Who is He? — Mark 2-4

0:01 Well, good morning everyone. Good morning. It's a real privilege to be here again with you this morning. Back in May, the last time I was here, we were only three. Now we're now we're four that we've come back.

0:18 Our daughter Natalie was born in August August fourteenth, and she's two months old and our son Jonathan is is two years old now. His birthday is also in August. It's a real privilege to be with you again. Maybe for those who weren't here in May, just a brief introduction. My name is Nathan Loudon and my wife sitting in the back there is Chisango or Chichi.

0:50 Most Americans find Chichi easier to say. And we've we've been serving the Lord... Well, we're serving the Lord in Michigan with the Ezekiel Project. I think most of you know about that. And we were serving the Lord over in Zambia which is Chi Chi's home country, and we were there for about three years.

1:16 But I understand you're going through the book of Mark and so if you could turn with me to Mark chapter four verse 35. Mark four verse 35. My wife and I were married in December 2015. In that same year, however, before we were married, was in Zambia and I was in a very remote part of Zambia, a place called called Kayombo. I was there really to integrate myself into the local culture there and in getting the the language down really well.

2:03 And I stayed with one elder from an assembly there and his family in in his village. And, you know, it was really interesting. I learned a lot there. I got to know the people in that village quite well. And in that village, there was a small a small boy maybe eight eight years old or so and his name was also Nathan which was you know very interesting.

2:34 And sometimes you know, while while learning the language, you can mix things up, you can confuse things, and quite often I would hear someone in the village shouting, Nathan, Nathan, try kuno, try kuno, come here. And quite often, I would think they're talking to me. When in actuality, they were talking to this young little boy, Nathan, please come here. And so quite often they would have to specify, oh, small Nathan, we want this... We want small Nathan, not not the white Nathan.

3:14 So they would have to specify which which Nathan are they talking about Cause we're not the same people. We're two different people. And you know, when we look at this passage, this passage focuses on the Lord Jesus Christ. If I could title this message, would title it based off of verse verse 41, which I'll read the whole passage, but just starting in verse 41. It says, and they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him?

4:13 By no means. Very different Jesus. Which Jesus are we talking about here? You know, when we look when we look at the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and Mark or the other gospels, we have his teaching. We have, you know, his ministry, his miracles, etc.

4:33 And all all parts of that, his teaching, his miracles, whatever, is a part of his ministry. Some people try to separate his miracles from his ministry, but you can't do that. You know, they want to so called demythologize the Bible. But once you take out the miracles, you don't... You have a very different Jesus.

4:59 The historical Jesus who lived two thousand years ago did miracles. And we when we look at this passage, we really see the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrating or displaying his two natures, who he is. He displays it to show us exactly who he is so that we may trust him more. His two natures. What are his two natures?

5:27 Full deity, 100% God, but yet 100% man. And as we read this passage, I think we see both of those aspects, both of those his natures displayed here for us. Let me let me read the passage. Mark four verse 35 says, on the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was, and other little boats were also with him.

6:03 And a great windstorm arose, and the wave... And the waves beat into the boat so that so that it was already filling. But he 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? Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

6:33 But he said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? Who can this be? Who who is the Lord Jesus Christ?

6:55 And I want to dive into this. I want to start with with his human nature. When we read this passage, we see displayed for us Christ's human nature, verses 35 to 38. Orin chapter three, you notice in verse 35 it says, on the same day. I found that really interesting because when when did this day start that the Lord Jesus was going across the sea in the boat?

7:32 It says, on the same day when evening had come. When did this day start? As far as I can tell, and you can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, to me it seems that it started at the end of chapter two. On the Sabbath day, the Lord Jesus with his disciples were walking through a field, and the disciples were plocking off some of the crops and eating them. Then you go into chapter three, and the Lord Jesus heals a man's hand on the Sabbath.

