Episode 54
The Storm Still Came: When Following Jesus Does Not Make Life Easier
Have you ever wondered why life can get harder even when you’re doing everything right and following Jesus’ direction? This episode of Seek Go Create dives into what happens when faithfulness doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing and storms still come, challenging the idea that comfort is a measure of God’s goodness. Exploring stories from Scripture, we examine what it means to trust, obey, and find hope when obedience leads directly into the storm. If you’ve wrestled with questions around suffering, faith, and the purpose behind life’s difficulties, this conversation is for you.
"Obedience does not guarantee easier circumstances—the storm still came" - Tim Winders
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Episode Resources:
- NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Obedience Meets Storms
00:44 Welcome and Series Setup
02:05 Reading Without Filters
03:56 The Boat Before the Miracle
06:25 Comfort Theology Question
07:40 Teacher Do You Care
08:45 Mark 4 in Context
11:28 Jesus Asleep in Chaos
16:08 Who Then Is This
18:40 Not Every Storm Ends Fast
19:26 Faithfulness Not Weather Control
22:45 Rejecting Simple Formulas
24:21 Trust Not Control
25:20 Two Houses Same Storm
27:11 Kingdom Practice Foundation
28:57 Storm Reveals Formation
31:58 Protector In Trouble
34:45 Prevention Or Presence
38:00 Cross And Resurrection Care
39:08 Comfort Theology Exposed
41:27 What This Means Now
44:00 Wrap Up And Next Steps
Transcript
Jesus told them to get into the boat.
Speaker:They followed his direction.
Speaker:Then the wind rose, the waves broke over the sides, and experienced fishermen
Speaker:believed that they were going to die.
Speaker:They were not running from Jesus.
Speaker:They were not outside God's will.
Speaker:They were exactly where Jesus told them to be.
Speaker:What do we do with that?
Speaker:What do we do when obedience does not make life easier?
Speaker:They followed Jesus.
Speaker:They did exactly what he told them to do, but the storm still came
Speaker:hey, folks.
Speaker:Welcome to Seek, Go, Create.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders, and, we're having this incredible series that has spun off from
Speaker:my recent reading of the New Testament that I did in 90 days in the order
Speaker:that it was written, not necessarily the order in your Bible, the order
Speaker:that the letters actually went out.
Speaker:What emerged from that really surprised me, challenged me, and it's just
Speaker:continuing to give me ideas, thoughts, and I guess different perspective,
Speaker:changed how I understand scripture.
Speaker:And this series is just where I just keep building upon those things that I
Speaker:learned, and I go back to scripture, and then I share them, and not pretending
Speaker:that I have all the answers here, even though I've got a lot of thoughts and
Speaker:a lot of things going through my head.
Speaker:And I will say it's much different than I had years ago and even a year or so ago.
Speaker:So, this is just where I share those discoveries.
Speaker:If you wanna do what I did, I encourage you to.
Speaker:The reading plan is free.
Speaker:Go to k2m.foundation/nt90.
Speaker:Download the plan.
Speaker:Again, it's free.
Speaker:Read along or see what you find.
Speaker:the link should be down in the show notes wherever you are listening
Speaker:to or watching this episode.
Speaker:This topic today, and it's gonna be building over the next few episodes, it
Speaker:grew from my effort to really read the New Testament carefully and in context.
Speaker:I wanted to hear what these writings said to the first audiences.
Speaker:I wanted to follow each argument, notice the setting, stop treating
Speaker:verses as kinda detached answers.
Speaker:And then I started recognizing some things that were pretty uncomfortable.
Speaker:I really wanted the text to confirm conclusions that I already
Speaker:carried or that I already had.
Speaker:I wanted familiar passages to promise certainty, protection, and outcomes
Speaker:that I really, really preferred.
Speaker:I really, really wanted it to tell me what I wanted to hear.
Speaker:I wanted it to tickle my ears and make me feel better and comfort me.
Speaker:But unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I kept
Speaker:reading, and the text did not always say what I wanted it to I've noticed
Speaker:that people have really pushed back hard as I've raised these questions.
Speaker:As I've brought some of these things up over the last, I don't know, six to
Speaker:12 months on social media, people have really pushed back hard, which is fine.
Speaker:I've had some really interesting conversations with people, some
Speaker:acquaintances, even family.
Speaker:And even over morning coffee with my wife, she has been very, very I guess, agitated
Speaker:at times, uncomfortable at times with some of the things we've been discussing.
Speaker:We're really not arguing about whether the Bible mattered.
Speaker:We were wrestling with what we believed it had to mean.
Speaker:Then a small detail caught my attention.
Speaker:This was not too long ago.
