Why You Should Be Scared of Jesus, Part 2

Today on Summit Life, a surprising perspective from Pastor J.D.

Greer. In this story, Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves, and then he turns around and he rebukes the disciples for being afraid. Now, if he's rebuking them, then that means that they're doing something they shouldn't have been doing. But, if I can be honest, it seems to me that their fears are legitimate. They thought they were going to die. Jesus says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand that.

But, when I'm in the boat with you, even that fear is irrational. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Have you ever considered that when artists try to depict Jesus, they often paint him wearing a clean white robe and holding a limb and walking through a quiet green pasture? It's peaceful and comforting. It reminds us that Jesus is our friend and he's our good shepherd. And there's nothing wrong with those images in and of themselves, but they don't capture the full picture of Jesus. Today, Pastor J.D. is drawing our attention to another aspect of Jesus's character that might surprise you.

And he's encouraging us toward a different kind of response to that picture. He titled this message, Why You Should Be Scared of Jesus. Mark chapter 4, verse 35. When evening had come, Jesus said to them, let us go across to the other side. Now, the other side, he's talking about the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee was the little body of water that separated the Jewish territory in Palestine from the Gentile territory. Verse 36, leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was, and other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern asleep on the cushion. And they woke him up and said, teacher, do you not care that we're perishing? Verse 39, and he awoke and he rebuked the wind and he said to the sea, peace be still. Rebuke is a word that means in Greek exactly what it means in English.

It is a word that you use for somebody that's underneath you that you have authority of. Jesus stands up and he rebukes the weather like it's nothing more than a rowdy kid. The wind ceases and there was a great calm.

Not only did the storm die down, immediately the waves died down. Then my favorite part of the story, he turns to the disciples and says, why are you so afraid? Well, we thought we were about to die. And then you stood up and you rebuked the wind like it was an angry toddler and it shut up. I felt like we got caused. And Jesus continues, well, have you still no faith?

Watch this. Then they were filled with great fear and said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Great fear.

When they were in the storm and thought they're about to die, they were filled with just plain old regular fear. But after Jesus had stilled the storm, oh, then that fear went to great fear. He possesses the power in himself. Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Mark's very clear answer is it's got to be God. This is one of the three stories that Mark tells right in a row about amazing and bizarre things that obey Jesus. You got the story of Jesus who heals the disease and raises the little girl from death. You got this story where he commands the weather. When he gets over to the Gentile area, he's going to throw out a whole legion of demons. And Mark puts these three stories together, asking this question, the demons, disease, death, and the weather all obey Jesus.

Why don't you? Disease, death, weather, all of it obeys him. Who are you to defy him? Three important implications from this story. Number one, there is a good and necessary kind of fear. There's a good and necessary kind of fear that a lot of people think the concept of a God that you should be afraid of is outdated, but that's just foolish. How could you understand anything about the power of Jesus and not feel fear whenever anybody glimpses the power of Jesus in the Bible, they're overcome with fear. One of my favorite examples of this is revelation one where the apostle John sees Jesus gets a glimpse of Jesus for the first time after he has been ascended from earth into heaven.

And he is now glorified. Now keep in mind, Jesus and John had been BFFs when Jesus was on earth. So what's this kind of reunion going to look like?

What would you act like if you'd seen a cherished friend and they left and you're getting together with him for the first time? Well, I'll let John himself describe it. Revelation 1 verse 17, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

That's not a figure of speech by the way, when he laid his eyes on the glorified Jesus and finally saw him in all of his power, John literally thought he was going to die. Y'all he rebuked the weather and it obeyed. He commanded disease and death and they yielded. He spoke to demons and they fled.

Who are you? Who are you to disobey him? Who are you to disobey?

And we have people listening to me each weekend who treat the commands of Jesus so casually. Oh, I'll get to it one day. It's just not a good time of life for me. It just can't make this a priority. There's too much going on at work. Oh, you know, it would just be so inconvenient to obey these commands. I prefer my sexual preferences to his will.

