Who Can This Be?
by
Dr. R. C. Sproul Jr.
Jesus calmed the storm, which made the diciples even more afraid.
We all, I believe, operate under a wide range of unspoken equations. We like our lives marked by ease and peace. We dispatch, without thinking, anything that challenges our ease and peace. At least I do. One of my equations that lurks just beneath the surface is this: if a job is difficult, it’s not my job. Even more accurately, if it’s frightening, it must not be required of me.
I have seven children. Each is dependent on me for their provision. I must not provoke them to wrath but must raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. God commands me to teach them who He is, what He has done, and what He requires of us. When I die, long before God speaks about how I handled money or why I was wrong about this or that theological tidbit, He will ask me what I did with the children He entrusted to me.
Raising children is a terrifying job, which is why we seek so often to evade the responsibility. If it is this hard, this scary, surely God wants me to give the job to someone more competent. Isn’t that why we have schools? Isn’t that why He gave me a wife? Isn’t that why we hired the youth director? It’s scary enough winning the bread. Surely, God doesn’t expect me to raise godly seed as well.
We often hear that the job isn’t that difficult and we can do well, if we try. We parade successful dads as living proof that anyone can do it, thinking if we undo the fear, men will not shrink from the challenge.
There is a better approach. The disciples, many of whom were experienced seamen, came face-to-face with their fears as they crossed the sea with Jesus in a boat. While Jesus slept, a great storm rose, threatening to sink the ship. The disciples, put out at this incursion of fear in their lives, woke their Master saying, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38) Jesus did care. He spoke and calmed the storm. Peace and safety, however, were now even further from them. After Jesus asked them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith?” they “feared exceedingly, and said to one another, ‘Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!’”
Their fear intensified, rather than diminished. Now they had no mere storm to contend with but were in the presence of glory and holiness. And they were afraid. Being afraid of the God who commands is the very font of faith. When we fear God, we are just beginning to step into wisdom (Psalm 111:10). When we have wisdom, we have something valuable to pass along to our children.
It is because we fear that He is gracious. It is because we acknowledge our own inability, that He blesses us. Because we confess our brokenness, He heals us. The solution to our fears is not to conquer them but to direct them aright, to fear what, or rather Whom, we ought. David reminds us, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:11-14).
We serve the Master who calms storms and strikes fear in the wise. Fathers, God calls us to be afraid, to be very afraid. But from our fear, He brings us blessing and will bless our children after us.
I have seven children. Each is dependent on me for their provision. I must not provoke them to wrath but must raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. God commands me to teach them who He is, what He has done, and what He requires of us. When I die, long before God speaks about how I handled money or why I was wrong about this or that theological tidbit, He will ask me what I did with the children He entrusted to me.
Raising children is a terrifying job, which is why we seek so often to evade the responsibility. If it is this hard, this scary, surely God wants me to give the job to someone more competent. Isn’t that why we have schools? Isn’t that why He gave me a wife? Isn’t that why we hired the youth director? It’s scary enough winning the bread. Surely, God doesn’t expect me to raise godly seed as well.
We often hear that the job isn’t that difficult and we can do well, if we try. We parade successful dads as living proof that anyone can do it, thinking if we undo the fear, men will not shrink from the challenge.
There is a better approach. The disciples, many of whom were experienced seamen, came face-to-face with their fears as they crossed the sea with Jesus in a boat. While Jesus slept, a great storm rose, threatening to sink the ship. The disciples, put out at this incursion of fear in their lives, woke their Master saying, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38) Jesus did care. He spoke and calmed the storm. Peace and safety, however, were now even further from them. After Jesus asked them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith?” they “feared exceedingly, and said to one another, ‘Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!’”
Their fear intensified, rather than diminished. Now they had no mere storm to contend with but were in the presence of glory and holiness. And they were afraid. Being afraid of the God who commands is the very font of faith. When we fear God, we are just beginning to step into wisdom (Psalm 111:10). When we have wisdom, we have something valuable to pass along to our children.
It is because we fear that He is gracious. It is because we acknowledge our own inability, that He blesses us. Because we confess our brokenness, He heals us. The solution to our fears is not to conquer them but to direct them aright, to fear what, or rather Whom, we ought. David reminds us, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:11-14).
We serve the Master who calms storms and strikes fear in the wise. Fathers, God calls us to be afraid, to be very afraid. But from our fear, He brings us blessing and will bless our children after us.
Tags: Dr. R. C. Sproul Jr., Jesus calmed the storm, The diciples.