The Road to Calvary - Day 6: Replacing Fear with Faith

What are you most afraid of?

Does it stem from a traumatic incident in your past? Or are you plagued with an uneasy feeling about the future? Well, wherever you're wrestling with fear, the message you're about to hear will restore your hope and encourage your soul. I'm Dave Drury, and today on Living on the Edge, we're diving back into our series, The Road to Calvary. In this program, our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, will highlight four pivotal moments where Jesus' disciples were fearful and anxious, and how Christ comforted them by displaying his power and compassion. So if you're ready, grab your notes and go to Mark chapter 4 in your Bible, beginning in verse 35.

Here now is Chip with today's message, Replacing Fear with Faith. Welcome back to day six of our study of the Gospel of Mark. And by way of just super quick review, Mark is writing the sermons of Peter, primarily. It is to the Roman Gentile audience.

It's super fast, filled with action. And basically, Jesus has come to change the world. He's going to be a servant to give his life. And Mark basically is answering two questions. Who is Jesus?

Where is he going? And then here's the big thing. Will you follow him? That's the theme of the book. And so we talked about our response to God's Word reveals our real relationship with the Lord. And it brings this whole issue up of trust.

At the end of the day, you don't believe someone's word unless you really trust him. And so I have a little illustration for you, okay? Hypothetically, situation number one, you're caught in a blizzard. You have car trouble. A stranger comes up to offer help.

It's subzero weather. The car doesn't work. And there's a baby in the car. And he says, do you need some help? Would you take it or not? Scenario number two, it's a warm, beautiful, sunny day. And you have an acquaintance.

You don't know him real well, but an acquaintance seems to be a very nice person. And they walk up to you and say, you know, I've been thinking about you. I have a little present for you. And there's a little box.

Inside the box is $10,000. There's plane tickets for Hawaii. You can be away for a month. Here's where you're going to stay.

It's a luxury hotel. And by the way, I just want you to know in case something happens, if I get your power of attorney, so if there's a problem, I can take care of it here. Would you do it? I mean, both are situations where you either trust or you don't trust. And my observation is there's two times when we tend to trust. Time number one is if you're desperate and don't have a choice, you trust. You got a baby in the back.

The car doesn't work. You know, I don't know if this is a good guy or a bad guy, but I can't stay here. So you trust. And sometimes we have situations like that in our life. The other one is like, okay, I want to know who this person is.

I want to know their character. I want to have a track record. You know, Hawaii and a month and all the rest. But you give someone the power of attorney, he may own your house by the time you get home.

And so competence, character, and time is sort of the prerequisites of who you trust. Now, here's what I want you to get. In our last time together, Jesus was like emphatic. The key to the kingdom, the new paradigm.

I'm the new wine, and here's the new wineskins. It's not tradition. It's not religion. It's my word. You need to trust my word.

I am God, fully human, the Son of God. I have a mission. I've come to seek and say that which is lost. You are my followers. And when I say it, you need to believe it. You can't believe and you can't follow unless you trust. And so this is one of those times, especially for those that can, you know, not just listen but happen to watch this little series on Mark, is I've got a chart.

You can hear it, you know, if you're listening, that I love. And on the left side, it has the parables and it talks about his word. And then he has some private time. And on the left side of the parables, it talks about he just gave a lecture. He did the theological, the what of the kingdom. They were hearing and he gave these commands. You know, you've got to respond to the light.

It's like the mustard seed. He explained all this. Well, now he's going to say, let's go over to the other side. And he's going to go from his words to his works. And the author is going to be very clear.

Mark is going to let us know. These four scenes go back to back to back to back. In rapid procession, you need to understand miracle one, miracle two, miracle three, miracle four. And they're very, very specific so that when you get done with them, disciples, you can trust me with anything. And with that as an overview, we go from the teaching to the training, from the lecture to the laboratory, from the theological what to the practical who, and from the hearing to the doing. And finally, from commandments to enablement.