Speaker:I know I've read this before, but like many of you, I've read things with a
Speaker:certain perspective or certain goggles or certain glasses, and I wanted it
Speaker:to mean something, but then I kept reading and thinking about it and
Speaker:looking at it in different ways, and I said, "Wait, I just missed that."
Speaker:The heading above Mark 4:35 in my Bible reads, "The wind and waves obey
Speaker:Jesus." That heading is accurate.
Speaker:If you read the scripture, Jesus speaks and the storm becomes calm.
Speaker:But it doesn't quite, in my opinion, tell the whole story.
Speaker:It's sort of incomplete.
Speaker:I'm kind of jumping ahead, and there's something before that that I kept missing.
Speaker:The heading is not part of Mark's text.
Speaker:That was made up by mostly men, probably later, that were translating.
Speaker:It was added to help readers find the passage.
Speaker:It can direct us toward the miracle while we miss what came first.
Speaker:The disciples entered the boat.
Speaker:We'll get into more details on this story in just a moment.
Speaker:But the disciples in that text entered the boat because Jesus told them to get
Speaker:in the boat and cross the sea The storm did not come because they ignored him.
Speaker:It came while they obeyed him.
Speaker:While they were following Jesus, the storm came.
Speaker:We tell this typically, or at least this is the way I looked at it, as a
Speaker:story about Jesus calming the storm, just like the header in my Bible says.
Speaker:Mark also tells us about faithful people who entered into a storm.
Speaker:That actually was the catalyst or the trigger that was the starting point for
Speaker:these next few episodes that we're gonna kind of bundle together, and they'll
Speaker:make more sense as we get going here.
Speaker:And I think … Well, it's pushed some buttons of mine.
Speaker:I think it's gonna push a few buttons and maybe make you squirm a little
Speaker:bit, but that's what I'm here for.
Speaker:Before asking what Jesus can do about the waves, what we really need to do
Speaker:is we need to ask a harder question.
Speaker:Why did we assume following him would keep us out of the storm?
Speaker:So this episode's gonna begin, as I said earlier, it's gonna be a six-part
Speaker:arc about what I'm going to call, and this is an interesting term.
Speaker:I've seen it before, but I might be using it a little bit more than normal.
Speaker:I'm gonna call it comfort theology.
Speaker:We're gonna examine that expe- expectation more carefully in the episodes ahead
Speaker:and define it and things like that.
Speaker:But for now, one question is really enough to get us started.
Speaker:Have we come to expect that faithfulness should produce easier circumstances?
Speaker:Comfort is not the enemy.
Speaker:I wanna say that here.
Speaker:Safety, healing, rest, relief, medicine, counseling, wise
Speaker:planning, all those are good.
Speaker:Jesus showed compassion toward people who were sick, grieving, hungry,
Speaker:frightened, and excluded on the outside.
Speaker:We should never make people feel guilty for wanting relief or wanting
Speaker:things to be better, or we could even use that word comfortable.
Speaker:But scripture, I think we need to make sure we're clear on this.
Speaker:Scripture does not make comfort the measure of God's goodness.
Speaker:This conversation, like we said earlier, begins with a
Speaker:boat, a command, and a storm.
Speaker:The waves and the wind.
Speaker:It begins with people who obeyed Jesus and still- faced the storms and became afraid.
Speaker:This is a statement that comes from that scripture or that telling.
Speaker:"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" That question reaches
Speaker:really beyond the Sea of Galilee.
Speaker:It appears in hospital rooms, broken relationships, business losses, it
Speaker:did for me, and unfamiliar futures.
Speaker:I would venture to say that many believers may have asked that
Speaker:question before, if not often.
Speaker:If God cares, why did this happen?
Speaker:If I followed faithfully, why am I here?
Speaker:Mark does not give us an abstract answer.
Speaker:He tells us what happened in the boat.
Speaker:Now, the thing I wanna circle back to, this is the thing that jumped out
Speaker:at me that was I kind of had to be reading it really in context to get
Speaker:to this because otherwise you just kind of look at the headings that
Speaker:were added later in the scripture.
Speaker:Jesus told them to do this.
Speaker:Mark places this account in chapter four after a full day of teaching.
Speaker:Let's get it in context here.
Speaker:Let's talk about this.
Speaker:After a full day of teaching beside the sea, the crowd had grown so large
Speaker:that Jesus taught them from a boat.
Speaker:He pushed out in a boat so that he could, see everybody or everybody could see him.
Speaker:He spoke about soils, a lamp, growing seed, and a mustard seed.
Speaker:A lot of things, some great teaching that leads up to that, to that,
Speaker:uh, to those verses in that story.
Speaker:Those teachings matter because Mark does not separate the storm from the kingdom.
Speaker:In other words, they all fit together.
Speaker:I think they're there for a reason.
