SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Maverick and Praise Team.
SPEAKER_01: You guys sound great this morning.
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're going to start talking the next couple weeks about questions.
SPEAKER_01: Questions are part of life, and we ask all kinds of questions.
SPEAKER_01: I pretty much ask every day.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's name is Janet.
SPEAKER_01: Janet, what's for dinner?
SPEAKER_01: And then what's for dessert?
SPEAKER_01: We ask questions about ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes you think, man, what was I thinking?
SPEAKER_01: Why did I do that?
SPEAKER_01: We ask questions about how things work.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, why does that work that way?
SPEAKER_01: Or how does this work?
SPEAKER_01: Famous last words you hear sometime.
SPEAKER_01: Arkansas Redneck will say, I wonder what happens if I do this.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times we ask questions of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we're going to look at over the next few weeks are some of those questions that we ask Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 4, and we're going to look at that first question.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I love about Scripture is it gives us these real life experiences and these real life moments.
SPEAKER_01: And here all throughout the Gospels, we have a number of times where people come to Jesus and they ask a question, and that question looks a lot like the experiences that we have.
SPEAKER_01: And so I think there's a lot for us to learn as we look and relate to those same questions that we ask.
SPEAKER_01: In Mark chapter 4, we find Jesus in an interesting situation.
SPEAKER_01: At the beginning of Mark chapter 4, in the first couple of verses, you find out that he is in front of a large crowd, and he is teaching there on the banks of the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Sea of Galilee is actually a lake.
SPEAKER_01: It's not really a sea, it's actually a lake.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit like Heber, Greer's Ferry, if you think about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's about 13 miles long.
SPEAKER_01: It's about seven or eight miles wide in its widest part.
SPEAKER_01: It's surrounded by mountains.
SPEAKER_01: About 25 miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee is Mount Hebron, and that's the longest, that's the largest mountain in the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And uh during the winter months, it is filled with snow.
SPEAKER_01: It's snow-capped mountains.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and then in the spring, when those uh snows uh melt, it runs down and fills the Sea of Galilee, and then that runs through the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_01: It fuels the Jordan River that runs down to the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the setting of that.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's kind of a bowl shape around this lake, the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is teaching all these crowds, and there's thousands of them, they're filling in and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And so what he decides to do with his followers, and remember, a number of them are fishermen, so they get in a fishing boat and they sort of launch out a little bit from the shore.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what happens in a setting like that is it creates a natural amphitheater.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is sitting in this large fishing boat, and he is preaching back at the banks, and as the winds sort of gently roll in off the water, it fuels him almost like a natural microphone, and that banked hillside there off, coming off the beach, creates a natural amphitheater, and more people can hear him in that time.
SPEAKER_01: So there's the setting.
SPEAKER_01: He's preaching and he continues to preach and all that.
SPEAKER_01: When he finishes preaching, now we pick up our story.
SPEAKER_01: That's the setting.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, in uh Mark chapter 4, verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: On that day when evening had come, so he's been teaching all day, so y'all just strap in, we'll be here a long time.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't do that to you.
SPEAKER_01: On that day when evening had come, he told them, Let's cross over to the other side of the sea.
SPEAKER_01: So they left the crowd, and they took him along since he was already in the boat, and other boats were around them.
SPEAKER_01: So they would kind of add other people doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: They could get closer to Jesus that way if they had access to a boat.
SPEAKER_01: And as they launch out, the Bible says in verse 37, a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a very natural occurrence on the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Uh often what would happen is as the east, especially with an easterly wind, it would blow that cold air off the mountains and it would come down.
SPEAKER_01: The warm air is rising off the Sea of Galilee, and you get this swirl, and these massive thunderstorms would just break up all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_01: Here they come.
SPEAKER_01: And they would have uh waves that is reported as large as 10 to 12 feet in height.
SPEAKER_01: So here you are in a boat.
