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Storms!
Why?
Why does God lead us into storms?
Sometimes, as with Jonah, we rush into storms when we are running away from God. Such storms are self-imposed. Yet there is no doubt that there are times when we are peacefully rowing across life’s lake, as with the disciples, when we are sent into storms not of our own making.
Frightening, frustrating, disturbing, distressing, disrupting our tranquil lives, storms take many forms from unexpected physical illnesses to depression to family struggles to career crashes and more. And why? Why?
This is the question we consider in Stormology, the study of storms, where we see the disciples and Jonah in two very different settings struggling with storms in their lives. And we find the question Why answered by the parable Jesus told at the end of the Sermon on the Mount: storms come to reveal the foundation on which we are building our lives. Storms come into the lives of those who build on the Rock of the Living Word as well as those who build on the sand of their own flesh. Everyone—everyone—faces storms. The question is will you life stand or fall in the midst of the storm?
I invite you to listen to this series called Stormology to discern what storms reveal about you. Are you wise or foolish? Storms tell all.
See the Stormology Series Description for more information on this lesson.
Some years ago I was on a flight from Puerto Allegre in the far south of Brazil to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I was sitting in the middle seat of the bulkhead row between a missionary buddy of mine and a woman who seemed to want nothing to do with a gringo and who sat as far away from me as she could.
After a while, the flight began to get rough, and the crew took away the beverages and discontinued the food services. The flight got rougher and rougher. Suddenly, out the windows we could see lightening, and we realized that this was not a matter of rough air pockets. We were flying through a thunderstorm!
We were flying the Brazilian national airline, Varig, who, at that time, used china and silverware in every class of service. The plane was bouncing wildly, and this meant that the china clashed and the silver crashed every time the plane bounced, adding frightening noise to the flashing lightening and the wild gyrations.
People began to scream and call out with each jolt. Fingers were flying as the rosary beads were put to intense use. The stewards were passing through the aisles seeking to calm the passengers. And the woman who wanted nothing to do with me was involuntary grabbing my arm each time the plane dropped.
All told, from the time we entered the storm until we were completely out of it, we spent fifteen minutes bouncing around, although the worst part probably lasted only about eight minutes, and we arrived safely in Buenos Aires pretty close to schedule.
Isn’t it amazing how quickly we lose control in a storm?
As long as life is going the way we want it to go, we feel as if we are in control and that gives us a great sense of security.
In fact, we work very hard all our lives to be in control.
Unfortunately, that feeling of control gives us a false sense of security.
There are two problems with control.
our appetites
our money
our tempers
even our time to a significant degree.
All it takes is one storm to show us we can’t control life.
That’s exactly what the disciples discovered in Mark 4 when they experienced Stormology 101.
Storms teach us we are not in control of life.
It is now that we encounter the first of the storms which the disciples faced.
Up until now, the disciples have been observers and not participants.
They have listened to Him, watched Him, observed what He did and how others responded to Him, but no demand has been placed on them.
All of this is about to change. Jesus does not allow us to be spectators; He demands that we make decisions about Him, that we commit ourselves to Him.
Today we are going to see three observations from Mark 4:35-41 that help us understand Stormology 101.
Our first observation tells us that:
1 He has spent a long day teaching both the masses and the disciples.
a. Apparently, He taught the masses from the boat (4:1) using that as a platform to present all of His parables to them.
b. Then He turned to the disciples and taught them out of the hearing of the crowd.
c. But the crowd stayed there wanting more time with Him.
d. Perhaps there were many sick or struggling or demonized people who longed for His touch.
e. Our Lord was exhausted, as we shall see, and He did not want to land in the midst of the crowd, so He directs them to set out for the other side.
2. They respond immediately (4:36).
a. They do not get out of the boat at all.
b. They simply take off for the other side (the eastern side) of the Sea of Galilee.
c. At that, they cannot get away from pursuers as other boats go with them.
Now I need to ask you a question.
What did Jesus intend to do when He said, “Let’s go over to the other side?”
Go over to the other side!
3. While they are crossing the Sea, perhaps just as dusk turned into darkness, a furious squall came upon them.
a. The Sea of Galilee is located in a valley that’s more like a tunnel.
b. There are hills and mountains on both sides of it with Mount Hermon on the north.
c. Although these hills and mountains are not Colorado Rockies or
California Sierra high, they do form a kind of wind tunnel and, when conditions are right, they can create gale force winds on that body of water.
d. At such times, the lake is churned almost like a roiling earthquake, and fishermen caught on it in such times ride a bucking bull with no way to get off.
e. This is one of those times.
What had these men done wrong that they ended up in a storm?
Nothing!
We can bring storms on ourselves, but not every storm we face comes because we did something wrong. Often we end up in storms because we obey Jesus, even as it was with His disciples that night.
Jesus leads his followers into storms.
These men had followed our Lord’s bidding and done what He told them to do. No one could have been more obedient than these men were in their response. Yet, they faced one of the most terrorizing events of their lives. You can be certain that those at the helm of their boat, big enough for thirteen men, knew the lake. Peter and Andrew, James and John, all had plied these waters virtually their entire lives, and they knew what to do in such storms. Probably they would tell you that the best thing to do was to stay off the sea, but that was not a choice they could make at this time.
The point of it all is, they were there because of Jesus. And so are we when we face storms in life. No storm surprises Jesus; no storm unnerves Jesus. He knew the economic storms that would hit Dallas in the mid-eighties and the impact that these storms would have on so many of us.
Unfortunately when Jesus leads us into storms, we may not find Him as responsive as we like.
A. Their Situation was Desperate. (4:37)
1. The waves were crashing in on them.
2. Their boat was nearly swamped.
a. These men, fishermen and landlubbers alike, were overwhelmed by this storm.
b. Wet and cold, frightened, tossed about, nearly thrown into the sea several different times, they need help in the storm.
3. They were frightened by this storm.
B. Jesus was Sleeping in the Stern of the Boat. (4:38)
1. The day had been exhausting for Jesus, and He must have fallen asleep as soon as they got away from the shore.
2. Apparently He had been sleeping all the way, and neither the screaming of the storm nor the screaming of His men awoke Him.
3. So they turned to Him and accused Him of the very same thing we do when life’s storms hit us: You don’t care if we drown!
Of course, if they drown He does too. Common sense alone would tell them that He cares. And common sense would tell us the same thing.
The idea that Jesus who died for us would not care about our pain or our anxiety or our fear makes no sense at all. Yet this is the feeling many of us have, and we may feel this way simply because there is a storm. We are not supposed to have storms in life. We believed in Jesus in order to avoid storms in life. He is supposed to keep life under control and to protect us from storms and struggles and problems in life.
