Sermon Tone Analysis

Growth is always a process

We are continuing a series of messages where we're looking through the gospels and considering the way Jesus asked so many questions.

In all of the dialogues recorded, he asks over 300 questions and directly answers only 3. In this series we're looking at what he asked, why he did it does often, and what he was accomplishing…

There's one instance where I count eight questions in five short verses, in quick-fire, rapid succession.

Jesus seems a bit frustrated… they've had a long day of feeding well over four thousand people with a happy meal, and now they are in a boat together heading somewhere else.

They had forgotten to bring any food for themselves, and they are utterly confused about something Jesus had said…

Mark 8:17–21 (NIV) — 17 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread?

Do you still not see or understand?

Are your hearts hardened?

18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?

And don’t you remember?

19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” “Twelve,” they replied.

20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”

They answered, “Seven.”

21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

What's Jesus doing here?

Is he just expressing frustration?

I don't think so.

He's not giving into self-pity, he's retreating into a victim mentality.

I think he's doing what any good teacher does from time to time.

Jesus is exposing weaknesses in how they are thinking, how they are approaching life.

He's highlighting the differences between life as they've know it and life in the Kingdom of God that he keeps talking about.

This is part of the process of spiritual formation.

Growth always involves a process…

You didn't get to where you are today, as a human who eats, without going through a process, right‽ You began with your mom's milk, or formula…eventually your body needs more nutrients and you graduate to already-been-chewed (baby) food, that stuff is highly motivating to develop teeth so that you can get on to the good stuff… and eventually you get on the good stuff like steak and fresh asparagus, or my homemade deep dish pizza!

But it's a process to get there.

Spiritual growth, spiritual formation is a process as well.

Jesus initially invites the disciples to simply follow him, but as they do, month after month, the heat gets turned up and near the end of his time with them physically (John 14–16), he tells them that they will probably be killed as a result of following him.

That's not where he started!

And throughout the process, Jesus constantly invites them, just like he's inviting you and I, to continue to develop increasing trust/faith/confidence in him and in his way of life.

You may think I’m being silly or pendantent

Here's a quote I read online this week…

"God calls us to go on a pilgrimage, but we'd rather be tourists.

A pilgrim is led by God into the unknown and invited to trust.

A tourist just wants to sightsee on his or her own terms."

Rich Villodas

God is inviting you and I to go on a pilgrimage rather than on a site-seeing tour.

I want to look at another passage where Jesus is in a boat with the disciples, a passage that is recorded in all three gospels.

Its something that they all remembered quite clearly…

Mark 4:35–41 (NIV)

That day 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 to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

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, “Who is this?

Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

If you’ve been around the Vineyard a little bit, you’ll recognize this passage because it was just a few months ago that Brenda taught us some really good stuff out of here.

Today I want to look at it differently, I want to look at the process of formation that God is inviting us into through the main questions that are being asked… here’s the first one:

“Don’t you care if we drown?”

These are experienced fishermen, as you’re probably aware.

There’s a furious storm has come up, the boat is being swamped…

The disciples are probable climbing over one another in an effort to keep the boat from capsizing as the waves are crashing over the sides… and they notice Jesus peacefully sleeping away in the stern.

They probably were doing everything they know to do before they woke the carpenter turned rabbi whose fast asleep.

And its worth noting that they found themselves in this situation because the followed the direction of Jesus…he’s the one who decided to cross the lake that evening.

One of the things we regularly see in scripture is that God allows his people to be tested.

Any dictionary of biblical themes has lists of passages highlighting God allowing our faith to be tested to build our character and to prove the genuineness of our faith.

1 Peter 1:6–7 (NIV) — 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

James 1:2–4 (NIV) — 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

God allow challenges to his people's lives to develop their character and to test them.

This is not a comfortable idea for many of us…and yet we see it throughout the scripture.

We think life is difficult enough as it is, we don't need something extra.

But a lot of the time life itself is the test!

Why would God allow this?

Listen, in the biblical narrative, when God selects someone (a group pf someone's) to bless them, to appoint them as image bearers, as a representative of himself…

and gives them opportunity and blessing and abundance, and responsibility—the opportunities become the test, the abundant trees of the garden become the test of whether they will trust God to give them wisdom, or whether they'll take wisdom by doing what's good in their own eyes.

Remember the process?

We begin the journey, the pilgrimage, if you will, by surrendering the ownership of our lives to Christ.

He’s the king.

And we mistakenly think that’s the end of the surrendering, but its just the beginning of the journey of surrender.

Along the way, as life feels a bit insecure, the question emerges,

“Will you radically surrender and trust God to create security for you, or will you work to create your own security?”

“Will you radically surrender your resources ands trust God to provide for you needs, or will you work to create your own storehouses of provision?”

“Will you radically surrender your relational needs to God and trust him to meet you in you loneliness, or will you just grab the first available human who comes into your life and make do?”

Jesus, don’t you care that I’m going to drown?

Jesus, why is this happening to me, don’t you care about my needs?

What you’re version of that question?

“Why are you so afraid?

Do you still have no faith?”

So Jesus gets up and rebukes, scolds the wind and tells the waves to quiet, be still!

He talks to the weather and it obeys!

"Bad storm, down boy!"

And then he rebukes the disciples.

We’ll get back to the whole talking to the weather in just a moment.

Why does he rebuke the disciples?

Some people think its because the storm wasn’t that bad and they should’ve been able to handle it.

Other’s think they should have had more faith and rebuked the storm themselves.

Others think Jesus just woke up on the wrong side of the boat!

The storm was bad enough that the boat is being swamped, if they hadn’t of woken him he could’ve ended up waking up while being tossed overboard.

Maybe they were supposed to have confidence that Jesus' number wasn’t up yet, and that God would’ve protected him.

But I think the problem is different… they didn’t approach Jesus in faith, they approached Jesus in fear.

Listen to Conrad Gempf,