So with that, let's pick it up at Mark chapter 4 35. Notice the time marker that day. What day?

The day that he just gave the lecture about your response to the word. When evening came, he said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There were also other boats with him.

A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said, teacher, don't you care if we drowned? He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, quiet, be still.

Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? They were terrified and asked each other, by the way, the right question, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.

Now we're going to go through these stories and I want to get your mind thinking so that you look at each story through a lens. These are professional fishermen and they are at the point of thinking, we're done. We're going to die to the point that they shake him and say, Lord, don't you care? So in their mind, they're facing an impossible situation.

And I say that because each of these four situations will be impossible. And Jesus wants them to understand, you can trust me with this impossible situation. And by the way, he wants you to understand, he wants me to understand, he wants all of us to understand, we can trust him with our impossible situation.

Notice also what's the topic? Where is your faith? In other words, why don't you believe? What were they supposed to believe? What's the text say? That day when evening came, Jesus said his word to his disciples, let us go to the other side.

Implicitous is a promise. We're going to go to the other side. Okay, something happened, but why wouldn't you trust we're going to make it? And so he finds men that are terrified and they're afraid in an environment that they're used to.

And then I love how there's now a new shift. They were terrified and they ask him, who is this? I believe they were more terrified of who Jesus was at that moment in a good way than they were of the waves. And by the way, how did he calm the waves? He spoke. Jesus speaks to wind. Jesus speaks in the natural realm and he is the Lord of the natural realm. And I just, in my mind's eye, I see Peter looking at John and John looking at James and all these other boats that are out there.

I mean, this is an experience. I mean, who is he? Who is it that can speak to the wind and instantly that's power.

That's someone that you can trust. Chapter five opens up. They went across the lake to the region of the Jerusalem. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with the chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and it broke the irons on his feet.

No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, what do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

Swear to God that you will not torture me. For Jesus was saying to him, come out of this man, you evil spirit. Then Jesus asked him, what is your name?

My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, send us among the pigs, allow us to go into them. He gave them permission and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs.

The herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and the countryside and the people went out to see what happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who'd been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

They were afraid. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and I hope you're enjoying our newest series, The Road to Calvary. But before Chip continues, I want to quickly tell you that we've created a free digital devotional that masterfully complements our journey through the book of Mark. This resource is crafted to enrich your spiritual growth and strengthen your relationship with Jesus this Easter season. So stick around after the teaching to learn more. But for now, let's get back to Chip. Interesting story.

Remember, this is all out of a lecture. Do you trust me? When I speak, do you believe me? Can you trust me with your life? Trust me with your future? For us, can you trust me with your family?

Trust me with your finances? Trust that when I ask you to do hard things, when I ask you to make sacrifice, will you trust me? You know, the one thing God desires, the one thing that he asks more than anything else is that we trust him. The word we use for that is faith. Without faith, it's not hard.

It's impossible to please God. And those who come to God must believe two things, that he is, that he actually exists, and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That's Hebrews 11, 6. And what Jesus is teaching these followers is that you can trust me.

You can trust me when the natural realm is overwhelming and you think you're going to die. And now he's saying in the spiritual realm, in the darkness, evil, demonic spirits. I mean, it's not just a demon.

It's a legion of demons. And this demon has very clear, correct theology. In fact, this demon has way better theology than the crowd and probably than most of the disciples. What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

And he understood clearly his power. And so Jesus, I think, as a way to demonstrate to the disciples and then later to the people of the town and the people that were watching, he gives the demons permission to go to the pigs. Now, the irony of this, right, think of Jews, think of a pig, think of kosher.

There's a lot of little things behind all of this that bring a little irony and almost a little humor. And demons don't want to be sent to the abyss. And so what's interesting is the demons go into the pigs and the geography, if you know what's happening here, there's a steep cliff and then they run off the cliff and die. And the word used for that area when you go that part of the water is similar to the word abyss.

