"Peace! Be Still!” | Mark 4:35–41

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Good good morning's shaking it. He talked who through good morning, Good morning to you and you and you man. I said last week that I've never done it on a Monday, or at least you had, well, I rarely probably, I probably did it once. I don't ever remember you doing it. Well, it's it's delight. It is Monday. It just made everything better. Good morning everyone. We are the Bible Guys, and we are in the middle of a series called What If Jesus Had a Podcast? And we're doing famous statements or sayings. Yeah, and this is sayings that Jesus. And this is a very powerful statement that Jesus made today. I love this one out of the Book of Mark chapter four, which, by the way, I think in this series this is the first time we fit the Book of Mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, he says, peace be still. Peace be still. And before we get into that, however, Desiree has asked us to play a segment called Guess the Word, which is pretty much like taboo. Oh yeah, and if you're watching online, like on video. We will try our very best to put the words on the screen of the words that I'm not supposed to say, because that's really the challenge, and hopefully the listeners will try to guess before you. You're trying to have me guess the word that you're giving me clues to. Yeah, and the listeners are going to try to beat you. Okay, okay, you ready? Yes, all right? The first word? Okay. Sometimes when this is an electric one, it'll tickle your gums. Toothbrush. Yes, I was not allowed to say teeth brush, bathroom clean, or bristles. Ooh boy, okay. Okay, how about this one ready. In the military, if it's confidential stamped on the file, it'll say top blank secret, secret. I wasn't allowed to say tell, private, whisper hidden, or keep. Wow. Do you notice how I went military? Popsy? Pretty cool? That's right? Okay, oh gee whiz uh okay uh. This is when I get you to I stand in front of you and do a bunch of charades. Yes, yes, yes, but you helped me on that one. You helped me on that one. There you go. I wasn't allowed to say act, silent, guess, motion or game yeah and so yeah that that threw me almost. I couldn't you help me? Yes, I stand in front of you and do yes. Yes, Okay, here we go. The fourth word. Okay, butterbecan is my favorite flavored cream ice cream. I wasn't allowed to say cone, cold, scoop, vanilla or dessert. There. Yeah, that's there. You go, job Chris, Yeah, all right, okay. And okay. For my fiftieth a bunch of people were at a house party for my it was a total wasn't it just a party? It was? It was a birthday party. Yes, no, it was Uh, I was not it was not planned. Uh. Surprise, yes, surprise party. Yes. I wasn't allowed to say shock, unexpected, gift. I wasn't allowed to say party. Of course I did because you said party and then reaction. Wow. Okay, so surprise party, surprise, surprise nice yep? Okay, a town in Arizona, what surprise Arizona? Welcome to surprise yep? I guess so wow, well, good job. You want to talk about surprises. Oh, Jesus told the disciples, Hey, get in the boat. We're on the other side and right in the middle of it. They were surprised at how big of a storm came. Up, and they were also surprised to see what they thought was a ghost. And Jesus, well, no, not in this one. What yeah, not in this one. This is not the version where they thought it was a ghost. No, no, no, this is this is another storm where he says, peace be still. Oh oh is this the I was sleeping? Oh he's sleeping. Yeah. They were surprised to find Jesus sleeping. Okay, see my heading, It was not surprise. I didn't read the head. But the heading says Jesus calms the storm. That's right, yep. So well that's really neat. Well we're in Mark chapter four, verse thirty five, and we'll just read to the end of the chapter, verse forty one. It says as evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, let's cross to the other side of the lake. And so they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind, although other boats followed. But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat. This had on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown. When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said, of the wave of silence, be still. Suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm. Then they asked him, or he asked them, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? The disciples were absolutely terrified. Who is this man? They asked each other. Even the wind and waves obey him. Mmm, so Jesus is sleeping on a cushion in the back of the boat. Now all right, well listen, we're by the way. We launched into this pretty quickly. Oh, because we're getting better. We are getting better and better. Our goal is to constantly improve. Always make it ay, I dind ever tell you. Henry Blackaby Uh was at his office at Dallas Theological Seminary, and because he worked there for a bit, and one of his students was walking by very late at night and looked in through the window and saw him studying the Bible, reading the Bible and asked him about it like one of the next you know, following meetings or whatever classes, and said, uh, mister Blackaby, you're very old and you've probably read the Bible hundreds of times through, you've written dozens of books, and how in the world can you just continue to read the Bible? And his response was, son, I want my students drinking from a flowing brook, not a stagnant pond. Is that great? Isn't that great? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? What was his great book? He wrote a great book experiencing experiencing God. That's experiencing God. Yeah, yeah, what a great. And by the way, did you know that he lived in Henry County, Georgia, My county, Henry County and he lived not even I'm not kidding, maybe six minutes from my house. Wow, yeah, I never I never met him, but I heard that he had went to Eagle's Landing Baptist Church right down the street, which is a pretty big church, maybe three four thousand and And also guess who else came from there? Casting Crowns, Oh wow, from there? There you go anyway, So that has nothing to do with this except for this, of course, Henry Blackby was saying, make it better. Yes, Well, all of that spawned because you said, we're trying to. We're trying to prove yeah. Right. So anyway, well we saved a minute and a half and then just wasted it on this story. But Henry, you know, Henry Blackabye was reading his Bible as an old man. Well that's what he was. I'm sure the black Cabee quote blessed people. It did. It was a great one. Yeah. So okay, so let's let's go back to the story. First of all, let's talk about the boat. You did you go to that restaurant in Israel right off of Capernaum where it was like Saint Peter's Restaurant or something. No, but we went out on a boat out on the Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's there's this boat that they found. In the oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of those around yeah, okay, okay. And and and this is what they say would be a typical fisherman's boat. That would that would be that it exists. Back then, they didn't have extravagant boats, right, they didn't have I mean, think about everything that you know that's old. They were usually pretty smaller. The luxury of big just didn't exist. And this boat that twelve Disciples and uh and Jesus would have been in would have been pretty small. It would have only probably been as wide as the table that we're sitting on, and it probably double triple the length and and maybe two and a half times the length of this of table and and uh and so it really wasn't like this. Uh oh, Jesus was sleeping below deck. You know, he wasn't sleeping you know, in some sort of luxury below deck situation. They don't think pirates or you know, big huge vessels like that, think fishermen, modest fisherman boats. So Jesus would have in the back they still call that the stern, and he would have been curled up. And think about if he's sleeping during a storm. Holy cow, how exhausted must he have been? Right? Do you do? You sleep through things like that? Yeah? Really? Oh yeah, we were all the time. I sleep. Once I go to sleep, I'm asleep, and I'm always startled when it's time to wake up. I am. I wake up every day with a start. If my alarm goes off, it shocks me. If somebody touches me to wake me up, it shocks me. I'm just always I'm just in a deep sleep and then suddenly awake. Oh my gosh, Bonnie must be so used to that that she she just anticipates. Well. So, traveling with Chad asmen, you know, around the world, he's our executive pastor at Heritage, we wind up doing a lot of work around the world. And when I'm traveling around the world, always sleep with the earplugs, so then I can't hear anything. Sometimes I wouldn't hear my alarm go off. So then Chad come over and he do it, and you know, I'm ready to fight. Yeah, I'm usually in the cocoon. I sleep in a cocoon, so uh, you know, blanket over my head kind of thing, and then all of a sudden, I'm ready to go. So now he'll if he ever has to wake me up, he'll reach way out and. Just so funny. Yeah, that is so funny. So once I go to sleep, now, I don't fall asleep quickly. If in a situation like that where it's un comfortable, yeah, a lot of times I don't fall asleep quickly. But yeah, So anyways, one thing that always strikes me about this story is that Jesus said, let's go to the other side. And this is a season rate these few days, it's heavy teaching. It's just everywhere he goes people wanting to heal them. Everywhere he goes, he's getting, you know, people chasing him down. They want him to teach, they want him to feed them, they wanted whatever. Even on this one, when they leave, he says, let's get in the boat