8:07 He continues in verse six of chapter three to 12, healing many other people. Verse 13 and following, he now picks out of his followers, he picks 12 to be his main disciples. Verse 22, the scribes and the Pharisees come and they start accusing him of of casting out demons by the power of Satan himself. Then in 31, his brothers and sisters, biological brothers and sisters come and he says, you know, who are my brothers and sisters? These who are here.

8:46 In chapter four, he now teaches the multitude all these parables. That's a lot to do in one day. That is a lot. I don't know about you, but if I did that, I would be so tired at the end of the day. And this is exactly what we see of the Lord Jesus Christ.

9:10 On that same day when evening had come, verse 35, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was. And other little boats were also with him. And a great windstorm arose and the waves beat on the boat so that it was filling. Verse 38, but he was in the stern asleep on a pillow.

9:37 We see Christ's human nature displayed in his weariness. He was tired after all his ministry that he had been doing. Healing people, teaching people in parables, teaching his disciples the meaning of those parables after... Afterwards. Exhausting.

9:58 And it's no wonder I don't blame him for sleeping, even though there's this big storm. I don't blame him for sleeping there. But yet he does sleep and he has a pillow on which to rest his head. But we also see his human nature displayed by the example that he gives us in that boat. What do I mean by that?

10:54 And being at that high altitude, it's really cold. But then it drops... When it comes over the Sea Of Galilee, it drops over the sea and you have the hot air from the sea rising up. And when the two collide with each other, a powerful storm can quickly arise as a result of that action there. And so storms can pop up really quickly.

11:21 Actually, even in Zambia, we live in a tropical area and storms can come up really quickly there as well. But... And so this... The storm caught the disciples by surprise. And it says in verse verse 37 that the windstorm was so great and the waves and the wind were so great that those waves were even filling the boat.

11:49 Water was coming into the boat. And it's really interesting. I did not know this beforehand or maybe just I just skipped over it before. But according to verse 36, it says there were other little boats going along with him. It wasn't just this one boat that Christ was in, there were these other boats that were also within the storm.

12:11 And it caused them to be little boats. These are just fishermen boats. These are not your Titanic or anything and you know even the Titanic sank. These were little fishermen boats, rough, rugged, wooden wooden made boats, could have sank very easily. And you look at the disciples, the panic that they are in in verse 38.

12:39 While Christ is sleeping, it says, And they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? They were in panic mode. They didn't know what to do. They thought they were going to perish. They said, We are perishing.

12:58 Now you think through the chapter, the miracles that Christ had done. The teaching in the parables he taught them about the sower who went and sowed the word, and how that you can trust the word of God. And he showed the miracles showing that you can trust him. And yet, these disciples are very much in panic mode. In other words, trusting him.

13:26 And can't really blame the disciples. I would be the same way. And so often, if you will, the storms of life come upon me or come upon you, and I behave the exact same way that the disciples behaved. Teacher, do you not care? They doubted him.

13:48 They doubted his care. They doubted his tenderness. They doubted his love for them and for people after he had displayed it all throughout chapter four and chapter three, his love for people. Yet they still doubted his love for them. How about us?

14:12 Life gets rough sometimes. Do we doubt his love for us? But the Lord Jesus, you know, he gives us a perfect example of how we as human beings should be. He was perfect human. The interesting thing about the Lord Jesus Christ was he was fully human.

14:54 He dwelt among human beings like you and like me. He lived in a specific culture with specific people. He knew fully what it was to be human, but yet he had no sin. And what really struck me as well, you think of the Lord Jesus Christ. He lived a fully human life, but he had no sin, yet he lived with the consequences of sin.

15:23 Go back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned. Some of the consequences that came, death, but also sickness, disease, suffering, pain, thorns and thistles growing up in the the fields where you're trying to plant good crops. Christ had no sin, yet he lived with the consequences of our sin. Ultimately, the consequence of of, you know, taking our place to die on the cross and pay that price for our sin. It's kind of staggering to think about it.

16:05 Think about Christ and his glory up in heaven. Yet he humbled himself, subjected himself to, you know, being tossed and turned in a boat with fellow human beings. Christ was a full human being like you and like me. I like what Hebrews, we kind of looked at it this morning, but Hebrews four and verse... I wanna read verse 15 this time.