While others struggle, we are supposed to be immune to it all, protected by Him from hurt and pain and the realities of life. And this is why we respond with such anger and resentment when the storms hit. We see Jesus asleep in the back of the boat and we are angry that He doesn’t care.
If those disciples are anything like I am,
1. They worked to save themselves even though He was there with them.
They probably tried to turn the sail in order to catch the wind and outrun the storm, but the winds were too capricious for that. They probably tried to row through the waves, but the waves were too high for that. They must have tried to bail out the boat when the waves nearly swamped them, but there was too much water for that. They did everything they could to save themselves with Jesus right there in the boat with them.
This is exactly what we do in so many of life’s storms.
We respond by trying to gain control of the storm. What must we, I, do to get this thing under control and determine what has to happen to survive? We are always seeking to be in control of life, but life is too big to be controlled by us. And while we are seeking to be in control Jesus is right there with us, but we don’t want to bother Him, or don’t even think of asking Him. And so the storm continues, and we reach the point of terror in the storm and anger with the Lord.
Also we need to understand that.
2. Though they knew theory about Jesus, they did not know Jesus.
We see this in the accusatory question they ask of Him: Don’t you care if we drown? How can you sleep? Aren’t you going to help us trim the sails or row the boat or bail out the water? Do your share!
They had heard the words and seen the works of Jesus, but these words and works were mere theory to them. The idea that He could do something about the storm had not entered into their minds. The reason for this is because the assumption that they had to do something about it, that they had to handle the issues and stresses of life on their own, was so ingrained in them that they could think of nothing else but their own struggle and terror.
We are just like this. Jesus is a theory for us, not living truth. Life is up to us; Jesus is a sleeping theory in the stern of the boat of life.
But Jesus doesn’t see things quite that way.
A. Jesus Rebukes the Storm. (4:39)
1. “Be muzzled!”
2. The lake was completely calm.
a. This is most unusual.
b. Once the wind dies down the water continues to stir for a period of time after the storm.
3. Now the storm is over.
Theory becomes reality through storms.
B. Jesus Rebukes His Followers. (4:40)
1. Now He turns to them and rebukes them for their cowardice.
a. “Afraid” means cowardice.
b. He asks them why they are such cowards.
Then He gives them the solution for cowardice.
2. He rebukes them for not having faith.
a. You have heard my words, the claims I have made and the teaching I have done.
b. You have seen my works, the healings I have done and the demonized people I have set free.
c. My words and my works should have resulted in faith in your lives.
You come to church Sunday-after-Sunday; you learn about Jesus, both His words and His works; yet you have no faith? You still think life is up to you, that you can handle life’s storms, that you have the wisdom and the strength and the energy to be in control of life? And now you cry out to me in anger and blame?
You don’t even care!
You know me in theory, but do you know me in trust?
C. His Followers are Amazed at His Authority. (4:41)
Now their response changes.
1. They are terrified, but not in a cowardly sense.
2. They are terrified because they are overwhelmed by the presence of God.
a. From the Old Testament as well as from the teaching they had received all their lives, they knew that only God could do what Jesus had just done.
b. Only the Creator could control nature the way Jesus just had.
c. They were overwhelmed by the reality that Jesus is God, so He is the Lord of all storms.
GOD is here!
GOD is involved in our lives.
The Creator of all.
The Lord of all.
The Sovereign of all.
The Controller of all.
God is here.
And we want to be in control?
We must move from control to trust.
THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL LIFE IS TO
TRUST THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN CONTROL IT.
KNOWLEDGE ABOUT JESUS MUST
BECOME TRUST IN JESUS THROUGH STORMS.
See the Stormology Series Description for more information on this lesson.
How do we respond to God’s unwanted grace?
How do we respond when God’s grace comes charging into our lives?
When it doesn’t knock on the door -
or ask permission
or say how do you do
or have a nice day
or could we sit down and talk?
When it just barges in and takes over.
That’s the problem with grace, you know—
it cannot be controlled;
it is not predictable or rational;
it cannot be owned.
Grace does exactly what grace wants to do.
I can hear many of you protesting, objecting to the idea of unwanted grace.
Perhaps you’re saying,
I want all of God’s grace I can get. There’s no such thing as unwanted grace.
Perhaps. Let’s see if this is true. Let me ask you a question.
Suppose we put two signs over these two doors,
Which line would you get in?
We don’t want the grace to die of cancer if we can possibly avoid it. Of course we want it if there’s nothing we can do about it, but none of us would get in the cancer line. That is certainly unwanted grace.
Or let me ask you this.
Let’s say your life is going well—
a marriage that is strong and stable,
children who are doing great,
a career that just developed two new gears—
life couldn’t be better.
Or let’s say you’re single and enjoying life—
lots of great friends,
many fun times,
career taking off
and God comes along and calls you to become significantly involved in serving Him
to the point where you must change your life-style,
move out of your dream house,
live on much less,
enter into sacrifice,
and do something for that is so big, so challenging, so overwhelming, you are afraid.
This is unwanted grace for you. You don’t want to do what God is calling you to do.
Or perhaps you’re very satisfied in a support role, very satisfied as a manager—
you don’t want to move up the ladder,
to move into greater responsibility,
to face greater pressure
to travel and be gone one-third of the time.
But the pressure is there, and God’s unwanted grace is calling you,
disrupting you
demanding that you do something for God you don’t want to do.
How do you respond to God’s unwanted grace?
How welcome is God’s disruptive, life changing, redirecting grace?
We look this morning at Unwanted Grace.
If you find this unwanted grace to be unwelcome, then you understand how Jonah felt and identify with him as the prophet of unwanted grace.
A. Unwanted Grace Comes as a Privilege
1. The word of the LORD was.
a. Jonah didn’t ask for it.
b. Jonah didn’t plan for it.
c. Jonah did nothing to get it.
d. Jonah did not earn it.
e. It was just there—it just showed up.
2. We don’t know how he got it.
a. We don’t know if he heard it.
b. Or sensed it.
c. Or felt it.
d. Or saw it.
e. He just received it.
3. Now remember this is the word of the LORD.
a. Every time we see LORD in upper case letters we must remember it means Yahweh, God’s formal name, His covenant making and covenant keeping name.
b. Yahweh is God’s initiating name—the name used to speak of His initiative to enter our lives.
In the Garden of Eden,
with the call of Abraham,
the commissioning of Moses—
all the way throughout the Old Testament Yahweh initiates, and this initiation is always an act of grace, even when it is not welcome in the lives of those with whom He initiates.
c. Yahweh is also God’s covenant making name, His commitment making, legal contract signing name, and everything He does grows out of the covenants He has made.
So unwanted grace comes from the covenant keeping God who is constantly making grace initiatives in our lives.