So it was kind of a bit of a play on words. But why? He wants to demonstrate to his disciples. It would be one thing to say, Demon, you're gone. Well, he's gone.

Looks like he's gone. See, this was visible. Jesus is doing things very specifically to show, I have power.

I have power over the invisible world. My wife and I and our family, we did ministry in a place called Santa Cruz. For some of you, it's like, oh, wow, you know, I think that song about under the boardwalk.

Well, yeah, that's right. And it's a beautiful area. It's a resort area. But it's also one that has drawn lots of attention of just evil powers, like maybe Boulder, Colorado, Sedona, Arizona, some of these beautiful places. There's more satanic bookstores in Santa Cruz area than like Boulder and these areas. If you would go into a coffee shop in Santa Cruz, and this was many years ago and continues as far as I know to this day, is you go in a coffee shop and it would say warlocks are meeting at the Loudon Nelson something center. And if you would like to learn how to cast spells and witches, I mean, it was like, first we thought, is this like a joke? Witches and warlocks and spells and new age centers and crystals and, you know, for those of you who poo-poo that stuff like, wow, you know, it's weird and people are, well, I got news for you. I lived there 12 years and we had experiences that I could only say were New Testament-like. There was such evil. We had visual manifestations of demonic activity.

We would do a major evangelistic event. And I'm not exaggerating. We might have four appliances go out within 24 hours. Or I remember being in my car and it just stopped.

And just multiple things where we would have at night. There's times I remember being awake and every one of my kids in all the rooms were crying out in the middle of the night. There were times when I would be in bed and I would be absolutely awake. My eyes were open and it just felt like invisible hands came around my neck and then pressure on my chest and it would just squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. And I remember with my eyes I could look over and see that Teresa was asleep and I'm thinking, what is this? And I'm crying out in my mind, Jesus, Jesus, save me, help, help, help. And I'm literally, I feel like I'm going to drown or die or be suffocated right in my own bed. And then at the very last minute as I cried out, it'd be, ugh. And then it was like a darkness in the room and a heaviness that terrified me, especially the very first few times. And I would take up my position and I would speak out loud and I would demand on the authority of God's word, demons, you must leave. And I would quote the passages that gave me that authority and then they would leave.

I don't know where you are or what your experience is. I want to tell you, the Bible is really clear. God is a creator of all things.

There was indeed a rebellion and a third of the angels rebelled and they followed this beautiful majestic angel called Lucifer, whose later name is Satan, and his angels are called demons. And there is an invisible war that's as real as any battle anywhere. And often, you know, it's very subtle.

We don't see these things. But when you begin to take ground and progress for the gospel or you're in an environment where that's where just how it works, we got an education. But what I can tell you is I remember as I taught my kids to memorize four or five key verses about spiritual warfare, I would watch even my children at times in the midst of those things, quote, who they are in Christ, and speak directly to invisible forces and they would leave.

And so I want you to know, we don't have to be afraid. And Jesus was teaching these disciples, I mean, can you imagine how weird that would be watching those pigs? And then did you notice the response? Two responses. One group is they don't understand and they're afraid. And it's like, man, this is weird. We want you to leave.

Also, think about the cost of 2,000 pigs. We don't know who this guy is, but he certainly is not good for the economy. I mean, he's disruptive.

And guess what? Jesus is disruptive. He is not tame. He makes a difference. He changes things. And so the disciples are learning he's the Lord of the natural realm. Now he's the Lord of the spiritual realm. And the lessons aren't over. Mark wants us to know that these are back to back to back.

And so the people are absolutely amazed. And this man, what's the other response? He pleads with Jesus to let him go with him. One group says, get away from me. The demonized man says, oh, please let me go with you. And Jesus says, no, you go back to the Decapolis.

It was a ten-city area. You go there. This is where the Gentiles lived. You go back there and you tell everyone what the Lord has done for you. He's planting seeds for what's going to happen in the future.

After that, what do we get? The people were amazed. Verse 21, when Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him.