and go to the other side. And in parentheses it says, although other boats followed, right, this is like paparazzi just chasing Jesus the overwhelming responsibility that came with the fame he had. At this point, I mean, he is just a superstar in his region. Everybody wants to be with him, and he's exhausted, and so you find one of his habits is to go up into the mountains to pray, or go out in the wilderness to pray. He spend time with the Father every day. Those things are are are a very common phrase about Jesus in the little you know, in the marginal statements in between stories that are being told. But you can tell at this point he's just exhausted, and so he's like, Hey, we need to get in a boat and go to the other side because we're never getting away from these crazy people. So they get in the boat. And the thing that always strikes me about it is they obeyed, all twelve disciples get in the boat. Probably some of the other followers get in the boat. And obedience doesn't always mean smooth sailing, right, Getting in the boat with Jesus doesn't mean everything all of a sudden is gonna be sunshine of roses and unicorns and skittles all the time. Right. But you're safest with Jesus in the boat. Right. So, even though you know, maybe he's silent, which he was in this moment, he was quiet, He's still present, and they knew exactly where to go when they needed when they realized there was anything they could do, they knew who they could go. To, Jesus when I was You know, some people, if they look at a map, excuse me, Monday, When they look at a map, they they often ask questions like, how in the world would expert fishermen be afraid of a squall or a storm of the or the waves in a tiny little lake. Right, because we talked about this before recently, but the Sea of Galilee was not even close to the size of even Lake Saint Clair in Michigan. Right, So, it's actually pretty you know, pretty small, and you'd say, like, well, how can how can there be waves that will scare those kinds of fishermen? And how how big can the waves actually get? Right? And you know where I'm going with this because so I I. The geological structure. Yeah, yeah, so it's designed for lakes or for storms. Yeah. So so the bottom line is is I when I was there, I asked them and they said, oh, they said, let me explain this to you. And it's basically in the summary, it almost seems like God himself designed the landscape so that the Sea of Galilee would have like it would be totally calm, and then it would just have squalls, like raging squalls in a moment's notice. So there's a scientific explanation for it, but it's based on the land and the wind and the heat and everything else. It's almost almost like it's designed that way. And I have to believe that God did that on purpose, because he knew that, you know, this was going to you know, be a pivotal point, you know, where God, you know, he chose to enter the world and perform miracles and such. But basically, here's the bottom line. The Sea of Galilee is about six hundred and eighty feet below sea level. Mount Herman, which is north of it, is nine thousand, two hundred feet above sea level. And then if you go south from the Sea of Galilee, fallowing that you know, the Jordan River all the way down to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is fourteen hundred feet below sea level. So basically the hot air rises from the Dead Sea from the south, it goes up the Jordan River and then and then the cold air comes down from Mount Herman and there's about eleven thousand feet sort of a gap differential, and it meets right in the middle at Sea of Galilee. And then the Sea of Galilee. God designed it where there's mountain ranges all around. In a bowl. It sits in a bowl. You're literally driving flat land, flatland, flatland, and they say, you know, you just go down, down, down, down six hundred feet, Yes, six hundred and eighty feet down to the Sea of Galilee. And so yeah, it's in a bowl. And so what they told me is they told me that raging storms would go from calm to breaking out and they would be sometimes like fifty feet fifty foot waves. Yeah, and that's hard to believe in the Sea of Galiley, but they said that it actually was so strong it destroyed the previous restaurant. So the restaurant we were in that they were talking about, they said, back in the eighties, it took out the restaurant and they had to rebuild it and they actually build it on stilts and the further away. Yeah, isn't that crazy. They showed us watermarks from a storm on one of the hotels that were staying at in Tiberius that was up thirty something feet up and this is just lashing, you know, the waves, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounds. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Like I said, it's almost. Just not every day, but it does happen, and it's a surprise. Back then, they didn't have you know, the Yahoo weather app on their phones, right, well, they didn't have accu weather on their own. Yeah. Well I checked the dopper. Yeah exactly. Let's go to the other side, the dopper says. So it would happen suddenly, and then you know, you're in a sailboat or you're in a row boat. It's not like you're just zipping along. No, you can't outrun the storm, right, and so that's what would happen, is it was you know, it was a kind of a dangerous profession, being a fisherman. But then in this situation, you know, now they've got passengers, all these other people who aren't pros either. I think that that's part of the fear for these guys. So if there were four or five professional men, that's all they ever do on the on the boat. It doesn't say Peter's freaking out here. I don't say John's freaking out here. This could have been Bartholo, Me, Thomas, and Philip freaking out right, right, it doesn't have to be. There's twelve disciples, so the pros weren't. It doesn't say the names. It just says that the disciples were terrified. Yeah, yeah, but I think it's funny. So they were afraid. What's to say? Waves were breaking into the boat and began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping, the disciples welcome up, shotting teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown? So they're clearly afraid. But then after Jesus calms the storm, the disciples were absolutely terrified. Yes, right right, they were more terrified. Who is this man? Right? Right? They've seen him do miracles prior to this, so but this one when he takes over the wind and the waves, Yeah, that's a whole other thing for them. So so this is this is a whole other sermon altogether. So I did a sermon one time, long time ago, in fact ad heritage. I did when when you asked me as a guest speaker. Oh, I wasn't paying I was remember Jesus sleeping in the back of it. Yeah, I was in the bag, sleeping on my pH It. Wasn't on this storm. But you asked me to speak in twenty thirteen here in this auditorium, and you asked me to speak on the law of the harvest. And it was supposed to be a financial thing whatever anyway. But one of the points that I made was fear replaces fear. Right, So in other words, like you need to replace your earthly fear with a fear of God. Right, And that's what happened here, right. And so in the boat they have a fear of the waves, and then all of a sudden, now they have no fear of the waves. Now they fear God. And the fear that replaced, the fear is even greater. But it's a healthy fear, right, So they're absolutely terrified in a good way, that's right. Right. So you know, in the Old Testament it always says fear God. You know, fear God and find life. But the fear of God is a healthy respect in the same way that you would fear your father, your earthly father, if he's a loving father. But you fear his discipline, fear his wrath. But at the same time you fear disobeying because you don't want to disappoint him. Sure, you fear all sorts of things. Oh, you slow down because you fear getting a ticket, right right. As a kid, you don't seal the tootsy roll out of the store because you're afraid of get in trouble for shoplifting. Right, There's this awareness that there are consequences to our behaviors, and God's in charge of the consequences. Right. So there's that and then the fear of the fact that He made it all. Anybody who's big enough to make the entire universe probably should get some healthy respect. Right right, Right, So the fear is, yeah, it's a mixture of respect and actual fear, but it's but it's a healthy, healthy dose of fear. So all that to say, when it says they're absolutely terrified, that's a good thing. Yeah, they're starting to be aware of Wow this next. They had underestimated Jesus who he was, and you know, they they, hey, Jesus, we really like it when you, like, you know, make lame people walk and you make death people here, that's kind of cool. I think they kind of prior to this moment, I think they kind of thought he was like this really great medicine man. Right, it could be right because healings people physically is different than nature. Right, yeah, right, And so I think that's kind of what they were thinking is he's some kind of a guru. He says really great things and we're confused about half the time. But man, I like listening to him talk compared to the other rabbis. And then on top of that him being a great rabbi, he also seems to be some kind of a medice man. He can make people better. But now all of a sudden, Jesus is like, you know, his nap gets interrupted and he's like just stop right right, And they're like what. Right, Yeah, wind wind. Nobody controls the wind, which means. They were not waking him up to help them with the storm. Yeah. I think that the issue here that Mark includes is the high waves were breaking into the boat and to begin to fill with water. Right, I think they decided we need everybody