Take Courage in the Lord

Following up from last week, I'm digging deeper in to Mark 6 and why it's so important that Jesus tells the disciples to take courage and not be afraid. 

When life's storms try to swallow us whole, and things seem bleak and difficult, Jesus is with us. He's calling us to courage. To deepen the roots of our faith and trust in Him. He wants us to walk confidently in Him, not in fear, which clouds our vision and takes our eyes off Him. The Lord was faithful to walk the disciples through many, many storms. And He's faithful to do the same for you and me. Today, will we take courage and not fear? Even if we can't tangibly discern Him, Jesus is with us and He will get us through the storm.

Scriptures Referenced:

• Mark 6:45-51
• Ephesians 6:18
• Philippians 3:12
• Acts 3:1-10
• Mark 4:35-41
• Psalm 1

You can find me on Instagram / Threads

Transcript

Carrie: 0:05

Hey everyone! Welcome to episode 11 of Honey from the Rock. I am so glad you're here. And I am sitting here in amazement as I record this, that we are nine days away from Christmas. That just seems crazy to me. And I hope that in the midst of how crazy busy the holidays can be with family gatherings and parties and church services and all sorts of things, that in the midst of all of the busy, that your heart and soul are finding time to rest in the Lord and and to really take stock of your heart and um your time with the Lord, your relationship with Him in this Advent season. This has been obviously a very different Christmas season for my family, um just considering uh how our 2025 has been. But I will tell you, friends, that in the most beautiful ways and in the quiet, quiet ways that so often the Lord works, He has so shown up for my mom and my brother and I. And we've been working hard on instituting new and different traditions and doing way different things than we've ever done for Christmas before, which has been really soothing to our hearts, I think. And it's been enjoyable. We we went and drove and looked at Christmas lights, and here in Colorado Springs, our uh zoo has this thing called Electric Safari, where they put up all of these amazing Christmas lights all over the place, and it's just spectacular. I think it's the number two light show for zoos during the holidays in the nation. Um, but if you live in Colorado Springs, I would highly, highly, highly recommend that you go see Electric Safari and a little pro tip that if you decide to go on non-peak nights, the ticket price is a lot cheaper. And we just we just had a blast, and some of the exhibits were still open, so we got to see um the tigers and the lions and a red panda and uh a giant bull moose and otters and the elephants, mountain goats. I mean, just all sorts of things. It was it was a blast, and it was a great walk, and it wasn't too super cold, but anyway, we just we loved it and we had such a great time. And I, those kinds of things are just filling my heart with so much joy and contentment in this season because the Lord is present in those moments, walking with us and being with us and and comforting with us as we continue to just walk on our own grief journey. And I know for a lot of people, as I've mentioned, I think almost every single episode, that it's been a difficult year for so many people. But my prayer is that we get closer and closer to Christmas, that the balm of the peace of Jesus would just rest within us and heal so many of those places where we are broken and tender and grieving and and trying to figure out figure out life. And so what I wanted to do today is actually follow up on the episode I did last week about Jesus sending us into storms because I actually didn't even get through all of my notes. And I realized when I got done with it that I hadn't even talked about one of the most amazing parts of the story, which is what I'm going to talk about today, which is Jesus finally, um, and I say finally, the Lord knows I'm not being like, finally, Lord, you got on the water. Uh, no, who would I be to say that to him? But he gets on the water, he decides to come down in that fourth watch of the night between 3 and 6 a.m. after the disciples have been struggling and striving, and they have been buffeted and tossed around by this wind. And Jesus comes walking on the water, and the disciples are terrified when they see him, and they think it is a ghost, and they cry out because and I love I love that Mark tells us they all saw him and they were terrified. And it scripture says something interesting in this in this section of Mark 6. It says he intended to pass them by. And some commentators and translators have a difficult time kind of parsing out what that means, because the word in the Greek can actually mean two different things. It can mean intending to pass by or go around, but it can also mean intending to come close and to come near. And so there's a little bit of uncertainty from from certain people, certain scholars and commentators about what it means. But I thought that there um there was a really great perspective from one of the commentators that I read. His name was Vance uh Havner, and he said that the Lord gives them the opportunity, right, um, to call out to him, right? And and that the Lord doesn't desire to pass us by, but we also have to make a choice to call out to him. And he said, I would have you say, call upon him, pass me, pass me not, O gentle savior, do not pass me by. He came to them in their distress, but he did not come into the boat until they called. He did not go into the Emmaus home in Luke 24 until they begged him to stay. He will not intrude. There is a point beyond which he will not go. If we do not invite him in, he will go on. And I loved this perspective merely because it I feel like this commentator so beautifully illustrates the willingness of Jesus. He wants to come in, he makes himself available, he