SPEAKER_01: They've actually discovered uh one of these fishing boats uh during a drought time when the banks of the uh Sea of Galley had receded, buried there in the mud was one of these fishing boats.
SPEAKER_01: And so as they excavated the bottom of this boat, it was preserved there, the shape and structure of the hole, it was about uh 23 feet long.
SPEAKER_01: It has a beam of about eight feet wide.
SPEAKER_01: The sides they would guess based on the structure are probably four feet high.
SPEAKER_01: And then, based on reports and some of that stuff, they would see in the back of the boat the the gunnel would be higher in the back.
SPEAKER_01: So it would create a little bit of a protected area.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the boat they're in.
SPEAKER_01: The the storm comes blowing in.
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, it it is this terrible storm that's gotten them, and they're not yet near the other side of the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: So it says the boat was already being swamped.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine ten foot waves and this whirling thunderstorm, and they're in trouble in this boat.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the Bible says, was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you sleep in the middle of that?
SPEAKER_01: But there he is sleeping.
SPEAKER_01: So they woke him up, and they said, Teacher, don't you care that we're going to die?
SPEAKER_01: He got up, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Silence, be still.
SPEAKER_01: The wind ceased, and there was a great calm on the water.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said to them, Why are you afraid?
SPEAKER_01: Do you still have no faith?
SPEAKER_01: And they were terrified, and they asked one another, Who is this guy?
SPEAKER_01: Even the wind and the sea obey him.
SPEAKER_01: So here we get one of those questions that I think as we unpack this story a little bit, you can see how it relates to natural life for us.
SPEAKER_01: So the question we're going to look at this week is when we get in a storm, when we get in a difficult time, we will ask just like they did, Jesus, don't you care that we're in the middle of this?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you care that I'm in the middle of the storm?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you care what the doctor said?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you care what's going on at work?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you care about what's going on in our culture around us?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you care what's going on in our family?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, are you there?
SPEAKER_01: Are you paying attention?
SPEAKER_01: Do you care?
SPEAKER_01: See, that's what they ask.
SPEAKER_01: Teacher, don't you care that we're going to die?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they are genuinely freaked out about this storm.
SPEAKER_01: It's a serious moment, and here it is.
SPEAKER_01: And those things happen with us.
SPEAKER_01: Life creates storms.
SPEAKER_01: Life has difficult journeys in it.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing about being a follower of Jesus that indicates that we're not going to go through storms.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, here's Jesus in the storm himself, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so that's just a part of life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes when you read commentators or some of that, they'll say, Well, God sent the storm and he's doing all that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really believe God sent this storm.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is just a storm.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says a great windstorm arose.
SPEAKER_01: There are times in Scripture when the Bible says God sent a storm.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Jonah, the guy swallowed by the fish, the Bible says God created a storm to happen.
SPEAKER_01: That's why they threw him overboard.
SPEAKER_01: But storms are a normal part of life.
SPEAKER_01: Things happen.
SPEAKER_01: And when we get in those moments, at times we can really ask the Lord, like, here I am in the middle of this.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: Are you hearing my prayers?
SPEAKER_01: Do you care?
SPEAKER_01: And in this story, we begin to see how Jesus answers those questions.
SPEAKER_01: The first answer I want you to see is this we should recognize that Jesus is with us in the storm.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't just send them off by themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is in the boat with them.
SPEAKER_01: They're on a mission, they're heading to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: That was his instruction.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: And so here in this process, as a storm comes and a storm begins to arise, Jesus is with them in the storm.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you know.
SPEAKER_01: If you are with Jesus, you are never alone.
SPEAKER_01: When you are with Jesus, you are where you are supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01: If you are with Jesus in the boat, you are in the safest place you can possibly be, regardless of all the circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: You see, here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: When we come to make Jesus as our Savior, we enter into a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us that all of us have sinned.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is a part of life.
