Making Marriage Work (Ephesians 5.21-33)

Introduction

A little girl was invited to a wedding and she said to her mum, “Why is the bride wearing a white dress?” And her mum replied, “Oh, it’s because she’s happy.” Then the little girl said, “Well, why is the groom wearing black then?”

Tonight’s talk is entitled ‘Making Marriage Work’ and I’d like to start by giving two very good reasons why some people might say I am wasting my time.

Firstly, its content is irrelevant. These verses are addressed to married couples. Since most of us here this evening are single, it’s just not the right sort of passage for this kind of audience.

Secondly, its teaching is outdated. It says that wives must be submitted to their husbands and that husbands are heads over their wives. This is the 21st century where the vast majority of married couples consider themselves to be equal partners with virtually interchangeable roles.

And now, three reasons why I should - and must - preach on this passage. Firstly, because God wants us to know his thoughts about human relationships, even if they don’t apply to us at the present time. Since when does my marital status dictate which parts of the Bible I need to read? You might not know this but it just so happens that I have never robbed a bank. But that doesn’t mean the eighth commandment; ‘You shall not steal’ is not relevant to me.

Secondly, because whether we like it or not, Ephesians 5 is in the Bible - and is therefore part of God’s revelation, his word. We are not at liberty to ditch this part of Paul’s letter because it’s controversial, offensive, mystifying or politically incorrect; quite the reverse. Not liking what you read in the Bible is all the more reason to wrestle with it and engage with it.

Thirdly, because there is so much marital unhappiness in our society. Marriage has become the butt of jokes. “My wife and I were happy for 25 years – and then we met!” Listen to these definitions of marriage. “Marriage is like a violin; after the sweet music is over the strings are attached.” “Marriage is made in heaven – like thunder and lightning.” “Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgets.” By the way guys, the way round that one is to say, “Well, how do you expect me to remember your birthday when you never look any older?” That usually gets you off the hook – for a few minutes anyway!

Marital unhappiness is endemic. So it is urgent for us to commend God’s vision for stable and happy marriage that glorifies him by showing the world what the relationship looks like between Christ and his bride, the Church.

The Pattern for All Christian Relationships

Our reading begins with v21; “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord…” Before I mention the “submittedness” this scripture calls for from wives in respect of their husbands, I want to stress, strongly, that mutual deference, giving way to each other, is the pattern God lays down for all Christian relationships, no exceptions. Paul himself called himself a servant even though he was an apostle with great authority, and Jesus rolled washed feet before submitting himself to the death of the cross.

So this teaching here is not isolated, it is not focussed exclusively on how a married woman should relate to her husband; verse 21 will not allow that interpretation. No, God is saying here that the meek submitted heart is a pattern for holy living across the board. When people push and shove for their rights, and selfishly assert their beliefs, and control others, and are obsessed with pecking orders they fail to mirror Jesus’ life. Being pushy and domineering – in any relationship – does do not revere or honour Jesus. So “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ…

1) Wives: Submission as to Christ

…Wives to your husbands. I’m going to start by looking at how these scriptures portray the wife’s perspective vis-a-vis her husband – because that’s the way round it comes in the passage. I’ll come to husbands later.

Let’s get a bit of background first. It will help us to understand these words better. We owe it to Paul to read his words in the context of the culture of his day. The Greco-roman world of the first century into which he wrote was, in almost every aspect, different to the environment we live in today. Orthodox Jewish men regarded women with condescension and contempt. Always. Every day, a Pharisee would start his prayers thanking God that he had not been born a gentile, a slave or a woman. According to the law, women were not persons as much as property and they had no rights as such. In Greek life, (and Ephesus to which Paul addressed these thoughts was a Greek city), a loving and permanent friendship between a man and a woman was practically unheard of.

In that culture, men expected their wives to run the home and raise their legitimate children, but unfaithfulness was universal and most married men had mistresses. Marriage was in a shocking state across the Roman Empire. The debauchery of the great city of Rome was legendary. It is no exaggeration to say that the ancient world was institutionally adulterous. Men shamelessly cheated on their wives as a matter of routine. No one was shocked, least of all the wives at home. It came with the territory. That is the background into which Paul penned these words.

Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord (v22). As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything (v24)…

I’ve preached on this passage a few times before, even at weddings at the request of the bride and groom. I am going to say a few words later on about what I think God requires of husbands because, as a married man, I speak from experience. But I’ve never been, and never will be, a married woman, and even though I think I know what the passage is saying, and I will comment on it later, I thought it would be much better if I started by asking two married women what they really think.

So Kathryn and Jan, would you like to come to the front please… While they make their way forward, I would like to assure you that I have not pushed an editorial line on this. I haven’t told them what I think. I haven’t given them anything to read. Nor have I checked them out to see if they agree with me beforehand. I have no idea what they think of this passage or how they work it out in their own lives, (if indeed they even try) so I’m taking a bit of a risk, but hopefully that will make it more exciting.
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Look at what Paul says to children in 6v1. “Children obey your parents.” Then in 6v5 look at what he says to slaves. “Slaves obey your earthly masters.” But at no point is the word “obey” used as appropriate for a wife in respect of her husband. Paul could have used the same word. He could have said, “Wives obey your husbands.” But he doesn’t. I think that suggests that, whatever submission does mean, it is emphatically not the relationship between a subordinate and a superior.

Verse 33 suggests that the sense of the word ‘submit’ is closer to ‘esteem’ or ‘respect’ than ‘obey’ or ‘surrender.’ Why? Because whereas Paul repeats there what he has already said three times to husbands, that they should love their wives as their own bodies, instead of repeating the word ‘submit’, for the wives, he substitutes the word ‘respect’ instead.

In my ministry I submit myself to the Bishop. I do that gladly. My submission to Bishop Tom means I pray for him and incline myself to facilitate his ministry. I esteem his leadership and I give weight his guidance. It happens that I don’t agree with everything he says. But my submission means I try to yield graciously to his authority. I think that is the sense of submission in marriage; to esteem, to yield, to facilitate, to honour, to give respect and show loyalty.

I want to say too (and I insist on this strongly) that submission, in particular that of a wife to her husband, is not absolute, it is conditional and provisional. What I mean is this; any Christian’s first loyalty is to Christ. He alone deserves unqualified allegiance, whether we are male or female, single or married.

So a wife who is being led by her husband into sin and disobedience to Christ should draw a line in the sand there. A woman who is being subjected to physical violence or emotional cruelty by her partner is under no compulsion to stay with him – and I would usually counsel her to leave the relationship for her own safety. The Bible says a man reaps what he sows. A wife whose husband is unfaithful to her is not required to have him back, though she may choose to – and I would usually counsel her to do so if she felt she could.

Somebody once said that men are most fulfilled in marriage when their wives admire them and feel proud of them, while women are most fulfilled in their marriages when their husbands cherish them and are attentive to them. These verses, written 20 centuries before that observation was made, are basically saying the same thing.

2) Husbands: Love as Christ loves the Church

If wives have the difficult task of submitting to their husbands, for husbands it’s mission impossible - loving their wives as Christ loved the Church. I sometimes ask myself if the reason why so many women are dismayed at the suggestion that they should be subject to their husbands is because they have never seen a husband who loves his wife like Jesus loves us, or even a husband who loves his wife as much as he loves his own body?

And if they were married to such a man, would they find submission so hard? A guy who comes home from work, throws himself onto the sofa, without so much as an acknowledgement of anyone else at home, and switches on the TV to watch sport, calling for a cold beer deserves to have it poured on his head!

Here’s what male chauvinism can descend into: A bunch of men go fishing and one of the wives insists on coming too. They get into a boat and head out to the middle of the lake. When they get there the woman suddenly realises she has forgotten her rod and line. So she gets out of the boat, walks on water over to the shore, fetches her rod from the car, walks on water back to the boat. Then one of the guys says, “Typical woman, always forgetting things!”