B. Unwanted Grace Comes as an Intrusion.
1. It is quite evident that Jonah wasn’t looking for the privilege God has in mind for him.
2. It was much more of an intrusion than anything else.
3. It disrupted Jonah’s life and called him to do something he didn’t want to do.
4. Jonah was one of 16 men in all of history who were called to be prophets in the way he was called.
5. Jonah’s life was the way he wanted it to be.
a. He was a prophet.
b. He was recognized as a prophet.
c. He was a successful prophet according to II Kings 14:25.
d. He had said his king, Jeroboam II, would expand his kingdom’s borders greatly, and it came true.
e. This meant success, blessing, economic prosperity, and Jonah was a prophet with a popular message.
But the God of unwanted grace comes along with a new word, a word Jonah doesn’t want, even though it is a word of opportunity.
C. Unwanted Grace Comes as an Opportunity.
Look at vs. 2.
1. This word of unwanted grace from the LORD called him to action: Arise and go—get up and get going. There is immediacy, urgency in this word from the LORD.
2. This word of unwanted grace from the LORD called him with direction: to Nineveh.
Nineveh was what he did not want to hear—Nineveh was what made this word a word of unwanted grace.
Nineveh was the capital of an ancient empire called Assyria, located in modern Iran. Nineveh was 550 miles from Samaria where Jonah lived. Nineveh was a city of 600,000 people. Nineveh was a Gentile city, and no one spoke Hebrew there, although many spoke Aramaic there, so Jonah could make himself understood. Hebrew prophets would not be all that welcome in Nineveh.
Nineveh was a cruel city. The kings of Assyria developed the concept of captivity, in which a conquered people would be moved from their home territory and settled elsewhere, while alien people would be settled in their former home. One of their kings boasted he had make a mountain red like wool by cutting off the heads of some warriors he had defeated and piled their skulls as a pillar in front of their city. Others boasted of flaying their enemies alive and stretching their skin on the city wall.
At that time Nineveh was in trouble. In the years before Jonah received this word from the LORD, they had experienced two plagues and also a total eclipse of the sun, which they took to be a bad omen of something bad about to come upon them. They were divided politically and in a very weak condition. Left to themselves, they would collapse in a short time.
The prophet received a word from the LORD that called him to action and gave him direction.
3. That word also gave him motivation.
a. God was concerned about their wickedness.
b. Jonah was given the opportunity to have the greatest evangelistic impact in history, but he didn’t want it because he was politically and culturally opposed to Nineveh and did not have God’s heart for them.
D. Unwanted Grace Comes as an Opportunity That’s More Than We Want.
All too frequently we are like Jonah—we don’t want God’s grace initiative in our hearts because it will call us away from our comfort and our security and our desires to care for cruel and troubled place like Nineveh.
And even if this is not the case, God’s initiating grace always calls us to something we cannot do, something that is overwhelming for us, something that frightens us because it is so demanding. Think of it—Jonah was called to go to a city of 600,000 and tell them about God’s demands on them, but he would be the only believer there. There was no steering committee, no team, no advance men and women, no counselor training, just Jonah—and God.
And how did Jonah respond.
He rose up and went as far in the opposite direction as he could from Nineveh.
A. Unwanted Grace Came to a Self-Centered Heart.
1. Nineveh was in a weakened condition, and Jonah wanted it to stay that way.
2. Jonah knew of Nineveh’s cruelty and also of its expansionist desires.
a. Later Hosea, one of Jonah’s contemporaries, prophesied that Assyria would take Israel captive, and Jonah knew that could happen.
b. Yet God told His prophet to go to Nineveh—but His prophet didn’t want this grace from God.
c. Jonah was called to the greatest evangelistic ministry in history, but he turned it down.
d. He didn’t want God’s unwelcome, uninvited grace
B. Unwanted Grace Challenges a Self-Centered Heart.
1. Jonah’s self-centeredness is challenged and stirred up by God’s unwanted grace.
2. In his self-centeredness, in his desire for a safe and secure life, in his effort to keep control over his life and the fate of his people, Jonah chooses to disobey—which may well be what God wanted to happen.
3. Jonah’s choice is clear from verse 3: Tarshish is mentioned three times.
a. Tarshish is as far away from Nineveh as Jonah could get in the ancient world.
b. Tarshish was in Spain, the site of silver mines run by Phoenicians.
c. If you went any further you would drop off the edge of the earth.
4. Jonah “found” a ship going there.
a. The idea is that this was a find.
b. Apparently Jonah left his home up near Nazareth with the hope of going to Tarshish, and there just happened to be a ship going to that very place when he got to Joppa.
c. Surely it was the will of God for Jonah to go to Tarshish—that may well have been what Jonah thought when he made his find.
d. Just think, a one-in-a-hundred chance, and the ship was there.
e. Why else would the ship be there if it weren’t God’s will for him to go to Tarshish—that’s obvious.
And it may well have been true that God provided that ship so Jonah could do what he most wanted to do and get way from the presence of God. Even as God may help you if you don’t want to respond to His unwanted grace. Certainly God didn’t stop Him.
But now it’s time for us to see what unwanted grace is.
Unwanted grace is God’s unrelenting call for us
to take greater risk than we ever imagined
to face stronger forces than we ever dreamed
to fight bigger battles than we ever thought possible
and nearly all of this is in ourselves!
We must face the greatest enemy of all: ourselves.
The greatest struggle Jonah faced in going to Nineveh was not the 550 trek to the city, but the short distance he had to go to face his own unresponsive heart.
What is even more interesting is the fact that
C. Unwanted Grace Came to an Unqualified Heart.
1. At first it looked as if the LORD’s word came to Jonah because he was qualified to receive it.
2. He was a proven prophet with stature in Israel, so he must have been qualified to receive the word of the LORD.
Let’s go back and look at verse 1 again.
The word of the LORD came to Jonah—a man whose name means Dove, undoubtedly an intended picture of the Holy Spirit searching out those who need God’s forgiveness. Surely a man who symbolized the Holy Spirit would be qualified for the word of the LORD. And he was the son of Amittai, Truth—the son of truth, raised in truth of God. He was a prepared man who came from a godly family, a proven prophet, certainly a qualified man.
But now we see that was not the case.
Jonah was eminently unqualified to receive the word of the LORD. He was as unqualified for his privilege as Nineveh was for its privilege of receiving a word from the LORD. He didn’t have God’s heart; he didn’t love God’s way; he was looking out for himself and his people, not God’s interests.
The unqualified man was sent to an unqualified people so they both could be transformed into what God wanted them to be by His grace. We frequently think we are blessed because we deserve it, but this is contrary to the nature of grace. All grace is undeserved, and we must always remember this.
We don’t deserve grace—we are never qualified to receive grace. We are not given grace because we are qualified to receive it—we are only give grace because we are unqualified to receive it. As it turns out, Jonah was totally unresponsive to God, and Nineveh was desperately responsive to God. Yet God was just as patient with the unresponsive man as He was forgiving of the responsive people—and all of this is of grace.