While he was by the lake, one of the synagogue rulers named Jarius came there. Seeing Jesus, notice the pattern again. He fell at his feet. This is now a religious leader. He understands the consequences of going to Jesus. He fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him. My little daughter is dying.

Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus went with him. So now what we're seeing is there's a breakdown in the religious leaders. There's some people that are realizing, we've been waiting on the Messiah.

Anyone who does these miracles, anyone who teaches like him, he is in fact the Messiah. And guess what? Who do we trust? We trust people that we can evaluate their character and their competency and over time.

And we trust people when we're desperate. This guy could care less what the religious leaders think right now. He's got a little girl that he loves that's 11 or 12 years old, and she's dying. And he knows from where he lives and all the stories that this man can heal people. And he humbles himself and falls on his knees before Jesus and said, please, will you please come and lay your hands on my daughter like he's heard how he's laid his hands on other people.

Now notice a large crowd followed and pressed in around him. And a woman was there who'd been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered great under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse.

Another impossible situation. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, if I touch his clothes, I'll be healed. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was free from her suffering. At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out of him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes? You see the people crowding around you who's discipled answered and you ask, who touched me? But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, watch this, came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear told him the whole truth. He said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

Are you getting this pattern? People who recognize who he is, they humble themselves. They fell at his feet. People that have an impossible situation with water and waves, an impossible situation with demonic power, an impossible situation with years and doctors. She's out of money. She has no hope. She's desperate.

Maybe even a little superstitious, you know, maybe if I touch. But she's going with what she knows and she's desperate and she has faith to believe that somehow, someway, if I could just get near Jesus, he would help me. And by the way, let's not lose our everyday in this story. If you're desperate today, if you're hurting, if you just have nowhere to turn, the Jesus of this passage is alive today and he longs to help you. And if you'll come to him the way Jairus comes and say, oh God, I need you. I need you.

If you come like the woman who's desperate and I mean, the doctors can't do it. No one can help me. Jesus is teaching his disciples. Yes, I have power over the natural realm. I have power over the supernatural realm. I have power over the physical realm.

But what did he say to her? Daughter, your faith has made you well. The goal for the disciples and the goal for us is that we would learn to trust Jesus.

I mean, if he can handle demons, if he can handle the natural realm, if he can handle the physical realm, so what is going on in your life or what's going on in my life that he can't handle? That you couldn't say if your word says this, God, I can trust your character and I can trust your word. It may be hard. I may not like it. I may not even understand it, but I trust you. Therefore, I'm going to take this step. I'm going to obey you.

I'm going to do what you say. That's what God is looking for. Well, the story's not over.

There's one more. He's going to show them as amazing as all the other things were, he's the Lord of the eternal realm. So we pick up the story.

The woman has been healed. Jesus has looked around. While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler, with some bad news. Your daughter is dead, they said.

Why bother the teacher anymore? I just have to believe his heart sank. I was too late. There's no hope. Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, I love this. Don't be afraid.

Just believe. He did not allow anyone to follow him except Peter, James, and John. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly. They had professional mourners. It was just part of the culture and someone dies and they would be outside and they would wail and moan. It was just a part of what they did. So there's a group of people and things are really hopping and it's terrible and they're wailing and moaning over all that's happened. And Jesus said, why all this commotion and wailing?

The child is not dead but asleep. But they laughed at him. They'd already verified that she was dead. And after he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him and he went in where the child was and he took her by the hand and notice what does he do? He said, spoken word, he said to her, talitha kum, which means little girl, I say to you, get up. Immediately, the girl stood up and walked around.

She was 12 years old. At this, they were completely astonished and he gave strict orders not to tell anyone about this and told them to give her something to eat. He wanted to make sure they knew this is not a ghost.

This is not a trick. This little girl was dead and when I speak to the dead, they can rise. The disciples are learning a really important lesson and most of them would learn it to the point that as they started their ministry and whether it was Thomas making it all the way to India or whether it was Paul missionary journeys because he's going to meet Jesus a little later in a very, very unusual way or whether it's Peter who comes near the end of his life and says I'm not worthy to be crucified right side up, crucify me upside down. There was a loyalty and a trust that transcended every difficulty, every pain that was above every relationship.