SPEAKER_01: Most everybody in the room is old enough to know we've all done things that we need to be sorry for, that we have to ask for forgiveness for.
SPEAKER_01: That's what sin is.
SPEAKER_01: It's there.
SPEAKER_01: We're all there.
SPEAKER_01: We've all done it.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is that sin must be judged, the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: But that's why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_01: He came and lived a sinless life.
SPEAKER_01: He walked through life just like we do as a man, just like I'm standing here today.
SPEAKER_01: And in that experience, the Bible tells us that Jesus experienced all those things so he would have the same temptations and the same experiences that we do.
SPEAKER_01: So when we have these times, it says twice in the book of Hebrew, when we're in these times, we can come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the Bible says we can boldly come to the throne of grace in time of need, and we can ask for his help.
SPEAKER_01: And because Jesus has been through storms like we've been through, then he understands what it feels like and what those experiences are.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is if you come to that point where you realize, I know I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: I can't fix my sin.
SPEAKER_01: I can't forgive it, I can't make up for it.
SPEAKER_01: It is there, there's nothing I can do.
SPEAKER_01: You realize that Jesus came and he lived this sinless life for us.
SPEAKER_01: He went through all these experiences, except he did it differently.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus never sinned.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus went to the cross and there he died, a life that did not have any sin or judgment attached to it.
SPEAKER_01: His death is free of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: He died and then he rose again.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is we can come now to Jesus and we can ask for his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: We can place our trust in him, and a spiritual exchange happens.
SPEAKER_01: When I give my life, sin and all, everything I've been to Jesus, his death pays the price for my sin.
SPEAKER_01: And then he gives me his forgiveness and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: And this spiritual exchange occurs.
SPEAKER_01: I gave my life to Jesus when I was a nine and a half-year-old boy.
SPEAKER_01: And what happened in that moment?
SPEAKER_01: He paid the price for my sin.
SPEAKER_01: He took care of that.
SPEAKER_01: He cleansed me.
SPEAKER_01: He saved me.
SPEAKER_01: And now when Jesus, now when God from heaven looks down at me, he sees me through the blood and the forgiveness of Jesus because of that exchange.
SPEAKER_01: And you've entered into a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what we know about that relationship, when you're walking with him, he is always with you.
SPEAKER_01: He never leaves you alone.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there are plenty of times we feel alone.
SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of times we feel like he might not be there, but he is always there.
SPEAKER_01: It is his presence is not dependent on our emotions in the moment or our questions in the moment.
SPEAKER_01: Are you really there?
SPEAKER_01: The answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01: And you see that here.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is in the storm with them in the boat.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, before Jesus went to heaven, he has his followers gathered around, and in something that church people call the Great Commission, Jesus is meeting with his followers and he says, Here's what we're going to do.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to go into all the world.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to take this message of me as Jesus as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to go into all the world.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to baptize them in the name of the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to teach them everything that I've taught you and help them to learn how to live it out the way you're living it out.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus said this, and I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus makes that promise explicitly to us as his followers.
SPEAKER_01: He promises to be there.
SPEAKER_01: When we are walking in God's will, when you're following him, Jesus is there and you are in his presence, and there is not a safer place on earth that you can possibly be than to be in the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And when we ask that question, when we ask that question, where are you?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what's going on?
SPEAKER_01: Based on the promise of Scripture, the answer is always yes.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the other beautiful picture about Jesus asleep here.
SPEAKER_01: What we want to understand is that Jesus was not freaked out by the storm.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus had confidence in the middle of that.
SPEAKER_01: And he is creating this sense of presence.
SPEAKER_01: He is not worried.
SPEAKER_01: Man, we're going to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: I've already said we're going to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to get to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: We're just fine.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: What are you guys worried about?
SPEAKER_01: You're with me.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to get where God wants us to be.