enters into our storms, but we also have to want him there and and to cry out to him. And there are times when the Lord just steps in, no doubt. But there are many times where maybe in our own lives it feels like the Lord intends to pass us by or intends to go around our storm. And and in the testing of our faith or in the strengthening of our faith, we don't want him to. And so we cry out when we ask him to come. And it it was kind of what I was alluding to when I was talking about last week, all of the places where people accused Jesus of being a place that he shouldn't have been, right? I think about Martha saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And Martha and Mary had reached out to him, right? But John tells us that because Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, he waited two days. He waited two days to enter into their storm, to enter into what was going on with them. And so I just I think it's something that's not tied up in a neat bow. And I think it's a place where we can really wrestle with the Lord, you know, and it I know it's been a place of wrestling in my own life as to when he steps into a storm of mine, how he steps into a storm, how I cry out to him, when I cry out to him, all of those things. And that's what's so amazing about the Lord is there's not a formula. It's never if I do X and then this, then Jesus will do this, and it's just figured out because everything is so unique and everything is so geared towards continuing to conform me to the image of Jesus that he is going to continue to do things or provoke things in me or try to teach me so that my faith deepens and matures, so that so that I move past being in the place like the disciples were here, where my heart is my heart is hardened, right? My ignorance is in full force and my understanding is dulled, to where I'm unable to look around at the way that the Lord's provided before, and I'm still just screaming and crying and tossed about in my storm, to growing and and deepening the roots of my faith to when the storm buffets me and the wind blows, those episodes of distress and losing my mind and accusing the Lord and asking him where he is and why isn't he doing this? They get less and less. Why? Because I am able to look back at his provision in my life. I'm able to look back on how many times he's come through, how many times he showed up for me, how many times he's ministered to me, how many times he has absolutely revealed himself to me through his word, and everything he's done, both personally and then on that grand scale of being able to look, to look at the crucifixion, to look at his birth, his incarnation, to look at even his burial, to look at his resurrection and say, I have everything that I need because of who Jesus Christ is. But I love what Jesus does for the disciples here, because even though their hearts were hardened because of lack of understanding, right? They had no intuition, they had no understanding about the incident with the Lowe's because their hearts were hardened. Even though there's been times, times like that in my own life, the Lord has still stepped in for me. He has still ministered to me and used these kinds of storms and situations to crack my ignorance, to crack my lack of understanding and to open my eyes. Which is something I actually love about this whole episode, because the disciples, like we've been talking about, their hearts were hardened for lack of understanding. They've been in this tempest terror for eight to ten hours, rowing and fighting the storm, exhausted. And again, I will remind you and remind myself literally sent into the middle of this storm by the Lord. They were in the will of the Lord. And so having just struggled and fought and rowed with all of their might, then all of a sudden Jesus appears on the sea. And now Mark doesn't tell us how they thought Jesus was going to get to the other side. I don't, I don't know if they had thought through logistics at that point. But I'm sure in the midst of their exhaustion and feeling frayed to the uttermost, in in the in the despair and the the discouragement that comes and just fighting and fighting and fighting and being buffeted and buffeted and buffeted, all of a sudden, here's this figure walking on the water. And scripture tells us that the disciples think it's a ghost. And then they are terrified. It means to strike one's spirit with fear or dread, to agitate back and forth, to shake to and fro, to set in motion what needs to remain still, to trouble, causing inner perplexity, emotional agitation from getting too stirred up inside. This was the state of the disciples. This is what they were experiencing. This is their mind, their soul, their body. They were exhausted. And then all of a sudden, they look at the sea and there is something or somebody walking on the water. I mean, can you imagine what that would that would do to your mind? Like you've been wrestling this storm. You've literally been trying to get maybe four or five miles across a lake, and you've been stuck in it on a boat for eight to ten hours, stretched and pushed to the uttermost and exhausted. And then all of a sudden you see something on the sea. I'd be terrified too. And again, I wonder how Jesus appeared to them. I mean, I don't know if he appeared to them like in the transfiguration where he was he was dressed in pure white, or if he just looked that way against against the waves and against the tempest. Or, you know, did he just look like himself and because it was so dark, he was such a striking contrast against against the waves and against the the darkness and the clouds and the thunder and the storm? I don't know. It's it's it's interesting it's interesting to think about. Obviously, he he looked different to them because they thought he was a ghost. And instead of taking them to task and instead of yelling at