Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - You’re Not Alone in the Struggle | He Promises | Part 3

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

It can be difficult to feel God’s presence when you’re experiencing the storms of life. But Jesus promises to be with you always—through highs and lows. ABOUT THIS MESSAGEMaybe you’ve heard what Jesus has done for others. You want to believe He can do the same for you, but you're not sure it's even possible. Jesus made several promises in the Bible—but what do they mean today? Let’s find out in our new series, He Promises.NEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LCNowCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch  #hepromises Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today, we are actually going to be talking about Jesus is promised to be with you. And I'll say this. I have been with Pastor Craig, as he mentioned, for 26 years. And I'll tell you what, there's nobody realer. There's nobody more spiritually in tune, more love in his family, and more love with Jesus and our senior pastor. And I love him and honor him in this time. And it's an honor to get to be here and share God's word with you today. As I mentioned, we were talking about Jesus being with. You. Our text actually comes from something known as the Great Commission. This is actually given in the very end of the book of Matthew in Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 to 20. And if you've never seen it, it goes like this. It says, therefore, go and make disciples of all of the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always to the very, very end of the age. Doesn't they just sound good? When somebody says, I'm with you, I got you, I got your back. But Jesus says, I'll be with you. It's just comforting, right? It feels nice. And Jesus had proven his power many times before to his disciples and before this verse pops up. And we're going to talk today about time. He doesn't just display his power, but is presence in being with the disciples. And today, we'll look at a story that comes out of the book of Mark, chapter four, if you want to follow along in your U-Version Bible app or in your Bibles, you can

turn there. And for those of you who want to study a little deeper and look at the story, actually gets paralleled in Luke 8 and Matthew 8. So we can look at that. And this story is going to occur in a boat on the sea. And since we're going to be talking about a boat on the see, and I'm speaking, I'm just going to show you a shameless video of my second daughter, Hannah, when I took her out. Now, here's context, though. See, she was going to be getting married pretty soon, and she wanted to go with Daddy on the lake. And so, of course, I'm taking her out to the lake.

And she then asked if she could drive the boat. I don't normally let that happen, but I let her drive the boat. I took her to the back of the lake, and I said, let's go, honey. Here's how you do it. So take a look at her driving this boat right here. Here she goes. We are skimming across that lake at about 55 miles an hour right there. Look how joyous she is.

Now, what she said right there is, how do I slow down? That's what she said, because we're going pretty fast right there. And, man, I just love that girl, little Hannah. I don't have any really good reason to show you that video other than I'm up here speaking. We're talking about a boat, and so why not show you a cute video of my daughter? Back to Jesus. Mark 4. Where are we in the context of this story?

Well, we're actually on a lake called the Sea of Galilee. And I want to show it to you just for to bring you a little bit of context about this sea. This sea is actually 13 miles long, eight miles wide. So it's a pretty big lake. It's also the lowest freshwater body on earth. Okay. Some of you might be here, what about the Dead Sea? Dead Sea is salt, right? This is freshwater and it's the lowest. But it's surrounded by mountains all around it, which what happens is sometimes the, the, cool air will come down out of those mountains, hitting those warm waters, and create very explosive thunderstorms on the sea. And so it's very well known for its very erratic and explosive nature. Sometimes these waves can get up to high as 10, 12 feet and have been recorded at 20 feet. So these storms are pretty crazy. Now, I'll also look over here. We are the story. When we start, we're over in Copernum. And we're going to be going over to Gurgisah, is where we're going to be headed and in the context of all that we get a little problem but before we get to the problem i think it's very important that you understand the context of what is going on because it will help deepen

what exactly happens here with jesus so we're over in caparna jesus is teaching okay and all of a sudden a lot of people start flooding around to try to hear him teach okay they were so many people that they put him in a boat and they push him out a little ways from shore so that he can teach. And in this context, he teaches a parable known as the parable of the sower. And in this parable, what happens is he says a sower goes out and spreads seed. Some of it falls along on a path and the birds of the air come and grab it and leave. Some of it falls on shallow soil and it sprouts up, but the roots not deep and the sun comes up and then all of a sudden it dies.