bailing. Why are you sleep You're not even helping. He's like, yeah, don't you care that we're down right? Peace, be still, lay back on, go back to sleep, right, And it's it's this I think there's I don't think there's an ounce of intensity in this moment for Jesus. I think it's groggy. This this is how I envisioned this. I think he's a little groggy. I think he's probably slightly irritated because of his next response. I think he's like stretching and going, all right, peace, be still. Storm, storm just goes away immediately. It's like glass on the water. They're standing like ankle deep water in the bottom of the boat. They were just trying to get him to help, you know, bail out the water. And he helped, and then he says, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? Right? Like, what else do I have to do to prove to you who I am, right, why are you afraid? And I love it that in Jesus mind, he said, hey, we're going to go to the other side. So it's done, it's already done. We're going. And they believe that the storm, what they could see, was bigger than what Jesus did promise had happened. Yeah, So when I was in Atlanta, I lived in Atlanta for ten years, and I went and heard Louis Giglio at a thing that he used to do called seven twenty two. And it was about two thousand college students in the room, and I was I was taking college students up there, and I remember a message that he gave and he said, so, if the promise is given, let's go to the other side. Because you know, some some versions say let's go to the other side. Some says we're going to the other side. But either way, there's a there's an intentionality of Jesus. Right, like you said, it's done, and it's thrown out there. It's so done. He lays down and goes to sleep and doesn't even feel the need right direct. Right, So so he said he goes. You know, Louis, I just never forget, he said, Louis, I would I would have loved in that moment for just one of them, one of them to say, hey, wait a minute, didn't Jesus promise that we're going to the other side. Didn't he say, we're going to the other side. And he goes, Okay, therefore, don't be afraid, you know, he don't. Don't worry. He was, but there was that there wasn't a voice, right, And he goes in the way that he played it out, and he goes, he goes, hey, let me just check. Didn't you hear that he said going to the other side. Didn't Didn't he say that, let me just check the other side, other side, other side? Didn't he say the other side? Okay, fine, I'm gonna sit here. I'm not gonna worry because we're going to the other side. And he goes, h but we're but he goes, but we're drowning. He goes, I don't care. Maybe Jesus knows the shortcut. We're gonna go down and then we're gonna pop up on the other side. That's how much. Faith I have, right, And so it's like it's like, yeah, so I just never forget that it's just so funny because there's not a voice. There's not a voice of reason here, right. You know, we just talked about the twelve Spies scouting the Promised Land last Sunday actually before this recording anyway, and uh, you know we always talked. We talked about the voice of like Joshua and Kayla the other ten Spies are like, oh no. And then and then you have this voice of reason, right, this voice of reason that says, don't be afraid, you trust God. And you know, you just love that voice of reason. You know, it's it's it's the same thing Jses. You know, they're they're up against the Red Sea right before he parts the Red Sea, and all the people are like, we're gonna die. And then Moses says, stand still and watch God's gonna and then and then and then the people go, no, we're gonna die. Right. It's like it's like it's like, no, there has to be a voice of reason. And so I just uh, I have to observe here that nobody uh stepped up and said, hey, wait a minute, Jesus is with us. He made a promise, He told us we're going to make it the other side, and so yeah, we have to keep that in mind. And then and then the last two questions, these are applicable questions for our lives too, aren't they. So why are you afraid? You still have no faith? So, so, what Jesus is implying is you've seen my past faithfulness, You've seen the things that I've done. You know who I am, you believe in who I am. I am with you, I'm on your side. So so you know the same thing is true for us, right, especially those who are Christians. Those of us are Christians. We've seen God work in our lives. We know God is with us, we know God is for us. And when we decide to fear our circumstances more than God's promises, we need to ask ourselves the same two questions. Number one, why are we still afraid? And where's our faith? Because He's the lord over everything we can't control. That's right, right, that's right, that's really good. All right, Well, hey, that is our time. What a great story, and hopefully we'll see you tomorrow. On the Bible, Gods