Still Stressed? Real Peace Starts Here |02.23.25| Made For More pt.4
I love the fact that it's family Sunday and all of our ages are here together, but sometimes as a parent that makes it feel like it might be a little less peaceful in church.
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I don't know the last time you had a truly peaceful moment, but for me the most recent truly peaceful moment that I can remember, I was sitting in a hot tub on a cold fall morning,
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overlooking the lake where our Airbnb was, as geese were flying low over the water and the sun was rising,
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and the world was so quiet and yet so alive.(...) And I knew that Megan was safely inside, my kids were safely far away in my house with my mom while she's watched them and I could just be.
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I hadn't checked email yet, I hadn't checked social media, I hadn't artificially added to my stress by carrying burdens that aren't mine to carry. And I was nice and warm in the hot tub but the air was crisp. The world was barely awake and yet all the little noises of the lake and the woods blended together into this hum that kind of attached to my breath and every time I breathed in, it was like I was breathing in the love of God and just receiving the gift of God who had created this moment and every time I breathed out, I was sending his love out to everything around me and the people that I care about. And even though there wasn't anyone with me, I wasn't alone. The true peace that I felt was completely and utterly connected to the presence of God that I felt in that moment. And I hadn't heard his voice or anything like that but I had read a short devotional reading that morning and just receiving the gift of that day as I sat in the hot tub, I knew that I had finally slowed down enough to recognize God's presence with me and it was peaceful.
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Now if you were to ask me most days, if my days are peaceful, I would have to answer honestly, no, I don't feel very peaceful very often. Most days after I've snoozed my alarm for the second time, I'm waking up groggy and the demands on my time and attention are right from the first moment because of kids or the dogs and then even I add on to that by giving my attention to something on my phone. So I check my email or I check the weather or I check the latest news stories. And if that does it, if that increases my stress, well then I check social media to distract myself from whatever it is that I'm trying to avoid in that moment. And when that doesn't satisfy my soul or lead me to a place of peaceful rest, I'm usually on to the next thing in search of some momentary relief from the burdens around me. Now last week Danny gave us an excellent message about cultivating a life of joy. But one of the things that he said that stood out to me was all the ways that we as humans(...) try to buy momentary happiness through entertainment or food or distraction. And I think that those are a lot of the same coping mechanisms that we use when we feel a lack of peace as well.(...) Because I can't be the only one that recognizes in our world of extra stress, extra anxiety, extra fear, we are constantly on the hunt for things that we can get to take those feelings away, right? So we try and get peace by pursuing safety.(...) And so we try to get a financial emergency fund and beef it up so that we can be prepared in case something bad happens.(...) And when we don't have that financial margin, we don't feel at ease. We feel a constant burden. Or we stockpile essentials in our pantry because we want to make sure that no matter what bad weather happens, no matter what supply chain disruption happens, we've got stuff for our family.(...) Any stockpilers here?(...) Or we have our go bag always on the ready in our truck, no matter what happens with extra clothes and essentials.(...) Some of us have even pursued safety by avoiding large crowds or moving out to the country so that we can feel safer from crime.(...) And is it bad to want to feel safe?(...) Absolutely not. I think that it's a good thing to be able to take care of those you love, to know that they will be safe. That's a beautiful impulse that I think is built into us by God.(...) But isn't it true that no matter how much we do to ensure our safety,(...) those feelings simply don't last for very long.(...) All it takes is even hearing of someone else experiencing fear or danger. And all of a sudden I'm wondering in my mind, would that happen to me? And I'm going through my mental checklist to make sure that I'm still going to be safe. All it takes is hearing a scary news story. And we are pulled into that cycle. All it takes is one trip to the ER or one fender bender and our emergency fund doesn't seem big enough to ensure our safety anymore.(...) All it takes is one news story about recalled food and now you're rethinking everything you have in your pantry.(...) And now I'm stressed.(...) And now I'm anxious. And now I'm reaching for a snack to make my feelings go away. Now I'm distracting myself with something on my phone. So I don't have to think about that scary news story. But of course that relief doesn't last forever.(...) Am I describing any familiar feelings for any of you, any familiar habits? Does this feel it's hitting on the nose there?(...) But don't you want to be able to wake up feeling rested and not immediately rush into reacting to whatever's being thrown at you? Don't you want to feel at peace with your family and the day that it's before you? How do we get that?(...) Is that even possible?(...) Well, for the last few weeks, we've been making the claim that God made you for more love and joy and peace. And not only is it possible to experience, but you were made for more of it. You were created to grow in your capacity for peace, to experience peace and to be a peacemaker for others. It's what Jesus wants to do in you as he transforms you to become more and more like him. Peace is part of the fruit of the spirit that grows in our lives as the spirit of God works in us. And today we're going to look at a Jesus story that shows us the source of peace and how we can grow in peace in our lives so that you can have more and more of those experiences where the stress of the world can't steal your peace away.