some of it actually lands in decent soil but then the thorns come up it's these worries of the world and it just chokes the seed out but then others he says it falls on good soil and it actually produces a harvest sometimes 30 60 hundredfold it's great and everybody is around like that's so good that's good pastor you keep going that's good teaching right there and then the disciples pull off side and be like hey that was really good but you said we don't understand it What did that even mean? I don't know what you're talking about. He says, well, okay, here's what it is. And he tells them that, listen, the seed that fell on the path, it gets taken away. It's like when you're enemy, Satan, he comes and he steals the word. But then that soil that fell in shallow

soil, that's like you received the word, but then it doesn't have root. And so when persecution comes, it fades away real quick. Now to that other seed, when it hit that good soil, but then it got choked out, that's the worries of this life choking out the word that God had put in your heart. Then the one that falls on good soil is when it's heard, it's put into practice and he yields 30, 60, 100 fold. So he tells his parable to them. And they're all like, got it. That's really good. And then immediately he shares with them three other parables real quickly. And first one is about a parable about a lamp. And he says, look, you don't take a lamp. and then hide it, do you? No, we don't put it under a bed or under a bushel. We stick it on a lamp stand to give light to the whole house. Then he talks about a parable of a growing seed and a parable

of a mustard seed. So you could say it was like a college course, and he was the professor, and he had been teaching. But now it was time for the lab, the time to put all this teaching into practice. And so, in Mark 4, in verse 35, we read this, where Jesus says, then that day, when evening came, he said to his disciples, let's go to the other side. Now remember, we're at the Sea of Galilee. We are on a seashore and we're in Copernum, and we need to go across to Gergosa, right? There's a few problems with this statement. First of all, I want you to understand it said, that evening. So this is like, I'm teaching you, something. And then you, when you leave church, you know, Pastor Craig taught you something really good.

And you're like, oh, that's good. I need to be more like that. And then you go out and you went to the restaurant and it's like, bam, you got hit with it. You're like, I don't know, okay, am I going to do what he said? Am I going to put this Bible word into practice and do it? That's what's happening to him. He says, let's go to the other side. Understand this. The sea itself, I just told you, was known for its explosive storms. Okay. It says that it was evening. In this context, it's going to mean late afternoon headed towards sunset. So they're like, I don't know, is this the best idea? But there's a bigger problem. Okay? We're over in Galilee. This is Jewish territory. It's all good. Gargasa? That's in the region of the Decapolis. It's pagan. It's Roman. It's bad. You can actually

be unclean over there. This is not a good place to go. Mama said I'd never supposed to go over there. I am not supposed to go over there. This could be a big problem. And furthermore, they believed that the Roman gods would many times wage war out there to try to to explain these storms. They thought that bail and yam were out there just fighting and it creates all these storms. They thought Leviathan lived in this lake. So they were scared of this. Now, I can't imagine that there wasn't some side-iron going on between the disciples.

Like, I don't know about this. I mean, that teaching was pretty good and the sower and all that stuff. But, oh my gosh, this looks pretty bad. this looks not good at all. And what we see is actually in the very next verse, he's going to teach something very amazing. But what you see is him saying, no, we're going to go to the other side. What is he doing? He had just told him, listen, you don't have a lamp, do you? You actually let its light shine. I just told you that, but now we're going to go over there where you don't want to go. To the people you don't think we need to go to. And I'm going to take you over there. And we're

going to go. So he's putting into practice the teaching immediately that he's given to them. In verse 36, he says, leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. How was Jesus? Well, quite honestly, he'd been teaching all day long to thousands of people. He was tired. He'd been healing. He'd been praying. He'd been talking. He'd been healing. He'd been praying. He'd been talking. Then he'd been explaining to the disciples what he was saying. He was tired. And you notice something, they obeyed him. They jumped in the boat. So far?

So good. The disciples are doing okay. They didn't argue with him. They just get in the boat. Despite the fact mama said, don't go over there. Despite the fact I'm not supposed to go to this whole area, I'm going to go ahead and get in a boat with him. And then in verse 36, 37, it says,

they were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Now listen, guys, here's the first thing that stands out to me when I read that. They did what Jesus asked them to do. They got into the boat. And yet the storm showed up. You ever feel like, I'm doing all the things? I'm not supposed to have storms. I served, I tied, I gave. I did all the stuff. Why is there a storm? Why am I in trouble? maybe you're not in trouble. You see, God sometimes actually will help take you into the storm, not to discipline you, but to disciple you. I don't know about you. But my life is most forged in the

