You bet amen. Amen. When you're facing things in your marriage that you've tried your best to solve and nothing seems to make a difference, you better say to yourself, "I'm not in this marital moment alone because my life has been invaded by the grace of the one who is the I Am. When you're at the end of a very discouraging parenting day, when your children seem to have conspired together to be particularly rebellious, and there's another fight you can hear down the hallway and you're walking down the hallway feeling exhausted and you don't want to take this walk, you better say to yourself, "I'm not in this moment by myself. My life has been invaded by the one who is the I Am. When you've lost that job, you're driving home, wondering what the next weeks and months will be like, you better say in your car, "I'm not alone in this moment because my life has been invaded by the grace of the I Am. The I Am is here. The I Am is here. The I Am is here." As you face that physical sickness and it's [inaudible 00:09:28] you, that very scary body awareness where you're now more aware of your body than you've ever been and you wonder if just every part of it's fallen apart. You better say to yourself, "I'm not alone in this physical moment because my life has been invaded by the grace of the I Am. Listen, here's what ministry is about. It's bringing the I Am to people, that's what it's about. Hope is not in your wisdom. Hope is not in figuring out how to solve all that stuff. Hope is found in one thing, hope is a person and his name is I Am. That's what ministry is about. The I Am has come. Now, let me ask you a question. In this passage, when did Jesus start caring for the disciples? When he took the walk? When he stood beside the boat? When he spoke those beautiful words? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The beautiful tender, transformative care of Jesus began when he put them in the boat and sent them across the sea. You say, "Paul, why?" Hear what I'm about to say. If you're taking notes, write it down. Because sometimes you need the storm in order to see the glory, that's why. Sometimes you need the storm in order to see the glory. Sometimes it's only the deep and dark storms of life that put the glory of the Messiah and the kind of relief where I can now see it and I can now get it and I can say I am okay because this one has drawn me into an eternal relationship with him. Sometimes you need the storm to see the glory. Oh, the care is not just Jesus' presence in the storm, the care is the storm. That's care. Just the kind of care that we need. He's zealous that we would see and understand, that we would really have hearts of faith, sturdy, assured, confident, bold, ministering faith. Now look what it says next, "And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased, finally. And they were utterly astounded, or amazed." In case you hadn't figured it out, that's not a compliment. It's not a compliment. In fact, it's one of the few places where Mark makes an editorial comment. He says, "For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened." Now, can we talk? I don't know why I'm asking permission. I'm going to. There is a huge, significant difference between amazement and faith. Being an astounded person and being a person of faith, there's a huge difference. You can be amazed by things that you do not put your faith in. I live in Philadelphia. It's been the habit of my family to go every summer down to the Jersey Shore for a family vacation. We call that going down the Shore. I don't know why we say it that way, but we do. And we would always go to Ocean City in New Jersey because that's a very family oriented community, it's a dry community, no alcohol sales there, and it's got a boardwalk that kids could just run free on and we just love that. But my children would always talk me into taking them down to the next community south called Wildwood, New Jersey, properly named. And Wildwood has a big boardwalk and off this boardwalk are these big, huge piers that have amusement parks on them. And there's a ride there that the first time I saw it just amazed me. It was a big, maybe 50 foot tall metal frame from what were hanging elastic bands. The bottom of the bands was a pouch and for $7, they would strap an otherwise sane human being into that pouch and pull him or her back and launch them back and forth over the Atlantic Ocean in the night. Now that ride amazed me. The first time I saw it, I was like this. My family went off to ride rides. I was stuck, they came back and got me. Now that ride did amaze me. I can tell you for sure though, you will not strap Paul Tripp into that pouch and launch him over the Atlantic Ocean at night. There's a huge difference between amazement and faith. You can be amazed by the grand sweep of the redemptive story in scripture and not be living by faith. You can be amazed at the labyrinthine logic of the word of God and its Theology and not be living by faith.
Transcript: Session 2
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN
26
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