Speaker:We often pull these things out, and I don't wanna do that here.
Speaker:The disciples hear Jesus teach about God's reign, then they enter
Speaker:a situation very shortly after the teaching that they cannot control.
Speaker:Does that sound familiar?
Speaker:you hear a teaching or you read something, and you're all confident and
Speaker:you feel good, and then within minutes something occurs that kinda shakes you.
Speaker:You see a storm.
Speaker:The waves start to get a little choppy.
Speaker:Then when evening came, Jesus said, "Let us go across to the
Speaker:other side." It was Jesus' command.
Speaker:Jesus was saying this.
Speaker:That sentence matters.
Speaker:The disciples did not create this journey or ignore a warning.
Speaker:They didn't kinda go out on their own.
Speaker:They didn't fall away.
Speaker:They weren't backsliding.
Speaker:Jesus initiated the crossing.
Speaker:They left the crowd and took Jesus with them.
Speaker:Then sometime during the night, a great windstorm arose.
Speaker:Waves broke into the boat.
Speaker:Water filled the space around them.
Speaker:Several of these disciples knew this lake.
Speaker:They knew boats.
Speaker:They were not strangers to what was going on.
Speaker:They knew wind and waves.
Speaker:Fishing was not a weekend hobby for them.
Speaker:It was what they did all the time.
Speaker:If experienced fishermen believed the boat was going down, the danger
Speaker:was not fake, it wasn't imaginary, th- it wasn't made up It wasn't that
Speaker:old devil playing tricks with them.
Speaker:No, there was something going on with the weather, and they were concerned about it.
Speaker:meanwhile, at the front of the boat, Jesus was asleep on a
Speaker:cushion in the stern of the boat.
Speaker:He was sleeping through the situation.
Speaker:I'm sorry, this isn't funny, but you have to kinda … When you immerse yourself
Speaker:in this scene, in this situation, in the context, you have to think to yourself,
Speaker:"What was really going on here?"
Speaker:There was … Jesus told them to go.
Speaker:These were experienced fishermen.
Speaker:All of a sudden, the wind and the waves, and Jesus is just asleep in a cushion.
Speaker:He is at peace, at rest, in the midst of a storm.
Speaker:So before we kinda go a little bit farther, please just take a moment, pause.
Speaker:Sometimes we plow through scriptures.
Speaker:We pluck things out and keep going.
Speaker:That's, uh, kinda one of the points that I'm gonna be making over the course of
Speaker:these next few episodes, and we don't take time to really pause and immerse
Speaker:ourselves into what was really going on.
Speaker:This was an interesting situation, I think.
Speaker:Wind tears across the water, waves strike the boat, people
Speaker:shout and work while water keeps coming in, and Jesus is asleep.
Speaker:The disciples wake him up.
Speaker:He didn't wake.
Speaker:It says that they woke him, and they ask, "Teacher, do you not care that we
Speaker:are perishing?" Now, what's interesting is he was in the boat with them.
Speaker:Did they not think that he would perish?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Apologies for getting a little bit sarcastic there, but I guess they
Speaker:were thinking about themselves.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:That sounds like many of us when most likely we're in the presence of Jesus.
Speaker:He's with us.
Speaker:He is there with us all the time.
Speaker:But yet we ask the question, "Do you not care that we are perishing?
Speaker:Come on, Jesus, can't you see that I'm in trouble here? I need
Speaker:you." Notice what they do not ask.
Speaker:They do not ask whether Jesus has enough power.
Speaker:They ask whether he cares.
Speaker:The storm outside exposes a fear inside them, within them.
Speaker:They had heard his teaching.
Speaker:They had just heard it that day.
Speaker:It was fresh.
Speaker:They were in the presence of God on Earth.
Speaker:And they were still questioning it.
Speaker:They were still wondering, "Hey, what's going on here?
Speaker:Do you really care about us?"
Speaker:They had seen His healings.
Speaker:All of that was fresh, but rising water, a little bit of danger made
Speaker:His silence feel like indifference.
Speaker:Well, I mean, He wasn't just silent.
Speaker:Truthfully, He was sleeping through it.
Speaker:"If He cares, why is He sleeping? If He is with us, why is this
Speaker:happening? If we followed His direction, why are we in danger?"
Speaker:Those questions should sound familiar to us because if we don't verbalize
Speaker:them, I can guarantee that you have thought those same things.
Speaker:I know I have.
Speaker:We- it's okay for us to admit that, and if we're looking at the disciples, the
Speaker:12 that were with Jesus Christ as He was doing almost everything that He did
Speaker:in the New Testament, they had doubts.
Speaker:They had those questions.
Speaker:It's okay if we have those questions, too.
Speaker:Something comes up, like a medical report arrives.