storms than in tranquility. The faith that I have deepens in the context of a storm. And here are the disciples in the middle of a storm and what happens. Verse 38. Jesus was in the stern. sleeping on a cushion. I told you he was tired. He's very tired. It's not that he didn't care. He was just wore out. He was exhausted. The disciples woke him and they said to him, teacher, don't you care if we drown? Don't you care? You said get in the boat? Got it in the boat. You said, dude, I did this. You did the little lamp thing and I believed it. Now we're going over here where mama said don't go. I did everything you said to do. Don't you care that we're about to drown. Maybe some of you today feel a little bit like that. Like, Jesus,

don't you care? Don't you care? My kid is sick. Don't you care that my marriage is falling apart? My friends deserted me. I ain't got money. I feel alone. I want to give up. My loved one died. I lost my job. Don't you care? Don't you care? Of course he cares. You see, he was always with. the disciples in the boat. He's never not in your boat. You are not alone in your struggle. They were just taught the parable. Remember of the sower? You remember that part about the word being received and then the thorns growing up? They were in the thick of it. These waves were the waves, this storm, it was the thorns. And all of a sudden, the worries of this life had gotten the disciples. Don't you care? What's going on? Storms are going to come in life. You may be surprised

when they come, how they come, and where they come from. But ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, the storms are going to come and you cannot prevent them. The good news is, though, that Jesus is always in your boat and he is always going to be with you in the struggle. So continuing on in this verse, verse 39, it says, he got up and he rebuked the wind and he said to the waves, quiet, be still. And then the wind died down and it was completely calm. In the matter of just a few moments, could you imagine this? You're in a boat, he's asleep on a cushion, you go down, don't you care, he gets up, shh, and it just gets quiet. In a matter of moments, the disciples saw Jesus' humanity being fully man,

and that he was exhausted and couldn't even stay awake in the context of the storm, that tired. But then they saw his divinity and the fact that he was sovereign over even the creation and the waves and the wind and when he would speak a word they couldn't help but obey they saw these two things and then in verse 40 he said to him he said to his disciples why are you so afraid you still have no faith now i'm going to pause for a second and every time i read that in past i always thought that seemed kind of unfair that seems a bit harsh And the reason is because I completely identify with these disciples. In fact, I'm just going to tell you, I would have been the one first going down to the stern.

The first wave that came over the boat, I'd have been like, I know, are y'all all good? I'm not. I'm going down to the stern right now. I'm going down to him under his head. I'm like, don't you care about this? You see that water coming in? We're supposed to be. I told everybody not to go anyway.

Mama told me not to go to Gorgosa. All the crazy woman nonsense going on over there, you're going to make us clean. Now, bailing yammer after it. Now, Leviathan is probably about to eat us up. Don't you care? I'd have been the first one down there. Like, I don't understand.

And so for me, I'm like, yeah, but what do you mean? Disbelief? I mean, the waves are literally coming over the boat. I get tripped out in my boat with four-foot waves. I can't imagine 10, 12-foot waves. Hitting my boat. I would have been freaked out. out in the middle of this lake.

And so it seemed harsh. But then I realized something. Jesus never said to them when they were in Copernum, hey, guys, let's go out in the middle and die together. That'd be great. He never said, let's just go out there and get in a real big storm. And let me scare the fire out of you real quick. And it'll be great.

He said to them, let's go to the other side. He said, let's go to the other side. No wonder he said, hey, hey, hey, you don't believe? We're going over there. I said we were going. And I can't help but think about times. Maybe you relate. Where God said something to you a long time ago, he spoke something into your life.

And then the worries of the world came up. And they started choking it out. The thing you believed for, back when you said your covenant vows, you thought it was going to be great. And then it wasn't so great. You thought you was going to have this really long road in front of you. And then the doctor came in and said something. And the worries began to choke. You thought everybody was going to be great and all your kids were going to follow Jesus.

Everybody's going to be good and then it didn't happen. There's something. God had spoke. We're going to the other side. Why do you doubt? Trust me, I'm with you. And we're going to get to the other side. What is that thing that God spoke to you?

We see in verse 41 that they were terrified and they ask each other, who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? Who is this guy? Who is this? I mean, he's been teaching pretty good. He's done America or two to kind of, maybe, I don't know, that looked pretty good. But then I like to look at this,

and it's like a moment where for the disciples, it's like their full-on belief as to who he was, went from here to him. here. All of the sudden, they asked themselves, who is this guy? That the wind and the waves have to obey him. That's insane. They're like, I don't know who is this. This is crazy. He's different. It was like the storm after the storm. Like when Jesus comes in and starts to rearrange your life, feels like a storm after your storm. The storm kind of got you there where you were like, don't you care.