SPEAKER_01: And so that first answer to that question is always important.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is always with us.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a second answer that you see to this question in this passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: They did not really understand yet who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: And when we're looking at do you care, a lot of times we ask that question because we haven't really recognized the magnitude of who the person of Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: Now, these guys already have some love for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They already trust him.
SPEAKER_01: They have left their jobs and their families and they are following him and they're out there supporting him when he's preaching.
SPEAKER_01: They get in the boat with him, they're following him to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: There's already some value that they've placed on the person of Jesus, some recognition that he is special, that he's the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the first part of his ministry, and they're just getting to know him, and they still don't quite understand exactly who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: When they go wake him up in the storm, they don't say, Lord, wake up, there's a storm.
SPEAKER_01: They don't come up and shake him and say, You're the creator God of the universe, there's a storm.
SPEAKER_01: They don't really understand all of that yet.
SPEAKER_01: So they ask him, teacher.
SPEAKER_01: That's a term of honor in that culture, but it's not Lord, it's not Savior, it's not Messiah, it's not Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They are still trying to figure out who Jesus is in their relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of it, you see, when he calms the waves and calms the storm and all of that, man, they're really even more freaked out now.
SPEAKER_01: It says here that they were terrified and asked one another, who then is this?
SPEAKER_01: Even the wind and the sea obey him.
SPEAKER_01: You see, they see the power of Jesus, but they still don't really understand who he is yet.
SPEAKER_01: They're still getting to know him.
SPEAKER_01: And in our lives, even if you know Jesus as your Savior, there's always growth in our relationship.
SPEAKER_01: There's always time we need to spend getting to know him more.
SPEAKER_01: We can always grow in our relationship and our personal intimacy and connection with him as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: There's more we can learn about the magnitude of his love.
SPEAKER_01: See, usually when we get in a storm or we get in a struggle or just a time seeking direction, and we start to ask that question, Lord, do you even care that we're here?
SPEAKER_01: Here's kind of two categories of when that happens.
SPEAKER_01: The first is our circumstances are bigger than our personal knowledge of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: That's where these guys are.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, we we know him, we know he's a teacher, we're we know God sent him, and like, oh my goodness, he just ended the weather.
SPEAKER_01: Who can do that?
SPEAKER_01: And they're and they're just in awe of the power that he must have, that he can speak to the waves and calm a storm.
SPEAKER_01: So they're still learning the magnitude of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes in our lives, we may have a good relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We've walked with him, but because of circumstances, we've gotten disconnected.
SPEAKER_01: And because we've gotten disconnected, we're maybe not in church or not having our quiet time.
SPEAKER_01: We're just not around people who are followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've just kind of gotten disconnected.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, there's a little more space, there's a little more gap between us and Jesus in our relationship than there has been in the past.
SPEAKER_01: And the circumstances that we're in, they get bigger than that gap.
SPEAKER_01: And in both of those, we're a lot like the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
SPEAKER_01: Are you big enough to handle this?
SPEAKER_01: Do you care enough to take care of us in this moment?
SPEAKER_01: Are you aware of what we're going through?
SPEAKER_01: Do you love me that much that you're aware?
SPEAKER_01: And so what we've got to understand here is we've got to learn, like the disciples learned over their time with Jesus, the magnitude of who he is.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, more than a year down the road, Jesus pulls the same men aside and he says, Who are people saying that I am?
SPEAKER_01: How do they describe me?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, as we see all these crowds, some think you're Elijah who's come back, you know, and we they some people think you're Moses, or all these lists.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Who do you say that I am?
SPEAKER_01: And Peter says, You are the Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And God's and and and Jesus says, Well done.
SPEAKER_01: But God is the one who has revealed this to your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so we get to know the person of Jesus when we are in relationship with him, and we are spending time with him and worshiping him, and we get to know his person.
SPEAKER_01: And as we grow, our strength and our trust for him grows, our understanding of his love for us grows, and then it takes bigger and bigger storms to ever outstrip the relationship that we have developed with him.