Speaker:I was on an airplane with a woman recently that about a year ago
Speaker:she had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, pancreatic cancer.
Speaker:That one, as I understand, is usually a pretty short life sentence.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:A year later she had changed some things with her diet.
Speaker:She had an incredibly positive faith-filled attitude.
Speaker:We had a little bit of a faith talk, but a lot of it was just she believed
Speaker:that things were gonna work out okay.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:She was living a strong, healthy life one year after she had
Speaker:received that medical report.
Speaker:Other things, like a business fails.
Speaker:I've had that.
Speaker:A relationship breaks.
Speaker:Someone we love dies or passes away.
Speaker:We prayed, we planned, and tried to act with integrity And here's
Speaker:the deal, the storm still came.
Speaker:That is when the deeper question often arises, do you not care?
Speaker:We should not rush past that question or shame people for asking it.
Speaker:The storm, danger, and fear were real.
Speaker:Jesus was still in the boat.
Speaker:They were still with Jesus.
Speaker:Mark says, this is what happened, "Jesus rose, rebuked the wind, and
Speaker:said to the sea, 'Peace, be still.' And the wind ceased, and there was
Speaker:a great calm." I almost, and I'm-- This is Tim interjecting here.
Speaker:I almost feel as if Jesus may have said, and again, take this
Speaker:as Tim said, not the Bible.
Speaker:Jesus was almost tired, wanting to get his good nap in, and said, "What's
Speaker:up?" And quickly calmed the seas.
Speaker:And then he said, this is a quote, "Why are you so afraid?
Speaker:Have you still no faith?
Speaker:You spent time with me.
Speaker:You saw me all day.
Speaker:We've gone across the sea.
Speaker:Have you still no faith?" We can easily hear that, and I sort of am doing that
Speaker:here, hear that as a harsh criticism.
Speaker:You were afraid, therefore you failed.
Speaker:But Mark's account does not end with a lesson about controlling emotions.
Speaker:It ends with the disciples asking another question: "Who then is this,
Speaker:that even the wind and the sea obey him?" That is the big moment in the story.
Speaker:They begin by questioning whether Jesus cares, then end by questioning whether
Speaker:they understand who he really, really is.
Speaker:The storm reveals their fear, but it also reveals the King.
Speaker:For Mark's first audience, the sea carried more than weather.
Speaker:Throughout Israel's scriptures, chaotic waters represented forces
Speaker:human beings could not master.
Speaker:God alone ruled the sea, set its boundaries, and brought order from chaos.
Speaker:Psalms 107 describes sailors caught in a storm.
Speaker:They cry to the Lord in their trouble.
Speaker:God stills the storm and quiets the waves.
Speaker:Mark shows Jesus doing what Israel's scriptures said God does.
Speaker:The disciples do ask the right question, "Who is this?" Jesus is not
Speaker:merely helping during bad weather.
Speaker:This account announces his authority over what people cannot control.
Speaker:Yet, we still must read carefully.
Speaker:Jesus calmed this specific storm.
Speaker:The text does not promise immediate calm for every faithful person, and it
Speaker:doesn't say there will be no more storms.
Speaker:Sometimes rescue comes quickly.
Speaker:Sometimes healing comes slowly.
Speaker:Sometimes the valley is long.
Speaker:The promise is not that Jesus must change every circumstance
Speaker:according to our timetable.
Speaker:The discovery is that the storm does not outrank the King.
Speaker:Following Jesus does not mean the storm will not come.
Speaker:It means the storm Is not your Lord.
Speaker:It is not the Lord.
Speaker:And let's talk about obedience, and obedience not really
Speaker:controlling the weather.
Speaker:I've heard people treat every difficult season as evidence
Speaker:that someone chose wrongly.
Speaker:I hate to say this, but in Bible school, there became this mode or tone that
Speaker:if someone was dealing with something, there was this, I'll just say, slightly
Speaker:judgy tone that others would look at them and say, "Well, why aren't you healed?
Speaker:Do you not have enough faith?
Speaker:Why are you dealing with financial challenges?
Speaker:Do you h- not have enough faith?
Speaker:Why are you going through these issues?
Speaker:You must not have enough faith.
Speaker:You must have chose wrong." Business struggles, so perhaps
Speaker:God never called the person.
Speaker:Someone becomes sick, so others question their faith.
Speaker:I will admit I've done this.
Speaker:I repent, but I have done this, and maybe we all have.
Speaker:That way of thinking gives us an illusion of control.
Speaker:If every storm is caused by disobedience, then perfect obedience
Speaker:should create perfect weather.
Speaker:But Mark 4 will not let us make that promise.
Speaker:Jesus said, "Let us go across." He put them into the storm.
Speaker:The disciples went, and the storm came.