It doesn't fit in with my lifestyle. I'll do it later. Do you know the one to whom you're speaking? Who are you to defy the one who commands the winds and the waves, the demons, disease and death itself? Number two, fear does not exclude love. Number one, there's a good and very important kind of fear. Number two, fear does not exclude love. Whenever we talk about the fear of God, people begin to object like, well, wait, wait, wait. We're not supposed to be afraid of God, right?

Perfect love cast out fear. I heard that verse, or isn't God the meek, tender, soft, brown-haired savior that plays with kids? Yes.

Yes. But then you get pictures of Jesus like this that make that tenderness much more amazing and much more comforting. Our forgiveness is supposed to, in many ways, intensify our fear, not lessen it.

That's why you see strange verses in the book of Psalms like this one. But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Wait, forgiven so that we might fear? Isn't the point of forgiveness to take away our fear?

If we've really been forgiven, what's there left to be afraid of? When you see what Jesus had to go through to save you, it makes you realize the holiness and the perfection of the God that you have rebelled against. You see, it is the bloody cross that gives you the greatest earthly picture of what the wrath of God actually looks like. People say, why was the cross so bloody?

Why was it so terrible? It was because it was exactly, exactly the price that your sin deserved. How you have lived, how I have lived was displayed for us on the cross of Jesus Christ. You got a glimpse in the cross of hell itself. Yet in that same sacrifice, I also see that I am safe within God's love.

It is no longer a threat to me. And there is no more condemnation to those who are in Christ, Jesus, and that experience of awe and fear combined with tenderness and salvation that moves me to worship. Because see true worship, true worship is a mixture of awe and intimacy, or maybe even intimacy that grows out of awe, awe at the size and the power of God and the holiness of God, intimacy and realizing that he has paid your full sin debt and brought you close.

One without the other will lead you to a deformed spirituality. And there are some of you that have the fear of God, but no intimacy. And therefore you have no warmth or love in your relationship to God. Some of you have the intimacy without the awe. And so you are lazy or casual in your obedience.

There are all kinds of areas of compromise. You are sluggish in your worship. You show up late, you put your hands in your pocket, you don't engage. And the reason for that is because you have no awe of God. True worship, life-giving worship, worship that pleases God is awe that is mixed with intimacy.

Here is number three. We see from this story, Mark shows us that those who fear Jesus really need fear nothing else. Because when you realize how powerful Jesus is and you realize that he's in the boat with you, well then you won't be afraid of anything else. In this story, Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves. And then he turns around and he rebukes the disciples for being afraid.

Now, if he's rebuking them, then that means that they're doing something they shouldn't have been doing. But if I can be honest, it seems to me that their fears are legitimate. They thought they were going to die. I feel like that is the time for fear.

Jesus says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand that. But when I'm in the boat with you, even that fear is irrational. We all know what it's like to see somebody with an irrational fear.

I feel like everybody in my family has at least one irrational fear. Allie, my 10 year old, when she up to the age of six was terrified of the movie The Incredibles. Oh, what is there about the movie Incredibles?

I don't know. I mean, she'd watch other movies that I thought were worse than that, but she just like, I mean, she was terrified. I remember her bawling one night when we were about to come to our prayer meeting here because she thought they were going to be showing The Incredibles in the kids' ministry. I had to call the kids' pastor and I was like, hey, could we show something besides The Incredibles?

Because my daughter is not coming because of The Incredibles. It just seemed irrational. My wife, I haven't gotten permission to share this story, is irrationally afraid of spiders. I mean, nobody likes spiders.

I understand that. They're creepy. But I mean, I'll hear this scream that makes me think like she's seen a demon upstairs. And I go running upstairs and I'm like, what's going on? And she's like, there's a huge spider.

And I'm thinking like Frisbee size, like we run the microwave too much and it's mutant. And it's like, and I get my compound bow and I'm going in there like, where is it? And I look for it and I can't even find it. And it's like a little tiny thing on the side. And I'm like, where is that?

She's like, that's it. And I'm like, I feel like that's irrational. So we all know what it's like to see somebody with an irrational fear.