SPEAKER_01: There's two ways we do that.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the time that we spend alone with the Lord in the Word.
SPEAKER_01: It's time we spend in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, First Baptist folks will hear me talk about coffee with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I get up in the mornings and I make some coffee because everybody that loves Jesus loves coffee, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's how that works.
SPEAKER_01: We started church with coffee today.
SPEAKER_01: That's how it works.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'll get up and I have a special place in my office at home, and I sit down, I get my Bible, I get my cup of coffee, and I have coffee with Jesus, and we just spend time together.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not prepping sermon, I'm not working on that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just being with Jesus because he's my Savior and He loves me.
SPEAKER_01: And I love Him.
SPEAKER_01: And it's in those moments that He speaks to me and I take Him my questions and I read Scripture and I learn more about who He is and I develop that relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And the more personal it gets, when I get to that storm, because I've spent time with Jesus, I know who He is.
SPEAKER_01: Even that question may rattle around sometimes if the storm gets big enough, but automatically I know the answer.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is bigger than this.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus conquered death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus loves me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus loved me so much that he died for me on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much more that he loves me than just this.
SPEAKER_01: He has so much power to do all kinds of things in this storm, things beyond even what I can imagine.
SPEAKER_01: And then we do that by doing this right here when we come together and we worship together like we've done.
SPEAKER_01: We sing songs like Maverick and the Team Let Us In, where we're focusing on the person of Jesus and his love and his power and the cross and his resurrection and the promise of heaven, and we're worshiping with each other and we're encouraging each other, and there's a spiritual dynamic that hurt that occurs.
SPEAKER_01: We're in that moment and Jesus is here in the midst of our praises and we are focused on him.
SPEAKER_01: We are drawn close to him.
SPEAKER_01: Even in a sermon Bible study time like this, it's not me parting information.
SPEAKER_01: If y'all are counting on me for information, we're all in deep trouble.
SPEAKER_01: But what happens in this time?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that God's word is living and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: To the dividing apart of the soul and the spirit, the bones and the marrows, God's word, with its living, powerful quality, is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: What that means is God sees what's there in our minds, our questions, our thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: And so even a story like this, that's probably one, if you've been in church any amount of time, you'll remember this story, you've seen this story.
SPEAKER_01: But every time we come to a scripture and No matter how familiar, our circumstances are different.
SPEAKER_01: In this moment, I'm facing this.
SPEAKER_01: Two years ago I read this story, I was facing that.
SPEAKER_01: In all of those moments, Jesus is in that because he's in the storm with us.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he is always with you.
SPEAKER_01: And his living, powerful word can take a story that's familiar, and all of a sudden, because you're focused on him, you're in an environment where people are focused together and we're encouraging each other in that.
SPEAKER_01: We're supporting each other in this time of reaching out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He can show you something or speak to you in a new way that you've never thought about from that word.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not because I'm up here, it's because we're all here together, focused on Him.
SPEAKER_01: He can remind you of a lesson that He's taught you in the past and encourage and build that up.
SPEAKER_01: He can give you a new word, even from a familiar passage of Scripture, and He can speak to you in that.
SPEAKER_01: And so we want to do some things to help you and encourage you in that process.
SPEAKER_01: We have note cards we'll pass out each week for you to take some notes if you'd like to.
SPEAKER_01: And we also have a podcast that our team has started.
SPEAKER_01: It's just folks in our church.
SPEAKER_01: It's called From Seat to Street.
SPEAKER_01: And what it'll do is just a few people talking that week about what they saw or heard in the message, what God taught them, what he encouraged them with.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a conversation of people, us.
SPEAKER_01: And you can tap into it.
SPEAKER_01: The information is on the sheets.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a way, driving in the car, turn it on, coffee with Jesus one morning, turn it on.
SPEAKER_01: Listen and just let that conversation as we as Christians talk with each other about what God is speaking to us and watch God draw us closer to Him and reveal things about Himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the churches, in every letter Paul wrote to the church, he tells them his prayers for them as a church.