16:43 Hebrews four and verse 15, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. The beautiful thing about Jesus Christ and his relationship to us is that he knows exactly what we are going through. When the storms of life come upon you, come upon me, and we all go through them, I go through them. Yet somehow, we always... We think that, oh, crisis just kind of up there, far away distant, not really in our struggles.

17:28 But yet it is so clear. He knows exactly what you go through, what I go through. He went through it himself. Even the temptation, he was tempted yet he did not sin. I don't know what what you're going through this morning, but he knows it.

17:45 And he knows what it what it is like to go through whatever it is. Back in Mark chapter four, He was at peace. He was sleeping. He was resting. The Lord Jesus Christ throughout the gospel, I have not come to do the will of the who sent me, the Father.

18:22 Christ, when he became human, he laid aside certain of his divine attributes, not that he got rid of them, but he decided not to use them. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. That was part of his humiliation. He decided not to use them so that he could know what it is like to be a human being, to go through what human beings go through. And we see him, and this is just my own conjecture, it seems like he's resting in his father's strength.

18:55 He knows that despite the wind and the waves, it's going to turn out okay. Maybe he knew, you know, that he would calm the storm himself, he would... That the father at that point would allow him to use his divine attributes and calm the storm. Regardless, he was at peace. Contrast that with disciples who were in full panic mode and as as I am so often.

19:32 And so, do we follow Christ's example to rest in Him? If you will, just turn with me quickly to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11 and verse 28. The Lord Jesus speaking, Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

20:18 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Yeah, we want to do it all in our own strength. We want to say, no, I'll get through the storm on my own. And and because we try to do that, we end up realizing that no, we can't and we go into panic mode like the disciples do. And so often, we're so late, just like the disciples, coming to the Lord saying, Lord, please help us.

20:47 And actually, the disciples in this case were doubting his care for them, doubting his love for them. But yet Christ is at rest. What an example for us. Do we rest in him? Do we cast all our cares, our worries, our burdens upon him?

21:09 Or... Just like he was doing. And I assume he was doing it, rest... Resting in his father's love and his father's care for him. And he tells us to do the same thing, but to do it in him.

22:03 Peace, be still. We see his divine nature displayed in the authority that he had over the water, over the wind, over the storm. It's interesting if we look at Psalm 107. Psalm 107, and I can just read it for you quickly. Psalm 107 verse 23 to 30.

22:42 Psalm 107 verse 23. Those who go down to the sea in ships who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. That's in the ocean. For he commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves and of the sea. They mount up to the heavens.

23:12 They go down again to the depths. Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits end. Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble and he brings them out of their distress. He calms the storm so that its waves are still.

23:32 Then they are glad because they are quiet. And so he guides them to their desired haven. Now, is in the Old Testament. This is in in the book of Psalms and I'm not sure who who wrote it. But what a great picture of what was going on with the disciples so many years later.

23:53 And we see who is in charge of the wind, who is in charge of the storm, and that is God himself. And we see here God himself at work displaying his omnipotent power, his all powerfulness. Speaking to the wind, speaking to the waves, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm back in Mark chapter four. And then in verse 40, we see Christ displaying his divine nature again.

24:39 But this time it's his divine nature in his authority over his disciples. Verse 39, it's over nature. Here it's over his disciples. Verse 40, he said, but he said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

25:00 He rebuked the wind and the waves. Now he turns to his disciples and he rebukes them as well. Why are you so fearful? And I looked up that word for fearful. It's not just simply being afraid, it's being cowardly.

25:14 Being timid, being cowardly. And no wonder he calls them that. After all that he has done in the previous chapters. And actually, you look in verse five, he does many more miracles as well. After all that he had taught them, after all that he...