They were not fans. They were followers. And the Gospel of Mark is a word to you and me to say God longs for followers. He's got a purpose for your life. He's got a purpose for my life and he wants us to follow Jesus. But you can't follow something or someone that you don't know. And the reason we're doing this study is I just keep meeting Christians that don't really know Jesus. They have this superficial faith.

They have this, you know, I've heard about this and I've mixed it with a little prosperity and I'm trying to be a nice person. He didn't come to make you a nice person. He came to take you out of the kingdom of darkness, place you in the kingdom of light, seal you with the Spirit, give you his word, show you your purpose, transform your life and use you until the day you die to bring about light and love in a very corrupt and hurting world. That's the agenda. This is not about being happy. This isn't about being fulfilled. This isn't about your life working out because Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life. Yes, he has a wonderful plan for your life, also filled with difficulty and pain and suffering and challenges.

But here's the deal. Everyone, everyone's going to have pain, difficulty and challenges. But we can go through that with Jesus, who is with us, who's for us and has power over the natural realm, the spiritual realm, the physical realm and the eternal realm and therefore we can trust him. Those disciples were learning that and we can too.

Can I encourage you, get into God's Word. Can you read one chapter a day, right? You know, we just, we just covered chapter five today.

Chapter six is coming up. Why don't you read that? Why don't you just follow along with me? Why don't you just say, Lord, it seems like these really desperate people trusted you out of necessity. I could choose to trust you.

I want to get to know who you are. I want to little by little become way less of a fan and way more of a follower. And I just would tell you, it'll be the greatest decision, the greatest journey to follow the real Jesus that you'll ever, ever make. He loves you. He cares for you. He's got a plan for you and he longs for you to take steps of faith with the light that you know and he will respond with great clarity and great power.

Lord, would you help us? I know there's lots of people at Crossroads. They know what's right. They understand what following you might mean, but they weigh that against the cost or the challenges or in every passage, the fear. Father, would you replace their fear with faith?

Would you help them to trust you and believe that you will work all things out for their good, not without difficulty, but you will be with them you promised and you will never forsake them. Help us to believe your word to the point of action in Christ's name. Amen. Well, the journey in Mark is a blast, and I'll look forward to seeing you next time. This is Living on the Edge, and you've been listening to Chip's message, Replacing Fear with Faith, from our series, The Road to Calvary. I'm Dave Drouie, and if you've missed any part of this teaching from Mark, go back and catch up through the Chip Ingram app or at LivingOnTheEdge.org. Well, before we go, our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, is with me now to share a quick word with all of you.

Chip? Thanks so much, Dave. You know, good news is an interesting New Testament word.

It's ou angelion. In other words, it's just like really, really great news. And I don't know if you've ever like got good news in the mail like, hey, I got a promotion, or maybe some of you recently proposed to someone and she said yes. There's so much good news, but sometimes I feel like the average Christian feels like most of walking with God is about doing things and being more moral and trying really hard and doing activities. And I would just remind you, Jesus came to set you free.

He walked with these disciples on those dusty roads. He is the good news. There's nothing that you can have, nothing you can acquire. There's nothing you'll ever accomplish that could surpass the love of God that He has for you. So I just want to encourage you, join me on this journey through the Gospel of Mark. We want you to experience the love and the good news of Jesus Christ.

That's right, Chip. And a really practical way you can do that is by signing up for our free digital devotional that complements our study in the book of Mark. Each day you'll receive valuable reflections from the passage we'll explore on the broadcast together, along with some uplifting encouragement. Sign up today at LivingOnTheEdge.org. And while you're there, be sure to download Chip's message notes, too. They're a helpful guide as you listen to this new series. Again, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or the Chip Ingram app for complete details. Well, until next time, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.