SPEAKER_01: And in every one of those letters, he makes clear one of his prayers is for them to get to know the magnitude of the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He wants them to know the height and breadth and depth and love of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to have a deeper understanding of who God is and the wisdom for life and all of those things.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible that Paul is always praying that specific prayer for his people.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know in greater ways who Jesus actually is.
SPEAKER_01: And when we get into a storm, but we have built that relationship and we have that personal understanding of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: It is very easy to take our eyes off the circumstances, put them on Jesus, and when you see who He is, the circumstances pale in light of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all about when we are deepening that understanding of who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: And then here's a third answer I want to show you before we close.
SPEAKER_01: And the third answer is this recognize that circumstances never derail God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: Now I love this story.
SPEAKER_01: This story is set in the book of Mark.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, Mark wrote this as an evangelist.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, historians tell us that most likely he was traveling with Peter a lot, and a lot of these stories came from Peter, as Peter is sharing.
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine Mark hearing Peter tell this story about being in the boat and how terrible it was, and Jesus calmed it and how amazed they were, and all that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And he, as Mark is writing, he's trying to explain to us that Jesus is the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And so in this passage of Scripture, what you find out as you read through a couple of these pages, there is a series of events.
SPEAKER_01: When that boat starts across the sea, Jesus calms the storm.
SPEAKER_01: When it reaches the other side of the sea, there's a man there who immediately approaches Jesus because he is demon-possessed.
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, the demons are named legion.
SPEAKER_01: There are so many in this man's body and mind and heart, uh, just wreaking havoc in his life.
SPEAKER_01: This is the famous story where Jesus sends the demons off into the pigs and they go running off into the sea, and he heals this man.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus tells him, I want you to stay here and be an evangelist and tell people what God has done for you.
SPEAKER_01: And then they get back in the boat, they come back across the sea, and as soon as they get on the other side of the sea, there's a man whose daughter is deathly ill.
SPEAKER_01: And he pleads with Jesus to come heal his daughter.
SPEAKER_01: And on the way, there's a woman who stops Jesus in the crowd as they're traveling, and she has an issue of blood.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know exactly what that means.
SPEAKER_01: It could be hemophilia, it's all kinds of things like that.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says it tortured her for years.
SPEAKER_01: She'd spent all her money trying to get some healing from doctors.
SPEAKER_01: She had, her family had left her, she was alone.
SPEAKER_01: She reaches out, touched Jesus' cloak, and Jesus heals her.
SPEAKER_01: After that happens, after he's dealt with her, someone comes and they say, Listen, Mister, you need to just let Jesus go because your daughter's already died.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Listen, we're going.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes and he raises her from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And just this series of events, going across the sea and back to the sea, you see Jesus establish his authority over every aspect of life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus heals the calm and calls the sea.
SPEAKER_01: He is the God of creation.
SPEAKER_01: He is the spiritual King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: When these demons accost him on the other side of the sea, he casts them out and frees this man spiritually from that moment.
SPEAKER_01: As he comes back, you see him heal this woman.
SPEAKER_01: And then you see him in his authority as the author of life as he raises this young girl from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has authority over all these things.
SPEAKER_01: And in this instance, he is showing everyone who he is.
SPEAKER_01: And he is in a work that God has established and timed to identify Jesus as the Savior and as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: And do you really think that God's going to let a storm stop Jesus from doing all of that?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in this moment, Jesus has a specific plan as he's going the other side.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important for us to think about this.
SPEAKER_01: God has sort of two layers to his plans.
SPEAKER_01: One is his kingdom plan.
SPEAKER_01: He is always advancing the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: He is always helping people understand who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: He is always reaching out to save people.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, there are the moments that we find ourselves in, the contemporary plan.
SPEAKER_01: And God's magnitude, his brilliance, his love for us is so great.