Speaker:Obedience and trouble appear in the same account.
Speaker:Of course, some pain will follow foolish choices, and there are things that we
Speaker:do that cause issues, and injustice, neglect, abuse, or destructive habits.
Speaker:Wisdom and accountability still matter.
Speaker:I'm not totally relieving us of that.
Speaker:We should not rename consequences from pride or dishonesty
Speaker:and call them persecution.
Speaker:But the reverse error is also dangerous.
Speaker:We should not assume every storm proves someone disobeyed God.
Speaker:Joseph acted faithfully and was betrayed.
Speaker:Jeremiah spoke faithfully and was rejected.
Speaker:Paul followed his calling through beatings, imprisonment,
Speaker:hunger, shipwreck, and betrayal.
Speaker:W- we have to add he got bit by a snake in there, so there's that.
Speaker:He had a lot of bad stuff that happened, and we look at Paul as
Speaker:one of the great faith warriors.
Speaker:Jesus lived without sin Yet he was crucified.
Speaker:Faithfulness is not a weather control system.
Speaker:That truth should make us more careful when we come across hurting people.
Speaker:When someone grieves, our first task is not solving the mystery or, as I will
Speaker:often try to do, my wife and I talk about this often, we try to fix the situation.
Speaker:A diagnosis should not trigger an investigation into someone's faith.
Speaker:Sometimes correction is needed and love requires truth, but
Speaker:trouble by itself is not proof.
Speaker:Difficulty does not automatically tell us whether a person heard God correctly.
Speaker:Success does not automatically tell us either.
Speaker:Jonah ran from God and found a ship going in the direction he wanted.
Speaker:An open path did not mean approval.
Speaker:The disciples followed Jesus, went right into a storm.
Speaker:A difficult path did not mean disapproval.
Speaker:Circumstances can teach us, warn us, or redirect us, but circumstances alone are
Speaker:not complete language for discerning God.
Speaker:That is important because we often crave and desire a simple formula.
Speaker:We want it to be so simple.
Speaker:We want a simple answer.
Speaker:Right choice equals an easy path.
Speaker:Wrong choice equals resistance or bad stuff.
Speaker:Enough faith equals desired outcome.
Speaker:Weak faith equals suffering.
Speaker:Life with God is not presented that way in Scripture Scripture gives us
Speaker:people who obey and suffer, and others who prosper while acting unjustly.
Speaker:Psalm 73 wrestles with that tension.
Speaker:Mark 4 gives us the same correction in a smaller scene.
Speaker:The disciples' location was not proof of failure.
Speaker:They were in the storm because they had followed Jesus into the boat.
Speaker:That does not make the storm good.
Speaker:It does not mean every tragedy carries a hidden lesson we must discover.
Speaker:It does not require us to call pain a blessing.
Speaker:It means difficulty and obedience can exist together.
Speaker:We need that truth before tro- trouble comes, because fear
Speaker:demands quick explanations.
Speaker:Who caused this?
Speaker:What rule was broken?
Speaker:How can we guarantee it never happens again?
Speaker:We desire to not have those same things happen to us.
Speaker:Those questions may help us change wisely.
Speaker:They can also turn faith into a system of control.
Speaker:If we believe the correct prayer, decision, routine, or level
Speaker:of certainty can prevent every storm, we are not learning trust.
Speaker:We're actually trying to manage and control the weather.
Speaker:The disciples could not manage the weather.
Speaker:They could only discover who was with them.
Speaker:That discovery does not remove every question.
Speaker:It changes what we ask.
Speaker:Instead of asking only, "What did I do wrong?" Let's ask, "What
Speaker:does faithfulness look like here?" Instead of blaming someone in
Speaker:pain, help them carry that burden.
Speaker:Obedience does not control the weather.
Speaker:It teaches us whom to trust when the weather changes.
Speaker:Now, here's another example that helps us understand or helps me
Speaker:understand, and I'm just sharing with you the principle behind this.
Speaker:The boat wasn't the only place that Jesus taught this.
Speaker:It happened again.
Speaker:At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus described two builders.
Speaker:One built a house on rock, the other built a house on sand.
Speaker:We remember the foundations, but we may miss that both
Speaker:houses face the same conditions.
Speaker:Here's what Jesus says: "The rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew
Speaker:and beat on that house." Then he gives the same weather to the second house.
Speaker:Rain, floods, wind, pressure.
Speaker:The house on the rock did not receive a better forecast.
Speaker:They both faced the same circumstances.
Speaker:Jesus did not contrast a faithful life with an easy life.
Speaker:He contrasted a life built on his words with a life that heard those
Speaker:words but did not practice them.
Speaker:The difference was not the weather.
Speaker:The difference was the foundation.