On the other hand you may have heard the story about the group of men waiting to get admitted into heaven. There are two entrances. There are 99 pathetic looking guys outside the first door which says ‘Men who were hen pecked by their wives.’ And there is one solitary guy outside the second door which says ‘Men who stood up to their wives.’ And St. Peter comes along and says to the guy on his own, “What are you doing in this queue?” And the bloke replies, “Oh, my wife told me to stand here!”

We all know couples where the man is weak or easily led, where the woman wears the trousers and one fearsome look drains all her husband’s testosterone in an instant. That’s not how Christ loved the church; he manfully prayed all night for his church, he set his face to go to the cross for his church, he faced his enemies without flinching, he courageously poured out his life, he went all the way to death for his church. “No one takes my life from me,” he said, “I lay it down myself.” Husbands, that’s the standard; love your wives like that.

The novelist Marie Corelli said, “I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home that serve the same purpose as a husband. The dog growls every morning, the parrot swears all afternoon and the cat comes home late every night!

If men want to be good lovers, they should look at verses 25, 28 and 33. You probably know that the Greek language, which is what the New Testament was written in, has several different words, all of which are translated by the one English word ‘love’. Eros is sensual, romantic love and it’s where we get the words erotic and erogenous. Philia and philadelphia, brotherly love, is the love of companionship and includes loyalty to friends and communities. Storgé is natural affection or attachment, like the love parents have for their children. And agapé, which was hardly used at all in everyday talk, means a sacrificial, selfless love, a courageous love that commits.

Eros, philia and storgé describe a love that is mutual, that is returned. But the word agapé has no sense of needing to be requited. It can be one-way. Eros, philia and storgé express our affections and feelings. Agapé doesn’t really communicate what you feel. It is a conscious choice to esteem and hold in high regard another person, even if they don’t appreciate you, and even if it doesn’t make you feel ‘wow’. That’s the love God has for us. No matter what you do to him, he will never love you less. However cold your heart is towards him, he will always lay down his life for you. And that’s the love God calls husbands to show to their wives.

God says, “Even if your wife is objectionable, choose to love her. Even if she burns the dinner every night, love her. Even if she is much less beautiful than your new secretary, love her - and her alone. Even if your feelings about her change, as they will over time, love her. Even if she doesn’t submit to you, like the Bible says, or love you back, love her still.” Husbands and future husbands - that’s leadership, Jesus’ way. Loving a wife as Christ loves the Church means loving till the end and even being ready to suffer and die for her.

John Piper put it this way. “I have never met a woman who chafes under Christlike leadership. But I know of too many wives who are unhappy, because their husbands have abdicated their God-ordained leadership and have no moral vision, no spiritual conception of what a family is for and therefore no desire to lead anyone anywhere.” Well said!

Any fool can have a trophy wife. It takes a real man to have a trophy marriage. And in Christ sinful, self-absorbed men can become real men. And here’s the trick; in committing to love as Christ loves the Church you enter into his joy and instead of being a drudge your marriage reaches new heights of happiness.

3) Marriage: Leave, Be United, Become One Flesh

In v31 Paul refers to Genesis 2.24, a verse Jesus quoted when questioned about marriage. “A man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

Notice the two become one flesh after the man unites to his wife, not his girlfriend.

It’s the most fundamental statement on Christian marriage there is. Most problems in marriage, in my experience, come down to a failure to put into practice one of the three elements of this verse.

Some couples don’t cut the emotional umbilical cord with their mums and dads. Marriage can make the worst possible start because one or both partners don’t leave home properly. Sometimes it’s because well-meaning in-laws interfere too much and you’ve got to draw boundaries. Other times it’s because husband and wife still look to mum or dad for the affirmation and affection they need to be getting from their spouse alone. God says, “You’ve got to leave your father and mother.”

I’ve known couples in unhappy marriages because, while they’ve cut the umbilical cord, they just don’t connect at a soul level with one another. They fail to communicate deeply and resolve conflicts. Forgiveness gets withheld and tensions get buried. God says “Be united to one another” but many couples live in emotional and relational independence. They’re strangers under one roof and it’s only a matter of time before they drift apart irreconcilably.