them, Mark tells us immediately, immediately, Jesus says to them, Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid. And I love this. So the word immediately is used the most by Mark. It is used 41 times in Mark. And again, I think I mentioned it last week, but most people think that Mark uh was writing down what Peter dictated to him for the gospel. And you can just tell, I mean, it it does reflect Peter's perpetual motion, right? Immediately this happened, immediately this happened, immediately this happened. But the disciples are afraid, they are terrified, they are pushed to the brink physically, mentally, emotionally. They are terrified, and Jesus says, Take courage. It is I do not be afraid. And I love, I love this because in the Lord's command to take courage, he is also requiring of them, but helping them to stir up faith, right? To stir up courage in the midst of the storm, to immediately hear the voice of our Savior, to hear the voice of Jesus tell us to take courage in the midst of what we're facing. It is it's the word to the weary in times of difficulty. You know, when we're in the wilderness or we're in the midst of the storm and we are striving and struggling, we are begging the Lord for a word or to open up his word to us, to show us certain things, or to lead us in a certain way. We want his tangible presence, we want his faithfulness, his goodness. We we want those things tangibly, and for a good chunk of time the disciples didn't have that. And now here Jesus is, and he says to them, take courage. And I love this because number one, this word, this phrase is used only seven times in the New Testament. But I love it because I mean, we know the number seven is obviously the number of completion, but I love that this what this word's word means in the Greek, and it's a it's a voice that's uh is a summons to inward confidence that rests on an external source, which is God's saving presence. The verb never depicts self-generated optimism, it always arises from a word or act of the Lord that decisively removes the cause of fear. This word in the Greek portrays courage as a gift spoken by the Lord into situations of sin, sickness, danger, and persecution. And it traces its usage, traces a unified trajectory. Christ's authoritative word creates fearless disciples who in turn relay that courage to a fearful, fearful world, confident that the one who commands has already overcome. I love that so much. And what I just read is from the topical lexicon. And I just I love it so much. Jesus says, take courage, and that's immediately what he is instilling to them. Jesus never commands us to do anything that he hasn't already done. He never commands us to do anything that he is already not prepping us for and graciously giving us gifts and strength and faith to do. And it is it is incumbent upon us to lay hold of those things, to receive the gifts that he's given and not reject them in unfaithfulness or in unbelief, but even in the feebleness and the futility of our flesh to grab hold, to grab hold of what Jesus offers, to grab hold of the fringe of his garment, even in our fear to hear him say, take courage to us and to trust him and believe him in the midst of the storm. And that's what I was talking about last week, is there is so much space in Jesus. Again, the Psalms, Job, even Jesus' own crying out, there is so much space to process and to deal and to wrestle through things. But that wrestling has to have a maturation process within it. We can't stay stuck in the same wheel all the time. That's not growth, that's rumination. That's not growth. That is, that is staying in a place where the past has more power over us than what Jesus is doing in the present. And and I and just to encourage both you and me, it it the Lord Jesus has has come and has given us his gospel. He's given us his commandments, he's given us his Holy Spirit, he has died to reconcile us to the Father so that we can walk in newness of mind. We can walk in a strength that is not of our flesh, which is which is weak and sinful, but we can be filled with the Lord. And storms in life will come. We will wrestle to the point where we feel like our faith is going to be overthrown, we will wrestle past the point of mental exhaustion many times, of spiritual and emotional exhaustion. And yet when Jesus speaks to us, when Jesus moves on our behalf, when he steps in, when we are in the word and we are reading and we are assimilating into our spirits the character of our God, we need to take courage and fear not, because every single thing that the Lord purposes for us is not just so that he can use us better in his kingdom and so he can just have more workers across the world and and just no, it is it is because he wants us to become mature disciples. Psalm 1 describes them as oaks of righteousness along still waters. Oak trees have incredibly deep roots. And that is what Jesus is trying to do for us. And so, again, my friends, I want to encourage you if you find yourself in the midst of a storm, whether it is at the making of your own hands, because of your own sin and your own struggle and your own wrestle and rebellion, or it is a storm that the Lord has swept into your life, both can have the same purpose. Both can have the same purpose of revelation of Jesus in your life, however, He chooses to do that. And both can also, in the Lord's time and in the Lord's way, spur us on to maturation. Spur us on towards understanding that we have not yet attained, but I refuse to keep looking at what is behind. And I move ahead towards the goal, which is gaining Jesus Christ, as Paul tells us in Philippians 3. And so know that the Lord will give us space to process through the things that have hurt us and wounded us and the things that people have done to us and to help us learn how to forgive and to forgive from the heart. He also gives us space to wrestle when we have done those things to other people. And we need to come under his love and his care, that he has hurt us when we've repented, that that sin is cleansed away, and that Jesus doesn't want us to walk in browbeating shame forever, right? But again, he wants us to mature. So that as we are tempted to sin, we grow in our resistance against it because we want nothing to come between him and I. Whatever the storm looks like, know that in it somewhere, Jesus, in his goodness and his mercy to you and me, is calling us forward. Not to sit spinning our wheels and just living in the frustration of nothing ever getting better, nothing ever changing, it always being terrible. No. The Lord will come to us in his time, in his way. He will say to us, take courage. It's me. I am here. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. And what is so beautiful to me is that the word for fear here, when Jesus tells them to not be afraid, the word fear here means to be absolutely struck with fear, to be seized with alarm, those who fear harm or injury. Again, this is the state of the disciples. And I know it has been your state at some point, and it has been mine, where we have wrestled and we have fought, we have been in a storm, and it just feels like blow after blow after blow is coming and it doesn't stop. And then all of a sudden, something happens where the Lord appears or encouragement comes, and it is so difficult to get out of that cycle of fear. It's so difficult sometimes to trust the good thing that has all of the sudden happened, and yet is the that is the very thing that Jesus is calling us to do. Why? Because he has appeared. He has appeared, he has done it for me hand over fist so many times, friends. And I know that is the testimony of so many who listen. They can point to to definite times in their life where Jesus showed up in the storm. And so we cast off fear, right? We we war against it and we we again it's what I talked about last week. Will we make gratitude and worship our weapons? Will we wield that sword of the spirit and cut away every lie within us that that that wants to keep us separated from the Lord? And will we pick up that pick up that sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and immerse ourselves in the truth of who Jesus is and and meditate on the truth, meditate on the truth, keep keep his word and his character and his person first and foremost in our minds so that when the storms come, and those storms that come with the with the subtle and deceptive and divisive voice of the enemy that wants us to believe A, did God really say? B, is this really God's character? C, he doesn't care about you, he's not going to take care of you, he's not gonna fight for you. You need to strive for yourself, you need to watch out for number one, whatever it is. The more we infuse ourselves with the character of Jesus Christ, with the character of the Father, with the character of the Holy Spirit, with the truth of who they are and how they feel about us, what they have done for us, the more we can quickly recognize the lie of the enemy and stand against it and refuse, refuse to doubt the Lord in the storm, refuse to be sucked in by fear again in the storm. But instead, like I talked about in the growth and maturation of our faith, we we move from we move from wrestling and we move from fighting and and fearing that the Lord is never going to show up to the disposition of Job. Lord Jesus, though you slay me, I'm going to trust you. Though you crucify this flesh, Lord, and all the things that it wants to hold so dear and comfortable, Lord, I will trust you in the slaying of my flesh, in the slaying of this mind and this body that's done really nothing for me except forgive me so much trouble. And I will entrust them to you. I will be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Lord, I won't continue to be as I have in the past and like the disciples were here. Hard of heart, calloused of heart, unable to discern your goodness and your move. But I want to grow, Lord Jesus, in knowing you. I want to grow in discerning you. I want to grow in trust. I want to grow in faith and in perseverance and endurance for your sake. And every single disciple in the scenario, except for Judas, did that. They became the catalyst for a movement that completely changed the trajectory of the world. And they probably didn't really know that at the time. They just knew that they were entrusted to preach the gospel. But my friends, I will tell you with a certainty that is in the depth of my soul, those disciples could not have preached the gospel to an afraid and dying world if they had not had to face their own fears and their own limitations and their own sin and their own unbelief and their own hardness of heart. If those things were never faced, they can't preach the gospel in power. They can't minister to a blind beggar at the gate called beautiful. Silver and gold, I don't have, but what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ. Rise and walk. It is the way that Jesus has chosen to bind us to himself. Without him, we can do nothing, he says in John 15. It is the storms design primarily to bind us to Jesus, to keep us in abiding. And it's not manipulation on the Lord's part. It's not taking away our free will because we always have a choice. We always have a choice. And yet, if we will allow the Lord to use, and I will call them this, allow the Lord to use the gifts of affliction and suffering to be the very way that He transforms us and reveals the depth of His great love to us, then friends, we have received the unspeakable gift of God the Father. What do we think the Lord means when he says, neither height nor depth, nor angels, nor demons, nor principalities, nor things of this world, or you know, whatever is to come can separate us from the love of Jesus, which