Speaker:And we should notice where this teaching appears It closes
Speaker:Matthew five, six, and seven.
Speaker:I recommend you go check this out.
Speaker:This is the Sermon on the Mount, and it was a period of time, it was actually back
Speaker:during COVID, that I was listening to the audible of Matthew five, six, and seven,
Speaker:the Sermon on the Mount, almost every day.
Speaker:It's about 15 minutes long.
Speaker:It's a great, great lesson or meditation to listen to on a regular basis.
Speaker:Matthew five, six, and seven.
Speaker:The rock is not abstract religious agreement.
Speaker:Jesus says the wise person who hears His words and does them.
Speaker:What words?
Speaker:The words He just taught in the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker:Practice mercy.
Speaker:Love enemies.
Speaker:Pray without performance.
Speaker:Forgive.
Speaker:Refuse money as being a master.
Speaker:Seek God's kingdom.
Speaker:Treat others with dignity.
Speaker:Judge trees by their fruit.
Speaker:These chapters describe the kingdom operating system.
Speaker:The surrounding world ran on power, hierarchy, status,
Speaker:retaliation, and control.
Speaker:Jesus described a different operating system, a different foundation, one
Speaker:built on the rock, not built on sand.
Speaker:Mercy, enemy love, integrity, hidden prayer, trust,
Speaker:forgiveness, and good fruit.
Speaker:Hearing those words is not the same as building on them.
Speaker:Agreement is not foundation.
Speaker:Listening and nodding your head is not implementing them in your life.
Speaker:Practice is foundation.
Speaker:That changes how we hear the story of the two houses.
Speaker:The rock is not merely knowing the correct answer about Jesus or
Speaker:being able to quote a scripture.
Speaker:The rock is a life shaped by what Jesus taught.
Speaker:It is mercy when resentment feels justified, truth when dishonesty
Speaker:offers protection, and generosity when fear closes our hands and our grips.
Speaker:It is prayer without performance and enemy love before conflict demands a response.
Speaker:A person does not build a foundation after the flood enters the house.
Speaker:Kingdom living begins before the rain falls and the storm comes.
Speaker:That does not mean we can prepare so perfectly that pain never affects us
Speaker:A house that stands through a storm still faces and experiences the storm.
Speaker:The people inside hear the wind, they feel the structure shake.
Speaker:They may lose sleep.
Speaker:They may need help repairing what was damaged.
Speaker:There may be some damages.
Speaker:Standing does not mean untouched and unharmed.
Speaker:Faithful does not mean unhurt.
Speaker:Jesus is not promising emotional numbness.
Speaker:He's describing a life that is not destroyed when circumstances become
Speaker:severe Spiritual formation cannot be reduced to just gathering information
Speaker:and knowing a few scriptures.
Speaker:We can collect sermons without practicing forgiveness.
Speaker:We can quote verses while building our decisions around fear.
Speaker:We can call Jesus Lord while ignoring his words about money,
Speaker:enemies, prayer, mercy, and fruit.
Speaker:Jesus ends the sermon with a warning because
Speaker:Jesus ends the sermon with a warning because hearing creates responsibility.
Speaker:The foundation is built through repeated obedience.
Speaker:Small choices matter.
Speaker:Tell the truth.
Speaker:Treat people with dignity.
Speaker:Give without demanding recognition.
Speaker:Pray for the person who became an enemy in your mind.
Speaker:Seek God's kingdom before protecting status.
Speaker:Those practices may appear small during calm weather.
Speaker:Then the storm reveals what has been built.
Speaker:It reveals the foundation that it's built on.
Speaker:The storm is not necessarily a punishment.
Speaker:It's not God, God's wrath coming down on you.
Speaker:It's just part of what happens.
Speaker:Jesus does not say the foolish builder caused the rain.
Speaker:The rain came to both houses.
Speaker:The foolishness was hearing without doing.
Speaker:The wise builder did not avoid the storm.
Speaker:The wise builder prepared by practicing Jesus' words.
Speaker:That is protection, but it is not prevention or avoidance.
Speaker:The house was protected from collapse, not the weather.
Speaker:That distinction may change how we pray, prepare, and help each other.
Speaker:We can ask God to prevent harm.
Speaker:We can take practical steps to reduce danger.
Speaker:We can also build lives capable of remaining faithful when
Speaker:prevention is not the outcome.
Speaker:The wise builder was not promised calm weather.
Speaker:There wasn't a promise.
Speaker:The wise builder was given a way of life that could stand.
Speaker:Protection, this is kind of an interesting statement here.
Speaker:Protection is not always about prevention.
Speaker:Mentioned it earlier.
Speaker:This raises a harder question that we need to address.
Speaker:Is God our protector?