Still others have problems in marriage because of unresolved sexual tension. Very often it’s because a spouse is putting his or her own enjoyment above pleasing their partner. Ask any 100 guys if they think they’re good lovers and you’ll get over 90% saying “Oh yes.” Ask their wives and you’ll discover the percentage drops alarmingly. The art of good lovemaking, according to God’s plan, revealed in Scripture, is to seek your pleasure in delighting your spouse. Couples who are both committed to pleasing their partners instead of gratifying themselves are the happiest lovers on earth. You read it here first.

Ending

Martin Luther once said, “Wives, conduct yourselves in such a way that your husbands hurry home every evening! And husbands, respond in kind, that your wives might regret your leaving the next morning!” The challenge is to help couples turn “I do” into “we can.”

Finally, an announcement. Starting June 8th we’re going to be running the Marriage Course on Monday evenings here at All Saints’. It’s a seven week course for married couples with presentations and little exercises you do together as a couple. There is no group work at all. So it’s private between you and your spouse. The themes are good foundations, real communication, resolving conflict, learning forgiveness, parents and in-laws, good sex and love languages. We’ll have more information next week. I’ve done the course myself with Kathie and it’s absolutely excellent. I fully recommend it.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 10th May 2009

God and Sex - An Overview (Song of Songs 1.1-4, 8-1-6)

'The Kiss' by Auguste Rodin

The Next Seven Weeks

I’m not going to speak for long tonight, because I want to give Mike plenty of time to present Evaluate a bit later, but I think it would be good to set the scene for this series of talks on sexuality and relationships that we’re going to do here over the next seven weeks.

In the next two Sundays we’re going to be looking at marriage and singleness, in that order. A little girl was once asked, “What is it called when a man is married to just one woman? And she replied, “Monotony!” Many marriages struggle along in an unhappy truce of boredom and non-communication. That’s not God’s plan.

I would guess that most people here have suffered from close family members getting divorced. For some of you it will have been your parents and that will have hurt you deeply. So many marriages collapse and end in divorce. Christian couples are just as vulnerable to marriage breakdown as non-Christian ones. That’s not God’s plan either. So how can I make my marriage work? What are the keys to a good marriage according to God’s word?

With so much unhappiness in marriage you would have thought that most single people wouldn’t want to go near it. But many people suffer from acute loneliness and low self-esteem by remaining single. So how can I honour God in singleness? We’ll look into that in a fortnight’s time.

Then, the following two weeks, we’re going to think about the broader issue of masculinity and femininity. In the last 30 years or so our culture has embraced and promoted a blurring of male and female distinctives. So we now have less feminine women and less masculine men. That’s not good. We’re going to look into God’s word and try and recapture a vision of masculinity and femininity as God intended.

In early June, we’re going to look at two big, big issues. Firstly, homosexuality. I suspect that many here will privately have major questions about this. Instinctively, we feel from quite a young age that, biologically speaking, homosexuality just doesn’t fit. But the pressure to uncritically accept gay sex in our culture is overwhelming and unrelenting. In fact it’s borderline against the law to openly disapprove of it.

Many people, especially young people, just don’t know what to think anymore. So I’ve invited two people, who have both come out of an openly gay lifestyle since becoming Christians, to speak about their experience and on their understanding of God’s plan for their lives. I suspect that this is a voice that will be completely new to you, such is the aggressive agenda in the Western world to silence it by all possible means.

The second big issue is sexual brokenness; that is to say the traumas that result from abuse, rape, incest and so on. Tragically, a surprising number of people have suffered this kind of ordeal. It can lead to bitterness, an inability to form healthy relationships, guilt, self-harm, depression and a whole host of other consequences. Is there any healing for the victims? Is there any hope of real change for the perpetrators?

The Strength of Sexual Passion

That’s where we’re going. But tonight, to set the scene, I want to start by reading some words from the Song of Songs, chapter 5 which Chris is going to read for us…

I need to say first of all that I don’t think this kind of language has any place in our worship songs. “You’re altogether lovely.” “Let my words be few. Jesus I am so in love with you.” “I’m desperate for you.” “Beautiful One I love you.” “I turn my eyes upon you now, look full in your wonderful face.” “Renew me in your presence and refresh me with your kiss.”