SPEAKER_01: He does not get distracted from one to the other.
SPEAKER_01: He makes the contemporary plan of the moment work with the kingdom plan of advancing the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And you see that here.
SPEAKER_01: And it helps us understand God does that in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: There's a man on the other side of that lake.
SPEAKER_01: He needs Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He needs to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: He needs to be redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: He needs to be healed from those demons.
SPEAKER_01: And nothing, not a storm, not Satan, not the enemy, nothing is going to keep Jesus from his mission.
SPEAKER_01: And he told his disciples, we're going to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why would they be worried about the storm?
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus says, Where's your faith?
SPEAKER_01: Didn't I tell you we were going to the other side?
SPEAKER_01: You see, when God has a plan, nothing is going to stop his plan.
SPEAKER_01: And if we're with Jesus in the plan, there's no safer place to be.
SPEAKER_01: If we're with Jesus in the plan, the magnitude of who Jesus is, that the King of kings and the Lord of Lords is going to accomplish that plan.
SPEAKER_01: And nothing can stop that plan.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we get in these moments, a lot of times what we need to be reminded of is that God has a plan.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a work that he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Romans chapter 8 says, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Because he is working the contemporary plan and the kingdom plan all together, and that's what he's doing here.
SPEAKER_01: He has a plan not just for that man's life, but when he heals this man, all these people come to see this guy who's gotten healed, all these demons cast out.
SPEAKER_01: This man was infamous for all these struggles.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has healed all that.
SPEAKER_01: They come to see him and they're totally weirded out.
SPEAKER_01: And they tell Jesus, listen, you need to leave.
SPEAKER_01: We don't understand any of that.
SPEAKER_01: That's scary.
SPEAKER_01: You need to go.
SPEAKER_01: And the guy says, Jesus, I want to go with you.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus has a plan.
SPEAKER_01: Son, I want you to stay here and I want you to tell folks what God has done.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible tells us that people are amazed and believe in God because of his testimony.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus had a plan to turn that man into an evangelist.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing was going to stop the plan of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And whatever you're in in this moment that you may be in in this contemporary experience, this circumstance that may ask you to ask that question, understand God has taken that contemporary plan and his kingdom plan and he has wed them together, and nothing is going to stop God from working in your life.
SPEAKER_01: When we ask those questions, Jesus has an answer.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your head as we close this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to do a couple of things.
SPEAKER_01: We are so grateful that you're visiting today, all you that come first time.
SPEAKER_01: We're just so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: It's such an encouragement and a blessing, and I pray it's been a blessing to you, and that you've had a chance to focus on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe God has spoken to you, even if this story is familiar to you, there's something new, there's something timely that God has spoken in your contemporary plan.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to pray in just a moment, and we'll have some of our folks here in the back.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be hanging around as well.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'd like for someone to pray with you, or even more importantly, if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, and you'd like to know more about how you enter that relationship that I've described, how you can really know that you're in the presence of Jesus, like in this story.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to talk with you.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have some folks back there to pray with you, open up God's word, show you the promise of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: We'd like to invite you to give your life to Jesus if you never have.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to learn more about what we're doing, we'll be here to talk with you.
SPEAKER_01: If you just want someone to pray with you, that's why we're here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to pray, and then Maverick's going to lead us in a final song.
SPEAKER_01: And I just pray that God has blessed you and encouraged you today with his presence and that you have seen Jesus in a more personal way.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you for today.
SPEAKER_01: And I thank you for this story and that you relate it to us.
SPEAKER_01: And as we unpack just this real practical moment in life, how it compares and teaches us and encourages us in the moments in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: As we go through this series, I pray that it'll speak to folks.
SPEAKER_01: But right now, as we just close, I pray that you'll help us to place our focus and attention on you, that we'll be able to see you in a new, a deeper, a fresher, whatever's appropriate in each of our lives, that we'll see Jesus for who he actually is.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.