26:08 And why? Because I'm looking looking at my own strength, looking at my own power, and like the disciples, I see that I'm totally weak. But instead of trusting in him, I just turn and go the other direction. Has that ever happened to you or maybe I'm the only one here? But see what what what Christ wants us to do is what instead of being fearful and cowardly, he wants us to look to him.

26:40 How is it that you have no faith? Put your faith in him. The... I I looked up the word for faith here as well. Greek word...

26:50 The Greek word is pistis. It means trust or confidence. And in this dictionary, it said, the state of believing on the basis of the reliability of one trusted in. There is a reliability to Christ. Lot of people and unfortunately, lot of Christians, they view faith or believing as if it's just some kind of leap in the dark that you take.

27:17 No foundation, no basis for for doing it, you just do it and hope that everything turns out to be okay. That that is completely different from from biblical faith. Biblical faith, there is a sure foundation. There is so much evidence that points us to the Lord Jesus Christ and why we should trust him, not only as our savior, but trust him as we go about living the Christian life. He had demonstrated his reliability to the disciples with the miracles, the teaching, his care for people.

27:56 And and yet they... The disciples went against the evidence and acted cowardly. That is faith. Faith is relying upon someone who is strong enough, someone who is powerful enough to do exactly what he has promised to do. Another misconception about faith is is what is promoted by a lot of prosperity gospel preachers.

28:22 That is, they'll say stuff like, oh, if you just have enough faith, then you can do whatever you want to do. You want a new BMW? If you just have enough faith, you can get that BMW, man. Go for it. Actually, a friend of mine who was caught up in these teachings, she told me once that she had a friend who was sick and at their church they all came and started laying hands on her, praying for her that actually she was a cripple, I think she broke her leg or something like that, and saying, Oh, if you just have enough faith, you can be healed.

29:05 And was never healed. Wrong definition of faith. That is not biblical faith. The interesting thing is that the prosperity gospel is so much more so much more like animism or the New Age movement or Hinduism than it is to real Christianity. It's just it's just those religious ideas covered with Christian terminology.

29:34 And the the problem is is that, you know, you're trying so hard to just have enough faith to heal your leg to get that BMW. Zambia, there were at my wife's nursing school, a lot of the students who were engaged in that, they they were trying to have enough faith to make them pass their exams. One guy one guy failed his exam even though he claimed to have enough faith and and went out and committed suicide. This teaching is destructive, taken to its logical conclusion, because he said, you know, where is God? I had enough faith.

30:16 The problem was that his God was too small. If you have a God that you can control by the amount of faith that you have, then really your God, he's just your genie that you're controlling. What is faith? Faith is resting in what God has promised in his all powerfulness, his all wisdom. And you know what?

30:45 Just think about if faith is a force, insert that definition into a verse like Ephesians two verse eight and nine. For by grace are you saved through faith or if you will, through force. Faith, under that definition, becomes a work. And if you just have enough faith, you can save yourself. But faith is just simply relying, trusting, having confidence depending upon someone or something.

31:37 Yes, absolutely. Why? Because he is an all loving God and an all wise God. He knows the end from the beginning and he knows what is best. And maybe his deliverance is not calming the sea, but his deliverance is taking you home to be with him in heaven.

32:01 Which is better? Which is far better? See, faith is trusting the Lord that his will done in his way and according to his timing is best. And we know his will when we read his word. And when we know his will according to his word, we can trust him that he will do it.

32:28 So we see his divine nature displayed. I mean, his divine... Yeah, his divine nature displayed over his creation. But we also see his divine nature displayed in his authority over his disciples. And you know what?

32:46 When we come to verse 41,

32:49 it says, and they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be? Who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey?

33:04 The disciples had just been with him for a little while. In fact, it was just that same day, earlier that day, that Christ had picked out 12 of them. They're still getting to know him and... But they had seen his miracles, they had seen his teaching, and Christ was giving them a lesson on trusting him. And so they're still figuring this out.

33:33 Who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? Later on, they have another experience out on the lake where Christ comes walking to them out on the water. And the most descriptive detail of that one is in Matthew chapter 14. Matthew chapter 14, and love I love this verse. I'll read verse 31 to 33.