Yes, the Church is the bride of Christ and marriage does point to the covenant love between Christ and his Church, but at no time is our relationship with Christ ever portrayed as erotic in Scripture. If Jesus was my girlfriend the Bible would say so.

The Song of Songs does not primarily have the relationship between Christ and the church in view. Some people disagree. Some say, “This is an allegory.” In other words, it doesn’t mean what it looks like it means. So when she says in chapter 1.12 “My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts” some interpreters claim this is actually a picture of Christ’s appearing between the Old and New Testaments. I just don’t think it does. When I read “My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts” I just don’t think about the incarnation – at all. And I don’t think Solomon was thinking about it either when he wrote those words.

The Song of Songs is an uninhibited, passionate, sensual love poem with strong sexual suggestion and many playful euphemisms – it’s quite hard to read it without your glasses steaming up. It’s sexually and emotionally intense. But its purity and innocence are unequalled in world literature.

The Song of Songs is a poem about human, sexual love with erotic overtones. As C.J. Mahaney put it, and I can’t say it better than this; “This Song is intended to arouse husband and wife to cultivate and experience holy romance and sex… for the pleasure and the glory of God.”

The Song of Songs confirms - with divine approval - what we already know; sexual attraction arouses the most ardent passions we are capable of. In the Song of Songs romantic love fills the senses. It is intoxicating. It can be almost hypnotic. Verse 1; “I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride, I have gathered my myrrh with my spice... I have drunk my wine and my milk...” “Drink your fill of love.”

This is a celebration of those passions that get the blood pumping, the heart beating and the mind racing. In v2-8 the girl has a vivid dream. She is longing for lover all the time. She imagines he’s there. In v5; “I arose to open for my beloved and my hands dripped with myrrh.” Her hands are sweating, he’s not there. She longs to see him again. Every minute they are apart seems like hours. Verse 6; “I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him but did not find him.” Verse 8; “Tell him I am faint with love.”

Sexual attraction is potent and very physical. In chapter 4 he describes her – to her face – and says how attractive he finds her. Her eyes, her hair, her teeth, her lips and mouth, her temples, her neck and breasts… He stops there! “All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you” (v7). “You have stolen my heart” (v9). Notice this; he initiates.

In chapter 5, verses 10-16 she, in turn, picks out features and describes the effect looking at him and being with him has on her; his head, his hair, his eyes, his cheeks and lips, his arms, his torso, his legs, his kiss. “His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely.”

Ending

I only want to briefly set the scene for the rest of the series before handing over to Mike who is going to present Evaluate.

So let me wind up here. Along with the will to survive and the quest for significance, the sex drive is the strongest urge we have. The Song of Songs reveals it as explosive, volatile, excitable and almost unstoppable. It is designed by God for our pleasure and for his glory. It is healthy and good.

We know too that the devil corrupts it, society trashes it and sin perverts it. It can be horribly abused and defaced. The biggest heartaches in life can come from wrong thinking and wrong choices about sex. We need to hear from God, be educated in his ways and walk in the light of his revelation – and that’s what the ministry Evaluate is all about.

So Mike, let me pray for you and then I’ll hand over…


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 4th May 2009

Weathering the Storms of Life (Mark 4.35-41)

Introduction

Our reading from Mark’s gospel this morning is about a dozen solid, strapping blokes in their prime, four of whom virtually lived at sea, scared witless by a spot of bad weather.

We know this gale must have been strong because the geography of the region is like a miniature of the Caribbean. The Sea of Galilee lies at the foot of Mount Hermon, which is high enough at the summit to be capped in snow all year round. At the same time it is only a bus ride from the Mediterranean Sea. When warm air rises from the sea and cold air descends from the mountains, the two fronts collide producing sudden and dangerously violent storms.

There’s a story about Queen Victoria’s ship running into some bad weather in the Irish Sea. A freak wave made the ship lurch to one side, almost knocking the queen off her feet. She sent an attendant to the bridge with the message, “Give my compliments to the captain, and tell him he’s not to let that happen again!” It seems to have escaped Her Majesty’s notice that the captain was only human.

