Jesus May Be Sleeping but He's Still In The Boat | Mark 4

During my time living here (two years in a few days!) I have been fortunate enough to see the amazing provision and perfect timing of God.

I'm reading through Mark at the moment and just got to this story. I love this account because Mark mentions water coming into the boat:

37/38

"And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He [Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'"

Now when you've read this and you get to verse 40, Jesus asks the disciples a question which honestly, seems ridiculous under the circumstances:

40

"But He said to them, 'Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?'"

I'm sorry, what?

Why were they so fearful?

How could they not have faith?

ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?

Water was filling their boat. Enough water in the boat meant they would sink. So why would Jesus even ask that question?

I think Jesus was genuinely asking because He was trying to understand how their minds worked.

Yes, their boat was sinking. But Jesus was with them. And yes, He was asleep. But He was the same Jesus they had seen heal and forgive a paralysed man, heal a man with a withered hand and cast out demons. Was there really any question as to His abilities?

Yes, Jesus was asleep. But that didn't mean He couldn't save them. He was still there.

Sometimes we look at our situation; a bill that needs to be paid tomorrow and an empty bank account, a job that we should have heard from last week that we still haven't heard from, a place to live in a little over a week and no money for rent; and we act like the disciples.

We scream, 'Hello! God! Are you even awake? Don't you see what's happening? Everything is falling to pieces and you aren't doing anything!'

But He is. His presence is enough. Just by being there, He is doing something. And when what you've been waiting for comes through, you too will feel as though Jesus is asking you 'Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?'

I'm not writing this to judge or condemn anyone, because I kick myself every time Jesus 'comes through' with something great and I had thought He'd forgotten. I'm writing this to encourage you and I in our waiting, watching, hoping times, when we're waiting for our breakthrough or our miracle. Because even though it might seem rather quiet when you would like lights and action, Jesus may be sleeping, but He's still in the boat.

Mark 10.24-27: Jesus Makes It Possible

We tend to have a scale...as if goodness can be measured, but God has no scale. God says that He is goodness. The only way we can ever be the standard of goodness He can accept is if we are in Him. Anything less than God isn't good enough.

Thankfully, this is not something we need to be disheartened about, rather we should be encouraged. God gave us His goodness in Jesus Christ, so that by taking Him on board, by giving ourselves to Him, we would be good enough to be in relationship with Him, which has been His desire since before the world began.

Sin separates us from God because it is unacceptable to Him, but Jesus reconciles us to God, because He was and still is and will forever be perfect and acceptable.

Put simply, Jesus makes it possible for us to be with God.

Welcome Jesus into your life and watch His goodness permeate through all your sin, so that you blossom, and reach and become all that God wants you to be.

"But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed..." - Romans 3.21

When Jesus Christ came to earth, it was the culmination of years of planning and hard work. The Jewish people up until then had been governed by law (See Exodus 20). Law that told them not to take God's name in vain, not to covet, to rest on the Sabbath, to honour their parents and so on. The ultimate purpose of the law was to show the Jews what was right in the eyes of God, and how to live in a way pleasing to Him.

The problem with the law was that it made it impossible for the Jews to live in a way pleasing to God. No matter how carefully they watched themselves and tried to do no wrong. All it took was one sin...and they'd stepped out of God's will and into judgement.

To escape the judgement that resulted from sin, sin offerings were given to God to make atonement. God would look at the offering and not make them pay the penalty for the sin, but it still didn't really deal with the problem. The offerings didn't deal with the sin, they covered it. On the outside, it looked as if there had been a change, but the real root of the sin, originating in mankind's heart remained.


Paul talked about the strange condition of the human heart in Romans 7.15, saying 'that I will to do, that I do not practise; but what I hate, that I do.'


So there were two problems that needed to be resolved;

1. No matter how hard everyone tried to do the right thing, they couldn't.
2. Even though God forgave the sins, the root of the problem remained; the sinful nature of man's heart.

So God created Jesus; fully God and fully man.When God created Jesus, He created Him to be the final sin offering. This meant that after Him, no-one, ever, would have to offer a sin offering. Jesus came to earth, blameless and sinless; perfect.


You see Jesus role as the final sin offering was to personally take on all the sins ever committed and ever to be committed and call them His own (2 Corinthians 5.21). Taking them on, Jesus would have to pay the penalty for sin that was not his own. Romans 6.23 tells us what the penalty for sin is; it's death.


Death in the physical sense, (if you look at Genesis and the record of the fall, it tells us that as a result of the fall sin and thus death entered the world), but not only that, death to God, and separation from all that pertains from Him, all that is good, all that is love, all that is hope, all that is faith; Hell, in short.


So when Jesus cried out on the cross ' elohi elohi, lama shavakhtani?' (Mark 15.34 - HNIV) He was experiencing Hell.


