Jesus gets up and first addresses and says, why are you afraid? Why are you afraid? And then he tells them, how is it that you have no faith? How is it that you have no faith? Jesus asked us to cast our cares and our burdens upon him, church family. And just a reminder for you this morning, that Christ loves us. He has a solution for our problems. And as we see here in the chapter, in this chapter, the disciples, He tells them, how is it that you have no faith, no faith? There is always a spiritual solution for any storm in our lives. The same way that as soon as Jesus rose up, the Bible says, and he said unto the sea, peace be still, and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He ceased the problem around them, he calmed the storm around them, because he had a spiritual solution. And the same way in our lives, Jesus loves us. He wants us to keep growing. He wants us to keep to keep growing in the Lord and to be able to be like him But many times he needs that storm to come around in the same way that the disciples had this storm It revealed that they just didn't believe in him yet. They called him to Dosco's They called him teacher and then they let the storm overcome their spiritual solution if we can just go to Judah Jude in the scriptures and then we'll be done with these verses Jude, you can go to any chapter that you want. Let's just go to the same verses. Verse 20 to verse 23. It's amazing that joke still works. I heard my dad say that for many years, so. Jude, verses 20 to 23, the Bible says, But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ into eternal life. and of some having compassion, making a difference, and others saved with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh. Verse 20, I love verse 20, the Bible says, but ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. The way we grow in our Christian life is we must build ourselves on our faith. Praying in the Holy Ghost. And Jesus addresses the disciples and says, have ye no faith. Have ye no faith. I don't think it's, I don't think it's much to say that probably many of us in this room, Satan's trying to bring us down somehow or discourage us somehow. The Bible tells us that he is a lion, that he wants to devour us. Ephesians 6.20 tells us that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against spiritual wickedness and high places. Today, if you are searching for Christ, if you are coming to church to grow in the Lord, the Bible tells us that you are in a warfare. and the same way that Satan tried to cause his disciples to not believe in Christ, I just encourage you today, don't forget Jesus is in your boat. Believe in Him and that Jesus has a spiritual solution for all our problems if we keep building ourselves on our faith and praying in the Holy Ghost. Thank you, Pastor.