And at the beginning of our short reading Jesus looks very human too. In v38 we catch him asleep after an exhausting day’s work. Jesus was a real man who needed to rest sometimes but he can also stop storm force winds by ordering them to calm down. Not everybody can do that. Not even the captain of the royal yacht.

I’m going to invite you to look at this story from three different angles; the storm, the disciples and then Jesus. Let’s look at the storm first.

1) When Storms Happen

Weather forecaster Michael Fish famously laughed off reports about a small hurricane heading towards the U.K. the day before Britain’s worst gales on record. I remember the day afterwards going out in the car and getting nowhere. There were fallen trees blocking roads, phone lines were down, advertising boards in shreds, whole towns were without power – southern England was like a war zone.

Michael Fish knows now that rainstorms break into your life when you least expect them to. They don’t phone you to make space in your diary for them. They mess your life up. They are inconvenient.

And here it’s the same. Verse 35 tells us that evening was drawing in. By the time they get out into the lake it must have been dark. That makes a bad storm feel worse. Matthew’s parallel account (chapter 8) says that it had been a long, stressful day. The disciples probably wanted a bit of time to unwind. How bothersome is it to have to battle with a life-threatening minor tornado in the dark when you are already shattered?

But isn’t that just life? Have you noticed that people lose their jobs and fall sick and discover their kids have been taking drugs and lose a loved one and discover their teenage daughters are pregnant at the most appallingly bad times – like when your marriage is struggling, your bills are going up, Boro are going down, someone dents your car without leaving a note and the boiler gives up? Don’t even mention swine flu, bird flu or what have you. Storms kick you when you are down.

To be frank with you, I think we have been weathering something of a storm at All Saints’ over the last month. Both Sylvia and I have had close family members in hospital at the same time as some difficult pastoral situations to attend to besides illness and exhaustion in the staff team, as you know. I’m not going to name them but some of your leaders here have spent long evenings trying to sort out some of the crises that have suddenly appeared. At the same time, there’s been malicious gossip coming from outside the church that we’ve had to set straight. I’d like to say more about that but the Diocese have advised me not to. And wouldn’t this just be the week that the church computer breaks down, creating additional work? Wouldn’t this be the week someone accidentally walked off with my keys, leaving me looking for them all afternoon! Then to cap it all I was awoken by a neighbour this morning to tell me that someone had vandalised the church centre overnight. I quickly got dressed, ran over to the church and found this.

Storms kick you when you are down and it all comes at once. But that’s not all. Storms are not just inconvenient, they’re indiscriminate too. Bad times don’t just visit people who have wandered off from God. We’d understand if they did. We’d say, “Ah, God’s trying to say something to you.” But in the real world storms often blow up – guess when? When you are plumb in the centre of God’s will for your life.

Notice Jesus says in verse 35, “Let us go over to the other side.” They could have replied, “Oh, not now! Lord, we need a rest. We are not going anywhere till tomorrow.” Suppose Jesus had said, “Look, it’s late now. Let’s bed down here and take a boat tomorrow morning.” Then we could all say, “See what happens when you ignore God’s will for your life – you end up in a storm.” But life isn’t that easy. If the disciples had refused to go out on the lake, they would have settled down for the night on dry land they would have slept in their beds like babies and never even known about the storm on the lake. The truth is they were right where Jesus told them to be - and they were still struck by a raging gale! Some people talk as if walking in God’s will means life will be a breeze. No. Walking in God’s will means life will be an adventure.

2) What Are You Supposed to Do in a Storm?

So much for the storm. What about the guys in the boat? What would you have done if you had been in that vessel with the twelve? Let’s say it; they were pathetic bunch. One of them, Thomas, must have been something of a pessimist. Only three things he ever said are recorded in the Bible. There’s the famous “I don’t believe it” speech after Jesus was raised from the dead. Then he says (in John 13), “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. So we’re completely lost.” And the other quote is when they get bad news about Lazarus and he says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” What a blessing it must have been having Thomas in the boat...