God’s blessing on us doesn’t necessarily indicate our goodness, but really His grace. In fact, blessing may come to us in the form of unwelcome and unwanted grace for exactly the opposite reason we think: because we are not good and we need to grow. Jonah needed to grow in love, in trust in God, in vision, and in obedience to God’s grace, whether wanted or unwanted. He needed to develop a heart for God’s heart—a heart for what mattered to God, not to him.
Jonah did not deserve God’s grace. Instead, Jonah received God’s grace for others so he could experience God’s grace for himself. Jonah was in desperate need for grace, a need he never sees because he is so convinced he is right that salvation belonged to Israel, even as we can be so convinced we are right that salvation means a prosperous life with an ideal family, a lights out career, and financial security that enables us to give great amounts of money to the Lord. However, the Lord is not nearly as interested in our bank accounts as He is in our hearts.
We tend to think our enemies are God’s enemies, when we may in fact be acting toward God in an enemy way.
Now here is something you really need to understand.
Why does God bring unwanted grace in our lives?
Why does He send us to Nineveh when we want to stay in Dallas?
Why does He disrupt our families with sons and daughters who turn away from following Him?
Why does He give us things to do that we could never possibly do, things that frighten us and demand more from us than we ever thought possible?
Because of what unwanted grace always means in our lives.
Unwanted grace always means death:
the death of pride
the death of self-confidence
the death of self-reliance
the death of false hope
Unwanted grace: the opportunity to become more than we ever dreamed we could become by becoming less than we ever thought we could.
Unwanted grace always brings us to one simple choice: the choice to be Jonah or Jesus.
All of us can be Jonah; there’s nothing hard about running away from what we don’t want. Unwanted grace always leads us to where Jesus went.
Nevertheless, not my will, but yours.
Unwanted grace always leads us to the cross—the decision to take up the cross, to follow Jesus to the grace we need to trust God for resurrection so we can become the men and women God wants us to be. If we resist this we will remain small, caught up in our self-centered and unresponsive hearts, thinking we have a corner on salvation, given over to pleasure and selfish ambition and a life-style of comfort and ease. We will be Jonahs: brittle, demanding, angry, self-centered, and unresponsive. But if we respond to God we will discover what unwanted grace really is:
The opportunity to be more than we ever dreamed we could by becoming less than we ever thought we could.
See the Stormology Series Description for more information on this lesson.
Eugene Peterson has observed,
North American religion is basically a consumer religion. Americans see God as a product that will help them to live well or to live better . . . they do what consumers do, shop for the best deal. Pastors, hardly realizing what we are doing, start making deals, packaging the God-product so that people will be attracted to it and then presenting it in ways that will beat out the competition.1
I believe Peterson is right—Christianity in America frequently is a consumer religion.
Christians may say this in so many words, but many times our actions and attitudes when we go to church is, “What’s in it for me?”
Suppose the answer to this question were economic loss and denial of educational opportunity for our children as it was in the Russian Empire or prison for some period of time as it is in China or even death at the hands of your own family members as it some times is in the Muslim world.
The attitude of believers in East Asia is amazing. One day after being held and questioned for several hours by the authorities a young house pastor—we’ll call him Honest Abe—called up one of his friends who was also there with him and said, “Wasn’t that exciting?? For him being held and subjected to the possibility of even worse penalties was a challenging adventure, not something bad.
Christianity was anything but a consumer religion for this young leader.
The problem with consumer religion is that it becomes banal religion—totally trite and lacking in freshness.
It’s like reaching for what looks like a beautiful, freshly ripened peach and getting a mouthful of wax.
What could be worse?
Perhaps that’s why many unbelievers around us find us so tasteless and lacking in value—we’re more wax than real.
Listen to Eugene Peterson again as he talks about the impact of consumer religion on pastors.
“The pastoral vocation in America is embarrassingly banal . . . because it is pursued under the canons of job efficiency and career management [so] it is reduced to the dimensions of a job description [and] it becomes an idol—a call from God exchanged for an offer by the devil for work that can be measured and manipulated at the convenience of the worker. Holiness is not banal. Holiness is blazing
Jonah was the consumer prophet, totally given over to the idea that salvation belonged to Israel and totally resistant to the thought that he should take the Gospel to a political rival.
It's hard for us to think that people who reject and attack our way of life could be objects of God's grace. After all, they're our enemies, so they must be God's enemies as well. Because of this we tend to blame the unbelievers for the storms that fall upon us in our generation. We miss the point that much--if not most--of God's judgment fell on His own people for consuming His grace, not on the unbelievers around us. It is true that unbelievers deserve God's judgment, even as we do and would receive were it not for His grace. The storms are for us at least some of the time.
You see, God is a missionary God, and God's people are frequently a selfish people. Certainly that was true of Israel, which was intended to be a nation of priests, a missionary nation, acting to bring people to God by His grace. But instead of being a kingdom of priests they became a people of pride who took credit for God's grace. They didn't proclaim it, the possessed as if it were theirs, and they were worthy of it. So God took the very best He had--Jonah--and sent him to Nineveh. God wanted them to understand He is a missionary God, but none of them wanted to understand this.
So God sent a storm because of Jonah--not because of the pagan sailors on board the ship with him.
In other words, God sends Jonah--and us--His pursuing grace.
Come and see this in the middle of the howling winds and the seething waves as the sailors seek to discern why this terrible calamity had fallen on them.
They had already done all they could--now they hadto find out why this was happening.
We join them at Jonah 1:7, where the sailors were seeking to solve their dilemma. We begin by seeing.
A. The Sailors seek to know why the storm struck. (Jonah 1:7-8)
1. They knew this was not an ordinary storm.
a. It struck without signs or warning.
b. God hurled it--pinpointed it on their exact position.
c. It was a terrible storm that threatened to break up their ship.
Nearly a year ago, I read a book entitled Fatal Storm, the story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race that has been going on for nearly fifty-five years. Scores of beautiful yachts make the run through what are often unpredictable seas. During the December '98 story they ran into a hurricane, and many boats and several lives were lost. Perhaps you can get a feel of what the sailors must have felt when you hear this quote.
A sea came out of nowhere . . . I could feel it from where I was in the aft coach-house. It picked the boat up and then rolled it down its face--25 tons of boat--into the trough at a 45 degree angle. It was like hitting a brick wall when it came to the bottom.
If that is what it was like for a twenty-five ton boat, what must it have been like for an ancient sailing vessel with none of the modern advantages of sailing?