Speaker:Yes, we know that scripture speaks of refuge, shelter, rescue, strength,
Speaker:shepherding, and protection, that word.
Speaker:Psalms 46 calls God our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Speaker:Notice the final words, in trouble.
Speaker:The Psalm does not say trouble never arrives.
Speaker:It declares that God is present and dependable within
Speaker:it, even when it shows up.
Speaker:Psalms 23, one of my favorites, gives us a shepherd who leads, restores, comforts,
Speaker:and prepares a table among enemies.
Speaker:It also gives us a valley.
Speaker:Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
Speaker:fear no evil, for you are with me.
Speaker:So we actually … It's stated that we walk through that valley.
Speaker:It's not like we avoid that valley.
Speaker:We walk through it, almost as if that is part of life.
Speaker:The promise is not the absence of a valley, the promise is the shepherd's
Speaker:presence as you are going through it.
:33 records Jesus telling this to His disciples: "In the world
:you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."
:Jesus does not promise an easy world.
:He gives peace rooted in His victory And we saw that peace earlier when he
:was asleep in the boat during the storm.
:That's peace.
:I often wonder during that time if Jesus had just slept through it, and
:the disciples had said, "We'll be okay, he's sleeping through it," if
:they would've just gone through that storm and arrived at the other side.
:But that's not how it turned out.
:Let's go to Romans 8.
:Romans 8 names tribulation, distress, persecution,
:famine, danger, and the sword.
:Paul does not say faithful believers will never experience these things.
:He asked whether any of them can separate us from the love of Christ,
:and his answer is a big old no.
:There is a difference between these two statements.
:Nothing painful will happen, and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
:The first statement is not a promise Scripture gives.
:The second is one of Scripture's clearest declarations of hope.
:God's protection can include prevention.
:We need to understand that.
:That might be part of it.
:Sometimes a door closes before harm reaches us.
:I believe in my life there have been many situations that God has prevented me
:from going into that would've been much uglier or potentially much more harmful
:or worse than just me doing nothing.
:I have no doubt about that.
:Sometimes provision, healing, or relief comes, or just
:staying away from something.
:Sometimes we recognize protection only afterwards, like I just mentioned.
:I've seen that.
:I really believe that.
:Those are good gifts, and we accept those, and we, we love getting that.
:We love having that protection, and we should receive them with gratitude.
:I'm hopeful that I'm gracious about all of that.
:We should pray for healing, rescue, provision, wisdom, and relief.
:Jesus taught people to ask for those things.
:The early communities prayed for Peter's release from prison.
:Paul asked people to pray for his deliverance.
:James told the elders to pray over the sick.
:Seeking medical care, counseling, healthy boundaries, or safety, that really is not
:weak faith or avoiding certain situations.
:That's not weak Installing a smoke alarm or, you know, building up reserves in your
:finances, savings accounts, asking skilled people for help, those are acts of wisdom.
:Wisdom and trust do belong together.
:The question is not whether God ever prevents harm.
:The question is whether prevention of all harm is the promise
:given to every faithful person.
:And truthfully, we know the answer to that.
:It's just sometimes we pretend that we don't.
:The whole story tells us it is not.
:Sometimes God delivers people from danger.
:Sometimes God meets people within that danger.
:Sometimes the prison opens.
:Sometimes Paul writes from confinement.
:Sometimes the storm becomes calm.
:Sometimes the shepherd walks with us through the valley.
:This is where we need humility.
:We should not claim to know why one person receives the outcome they
:requested while another does not.
:Celebrate healing without accusing the person who remains sick.
:Thank God for protection without claiming someone else had less faith.
:Tell stories of rescue without turning them into formulas.
:A testimony should point toward God's faithfulness.
:It should not become a measuring stick used against another person's pain.
:Protection can mean prevention.
:Protection can also mean preservation.
:A person remains rooted in love through grief.
:A community carries someone who cannot carry themselves.
:A believer refuses bitterness after betrayal.
:A house remains standing while wind beats against it.
:None of that makes the storm less real.
:It shows that collapse is not the only possible ending.
:The disciples wanted Jesus to care about the water entering the boat.
:He did care.
:He acted.
:He woke up.
:But the gospel does not reduce his care to that single rescue.
:Jesus' care is revealed fully through his life, teaching, suffering, all that he
:did, including his death and resurrection.
:The cross prevents us from saying God remains distant from human pain.
:The resurrection prevents us from saying pain has the final word.
:Between those truths, we learn to trust without pretending.
:We ask boldly.
:We seek help.
:We act wisely.
:We protect people where we can, and we refuse to measure the character of
:God by whether every outcome matches our expectations or our requests.
:That is not passive faith.
:It is faith strong enough to tell the truth about the storm.
:Now, let's introduce something that we're gonna be talking about more,
:and that is the term comfort theology.