Then two others were enemies; there’s Matthew, the ever-popular taxman and de facto supporter of the military occupation, and Simon the zealot (who was an insurgent). I’m guessing they were seated at opposite ends of the boat.

Then four of them were fishermen; Peter, Andrew, James and John. You would have thought that their maritime experience would have been a comfort to the others in this crisis but these guys seem to have been a special case. There is no record in the Gospels of any of them catching a single fish, not even a dead sardine, except by a miracle. Look it up. If you can find one fish that Peter, Andrew, James or John caught without Jesus having do a miracle I’ll eat my Bible. If you can find two I’ll eat yours.

So sharing a boat with this lot would not inspire confidence. And I haven’t even mentioned Judas… Now here’s the question. What would you have done, in a storm, with this rogues’ gallery of losers and lame ducks as travelling companions? I can see four options.

Option 1; you leave Jesus alone in the stern and bail water over the side like men possessed. There are twelve of you. That’s 24 hands on deck. Many hands make light work… I think that’s what I would be tempted to do, if I’m honest; handle the situation myself, to boldly bail like no man has bailed before.

But this appears to have been a serious storm. Verse 37 says that “waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was nearly flooded.” For every cup you threw overboard there was a bucket coming back in over your head. For all my boldness, I would have gone down to the seabed a heroic failure.

Option 2. You panic, wake Jesus up, grab his lapels and shout faithlessly for help… which is what they did do of course. And what happens? Jesus tells them off. “What are you so scared about?” he says, “Do you still have no faith?” Remember this; Jesus has a problem with having his sleep disturbed over the trifling matter of a small tornado.

So to option 3. Perhaps the problem was not that they woke Jesus up, but that they were so terribly loud and vulgar about it? You still wake Jesus up and appeal for help, but without panicking. In that phlegmatic stereotypically English way you tap him on the shoulder and go; “I say old chap, sorry to disturb you and all that, but it’s a tad bracing here. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving us a bit of a hand, there’s a sport.” But no, Jesus’ reply in v40 seems to suggest that he detected in their manner a serious lack of faith.

Option 4. What else is there? You take authority in faith. Why is it so annoying when someone suggests prayer in an emergency?

When our daughter Anna was about three, we had to get to Bible College in our old Citroën 2CV on a cold February morning. 20 minutes of turning the ignition key, waiting, turning again, giving it more choke and pumping the gas pedal got us nowhere. Kathie knows that in these situations it’s best to say nothing. After about 25 minutes of fuming and muttering and, like a typical man, looking under the bonnet (as if I knew what to look for), I was ready to give up. That’s when Anna, only just able to talk, said in a loud voice from the back seat, “Come on Jesus, start the car!” I put the key back in the ignition, turned it again and the engine fired first time.

People were praying when the Titanic went down. Then again, people were playing chamber music as if nothing was wrong when the Titanic went down… Which activity do you think was most useful?

I think Jesus wanted his disciples to realize they could take authority in faith themselves. Jesus’ primary rebuke is that they still had no faith. “Still.” So much of Jesus’ ministry up till that point had been focussed on building his disciples’ faith and encouraging them to imitate his own simple trust in his Father. “How is it that you still have no faith?”

“Why are you so fearful?” he says. Verse 40 describes them as afraid. But in verse 41, after Jesus has turned the raging waters into an oily calm, the Bible says they were “terrified.” In other words they were frightened about the bad weather but – you know what? Not as much as they were when God moved with power and might in their lives.

I think they wanted a domesticated God, a safe God, a nice God - and not God Almighty, the great and awesome God of Scripture. God deliver all of us from that.

I feel sorry for the disciples. I bet when Jesus said in chapter 1, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men,” they thought, “Ah, fishing, this sounds good.” By chapter 4 I think they were probably saying, “If I had known it was going to be like this, with him, I wouldn’t have come.” Do you know that feeling? I’ve heard people say, “If I knew all the trouble I was going to get before becoming a Christian I wouldn’t have bothered.” I’m sure the twelve apostles, with all the trouble they got into following Jesus around, often wondered why they hadn’t just stuck to tax collecting, fishing or armed revolt - and had a quiet life.