And then he comes in, like you rearranged and everything wasn't great. And then you're like, who is this when he speaks? And the disciples are like, oh my gosh, this guy. He's with us. Now, I'm going to tell you about a time where Jesus was with me. In fact, he was with my whole family, in fact. And recently, one of my daughters, my youngest daughter asked me a question. She says, why does God not do miracles anymore?

And I said, well, he does. And she goes, yeah, tell me one. And I was like, okay. And so I told her this story. And I realized I've actually never spoke this story before, never from a stage for sure. But then I realized when I was talking about this story to some staff, members who I've been with 20 years, 20 plus years. Pastor Craig's never heard this story. Some of my kids hadn't heard this story. And I was like, why? And I'm like, because I understand

that there's some of you that are going to listen to what I'm about to say, and you will think I'm crazy because it's insane. What God did. But I want to tell you today, he's with you. And I pray that this story encourages you when you hit and you're in the middle of or you're going into a storm. I was 14 years old and I was home alone with my dad. And we were awaiting a phone call from an oncologist. The phone rang. So I left the room, made myself scarce for a few minutes. when I came back

Dad was looking out our storm door into the backyard and I walked over and dad had tears in his eyes and I knew what was on the other side of the phone he had cancer

seeing tears in my dad's eyes was very interesting for context my dad was 6-6-200 and none of your business worked in a steel meal factory he actually had a lunch pail that was 10 and he carried a Stanley Thermist, not like the OG Stanley Thermist, not this stuff is running around today. I mean the OG one. He was big, barrel-chested and steel-toe boot wearing. That was my dad. And when I walked up, he just simply said, let's go fix the mower. See, the mower had been broke for a little while, and I'd been out my chores for a while. And so he was like, oh, go get it fixed.

I'm like, oh, okay, we'll go out. So we went out into this hot summer, Texas. day. And I went out and we got up underneath the old Chinese elm tree in my backyard. And I'm start, my job was to hand him tools. So I'm handing him tools. He's laying under the mower fixing. All of a sudden I hear something up above me in a branch. And so I turned around and look and there was a dove sitting on this branch. And I'd been dove hunting since I was a little kid with my dad and my older brother every year we went dove hunting. So I was quite familiar with dove. I know they're a migratory game bird. They're skittish. They don't stay around. This bird was sitting like eight feet from us on a branch. But it was the appearance of the dove that really messed me up.

It was white, like bright white, okay? Almost like unnaturally white. The few times when I had been hunting and seen a bird that appeared mostly white or I got one, it always had red eyes, but not this bird. It had blue, like sea blue. And I said, Dad, look at this. And he gets up from under the mower and he looks up and he's like, son, be quiet. Shh, you know, scare it away. And he stood up and he looked at it. After a minute, we kind of like, wow, this bird's here. We go back in the house. And then the oncologist had told my dad, your chemo treatment is six weeks, two times a week for six weeks long. And so my dad would get up and he would go to work. And most every day he would get up, he'd go to work. He would lead to house at 4.30 to 5 a.m. He'd go to work.

Then we'd go get chemo. And he would go back to work. And then he would come home. On the days that he had chemo, this is what would happen. Around 4.30 or 5, when he left, he would walk out to small gate in my backyard. And that bird would fly down out of that Chinese. his elm tree and land on a large gate that was right there on my rock driveway. He would go and get in his truck. He would leave. He would come home. After he left, that bird would fly back up in that tree. When he would come home that day at 6 p.m., that bird would fly back down and land on that gate again. He would walk by it. He would come into the house. That bird would fly back up into the tree. And this happened two times a week for six weeks, every time, without fail.

At the end of six weeks, we were waiting on a phone call from the oncologist. But honestly, I think we all kind of knew what was it going to be on the other end of that call. And sure enough, when that phone hung up, it was time to ring bells and eat steak at my house because the cancer had been vanquished and was gone. And that was cool. My dad walked out the back door onto our patio. And he walked over by the little gate. And so I walk out the back door and I'm standing there.

