Calming the Chaos

 

Calming the Chaos

Calming the Chaos - Audio/Visual (@27:15) 

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."  Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"  (Mark 4:35-41)

The ship’s going down and Jesus is sleeping. Waking him, Jesus’ disciples said, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Maybe they shook him by the shoulders, poked him in the ribs or even yelled at him at the top of their lungs. Could have been all of the above. But of all the titles they could have used to call him out, they used the word “Teacher.” Not “Master.” Not “Lord.” Teacher. You know, the one who thought it would be a good idea to go out to sea in the middle of the night for a moonlight cruise. “Hey, you, Carpenter boy! Yeah, you! You know, the one who doesn’t know how to sail? We’ve been fishermen all our lives; we grew up as boys on this sea. But we did what you asked us to do because you are the TEACHER! And now we’re all freaking out and the ship’s going down and you’re passed out in the back of the boat? WAKE UP! I love the humanity of the Gospels because it depicts the disciples as real human beings instead of men, in this case, who wore halo’s, hovered six inches off the ground and sang Kumbaya everywhere they went. They’re questioning God.

Have you? Have you ever questioned God? Have you ever thought that God was sleeping? Have you ever felt like God is the one who needs to be yanked out of bed? “Lord, don’t you care that I can’t pay my bills? Don’t you care that I’m losing my mind? Don’t you care that I’m sick – I can’t even get out of bed? How could you let this happen? God, don’t you even care anymore?” Chances are you have. In the lesson from Mark, we see fear overtaking faith. But why were they fearful? They had every reason to walk by faith. They’d been told they’d reach the other side, and the guy who made that pronouncement was in the boat with them. They’d seen Jesus perform countless miracles before, so why not trust him now? But, they didn’t; they doubted. They let fear get the best of them.

So, Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet; be still.” And then it went calm. Notice that Jesus rebukes the wind first. He gets to the root of the problem because the cause is the wind; the effects are the waves. The Creator speaking to his creation. And he does it that way so that the disciples can see, without a doubt, that Jesus is responsible for the miracle. But as great as calming the storm was, at least as far as miracles go, Jesus wasn’t finished because the greatest threat to the disciples was still raging. The threat wasn’t what was happening around them, but what was happening inside them, and Jesus needed to address the storm that was brewing in their hearts.

We’re our own worst enemies sometimes. Fear is something that can be either positive or negative. For instance, when a rattlesnake is a few feet away, it’s probably best to keep your distance. But there’s a negative side to fear as well. That’s when we fear things like rejection, failure and loss. And this is the kind of fear that Jesus was addressing; the fear that overrides our lives because, if you’ve been paying attention, have you ever noticed that the thing you focus on tends to become the thing you get?

When we get caught up in fear and start focusing on the worst-case scenario, the worst-case scenario frequently becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. What we really need to do instead is to see what we want to happen, not what’s the worst that could happen. Napoleon Hill once said, What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. “Yeah, well what about those times when it doesn’t happen the way I want it to happen?” Well, then, you’ve got to deal with the consequences. But you still have a choice, don’t you? Either you’re going to add to those problems, or you’re going to give yourself a chance to overcome them by focusing on the positive. Fear and faith cannot coexist. If we have fear, we have no faith. If we have faith, we have no fear. Faith is being certain about things that aren’t so certain, even things and events we cannot see. (Heb. 11:1)

Fear is when you expect the worst. Faith is when you expect the best. 1 Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” God doesn’t want you to live a fearful life – a life of paranoia living out a cascading series of worst-case scenarios. God wants you to be like Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, who was on a sailing ship when the captain knocked on his stateroom door and said, “Mr. Taylor, we’re in a bit of a situation. We have no wind and we’re drifting toward an island that we believe is inhabited by cannibals.” Hudson asked the captain, “Well, captain, what would you like me to do?” The captain responded, “Well, you’re a man of God. Could you pray for wind?”