I want to encourage you this morning. God knows that troubles in life often precede new triumphs. God knows that your troubles can precede your triumphs. I’ll show you how in just a minute.

3) Looking to Jesus

But first, having looked at the storm and the disciples, let’s quickly look at it this story from Jesus’ perspective. How does he respond to it?

From first to last, he is in control. Even when he is off duty he’s totally in charge. Bear in mind that he is shattered. He can’t keep his eyes open. I think we can safely say that Jesus has been putting in serious overtime. The squall is jostling the boat this way and that, but Jesus is out for the count. And then his deep, dreamy sleep is abruptly ended by twelve noisy blokes. You can see why he sounds a bit cross.

But then what does he do? He rebukes the wind and tells the sea to be quiet, to put a sock on it (the word means literally “be muzzled”). Jesus addresses the storm and says, “Shut up!” That is profound. Jesus knows that the storm has a voice. It says to you, “You’re no good, you’re a loser.” It shouts, “You’re going down, nothing can save you now.” It yells, “Look at your kids! Call yourself a good Christian parent?” It roars at you and intimidates you and harasses you until you believe everything it says to you. “God doesn’t love you! Why would he let you have so many problems if he really cared for you? Don’t bother witnessing to your colleague; you’ll fail.” Have you been listening to the storm? Is it time to take authority in the name of Jesus and say, “That’s enough talk from you! Be quiet!”

Ending

I’m going to end by telling you how one ordinary person took authority in faith to still the raging storms in her life. She turned troubles into triumphs by refusing to fear and by telling the storm to be quiet. Her name was Wilma and was the 20th of 22 children! She was born prematurely and weighed only 4.5 pounds but she and her mother were not permitted to be cared for at the local hospital which was for whites only. There was only one black doctor where she lived, and money was tight, so Wilma’s mother spent the next several years nursing her through one illness after another: measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and double pneumonia. Then it was discovered that her left leg and foot were becoming weak and deformed. She was told she had polio, a crippling disease with no cure. The doctor said that Wilma would never walk.

But Wilma’s mother was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and she knew better than to listen to the storm. Even though it was 50 miles away, she took her daughter to a special hospital twice a week for two years, until she was able to walk with the aid of a metal leg brace. When Wilma was 8 she watched her sister Yolanda play basketball and, even though her legs were in braces, she refused to listen to the storm and she said to her mum, “One day I want to do that.” And her mum said to her, “Honey, if you believe, you will.” And Wilma said “I believe, mamma.”

On her twelfth birthday Wilma said to her parents, “I have a birthday surprise for you.” And she took her leg braces off and walked unaided for the first time in her life. Soon after, when the basketball club selected youngsters for the new season, Yolanda was taken by the team but Wilma was not chosen. So her dad, refusing to listen to the storm, looked the coach in the eye and said, “You take one of my daughters, you take two. I am not going until you take Wilma as well.” So he took them both but he didn’t play Wilma in a single game for three years. She was the only member of the team to suffer the indignity of having a vest with no number on it. But Wilma still didn’t listen to the storm and finally, she got a few games.

It was then that she was spotted by Ed Temple, the coach for the women's track team at Tennessee State University. He saw straight away that Wilma was built for athletics, not basketball, and he invited her to a summer sports camp. Wilma got better and better. She even started to win races, first in her town, then in her state, and then nationally, even going on to the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 at the age of 16, where she won a bronze medal in the 4x400 relay.

“Honey, if you believe, you will.” “I believe, mamma.” Four years later in 1960, Wilma Rudolph went to the Olympic Games again in Rome, where she took the 100 meter gold, the 200 meter gold, and the 4x400 meter relay gold, breaking three world records.

People of God, we too can turn troubles into triumphs in the name of Jesus by refusing fear and by telling the storm to be quiet. It says in 2 Corinthians 4, “Therefore we do not lose heart... For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

Faith hears the inaudible, sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible, because when we do what we can God does what we can’t. “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you still have no faith?”


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 3rd May 2009