2. It's no wonder that these sailors sought for a spiritual explanation.
a. They had a spiritual world view and they looked for a spiritual explanation for everything that happened.
b. They understood there were spiritual forces behind all that happened and they wanted to grasp what was going on through these realities.
c. People today are the same--even though they are scientific, they are also spiritual at the same time.
d Beyond God, yet they are seeking the gods.
e. Past the church seen as sleeping through the storm, yet searching for spiritual reality at the same time.
f. So they sought among themselves for an explanation of this utterly unanticipated and unexplainable calamity.
3. We, of course, offer a spiritual explanation for the storms we face.
a. It 's their fault--the unbelievers fault--for not believing.
b. They deserve what's happening to them.
c. Yet we think nothing of our role, nothing of the possibility that we may be contributing to the problem because we refuse to go to our Nineveh.
d. Church is for us--let them come to us if they want what we have.
e. Yet God's directive is exactly the opposite.
f. Jacques Ellul raises a significant point when he states that the lot of non-Christians is lined with the lot of Christians since we're both in the same boat, and it's sinking rapidly.
g. We are all going down-not just the unbeliever.
Ellul asks,
“Why do we Christians complain about the way the world acts when it depends on us whether the world is set before the Savior's cross?”
That's a fascinating question. We complain because non-Christians act like non-Christians, yet, with Jonah, we refuse to go to Nineveh.
4. So they look right past the church as it sleeps through the storm.
5. At the same time, they turn to us for an explanation for what is happening all around us and them.
So they demand to know what Jonah did to cause their trouble. (1:8)
a. The trouble was his fault.
Remember the storm is raging throughout this conversation. I wonder if there was someone on the bow yelling , “Wave!” when a big wave came. I wonder if there was any free fall as the boat was lifted up and then slammed down by the force of the wave. Was the sail lowered, and the boat allowed to run free while all hung on and shouted their questions?
b. Tell us.
c. These words were spoken with force as they commended him to tell them what they did.
d. Remember, all of this took place at a shouting level as the wind is roaring, and the sea is raging.
e. These questions poured out from all the men involved--not just from one or two, but everyone.
f. It's interesting that their first question was what do you do?
g. He had refused to say anything about this before since he is running from God's presence.
Here we see a very critical and perhaps surprising point.
B. The Storm Searches Jonah Out (1:7-9)
1. Jonah is forced to confess.
a. “I” is emphatic.
b. Jonah must identify himself with the very God from whom he is seeking to escape.
2. Jonah says he fears the LORD God--but it's a creedal confession of faith, not a personal one.
a. He is a Hebrew, literally one who crosses over and speaks of Abraham's crossing of the Tigris River when he came to Canaan at the direction of God.
b. He identifies himself by the name by which the Israelites were known in the ancient world.
c. He further identifies himself with the God who promises and keeps His promise, first to Abraham and then to all of Abraham's descendants.
d. There is obviously no fear of God in Jonah at all.
e. He identifies God first by His unique covenant name, since that's the way all Israelites knew Him from Moses on down.
f. Then he identifies him as the God of heaven--a power name with a universal presence.
To the ancient mind all gods were associated with a particular place and were territorial or local. To enter a country meant to enter the territory over which that god ruled. When Jonah called Yahweh the God of heaven, he identified Him as a universal God--the one God from whom no one could escape.
Jonah knew all along what he was doing--he knew he was fleeing from the true God even though he also knew he was the universal God. What Jonah is doing makes no sense. Of course! Sin never makes sense. But we all know what we're doing when we seek to escape God's presence. When we choose to deny God by identifying with the unbelievers around us and say nothing about Christ, don't we know what we're doing? Isn't this the case when you choose not ever to identify yourself as a Christian on your job until some storm hits, and you're finally forced to admit your true identity?
Weren't you trying to escape from the true God, to escape from doing business God's way? Of course you were. And what happens when we finally speak? Our words become meaningless--and empty creed rather than a living commitment. Prophets who fear God don't end up disciplined by a storm that jeopardizes the very people they should be reaching. This God is the maker of the sea and dry land.
This explains it all.
This explains the sudden and ferocious storm.
This explains why they can't do anything about it.
This explains why this storm is like no other storm they have seen.
This Yahweh, the God of heaven, Maker of the sea and dry land, is angry.
It's as if He's put the sea on as a cloak and He's lashing out in His anger to get at the disobedient prophet--who told them he couldn't wait to get away from the strange religion, the crazy God, and the weird people who lived in Israel. They now know the shame of this prophet and the power of this God. The can do nothing to placate this God--and they are in the biggest trouble of their lives.
3. The sailors become terrified. (1:10)
a. They feared their gods--none of them would do this with any of their gods.
b This is an awful situation.
How could you do this? You must know this God. You must know what He can do. You must have some great involvement with Him--that's why they wanted to know what Jonah did, and that's why it was their first question. He was a spokesman for this God, yet he said nothing to them except that he couldn't wait to get away from Him. Did you really think you could escape Him? If He's the God of heaven, how could you possibly think you could get away from Him.
4. They sought a solution from Jonah because he was the only one who could give it to them.
a. Pick me up.
b. Do with me what God has done with the storm--Hurl!
It is critical to see that.
JONAH WOULD RATHER DIE THAN CHANGE!
He doesn't pray.
He doesn't confess his sin.
He doesn't say let's go back to Nineveh.
He isn't broken.
There is just stiff necked pride. Nineveh will never hear God's message from Jonah! They deserved to be judged, and Jonah will do nothing to prevent it, no matter what God says or does.
Jacques Ellul raises an interesting question.
“Why do we Christians complain about the way the world acts when it depends on us whether the world is set before the Savior's cross?”
We miss the point that we are all in the same boat. Shouldn't that concern us greatly. Amazingly, these pagan sailors are better men than Jonah and try to row to shore.
A. They feared greatly.
1. With Jonah it was just talk.
2. They truly feared GOD.
B. They sacrificed greatly.
1. They carried their own food with them, so they offered from their limited supplies.
2. Because they were limited in what they could sacrifice, they made vows as to what they would when they could do it.
This unbelieving, resistant, selfish, insensitive, willful, proud, stubborn prophet takes the Gospel to Gentiles whether he wants to or not. He didn't want anything to do with these Gentiles and he obviously believes they shouldn't have a relationship with God. Yet he brings them exactly where he didn't want to bring them.
God's grace truly is amazing--He will use us even when we don't want to be used--and keep on pursuing us when we don't want to be pursued.
Pursuing grace is truly amazing grace.
Now we see pursuing grace in a truly amazing way because Jonah has an appointment at sea.
GOD'S PURSUIT ALWAYS
BRINGS US TO GOD'S QUESTIONING GRACE.
God’s target is to give Jonah God’s heart for the world around him.