And sure enough, that bird come down out of that tree and landed on that same fence. And he stood there for a second, and he turns around, and he walks back towards me. As my dad was walking back towards me, the bird took off. But it didn't fly back to the Chinese elm tree this time. It flew up, and it flew around my house. One time, two times, three times. Now, I understand. You think I'm crazy when I tell you this.

Perhaps my eyes just lost it because it was white and there was a low cloud ceiling that day. But I'm going to swear to you, it looked like that darn bird flew straight up into the darn clouds. As it circled, it just got higher and higher until I couldn't see it no more. Never saw it again. We realized Jesus was with us the whole time. And you may get a dove in your... your storm. You may, and you may not, but you always get Jesus. He's always with you. If you're a Christ follower, do you know who's in that boat? Who's in the boat with you? Remember this little girl?

Look at that face. The reason she wanted to slow down, guys, is because we're headed toward a rock dam. It's fair. 55 miles an hour straight toward a rock dam. You would ask if it's time to slow down, too. but does she look wary? No, she don't look worried. It's because daddy's in the boat. I know exactly when to pull that throttle down. I know exactly what the topography of that lake looks like. I've fished it many times.

I know when the bank transitions and the stuff it's under the water that she can't even see. I know everything about it. And she trusts her daddy. She knows who's in the boat with her. Jesus tells us that he's going to be with us. But he tells us something else. it's maybe even more important. Did you see it?

You probably didn't. The reason is, look, this is the verse that we started with. Take a look at this. It's their great commission, right? This is what's on calendars, coffee mugs and everything. There's just one important part missing, guys, and it's the verse just before it. Verse 18, then Jesus came to them and he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, now that you know that, Therefore, go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded to you. And surely, I am with you always to the very end of the age. When you place your faith in Jesus, things change. He's still the one who all authority. He's still the one who at a spoken word can heal a marriage. He's still the one who at a spoken word can break an addiction.

He's still the one that at a spoken word can heal the cancer. When you place your faith in Jesus, now you realize that the one who calm the seas can still calm the seas in your soul. And he is with you, even to the east. end of the age. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you that you are with us in all storms and in all trials. And in all the time, Jesus, you are with us. Today, as we're praying, as you've been listening, maybe you're going through a storm and a bit of a trial. And what you want is just that, man, that constant reminder. And you want me to pray for you just to be reminded that Jesus is in your boat.

and he is there for you. If you're going through a storm, I'd love to be able to pray for you. Just lift up your hand right now and say, yeah, that's me. I'm going through some stuff. And I want to just remind you. Yeah, lots of hands going up.

Lord Jesus, I just pray that we would be reminded on the daily that you are with us. Though the waves may crash and the storm and the winds may blow, that you are with us all the while. That you're always in our boat. and I pray that we would be encouraged in that, that we would be strengthened in that truth. Still praying today with our heads,

bow, and eyes closed. There's others of you who, man, do you realize who Jesus is? It says all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. And it's important that we understand who's in the boat. but if Jesus isn't in your boat, the storms of this life can really, really be a problem. You see, what can happen is things begin to happen. Things break apart. Storms come.

And we begin to fill our boats with things that don't actually work. Broken relationships, addictions, substances, all sorts of things. And when we do that, we miss the mark. And the Bible says that's called sin. That sin separates us from God. But Jesus knew that this was going to be a problem. And so God sent his only son, Jesus, in our place, to die in our place on the cross, so that he could be with us, so that he could make us new to be forgiven of our sin,

to be transformed, and to be able to have a peace that surpasses all understanding. Maybe today, that's you. And you're here today, here in this and says, you know what I need? I need Jesus in my boat. I've been putting everything else in there, but I haven't put him in control. And I today want to say, Jesus, come in. Forgive me of my sin. Jesus, give me purpose.

Bring me new life. Bring me your peace and forgiveness. And if that's you today, and you say, that's what I need. I need Jesus in my boat across all of our locations. Just lift up your hands high right now and say, yes, Jesus, come in. take over, be my Lord, be my Savior, right here in the center section. Yes, welcome into God's family. Others of you today, right over here, welcome into God's family. Those of you at church online, just type in the chat and say, I'm giving my life to Jesus. Let's all do this. Nobody prays

alone in this prayer. Let's all pray with those making this decision today. Pray along with me. Pray Heavenly Father. Thank you for sending Jesus to die in my place. forgive me of my sins and make me new. I give you my life. Lord Jesus, give me your peace. It's in Jesus name I pray. Everybody says. Amen. Amen. Amen.