(...) So let's open up our Bibles to Mark chapter four. And if you're using the Black Seatback Bible, that's on page 30 of the New Testament.(...) And as you are finding it, this story finds Jesus and his disciples right after they've been teaching the crowds all day long.(...) Jesus has been teaching about God's kingdom, God's presence. And he says that it's like a seed. It's a small, small seed, but it can grow into this huge bound of little harvest, even though we don't know how all the processes work.(...) He says God's presence, God's authority in our lives, it's like a light that can fill a whole room with warmth. And he calls us not to hide the light, but to let it shine. And so after teaching all day, Jesus is tired. And then he suggests that they head out by boat while he rests.(...) And so let's read together from Mark chapter four, starting in verse 35.(...) Here's the word of the Lord.(...) "On that day when evening had come, he said to them, let's go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose and the waves beat onto the boat so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" He woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace,(...) be still."(...) Then the wind ceased and there was a dead calm.(...) He said to them, "Why are you afraid?(...) Have you still no faith?"
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And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God."(...) Now our story starts with Jesus sitting in the boat. And he had been sitting in the boat so that the crowds could sit on the shore and could hear him teach. And so leaving by boat makes sense. And so they load up and they head out across the lake as the sun goes down. Now the fishermen that Jesus was with, they know exactly what it's like to fish at night. And so this wouldn't have been weird or scary at all to be in a boat at night.(...) And so a few probably found a spot to try and rest while a few of the others tried to keep their boat going as straight as possible. But then a calm night becomes chaos because a huge windstorm comes up suddenly and the waves are so high that they're threatening to capsize the boat.(...) Now something that I learned while researching this story is that the Sea of Galilee is actually like in a basin. It's got some hills around it and it turns into a wind tunnel often unexpectedly suddenly that can just turn into a rainstorm or big windstorm out of nowhere. And it reminds me of the last time Megan and I took the kids to Chicago and we turned a corner. And the way that that wind just hit us right in the face, I thought for sure Emerson was going to be picked up and thrown by the wind because it's just whipping off the face of that lake and it's unexpected, you know, sudden like that. And this is exactly what happens. Okay. Now if you talk to weather scientists, maybe you know someone or maybe you have someone in your family who farms and is really into atmospheric conditions and they have all the scans and everything like that, you'll know that nowadays we know a lot about windstorms and weather patterns. We know that they're caused by high pressure systems interacting with low pressure systems. And when they hit each other, one pushes the other one down and it can cause an increase in the dew point and an increase in humidity. Often suddenly rain can happen out of nowhere. We understand all of that now.(...) But back in the first century, they didn't have any of that. They didn't have Doppler technology. They didn't know what barometric pressure was. All they had was superstitions and they were way more superstitious back then than we are today.(...) They believed that deep water represented a dark, powerful force of evil because you had no idea what monsters lurked down there. And the wind, who knows what kind of magical force or mystical creature controlled the wind. And there's no appeasing the wind or the water when all of a sudden they turned on you. Some people would even think that there were actual gods who governed the wind and the water. And so local fishermen and sailors would often make offerings to these gods to ask for safe passage.(...) Now, even good Jewish fishermen, like the ones who are with Jesus, they would know that there is only one God, but they would still have been raised around all that folklore and superstition. And so they would still have a healthy fear of water because they wouldn't take lightly the power of deep black water underneath their boats at night. They knew the stories from the Hebrew scriptures about the Leviathan or about the whale that swallowed Jonah whole. They knew all that. So a healthy fear of deep water was something everyone had. But when a sudden storm falls upon you in the middle of the night, it's not healthy fear, it's panic. And panic just sets in because maybe they had anger to God. Maybe they had trespassed into Gentile territory and now they were on the wrong side of the lake. Maybe they were going to die. And while along all the commotion, while some of them are trying to bail out the water and others are yelling, get some buckets, get the rope, someone notices,(...) Jesus isn't with them bailing out the boat. And they're going, where's Jesus? Did we lose him? Did he fall overboard? Where's Jesus? Did we lose our master?(...) And then they find him
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asleep in the front of the boat.(...) Does anyone else need the answer to prayer to have that kind of deep sleep? Does anyone else need to know what kind of sleep supplements Jesus was on? I need that, Lord. Hear our prayer because come on now, he's a heavy sleeper in the front of this boat while the storm is raging. But they find him and they're not relieved to find him. They don't go, oh good, Jesus, we found you. They actually kind of yell at him, don't they? They actually kind of call him out, Jesus, don't you care that there's a huge storm?(...) Don't you care that we could probably all die?