The aim of the storm is to call Jonah to see what’s in his heart and discern what’s in God’s heart. God wants Jonah to realize he cannot be a consumer prophet any more than we can be consumer Christians. Christianity is not just for us and ours; Christianity is for them and theirs—for those who frighten us and threaten to attack and destroy our culture and the security of our children. We cannot spend our faith on ourselves; we must give our faith to those who are radically different from us. This storm ultimately brings us to the question of what’s in our hearts.
What is in your heart?
Has it been made tender because we set our minds on the interests of God or is it hardened because we set our minds on the interest of man? This may be the most important question we ask, the question we turn to next when we look at the Dreaded L. D.
Could you have the dreaded L. D.?
Just remember this, though.
PURSUING GRACE COMES TO
DISCIPLE US, NOT TO PUNISH US.
I scored a goal for the other team!
Why did I score a goal for the other team?
Because my heart shackled my hands.
Because I felt I had to look good in front of the other players. Because I never thought of admitting my need once I walked onto that field. Because I became so taken up with my success that I totally missed the reality that I had never played the game before, that I had never been a goalie before. Because I thought I could fake my way through to victory.
Because whatever is in our hearts comes out our hands.
We have a need to look good,
a need not to fail,
a need to win,
a need for self-protection
or self-advancement
or self-assertion
because we have deep needs in our hearts that determine what we do with our hands.
We are driven,
we are fearful.
we are hiding,
we are angry,
we are angry,
we are unforgiving,
we are vengeful,
we are impatient,
we are unloving and
we are selfish
all because of what’s in our hearts.
We have expectations for ourselves and of others because of what’s in our hearts. Most of all, our hearts block us from experiencing what God has for us, what He wants to do through us, how He wants to exercise His power through us. Nothing shows us this more effectively than Mark’s Gospel.
We begin our two-day look at the third storm by asking a question.
Could you have the dreaded D. D.?
Could this destructive, debilitating struggle mark your life?
Could the dreaded D. D. be darkening your mind, deafening your ears, crippling your tongue, paralyzing your hands, and blinding your eyes?
Today I am issuing a call to you, the call to die.
I am issuing this call to you because if you don’t die you will always be dead. You will always be protecting your face, your interests, your success.
So I am calling us to a radical trust in Christ in which we trade our control for His resources, our safety for His cross.
We learn about the dreaded D.D. and the call to die from Mark’s Gospel, so let’s turn to Mark and begin our time with the reading of Mark 6:45-52.
Read Mark 6:45-52 and comment.
Immediately: | Intensity, purpose |
Made: | Unusual force—Chap. John 6 |
Sending: | He dismissed the crowd after the disciples were gone. |
Pray: | He needed time with His Father without His disciples—for their well being and growth. |
Alone on land: | They are struggling while He prays—and He planned it that way. |
Seeing: | He could see them. |
Straining: | They were in trouble—and set up by Him. |
Fourth watch: | 3:00-6:00 in the morning |
Walking on the sea: | Not an everyday event |
He intended: | Harsh—Chap. Exodus 34:6-7; I Kings 19:10 |
Ghost: | From theology to superstition under pressure |
I Am | |
Their heart was hardened! | Yet they had given up family normalcy and financial stability. |
1. The words hardened heart are very difficult to hear—they pierce us deeply.
Surely we don’t have hardened hearts. We are radically committed to Christ, even to the point of giving family normalcy and financial security to go into medical missions and ministry.
a. But the disciples could have hardened hearts—they were slow and unresponsive to the Lord as any reading of the Gospel clearly show.
b. Well, you know, that’s very interesting, since a reading of Mark 1 tells us that the disciples did the same thing we have done—they gave up family normalcy and financial security too.
c. In reality you have to be committed to have the kind of hardened heart the disciples had.
d. We may not be committed enough to have the disciples’ kind hardened hearts.
e. We will define a hardened heart more specifically tomorrow.
2. The feeding of the five thousand revealed their condition.
Mark 6 begins a transition in the book in which Jesus changes His focus from the crowds to the disciples.
Before this Jesus focused on the crowds, and the disciples were spectators. But starting in Mark 6 and for the rest of the book, Jesus focuses on the disciples, and the crowds become the spectators. It is in Mark 6 that our Lord begins to focus on forming His disciples into world impacting leaders.
a. The feeding of the five thousand is a unique miracle in that Jesus involves the disciples in the collecting and distributing of the resources needed to do the miracle.
b. This is the first time they are involved with Him in a miracle.
c. This miracle is recorded in all four Gospels, one of the very few events that is.
d. This is a paradigm miracle, a model of the ministry the disciples would have for Christ in His absence.
e. And this paradigm miracle has a point.
YOU MUST DO WHAT YOU CANNOT DO WITH WHAT YOU DO NOT HAVE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES.
But there’s a second dimension to this model.
I WILL DO WHAT I CAN DO WITH WHAT YOU DO HAVE—THROUGH YOU— FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES.
What’s missing from Mark’s account of Jesus’ walking on water?
Peter
And this adds one more reality to the paradigm.
OVER THE SIDES OF THE
BOAT AND ON TO THE WAVES.
But hardened hearts cannot grasp these realities and continue on their struggling ways.
We see this very clearly in Mark 8:11-21 where Jesus once again teaches His disciples following an incident of loaves.
3. The four message miracles reveal their true condition.
a. You have facts you don’t understand.
b .You hear My message, but don’t grasp it or say it clearly.
c. This is a rerun miracle emphasizing our Lord’s point.
d. You are seeing, but you mix men with trees.
4. Their response confirms their condition.
a. The Pharisees came out to test Him, not to trust Him.
b. He gives orders to the disciples to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees and the Herodians.
c. They become concerned with how much bread they have in the boat, rather than with what Jesus is saying.
d. Jesus raises the question of their hardness of heart and shows that
A HARDENED HEART DARKENS THE MIND,
DEAFENS THE EARS, CRIPPLES THE TONGUE, PARALYZES THE HANDS, AND BLINDS THE EYES.
THE DREADED D.D. IS CAUSED BY HARDNESS OF HEART!
Well, how do you feel when you score a goal for the other team?
When you become jealous because of another team member’s success or depressed because others are seeing more fruit than you or fearful when you realize you may not be as great as you thought you were going to be or angry because someone on your team is such a bother or frustrated because there just isn’t enough money and you decide to quit or bitter because someone doesn’t give you the credit you earned or so many other things that disrupt your team’s harmony?
Just remember, what’s in your heart comes out your hands—and that’s why we score goals for the wrong team.
I don’t know if you’ve discovered the writer, Donald Miller, but I find him a breath of fresh air. He may be too fresh for some, but I like his kind of iconoclastic, cut through all the silliness, sort of earthiness.
His Blue Like Jazz is just the book for people turned off by the phoniness that marks some elements among us and his Searching for God Knows What grabbed me as an insight into one of the core realities of the Christian life.