:That's where this larger arc begins.
:Comfort theology describes the expectation that following God should make life
:safer, easier, more predictable, or controllable, something that all
:of us, most of us as humans desire.
:We're gonna examine it carefully in later episodes, but for now, notice
:what Mark 4 and Matthew 7 shows us.
:The disciples obeyed Jesus and the storm came.
:The wise builder practiced Jesus' words, and the storm still came.
:Faithfulness changed neither forecast nor circumstances.
:Faithfulness changed what the storm revealed.
:In the boat, the disciples discovered more about the identity of Jesus.
:At the house with the strong foundation, the foundation of rock, the storm
:exposed the strength of the foundation Comfort is not necessarily sinful.
:I wanna make sure I say that.
:Rest is a gift, safety matters, and relief is worth seeking.
:The concern begins when comfort becomes the evidence that we
:require before calling God good.
:If life becomes easier, we assume God is pleased.
:If life becomes harder, we assume God or someone failed.
:That belief can make us cruel.
:It can harden our hearts, to use a Christian term.
:We blame people for pain they did not choose.
:We offer explanations when compassion is needed.
:We hide fear because faithful people should appear untouched.
:Prayer becomes a method for controlling outcomes.
:We're gonna explore those ideas across this series, but this
:episode is establishing one truth pretty clearly, hopefully.
:Obedience does not guarantee easier circumstances.
:The storm still came.
:Now, what does this mean for us?
:What do Mark 4 and Matthew 7 mean for us now?
:First, difficulty is not automatic proof that someone or you missed God.
:Review decisions and remain teachable.
:Correct mistakes when needed, but difficulty alone is not a verdict.
:It's not a judgment, I guess.
:The disciples were where Jesus told them to be.
:They were right where Jesus told them to be.
:A hard road may still be faithful.
:Second, move toward hurting people with compassion, not explanation.
:Someone who is sick, grieving, or overwhelmed may need a meal,
:transportation, professional care, safety, or just someone to listen to them.
:Pray with confidence without promising outcomes God did not promise.
:Hope for healing without blaming anyone if healing does not come.
:Jesus moved toward people in pain, so should we.
:Third thing, seek protection while building on Jesus' words.
:Pray for calm.
:Call the doctor if you need to.
:Get help.
:Find a counselor.
:Take medicine.
:None of this is anti any of that.
:Build up reserves.
:Save money.
:Create boundaries with other people.
:That's fine.
:Leave if something seems dangerous.
:Repair the roof if the rains are coming.
:Trusting God does not require ignoring reality.
:Matthew seven also calls us to practice Jesus' way before the weather changes.
:Forgive before resentment grows.
:Tell the truth before pressure makes dishonesty attractive.
:Practice generosity, hidden prayer, mercy, and loving your enemies.
:A foundation is built through ordinary choices repeated over time.
:The house may shake and rumble with the storm, and people
:inside may need some help.
:Standing does not mean handling everything alone.
:Now, here's a, what I'll call a big question, diagnostic type question.
:Am I measuring God's faithfulness by easier circumstances or building my
:life on the words that Jesus spoke?
:Following Jesus does not mean the storm will not come.
:It means the storm is not the Lord.
:Now, here's some things we just need to remember as we wrap up.
:The disciples, remember this, Jesus gave them a direct instruction to
:get in the boat and go across the sea, and they followed Jesus into
:the boat, and the storm still came.
:And then The wise builder built on rock, and the wind still blew.
:Psalm 23 gives us a shepherd, but the valley still exists.
:Romans 8 gives us Christ's love while still naming distress, danger, and loss.
:Scripture does not offer fragile hope that survives only when
:circumstances or storms cooperate.
:It gives us a present king, a foundation that holds, a shepherd who stays,
:and a love that will not release us.
:Who is in the boat?
:What is beneath the house?
:Those questions matter before, during, and after the storm.
:one question remains for our next conversation.
:If scripture repeatedly shows faithful people facing difficulty,
:why do we expect faithfulness to produce easier circumstances?
:Where did that expectation come from, and what has it
:taught us about God's goodness?
:This is where we will go to in the next episode.
:I wanna remind you that the reading plan for NT90 is free, and you
:can get it at k2m.foundation/nt90.
:Download it.
:Start reading it.
:If you haven't already, continue reading it, or keep reading it if you've
:already done it and gotten started.
:And, you know, one of the things, if you just want something to do from this
:episode, go read Mark 4:35-41 and Matthew
:7:24-27.
:Notice who gives the instructions in both.
:Notice who faces the storms.
:Notice what Jesus promises and what he does not promise.
:Then just keep following the text.
:This is Tim Winders.
:Keep seeking.
:Keep digging.
:We'll see you on the next episode.