34:11 Matthew 14 verse 31 to 33. And immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said, oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? So the second experience out on the sea with another storm and the disciples fall into the same habit of not not trusting him. And he rebukes them again. Verse 32, And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

34:37 33, Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped him, saying, Truly, you are the son of God. They finally realized the second time. The second time they're out on the sea, they realized who this person was. He was, yes, he's fully human, but he was fully God himself as well. And he displayed that in the miracles that he did, including the miracle of calming the wind, calming the storm, and they worship him.

35:09 They worship him because it... Throughout the Bible, j w say that Christ was just a created being, that God created him. Then why is he accepting worship here? All the angels who served God when humans worshiped them, they rejected it. They say, No, stand up.

35:29 I'm just a fellow servant like you are. Don't worship me, worship God alone. But here, Christ did not reject that worship. He accepted it. If he was truly a created being and a messenger of God, he would have rejected it right there and then.

36:06 His power over nature, being able to calm the storm. You know, I once heard a story of an artist who painted a painting. I forget the artist's name. But he painted a painting a big waterfall with tons of water just pouring over the the side in such a tremendous force. In the middle of the waterfall, you had a branch coming out, and on the end of that branch was was a bird's nest and a bird just sitting there peacefully at calm.

36:46 So often when we think of peace, think of, you know, a serene picture by a lake with calm water. You know, I get... There is truth to that. But true peace is when you're in the midst of the storm and you're so peaceful and calm, just like Christ, sleeping in the boat. How about you and me?

37:13 You know, life is hard and Christians are not exempt from life's difficulties no matter what these prosperity gospel preachers say. But Christ is there in the storm and Christ will deliver us in some form. He might do it right away in calming the storm right away like he did for the disciples. Or he might choose another way to do that. The question is, do we trust him?

37:43 Do we trust his will? Do we trust the way he chooses to carry out his will? And we... Do we trust his timing? So often we want, Lord, my timing, my way, my will.

37:57 Do we submit ourselves to his will as revealed in his word? Now at the at the Ezekiel project, maybe Chris has mentioned this, but we're praying that the Lord would give us the plot of land next next to the next to our building. But we don't know his will. We don't know his will. We don't know his way.

38:23 We don't know his timing. But we trust him in that regard for all three of those. We would like to have that land, but maybe he's looking at it from another perspective. Maybe he's saying that there it cause us to become entangled up with all the red tape dealing with that land. I don't know.

38:45 Maybe he maybe he has other purposes for that. We don't know, but we trust him. And if it is his will, we trust his way to give it to us, and we trust his time. It. What about you?

39:01 What about me? When the storms of life come at you, are we gonna be like the disciples, panic mode? Or are we gonna be like Christ? Rest peaceful. Him.

39:57 When he says he cares for us? Or do we act like the disciples and and question his careteacher, do you not care that we are perishing? He loves you with an immense love. He loves me with an immense love. And he's all wise, all powerful.

40:22 I think we can trust him. I think that's that's the wisest thing. Therefore, seeing his human nature and his divine nature, may we view him for who he is and trust him even more. There's a quote in our chapel's bulletin in the month of June. They had a quote from Hudson Taylor.

40:49 And I don't remember it exactly but I'm paraphrasing it here but it it really stuck with me the past few months. This is what Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China said. He said, most... Something like this, most Christians today accomplish very little for God because they count on their own resources to get the job done. The quote unquote, great men of God have always been weak men or people who considered themselves weak, but who counted on God's presence and power to be with them every step of the way.

41:27 How about you and how about me? I wonder if just in closing we could sing number hymn, hymn number one fifty eight. I know it's not Christmas yet, but I I really love this hymn and I I think it it it asked the same question that the disciples asked asked. It says, who is he in Jondar Stall at whose feet the shepherds fall? Tis the Lord, a wondrous story.

42:03 Tis the Lord, the king of glory. At his feet, we humbly fall. Crown him crown him, Lord of all.