What Jesus is showing these disciples is listen, every fear with the presence of Jesus in your life, every fear is irrational. Jesus was in their boat. Did they really think that God was going to let the boat sink and let Jesus die?

That would be dumb. So here's the reasoning. If Jesus is in the boat, this boat ain't going down. And if I'm in a boat with him, I'm not going down either. But because they didn't understand the power of Jesus over the storm, they were afraid of the storm.

But had they really feared Jesus and understood his power, they would not have been afraid of the storm because it would look rather small in comparison to him. You see, I see it like this. Jurassic Park, like the original version, 1995. You remember the scene right at the very end where all the raptors have surrounded the people, the ferocious raptors, and they're about to eat them in that dome.

Do you remember this? And then right as you think they're about to die, what happens? The T-Rex comes through the roof, smashes through the roof, and gobbles up all the raptors. And so you're watching that and you're like, okay, so the T-Rex is really the one to be afraid of because the raptors ain't nothing compared to the T-Rex.

And here's the question. What if you knew the T-Rex was on your side? If you knew the T-Rex was on your side, then you would not be afraid of the raptors because if the T-Rex is for me, who can be against me, right? If the T-Rex is on my side, what can raptors do to me? Jesus is the truer and better T-Rex.

That is how you should watch Jurassic Park, right? So what you've got is you've got a sense of how large Jesus is suddenly make the waves and the storm that were going to kill you. It makes it look rather small, which is exactly what is in Paul's mind when he says, if God is for us, who can be against us? Who is there to condemn?

It is God who justifies, who can bring a charge against God's elect. It is Christ Jesus who died and more than that was, didn't just die, raised again and now makes intercession for you. If God is on your side, if he is for you, then there is literally nothing else that you have to fear. Worry in our lives comes, listen to this, from either A, forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm or B, doubting his commitment to you in the storm.

It comes from one of those two places every single time. You see, Mark tells this story because it depicts how we often feel in life. We sense these storms brewing around us and it seems to us like Jesus is sleeping if he exists at all. Or maybe we look around and we see the size of the waves and see how they're coming up over the side of the boat and they seem overwhelming and the water is filling up our boat and we feel like we're being drowned by bills or by concerns in our marriage or problems with our kids or issues at work or too much you're trying to balance with school or schedules or health problems and you ask, how am I going to make it? And you look up at Jesus and say, do you even care?

Mark is telling you when that happens, three things you're supposed to do. First, realize that those feelings are natural. Even the disciples who were the future leaders of the church, that's what they felt.

But second, and just as importantly, don't listen to those feelings. Put your eyes on Jesus, put them on his power and his commitment and his ability over the storm. Salvation doesn't come from getting on top of your circumstances, it comes from believing God's promises.

So get your eyes off your circumstances and put them on the promises of Jesus. Third, when you feel like you're drowning, it's okay to wake Jesus up. He wasn't irritated by being woken up.

He was only angered by their lack of faith. He wants you to wake him up. He puts you in situations intentionally so that you will wake him up.

So wake him up and say, I know that you care. So I know that you're going to work in this situation because you promised you would. Now you ask, well, if Jesus really loves us, why wouldn't he keep me from the storm?

That's a great question. In verse 35, I showed you, it was his idea to cross the sea to begin with. It wasn't a bad situation they got themselves into that he's now trying to fix.

The whole thing was his idea. He could very easily have had them avoid this situation. Why did he knowingly send them into the storm? Why does he knowingly send you into the storm? Maybe you've seen people celebrating how God healed somebody from cancer, but your question that you didn't want to ask was, well, why did God give him cancer to begin with? Why did he let him go through cancer? If you really loved him and you could heal him, why didn't you just keep him from it?

Here's why. Because there's something more important than God keeping you from all storms. And that is God teaching you his faithfulness in the storm. And see, there are certain things about God that you can only learn in the storm. So God sends you into storms because storms are his laboratory in which he teaches you about himself. And the knowledge of God is the greatest thing you can ever possess on earth. It's even better than a storm-free life. So God says, let them go through storms so they can see my faithfulness and my power in those storms.