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And if I was Jesus, I would have woken up all mad and angry and groggy and been yelling at them too. But not Jesus. He doesn't rebuke them.(...) Our text says that he wakes up, he gets up and he rebukes the wind.(...) This word rebuke, it actually calls the mind kind of like the tone of voice that you would use to tell an animal to sit down.(...) Jesus uses his dad voice and he says to the wind, "Bad dog, down boy." And then our text says he turns to the water, the sea, and he says, "Peace, be still." The first word, peace, be quiet, be silent.(...) Second word, be still. The closest literal translation to this word is muzzle it.(...) Tie your mouth shut.(...) Jesus speaks to the sea and he says, "Be quiet and stay quiet." And like an obedient animal in the presence of their master,(...) the sea and the wind obey. In fact, when it says that the wind ceased, it can be translated the wind rested.
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Everything gets quiet.(...) Everything gets calm.(...) And then he turns to the disciples and he says to them, and he says to them, "Why are you afraid?(...) Why are you cowardly? Why are you so timid? Have you no faith?"(...) And I wonder what Jesus is asking here. Like is he saying that we can't be afraid of things? Is he saying that when you have fear in your life, you don't have any faith? Like are we not allowed to have fear about actual things in our life?(...) And what about all those slogans that get thrown around all the time nowadays and bumper stickers and on social media? Faith over fear. Like how are we actually supposed to overcome our fear?(...) How do we handle our stress?(...) How do we actually respond to anxiety? Because I don't know about you, but I've tried it. I've tried to will myself into more faith.(...) I've tried to look while my heart is racing at this thing in front of me and go, "My God is bigger than this, but it doesn't last because I'm not faking myself into thinking that this thing in front of me isn't big and scary and dangerous."(...) So what is Jesus saying? Is he saying that I have no faith?(...) See, Jesus isn't saying that his disciples lack understanding that he has power, right? Because they understood that he had power. They had seen him heal people. They had seen him cast out demons. They understood that he had power.(...) But in the book of Hebrews,
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the author of Hebrews tells us that faith is confidence.(...) Faith is assurance. It's different than belief or understanding. For instance, you have a belief that the chair you're sitting in is going to hold your weight. Or if you're watching online, wherever you're sitting, that it's going to hold you. You have that belief. But until you actually put that belief into action and sit in the chair, then you can experience the confidence that it is holding you. You can experience the assurance that you're not going to collapse on the ground because the chair has got you. That's that difference between faith and understanding. And so the disciples understood that Jesus had power, but they lacked faith. They lacked a practical confidence in God. And so they were fearful. They were unable to respond to the crisis with a confidence in God.(...) But now, now that they've seen Jesus calm the storm, our text tells us that they respond with a great fear, a great awe, it says. Now it's not the same as when they were scared of the storm, cowardly, timid. Now they have a great awe, reverence,(...) intimidation,(...) because Jesus is actually more powerful than even the forces of nature.(...) And the stormy seas and the howling winds are now calm and resting.(...) And the disciples are invited into the same experience of peace, knowing that Jesus is the Prince of peace. He's more powerful than any trouble we face.(...) See, in our world of extra stress,(...) extra fear, extra anxiety,(...) you and I, we're constantly on the hunt for ways to ensure our safety,(...) to find rest. We're looking for peace,
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because we want to feel confidence. We want to feel assurance.(...) And that's even in this time of history, in this time of history, when there's less disease in the world than ever before,(...) there's better access to food and water than any time in history before. We don't even have Vikings traveling around pillaging our towns anymore. And yet we still feel anxiety and fear and stress that just shows up out of nowhere, like a windstorm suddenly, unexpectedly, and we're overcome with fear. And our peace is gone.(...) And sure, we can distract ourselves with the types of things we talked about already, the types of things that Danny mentioned last week. We can entertain ourselves. We can get a delicious snack. We can throw ourselves into work so we don't have to think about the stress for a while.(...) But that's just passing peace, temporary peace,(...) not lasting peace.(...) We're buying temporary peace with temporary things, and it just doesn't last.(...) But true peace,
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you can't acquire true peace. You can't buy true peace.(...) True peace was paid for on the cross.
