Mark 4:35-41
Sometimes faith looks less like standing tall and more like barely holding on.
This week’s message came from Mark 4:35–41, the story of Jesus calming the storm—a passage that speaks as deeply to pain as it does to power. It’s a story about faith and fear, about storms that threaten to sink us, and about the God who doesn’t always stop them but promises to be in the boat with us through them.
The message began with raw honesty. It’s one thing to proclaim “God is good, all the time,” when the sky is clear. But what about when it isn’t? What about when life hurts, when grief comes too soon, when the questions drown out the answers? Pastor Dave shared from his own heartbreak—the loss of his grandfather just days before—and confessed that he came to this text not as a preacher with tidy answers, but as someone still wrestling to believe what he was preaching.
That’s where the disciples find themselves in this passage: not on calm waters, but in chaos. They are seasoned fishermen, familiar with the Sea of Galilee and its sudden, violent storms. But this one is different. The waves rise high enough to spill over the boat; the wind howls loud enough to terrify men who make their living at sea. And while the storm rages, Jesus sleeps.
When they finally wake Him, their question cuts through centuries of human experience: “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” It’s not a lack of belief in His power—they’ve seen what He can do. It’s a desperate question about His heart: If You can stop this, why haven’t You?
That question still echoes in every hospital room, every graveside, every whispered prayer that begins with why.
But Mark’s Gospel shows us something deeper. Jesus doesn’t wake up because of the storm—He wakes because of their unbelief. The storm doesn’t disturb Him, but their fear does. He rebukes the wind and the waves, and suddenly there’s silence—peace where chaos had been. Then comes His own question: “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
At first, that question can sound harsh. But it’s not anger—it’s longing. Jesus isn’t scolding His disciples; He’s inviting them to trust that He is enough. He wants them to reach the point where, even in the middle of the storm, they can rest—not because the water is calm, but because He is in the boat.
That’s the heart of the message: Jesus never promised the journey would be easy, but He promised He would be with us on it.
Faith is not pretending the waves don’t exist; it’s trusting the One who commands them.
The sermon wrestled deeply with the hard question—why does a good God allow suffering? The answer, it said, begins with love. Because love is only real if it’s chosen, and choice means freedom. God gave humanity the freedom to love Him—and that same freedom makes sin, evil, and suffering possible. A world without choice would be a world without love, without relationship, without meaning.
So the presence of pain isn’t the absence of love; it’s the proof that love exists at all. If love is possible, suffering will be too. But the cross tells us that suffering is never the end of the story.
God takes our pain so seriously that He entered into it. He sent His Son to the cross, not to explain suffering, but to redeem it. Jesus took evil and death head-on—not because He couldn’t stop them, but because He knew that through His death and resurrection, something better was coming. Resurrection doesn’t erase pain; it transforms it.
Sometimes, like the disciples, we want deliverance from the storm when what we most need is the presence of the One who rides it out with us. The message reminded us that even when the world feels unfair, the Gospel gives meaning to what feels meaningless. The cross is proof that our faith is not a denial of suffering but a defiant hope in the midst of it.
We all face storms—grief, loss, anxiety, injustice, pain. We all ask why. But the promise of Scripture isn’t that we’ll never suffer; it’s that Jesus is in the boat, and that we will make it to the other side.
In the end, faith becomes a choice. To believe when it doesn’t make sense. To trust when it still hurts. To love even when love has cost you. To keep rowing even when the storm isn’t calm yet.
Because one day, the storm will stop for good. The Book of Revelation tells us that a day is coming when there will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more grief—only peace. Until then, faith means believing that something better is coming, and that even now, Jesus is enough.