See, here's what I've learned. Everybody wants to see miracles. Everybody wants to see miracles in their lives. Nobody wants to be in a place where they actually need one.

Right? But until God puts you in a place where you need his sustaining power, you're never going to experience it. Y'all, after a long, meticulous study of the New Testament, PhD level study in the original languages, I've come up with this dazzlingly brilliant conclusion. You want to hear it? Every miracle that Jesus ever did started with a problem.

Oh yeah, 13 years of school right there. Every single miracle that Jesus did started with a problem. That's good news and bad news. Want some good news? Good news is you got problems in here? You a candidate for a miracle.

That's good news. Bad news is you ain't got no problems, you ain't seeing no miracle. You see, it is his intention to show you his ability to show you his ability so he allows you to go through them so that you will look upward to him and you will feel his sustaining and miraculous power. In a storm, Jesus will always do one of two things.

Always. He'll either show off his power by delivering you from the storm or he'll show off his power by his ability to keep you in the storm. Sometimes he'll look at the storm and say, peace be still.

And sometimes he'll turn around to you in the boat and say, peace be still. Because the peace that passes all understanding is not always nor is it usually his calming of the storm. The peace that passes all understanding is his sustaining presence in the storm. Jesus is the Prince of peace.

Peace is not a set of circumstances. It is a savior that unites himself to you. So worry in our lives or the storm of fear, that's the real storm in our hearts, that comes from either forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm or doubting his commitment to you in the storm, which leads me to the last and most important insight from this story, because it shows us why we never have to doubt his commitment to us. Because see, I know that there's some of you listening saying, well, maybe the disciples could depend on that. Maybe you as a pastor could depend on that. Maybe really good Christians could depend on that. But I just don't feel like that very good of a Christian. I feel like I'm really inconsistent and I don't think I'd be one of Jesus favored one. So how am I supposed to know that he's doing this for me?

That's a great question. You see, the story is told in such a way that it's supposed to remind you of another prophet who had another incident with the sea. And that prophet's name was Jonah. And see, Jonah, just like Jesus had been on his way to the Gentiles.

Remember that? So Jesus is headed to the Gentiles, Jonah's headed to the Gentiles. Both Jesus and Jonah go into a storm and both of them are asleep in the storm. Both of them are woken up by scared sailors who say, don't you care that we perish? And when Jonah is thrown overboard in Jonah chapter one, and it calms the sea down, Mark uses the exact same phrase in Mark chapter four, the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

Here's where it gets really interesting. There's some differences. Jonah calms the storm by plunging himself into it. Jesus calms the storm, however, by simply speaking to it.

Why the distinction? Here's why, because this was not the place for Jesus to plunge himself into the sea. You see the sea throughout the Bible represents God's wrath.

That's the image of the sea. That's why in the book of Revelation, all the evil empires arise out of the sea. Or it's why at the end of the book of Revelation, it says that there is no more sea in heaven, which I know has been totally depressing to some of you because you're like, I want to go to the beach in heaven.

It's not that there's not going to be a beach in heaven. It's that there's no more wrath of God. There's no more wrath of God. And so, so what you've got is the sea, which represents the wrath of God. And at the cross, Jesus is going to plunge himself headfirst into the sea of God's wrath, where he's going to be swallowed up like Jonah by death for three days.

So that when he is resurrected, he can preach salvation to the people. The wrath of God was terrible. It was like a raging sea. It was terrifying.

It would scare us to death. Jesus faces the terror and he silences it in love. You see what God did is the ferocious terror of his wrath that was directed at you and me. Which we deserve was poured into Jesus because God's love overcame his wrath.

So that if you and I are in Christ, we are safely sheltered from it. And we stand with a sense of hushed awe in it. And we put our hands up and say, with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

And we begin to worship and praise and sing. You show me somebody that's learned how to worship. And I'll show you somebody that's in touch with the salvation that Jesus has given them. You show me somebody lazy in their worship. And I'll show you somebody who has no concept of what they've actually been saved from. You want to know why your heart's so dry?

