Calmness

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We've been in a series, in some ways I've been encouraged by some of you that you would like to see this go on longer, but we've only got two more weeks after this. A series called Emotional Jesus, because Jesus was the perfect human being, the first one since Adam and Eve, who had all of his emotions, all of his everything, perfectly aligned with God's will and way, and he was emotional. We have talked about his joy over one sinner who repents, his grief over his friend Lazarus' death, his compassion that was probably behind every one of them, that he is with us and for us. And today, we are on to an emotion of calmness. And for some people, they think that's no emotion at all, it's being emotionless. Actually, not so. Calmness actually means self-regulation. The ability to be at peace when other people are freaking out. And it is so important. We have a lot of people freaking out right now, in all sorts of ways across this world. And calmness is that sense of a deeper, broader perspective that puts everything in a 30,000-foot level to say, OK, yes, there might be a little tempest right now, but overall, this is how God is handling things. Being calm in chaos is very important. And Jesus was that way. We see this when he is standing in front of Pilate, it is Pilate and it is Caiaphas, those two people who should have, they were the ones being reactionary when Jesus was really calm in their presence, even though it was a life-threatening situation for him. And then there are those who hated the Romans so much, they would bring up, did you see what Pilate's soldiers did and killed those people over there to see if he would get to react? And instead, he remained calm and focused on God's kingdom rather than anything that was political or national in intent at that time. He wasn't going to be racist. He wasn't going to be any of those things. He wasn't going to give in to the crowd, even when they wanted to make him king. He was resolute. He was calm. And he remains focused on that. Probably, though, the most amazing story of calmness, and especially after I studied it this week, is when Jesus himself calms the storm in the Gospels. And we're going to be looking at Mark chapter 4 today. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him, and a great storm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he woke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? So from this text, and by the way, I'm trying to keep it short today. I know. Trying. Just know I've tried. OK, even if I'm not. But the three points are the drastic call or contrast, a radical call and a revolutionary promise. First of all, a drastic contrast. We see a contrast right away between Jesus and the disciples in the boat. And here's something you might not know. The Sea of Galilee, actually. Any of you been there? Yeah, you've been there. It's actually 700 feet below sea level to start with. I didn't. And then Jordan River comes out of it, goes all the way to the Dead Sea, which is the lowest spot on Earth. OK, in dry land, that is not under the ocean. But, yeah, so it's all under. And yet about 30 miles away is Mart Hermon. That mountain is 7200 feet, I think, 9200 feet above sea level. And so that contrast of basically 10,000 feet in over just a short period of time causes a huge conflict between cold mountain air and the warm air of the Sea of Galilee being so low below sea level. And there were many frequent storms, actually. And Jesus' disciples, a number of them were fishermen. They would have been used to this, but not to this storm. This one was over the top from what we can tell, because they say in Mark 34, 39, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? They didn't say we might perish. It's getting a little risky. But they're saying, we're dying here. It's going to happen. They were absolutely sure they were going to die. The whole boat was going under and they'd all drowned. Now contrast it to Jesus. Notice He doesn't get up and go, whoa, whoa, what's going on? He is not freaking out in any form. And you go like, what? He's not detached. He is not disconnected. I know that's a lot of ways that I try to stay calm, is to be detached, to act like I'm not going to watch the news. I'm not going to pay attention to this. I'm not going to look at anything. I'm not going to do anything that would freak me out. That's not staying calm. H...