love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Paul says it in Romans 8. Why does he make that list? Because every single one of those things try to come between us and the Lord. Every single thing does. Friends, there is a war on for our souls, and that is the thing I want to encourage us in today. The war is on for us. Why? Because the war is on for a hurting and dying world. And we cannot war faithfully in ministry with people if we can't war faithfully with Jesus in the storm. We can't minister out of the rest and the grace and the beauty that Jesus gives us in the midst of the storm if we never walk through the ones that He's appointed to us. And again, it is not to deny the immense difficulty, the immense difficulty of the things that we have to walk through, of the things that the Lord appoints us to walk through, and also the things that happen because we live in a sinful, fallen world, and and bad things happen, and yet the Lord uses them. He is telling each one of us today, take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. Grab a hold of him in it. And for for all of us, that that those words from Jesus, those powerful, beautiful words from Jesus would take root in our soul. We can have courage because Jesus is within us. We don't have to be afraid because Jesus is within us. And even when we can't tangibly discern him in the midst of our storm, he is still there. And when he chose chooses to reveal himself, when he chooses to open our eyes so we can see him, it I I and I say it, I say it from the depth of my soul and in the in in the meaning of in the it just in the depth of meaning that the Lord has has used this in my own life. It is everything. The storm disappears. And I'm in this Christmas season, in this Advent season, where we honor the waiting that our forefathers and our church fathers and sisters and brothers and mothers went through waiting for the first coming of Jesus. And as we sit in the same darkness, we sit in the same anticipation of his second advent, of his second coming. Let us take courage, let us cast off the things that are hardening our heart and blinding our understanding. Areas where we know the Lord is requiring us to deal. Storms that have come because of our own junk, and storms that have come because the Lord has appointed them. Let us get on our face before him and seek him out and seek him out and ask him, ask him to show himself in the midst of our storms. He is willing to do it and he will do it. He will do it in his time and in his purpose for his will. And that's the thing that is so beautiful about this episode in this storm. In Mark 4, Jesus speaks to the storm and says, Peace be still. Can you discern that yet? Is he? Is he? Or is he still requiring you to trust that even though you cannot tangibly discern him, he is with you. Wherever, wherever you are, in whatever you are facing, I pray that you will not give up. Continue to seek the Lord. Continue to trust him. Rest when you know you need to rest, pursue and and and press in when you know you need to not stop like Jacob until you get your blessing from him, until he appears. And the other thing I want to encourage each one of us, including myself, to do is as I talked about last week, you know, they had the provision of the bread in the boat with them. They took the 12 baskets with them. I need to take inventory of my life, and I encourage you to do the same. Where has Jesus provided for you? How has he provided for you? Where has his hand miraculously cut through all of the noise and provision for you? And where do you think your heart might be hardened? Just lacking understanding about his provision. And so you can't discern him in the storm. Friends, let me tell you, that has happened to me. That has happened to me more times than I can count. Where I've lacked understanding because of my own hardness of heart. And I've had to repent and ask the Lord to soften my heart and to open the eyes of my heart so that I could see him. Sometimes Jesus has already been in the boat with me a long time and I've not discerned him because I lacked understanding. And the lack of understanding was my fault. Because I didn't deal with a sin issue that he was requiring me to deal with, or I didn't repent in an area where he required me to deal with. All of these things can be true at once. We can be in the midst of the storm that Jesus sent us into that we don't understand because of our hard hearts, because of our lack of understanding. And yet Jesus is so willing to soften them. In fact, he uses the very storm he sends us into to soften our hearts, to renew our hearts, to renew our minds. Right? As Paul talks about in Romans 12. And so as we go into Christmas and we consider the magnitude of the Father sending his son in human form to save us, praise God that Jesus came to save sinners. Praise God that Jesus came as the great physician to minister to those who are sick. Praise God that He sent Jesus down into the midst of the storm that is humanity. And I encourage each one of us to sit as we contemplate these deep and amazing truths of Advent and Christmas, that we contemplate this year, where the Lord has provided for us, how he has come through time and time again, and that we set aside time to truly worship Emmanuel, God with us, that we truly do adore him, that we open the and we crack through the hardness of our own hearts to prepare room for him with within them in a deeper way than we have before. And that we we hear ringing in us with with the depth of truth and beauty and and grace and mercy and love. Take courage. Amen. Thanks for listening to this episode of Honey from the Rock. If this episode or any other episode of the podcast has encouraged you, would you consider taking a moment to like, share, subscribe, or write a review for the podcast? I would greatly appreciate it, and may you be blessed in the Lord.