On our behalf.


But it was not the end. Jesus had been a willing sacrifice, fully God and fully man. He had descended into the very depths of Hell to account for all our sins, committed and to be committed, and then He rose again to overcome death, and show that the power that was in Him was stronger than sin, and stronger than death.


He did it so that every time we sin, we are rescued from our rightful punishment; eternal separation from God. So when God looks at us, where he should see sin, darkness, and evil, He sees the face of His son, who took all our punishment on His own back so that we would no longer have to be enslaved by sin, always doing the wrong thing and constantly falling short of God's standard, but instead could be righteous, relying on a power greater than our own.


God sent Jesus so that we would be free to achieve our full potential.

This was problem one dealt with, but God was still not finished.

Romans 10.9 tells us that everyone who believes God loves them and as a result sent His son to die for them is saved. When Jesus was on earth He spent time talking to people, He spent time showing them His character; what was important to Him and good in His sight. He spent time with all kinds of people, tax collectors, women that were having affairs...nobody was too low for Him. You see in doing this, Jesus was tapping in to people's hearts.

By nature, God is relational. He loves us, He talks to us. When Jesus was on earth He wanted us to get to know Him, so that we would in turn tell others about Him. He wanted us to get to know Him so that the more we got to know Him, the more we wanted to be like Him. He wanted to instigate a change of heart, so that instead of our inclination being to do things our way, and therefore sin against Him, our most earnest desire would be to behave in a way that would please Him.


And of course, even if our desire was to please Him, He knew, as I mentioned earlier, how hard it was for us to do the right thing without help from someone outside of us and more powerful than us to do so. So when Jesus left earth for heaven, He left us the Spirit of God (sometimes called the Holy Spirit), the third member of the trinity, so that we would be able to call out to God and receive help in time of need (Hebrews 4.16) and be able to do God's will.

'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' - Romans 8.14

Allow yourself to get to know Jesus, fall in love with Him and He will transform your life. It won't happen overnight, but you'll notice it. You'll no longer measure yourself by what you have done, can do, or what others tell you that you are, but instead will see yourself as God sees you; perfect and blameless in His sight. Your outlook on the world will change; you'll understand more clearly God's grace and what it means to be forgiven and forgive others. You'll be able to discern between what is good (of God) and evil (not of God), and you'll be able to love others as Christ has loved you.

God bless x

Luke 24.26-27 and The Gospel of Jesus Christ

'He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem..."'

The gospel of Jesus Christ is repentance and forgiveness:

Not condemnation, but hope.

Not death, but life.

Not lawfulness, but relationship.

One of the things the scribes took issue with was Jesus forgiving sins (Matthew 9.1-6), because they believed only God had power to forgive sins, but if Jesus was who He claimed to be, the son of God (Luke 22.70) and the Christ (Matthew 16.16-17), then He had full right to forgive sins.

And that's what He came to earth to do. He came to bridge the gap between the sinful and the sinless. So He came to Earth, still God, in the form of a man, so that He could walk among us and make God real to us, make God personal. He came to Earth to save us.

Do you know where something similar happened? Joseph.

Joseph was fully human (you can tell by his behaviour), and when he dreamt of his future and all that was to come, instead of keeping it hush-hush as Jesus did (Matthew 16.20, Mark 8.30, Luke 9.21), he went around boasting about it.

He wasn't lying though. His brothers were going to bow down to him (Genesis 37.7-11). So after he told them all that he had dreamt they 'disposed of him', rather like what happened to Jesus with his crucifixion. And they thought that was the end of it.

"But what they didn't know was that what they had meant for evil, God had meant to be their own salvation (Genesis 50.20)."

You see without Joseph being thrown in a well, he wouldn't have been sold to Ishmaelites, which would have meant he wouldn't have been a slave in Potiphar's house in Egypt, which in turn would mean that he wouldn't have been accused of rape, which would mean he wouldn't have ended up in jail, which would have meant that he wouldn't have been there to decipher the meanings of the dreams of the baker and cupbearer, which would have meant that he wouldn't have been able to decipher the King's dream, which would mean that he wouldn't have been able to save Egypt and the surrounding lands (including the land of Canaan where all his brother's lived), which would have meant that his whole family would have died.

In much the same way, if God was not merciful, then He would not have sent His son Jesus (who was both God and man) to be crucified, which would mean He (Jesus) wouldn't have taken the cost of all our sins, and if He hadn't taken the penalty for all our sins which is death (Romans 6.23a), we would all be facing eternity without God, Hell, rather than having what we now have (should we want it), the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus (Romans 6.23b).

Hey guys, use this website http://www.blueletterbible.org/index.cfm to look up all the verses that I have mentioned. Just type each of them into the search bar at the top and choose a version you think you will find easiest to understand. The version I have used for my quotes here is the NIV.