Hudson said, “I’ll pray for wind, but you’ve got to hoist the sails.” The captain, looking a little perplexed said, “You don’t hoist the sales until after the wind comes.” Hudson flatly responded, “Maybe that’s the way man does it, but that’s not the way God does it.” “You hoist the sales by faith, and I’ll pray, and God will fill that sail.” “You’ve got a deal,” the captain said. So, Hudson began to pray and a couple of hours later the captain knocked once again on his stateroom door. “Mr. Taylor, you can stop praying now; we have more than enough wind to get us to where we want to go.” But how many of us would have been sitting in our stateroom and mulling over the worst-case scenario? “Oh, I can just see myself landing on that heathen shore, and then the cannibals coming, and then being tied up, and then … Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!” And faith’s not just for the religious; it’s for everyone.

For instance, when you board an airplane, you do it by faith. Faith that the pilot knows what he or she is doing; faith that the engines won’t flame out; faith that a tire won’t blow; faith that there’s enough gas in the tank; faith that the pilots know where they’re going. Or a bank, maybe even your investments – perhaps a bit more of a concern these days – but faith that when you deposit your money it will be there when you want to withdraw it, or that your investment portfolio won’t lose 40% of its value overnight. And so, Jesus is saying, “Hey, why won’t you believe in me? Why won’t you trust in me? I have the cure for your fears.” But it’s easier to doubt than to believe. It’s easier to be negative than to be positive. So, we sabotage ourselves. We think the worst, and then focus on all the wrong things.

God says that if you don’t learn to walk by faith, you’ll be consumed by your worst fears. Paul, writing to the church in Rome said, “For in it (the Gospel), the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17) The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. It’s kind of like going to church. We go to worship to experience God, not look at the furniture. But even then, we wonder “How will God reveal his righteousness to me?” He does it from faith, to faith, to faith, to faith. Not from fear, to fear, to fear, to fear. You have to walk by faith; you have to trust in the Word of God. You have your problems on the one hand, and the promises of God on the other, and whichever you see first will generally become the largest. In other words, if you see the promises of God, your problems will seem small. But if you see only your problems first, your God will seem small. Which child are you?

Do you tend to see God through your problems, or do you see your problems through God? Most people don’t know how to live by faith. All they know is to look at the circumstances around them and come to some sort of conclusion without ever factoring God into the equation. But if you want to experience God, you’re going to have to learn to walk by faith and see your problems the way God sees them. And then maybe offer a prayer like, “Lord? Yeah, it’s me again. The seas are raging, and the waves are crashing, but what do you see? What do you want to do? What’s your plan, God?”

So, what was the result of Mark’s story? The disciples became even more fearful – which is not exactly the outcome you’d expect. But then God. The disciples’ fear led to an even greater fear because Jesus had cast out all of their petty fears to get to their one, really big fear: the fear of God. But the “fear” that Jesus wanted the disciples to understand was not to be afraid, but to trust. Jesus wanted the disciples to respect God more than anything else in life. If you’re going to be afraid of anything, or if you’re going to let anything run your life, let it be the fear of the Lord. As Proverbs 19:23 plainly states, “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction.” (See also, Acts 9:31)

Trials are going to come, and Jesus used this situation as a way to make all of us grow. From life’s challenges comes growth, and God is going to challenge you. He will allow some difficult things to come into your life. It’s all a test of your faith. Just ask Job. In fact, God’s probably testing your faith right now and the question becomes will you operate in fear, or will you operate in faith?

Calm the chaos; choose faith over fear. When something challenges you and you find yourself thinking negatively, make a choice to bring calm to the chaos by operating out of faith rather than fear. God wants us to bring calm to the apparent chaos by seeing things the way God sees them, and that starts by seeing the best in the situation rather than the worst. Faith is a muscle that has to be exercised. So, muscle up and know that Jesus is on deck and will get you to the other side.

Grace,

Randy