Because you don't know what you've been forgiven of. Isn't that what Jesus said to the Pharisees? The prostitute comes in, starts weeping at his feet. You know, taking a perfume, valuable, pouring it over his feet. And all the Pharisees are like, what's she doing? Why is he letting her do that? And what's he turn around and say to him?

Leave her alone. Because those who are forgiven much love much. The fact that you don't love shows that you don't know what you've been forgiven of. You've never developed the fear of God, which is why the love of God doesn't move your heart to emotion.

You see, you got to have intimacy that grows out of awe. You got to have faith that grows out of fear. And see, once you know that and you're assured of that love, then you'll begin to look at the storms of your life and you'll say, well, if he didn't forsake me in that storm, if he plunged himself into the sea of God's wrath for me, then of course he's going to take care of me in this one. I mean, he's united himself to you and your boat. And he's not going to let his own boat sink. Isn't that what Paul said in 1 Timothy? When we are faithless, he is faithful.

Why? Because he cannot deny himself. In other words, even when you're doing a terrible job in the boat, he's not going to let that boat sink because he in it. That's not good English, but that's great theology.

All right. He's in the boat. He's in the boat.

And that means that when he has united himself to you, if you have trusted him as savior and received him, that your life is now his possession and he cares more about your life becoming what it's supposed to be than even you do. Y'all, here's a question. Here's a question. Who really gets woken up in this story? Is it Jesus?

No. Jesus didn't get woken up. He knew it from the very beginning what was going to happen. It's the disciples who get woken up, right? Psalm 121 4, fear not, O Israel, he who watches over you will never slumber asleep. If you recall, when Jesus went to the cross, it was Peter, James, and John, the disciples who slept on him, not he on them. So when he went into the real storm, they were asleep, not him, so that they could be assured that whatever storm they were going through, he was always wide awake to it. You see, so we know that as we go into these storms, we are awake to the love of Jesus. Who gets woken up in this story?

It's not Jesus, it's the disciples. Have you been woken up to the love of God? Because being woken up usually consists of a storm that rattles your foundation and then you being aware of what God did for you on the cross. Have you been woken up to the love of God in your life? The love of Jesus is like no other love that you've ever experienced.

If you sense that loss and would like to learn more about his love for you and what it means to surrender to his plan, be sure to visit us at jdgrier.com. Today's program is part of our teaching series called The Whole Story. We think this series will change the way that you read the Bible forever. You know, JD, one of my favorite things about this series is how you're challenging us to take a fresh look at these familiar Bible stories. Yeah, you know, I think sometimes, especially for those of us who've been in church for a while, we can get so familiar with these Bible stories that they almost start to sound a little bit cliche.

They're like we're no longer looking for God to use them to speak to us. So in this series, I'm hoping you'll be able to set those preconceived notions aside and just see these stories through the new lens in a fresh way and show you maybe this is the greatest thing, show how they all point to the cross. To go along with this series and to help with that, we've got the perfect resource simply called the Books of the Bible Cards. It's a set of cards that'll help you as you read books of the Bible to connect that book with the context of the original audience. And maybe even more importantly, the overall scope of the one story the Bible is telling. They give you details about who the book was written to and when it was written, three key truths that are gleaned from the book, where the book points to Jesus, some reflection questions.

I can promise you, you want to keep these handy. And as you're into books of the Bible and you're like, who is this for and what are they saying? You can pull up this card and it'll help you connect what you're reading to the bigger picture of what God is saying. We'd love to get you a set today. So when you give $25 or more, we'll send you a copy of the Books of the Bible Cards as our way of saying thanks for your generous support.

If you've been growing through this program, diving deeper into the message of the gospel with us, would you give that gift to someone else by donating today? Give us a call at 866-335-5220. And remember to ask for your set of the Books of the Bible Cards. That number again is 866-335-5220.

Or you can give and request the cards online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and I'm so thankful to have you with us. Be sure to join us again next week when we're talking about the secret to true lasting joy.

Now there's a message we all need. So grab a friend and join us Monday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.