Sometime back Donald flew from Portland to Memphis to attend a seminar on Capturing literature for the glory of God. When he got to the seminar room on the first of the two days he was there he found about twenty people present—him and nineteen women. It seems few men were interested in capturing literature for the glory of God. Apparently all the women attending were small and slight, weighing about 100 pounds. On the first day, the seminar leader, also a small, slight, 100 pound woman and a successfully published writer, introduced them to two formulas that would teach the participants how to capture literature for the glory of God.
The first formula consisted of four facets:
1. A crisis—a real crisis with frightening consequences that the readers must be made to feel and fear.
2. A clear enemy in the crisis who would threaten the readers so they would fear, hate, and want to overcome him.
3. The ramifications of the crisis and the enemy must be spelled out in such a way that the reader would be motivated to act.
4. A three or four-step to overcome the crisis.
Of course, there could be a question as to how such an overwhelming crisis and enemy could be overcome in three or four steps, but the reader has already bought the book, so that isn’t particularly important.
There was another recipe that went like this.
1. Paint a picture of personal misery, sometime when you failed more miserably than you thought possible.
2. Paint a picture of where you are now, in control and on top, presumably no longer the miserable failure you once were.
3. Give the reader three-to-four steps that will get them from misery to control in a fail-safe way.
Miller went home excited and decided to look in the Bible for formulas he could use to turn into stories as developed by the seminar leader. He considered Stephen who ended up stoned and Paul who was a murderer and Peter who was crucified upside down and began to wonder if there were formulas in the Bible—if, in fact, formulas can work with such a complex thing as life.
In doing this, he said,
“I got frustrated. And it really got me to thinking that, perhaps, formula books, by that I mean books that take you through a series of steps, may not be all that compatible with the Bible. I looked on my shelf at all the self-help books I happened to own, the ones about losing weight, the ones about making girls like you, the ones about getting rich, the ones about starting your own pirate radio station, and I realized none of them actually helped me that much. All the promises of fulfillment really didn’t work. . . . It made me wonder, honestly, if such a complex existence as the one you and I are living can really be broken down into a few steps. It seems if there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us what it was.”1
I think Donald Miller is right.
If there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us what it is.
In point of fact, Jesus tells us exactly the opposite in Matthew 7:24-27.
As Jesus comes to the end of the Sermon on the Mount and draws His final conclusion He shows us that formulas form a flawed foundation of the flesh guaranteed to bring our lives down in the storm waters of a flood.
Come with me to Matthew 7:24-27 where we see Jesus call us twice to obey Him and then show us that our obedience will be tested by a storm.
A. Obedience Shows Us to Be Wise. (7:24)
1. To obey is to hear Christ’s words.
a. To obey is to be constantly hearing Christ’s words.
There is a constant focus on listening to His words. In fact, we are listening for the Living Word through the written words.
b. There is a focus on the Living Word in this passage that we cannot miss.
It’s not just the words; it’s HIS words, the words of the Son of God, the words of the Living Word of God, the loving revelation of the sovereign God of the universe. The prophets call on their hearers to do the will of God. He calls on His hearers to do His will. He is the highest of the high.
But to obey is to do more than hear Christ’s words.
2. To obey is to do Christ’s words.
a. Once again the emphasis is on consistency in doing as it is in hearing.
b. Obedience is not just hearing; it’s hearing and doing—on a very consistent basis.
But here’s the problem with our typical view of obedience.
We think of obedience as doing what the Bible says and in doing so we reduce the Living Word into dead words. When we do this we turn His life into our death and miss the point of obedience. Obedience is not conformity to external commands, but response to a loving relationship. Since we are responding to a loving relationship with the Living Word, we can only obey the written word when the Living Word acts through us.
This means obedience is desperately depending on the Living Word to practice the principles of the written word.
Obedience is a response to an internal relationship with the Living Word, not a response of good behavior to the external commands of the written word. An intimate relationship with the Living Word results in genuine obedience to the written word.
3. This kind of obedience shows wisdom.
Now Jesus presents us with a parable in which those who hear and obey His words are likened to a wise man.
This man is wise, not in a theoretical sense, but in a very functional sense—know-how. He is not wise because of what he knows, but because of what he does. He wants to build a house—a life really—so he goes out and surveys for the best plot. He may see some beautiful plots shaded in a lovely narrow valley with trees all around, cool breezes that blow through at the end of hot days, surrounded by green meadows with a narrow creek running through the property. He asks the real estate agent, “Does that stream ever flood?” “Not in a hundred years,” the agent replies.
He looks closely and realizes that if there ever was a severe storm—the kind that could happen in his part of the world—he would be wiped out, so he keeps looking until he finds a less attractive setting, but a place that provides a solid foundation, and he builds there. He is building on the Rock.
Jesus is the Living Rock—He is the Living Word, and His words are the Living Rock.
He is entrusting all he has and all he is to the Rock. It may not be as beautiful; it may not be as shady; it may not be as desirable as other plots of land, but it is secure—he can trust the Rock.
This is what our life is all about—it’s about trusting the Rock. It’s about turning away from the allure of the power or the greed or the fame or the attraction of success formulas to abandon all for trust in Jesus so we depend on Him to do what we cannot do in ourselves: to hear and obey His words. This is what makes us wise—and the storms of life will prove our wisdom.
Now we see the true nature of hearing.
It is not just listening. It is not evaluating the concepts critically, as if we can judge the Truth of the Living Word. It is listening and learning and living.
Of course, we evaluate the concepts.
Of course, we think through what Jesus is saying.
Of course, we consider what it means for our lives.
Of course, we ask questions to grasp its meaning as well as its meaning for us.
But our object is to live what we have heard and learned.
When Jesus calls for us for hear and do, He is calling for us to listen carefully and thoroughly so we can learn as completely as possible how He wants us to live. Christianity is not facts to believe nor formulas to be lived, but a relationship to be entered into and a life to be received. Our life is not a life of steps; our life is a life of trust. How! How! How! Everybody wants to know how!
How come the Bible doesn’t tell us how? How come the Bible doesn’t give us steps—formulas to manage life? Could it be because we can’t control life—that we were created to be dependent in life and not independent? Could it be because formulas give us control and make us independent and trust removes us from control and makes us dependent? And what might storms have to do with this?
B. Storms Prove Our Wisdom. (7:25)
1. Storms come—there’s no way around the reality of storms.
a. Look how graphic the passage makes the storm.
b. And, and, and, and, and—rain on the roof, wind on the walls, flood on the foundation—and the house stands.
c. Our lives survive the storm because we’ve depended on Christ—we’re building on the Rock because we’re building through the Rock.