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And it's received as a gift only by drawing close to Jesus.(...) True peace was paid for by the Prince of Peace. And we receive it when we sit in the presence of Jesus.(...) True peace grows inside us as we remain connected to Jesus.(...) And so hear me, if you are lacking peace today,
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maybe it's because you've allowed yourself to become disconnected from Jesus.
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And Jesus tells us in John chapter 15, He tells us to remain connected to Him,(...) to stay connected to Him.(...) I was talking to a friend last week who runs one of our local flower shops in our area. And he's telling me that over the last four years, they have doubled the number of roses they sell on Valentine's Day weekend. And I don't remember the exact figure that he said, but they sold thousands and thousands and thousands of roses just on Valentine's Day weekend in our area. But do you know where those roses are now?
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They're in the trash or they're wilting in a vase somewhere, right? But they're definitely not growing anymore.(...) They're definitely not sprouting any new rose buds because they're not connected to their source of life. And John, Jesus tells us in John chapter 15, He says, "Remain in me."(...) Stay connected to Jesus because branches can't produce fruit once they've been severed from the vine, once they've been severed from the plant. And since peace is a fruit of the spirit,
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we can't get peace from other things.(...) We can only get peace. We can only grow in peace by connecting with the source of true peace.(...) And true peace comes from being close to Jesus, not from being far from fear.(...) Because we can't possibly push the things we're afraid of far enough away. You can't possibly insulate yourself enough with things to make you feel safe. It doesn't last. True peace comes from being close to Jesus,(...) not from being far from fear.
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We can't stop the storms from happening in life.(...) Jesus himself promised that we will have storms, but when we stay connected to Him, when we put into practice the things He tells us, that's when we're like the house that is built on a firm foundation of rock instead of sand.(...) Because the storms do come, but when we're built on the foundation of rock,
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we aren't destroyed by the storm.(...) Because storms aren't truly scary when you have a strong foundation and you're protected by a house.(...) Remember the last lightning storm we had?
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I love lightning storms because when you watch them from inside your warm house,
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oh man, it's like the best fireworks show you could ever imagine. You got your hot chocolate, you got your blanket, you're bundled up with your family, you sit in front of the biggest window you have, and you just watch God show off all across the sky.(...) But if you take a folding chair and sit outside in the middle of a field during that same storm, and the wind is whipping the rain sideways across your face, and the thunder is so loud it feels like it's right on top of you, and the lightning is gonna get you, there's no way that blanket is ever gonna be enough to protect you.(...) No wonder the storm feels so scary when we're out there trying to deal with it on our own.(...) No wonder the storm feels so big and impressive when we are trying to handle it on our own power.(...) But Jesus says,(...) "Take my hand.
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I'm right here.(...) Hold on to me. I've never let you go.
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I climbed up on that cross, and I paid the price, and I beat death, and I've now made a way into life that contains true peace. Take my hand.(...) I'm with you."
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No wonder the storms in our life feel so big, because some of you are trying to face your storms alone.(...) Some of you are wondering where God is if He's abandoned you.
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Some of you are thinking that rescue isn't coming, but Jesus is reaching out to you right now. He says, "Take my hand. See the scars.(...) Feel my side. See the wounds.(...) I have never left you.
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I am always with you."
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We don't have to settle for passing peace, because true peace was already paid for by the Prince of Peace. And if we reconnect with the presence of Jesus, the same peace will grow in us.
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So what is Jesus saying to you today?(...) What is God inviting you to do as the next step of obedience?
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How do you need to reconnect with the presence of Jesus?(...) Do you need to recommit to daily prayer? Do you need to reconnect with reading Scripture regularly?(...) Do you need to reconnect with what Jesus is doing around you by serving or sharing with others? How do you need to reconnect with the presence of Jesus?(...) Because it's in the presence of Jesus that we experience true peace, that we grow in peace,(...) because we get to see that He never leaves us alone in the storm.
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He's always beckoning us back to hold on to Him as the rock that will never move.
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And so what if God wants to grow peace in your life so that you could be a peacemaker for those around you? What if God wants to increase your active experience of faith so that you can grow in peace, so that you can be a non-anxious presence for others?
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What if God wants to use you to bring peace to someone else who's in a storm right now?
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We get to join Jesus in His work because He has given us His Spirit at work in our lives so that we can grow in peace and share peace with those around us, giving glory to God the Father in His name.(...) Isn't that good news?(...) Amen.