2. There are many different kinds of storms.
a. Physical—struggles with health—my friend whose wife went to the doctor for a physical and found out later that she had incurable cancer.
b. Emotional—unjust critical judgments from others, unjust firings, great disappointments from others, a wave of deaths that rolls over us and tumbles us and then slams us on the beach hurting and confused—my friend whose Christian friends listened to the criticism of an unbeliever and lost his job and hasn’t been able to find one for two years.
c. Financial—my friend who lost 90% of his business in a matter of months.
d. Spiritual—a family that experienced attacks by the evil on their children when they thought they had prepared for their protection.
e. Building on the Rock does not prevent storms—it may even invite storms as those who reject the Rock attack those who build on the Rock.
Let me tell you about my friend who lost 90% of his business a few years ago because his wisdom has clearly been proven through this storm. He turned to God in his loss and realized God wanted him to face some key flaws in his character, so this is what he has been doing. As a result he has been growing personally and spiritually.
One key relationship has seen a great deal of healing, the answer to much anguish in prayer. His spiritual influence has expanded more and more and he going to pursue his first international teaching venture in the couple of months. One of his clients was sued, and the work he had done was the key to the suit. After he testified the trial was over, even though it ran its course for a few more days—the jury threw the case out of court because my friend did his work so well. It wasn’t the quality of work that cost him his business; it was a storm designed to demonstrate his wisdom and grow him even deeper in hearing and doing the words of Jesus.
When you build on the Rock you must expect storms, because only storms can show your wisdom to the world around you.
But what if you don’t build on the Rock?
We turn to the second part of the passage where, once again,
But now He paints a different picture.
A. Disobedience Makes Us Foolish. (7:26)
1. Many of us are disobedient without even realizing it.
a. We start with a fatal flaw in our thinking—we think obedience is up to us, that obedience is a matter of steps, formulas, that if we follow these steps we are obedient and we are able to be obedient.
b. We don’t even realize we are functional legalists.
We are confused about formulas and don’t even recognize them as a form about legalism. We reduce the Christian life to formulas, steps to succeed. We have formulas for marriage, for raising children, for succeeding in business, for our walk with God—and, as Donald Miller said, none of the formulas work.
He said, “All of the promises of fulfillment [found in his self-help books] really didn’t work. My life was fairly normal before I read them, meaning I had good days and bad days, and then my life was fairly normal after I read them too, meaning I still had good days and bad days.”2
What we fail to realize is that when we build our lives on formulas, we are building our lives on sand.
While we think we are hearing and obey Christ’s words, we actually are building our lives on the fatal flaw of the flesh.
At its core functional legalism—living our lives functionally as legalists—is placing our confidence in the flesh, and the floods will make this clear to us. Legalism is not a matter of rules and regulations—legalism is a matter of resource—Phil. 3:3.
So we end up doing the works of the flesh rather than bearing the fruit of the Spirit because when the flesh does the right things, it always bears the wrong fruit. This is why so many Bible believing churches end up acting worse than unbelievers.
2. We are disobedient while doing the things that make us obedient.
a. We spend time in the Word.
b. We pray.
c. We do what the Bible says.
d. But we don’t bear the fruit of the Bible.
We struggle with anger, unforgiveness, pride, division—all the works of the flesh—and don’t understand why. Our intentions are good; our fruit is lacking.
And the inevitable storm that comes reveals it all as we stand in shock, surrounded by the ruins of the life we’ve been building.
B. Disobedience Proves Us to Be Foolish. (7:27)
1. Both men do the same thing—build a life.
a. Both men want the same thing—a life—a marriage, a family, a career, a retirement, everything we long to have.
b. We work for it with all our energy—and find our lives in shambles.
c. The storms prove our foolishness
d. Controlled by fear, driven by ambition, committed to Christ, striving for control, totally out of control, we prove ourselves to be foolish.
2. There’s only one difference between the wise man and the foolish man, and it’s not what they want or what they do—it’s their foundation.
a. The wise man builds his house on the foundation of the Rock, Christ.
b. The foolish man builds his house on the foundation of sand, himself—his flesh.
c. He seeks to hear and obey through his flesh, and his foundation is flooded out.
But where do I get the basis for talking about formulas in this passage?
Come with me to the key passage in the Sermon on the Mount, the ultimate point Jesus is making, Mt. 5:20.
Why must our righteousness surpass the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees? What was wrong with their righteousness?
They were the ultimate formula makers.
We need to know who the scribes and the Pharisees were. The Scribes were
Their understanding of the law of God gave them great authority, and they were unwilling to give up that authority. When Jesus came with deeper insights and an authority they could never have, they acted to protect their power rather than acknowledge their pride. The Pharisees also had great power and respect, and at one point in their history they deserved it. One-hundred fifty years before Jesus came, they took a stand for God's truth against a secularized society that cost many of them their lives. By doing this, they saved the nation from a total loss of faith. Had that happened, Israel would have lost their distinctiveness as God's people.
However, across the years they used their position as religious leaders to gain power over their followers. They had become hypocritical in the pursuit of the Law, adding all sorts of unbearable demands God never intended, making it impossible for anyone to keep His truth as they explained it. They had great political and economic power that they didn't want to give up. So they refused to respond to Jesus. They preferred their formulas to His words.
They were committed to keeping a law they could not keep, thus annulling the very law they claimed to keep. In their righteousness they were building a house on the shifting sands of self-effort and the flesh—and it would crash when the storms of life hit.
The only way our righteousness can surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is to have a true righteousness that meets God’s Law and does not annul any part of it. And the only righteousness that does that is Christ’s righteousness. The scribes and the Pharisees have a kind of Every Man Righteousness.
But they had the wrong power in mind: their own
They built their lives on the wrong foundation and their lives failed when tested by the storm of accountability.
Now we can put Stormology all together.
Stormology 101: Storms turn control into trust.
Stormology 102: Storms transform consumer Christians into committed Christians.
Stormology 103: Storms reveal the reality of our lives.
Stormology 104: Storms test the foundation of our lives.
Our foundations are hidden, and we can go a long time keeping them secret. We can look and sound just like the Christians around us. We may even build bigger and greater homes than many of them—even multi-roomed mansions. The tragedy is that we may be able to keep the foundation of our lives hidden for a long period of time, as I have seen until they reach their fifties and everything falls apart—their lives are over, shattered and in pieces. The only thing worse than that is to make it into your sixties or more before your true foundation is revealed. And the only thing worse than that is to make it eternity, only to the false foundation of your life revealed by the searing judgment of God’s ultimate storm: your accountability to Him when you can deny nothing.
STORMS TEST THE FOUNDATION OF OUR LIVES
I ask you, On which foundation are you building?
And I ask you, What is your supreme desire? What do you want more than anything else? Dependence on Christ in you, the Foundation of your life? Or the independence of running your own life, building on the sands of futile flesh? The storm is coming—what will it reveal about the true essence of your life?
1 Miller, Donald. Searching for God Knows What (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Books, 2004), p. 10.