Invite you to open your bibles to Mark chapter 4. Mark chapter 4. We are in a series called doctrines we hold dear as a church or doctrines we delight in. Basically some core values, some core doctrines that we hold to as a church, And so I'm gonna be looking at the sovereignty and the supremacy of God, and I'll warn you I get a little excited at times when I think about these things. We're gonna read from Mark 4, the story of Jesus calming a storm.
Jeffrey Heine:Read with me in verse 35. On that day when evening had come, he said to them, let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with them with him. And a great windstorm 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 said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace be still.
Jeffrey Heine: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? Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, nothing that we look at tonight should be new, but we always need to hear a fresh word from you. I pray that the doctrines that we maybe have held to all of our life would actually come alive through your spirit and they would find a root in our heart. Lord, I pray that you would use me, a very weak vessel, to proclaim something so amazing. The Godness of God. So Lord, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, let your words remain, and may they change us.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. How many of y'all love looking at the church Marquise like old country churches? I mean, I don't know how many times I've heard somebody say, I'm gonna make a, you you know, coffee table book with those. Please do.
Jeffrey Heine:Anytime I see them, if I used to have a camera in the car, I'd take a picture. I would always write them down. These are some of the ones that I've I've come across over the years. Probably none of these are new to you, but God answers an email. Come in for a faith lift.
Jeffrey Heine:Free ticket to paradise inside. Don't wait for a hearse to take you to church. Soul food served here. Can't sleep? Try counting your blessings.
Jeffrey Heine:Forbidden fruit creates many jams. We should be more concerned with the rock of ages instead of the ages of rocks. Go figure. Don't make me come down there, God. Wise men still follow Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't be depressed. Moses too was a basket case. Could have used that a couple weeks ago or months ago. I love this one, Satan alert. Red.
Jeffrey Heine:This one might be my favorite. If you don't believe in Jesus, go to hell. I actually saw that out there. It's concise, to the point, very inviting if you're just driving by. This blood's for you.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, when I was the director of UCF, sometimes I'd get home late on a Wednesday night. Actually, I'd always get home really late on a Wednesday night. But I'd be so keyed up I couldn't sleep. And so I would watch King of the Hill. I think it came on like 11:30 which is just you know a fantastic show.
Jeffrey Heine:And one of my favorite lines from the show came after Bobby really got into Christian music. And he actually wore a t shirt that said, This Bloods For You. And his dad made a comment that I will never forget. I don't know. I'd, you know, I can't imitate on my Bobby.
Jeffrey Heine:But you know, Bobby, you're not making Christianity better. You're making rock and roll worse. And he nailed it. He absolutely nailed it. You know, there are so many attempts to make Christianity cool.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, to make God somehow relevant to our society as if He's not relevant, so we have to make Him relevant. And when we do these things, we belittle God. We make Him as just a little sliver of pop culture. And in our attempt to make Him relevant, we'll reduce them down to something simple as like, here is your fix for a broken life. Here's the way that you can improve yourself.
Jeffrey Heine:Here's a self help for you all. And the world sees right through it. You know, it is amazing because it's being preached everywhere in churches that you could go there. The Christians don't see through it. But the world looks at that and they just think that is garbage.
Jeffrey Heine:The bible screams of God's greatness and his beauty, and yet from the pulpits you're gonna hear often, you're gonna get like, you know, the 5 l's to to fight depression, or the the 3 q's for a better marriage, or something like that, or maybe a cliche saying that you'll find on a church marquee. But that is not the God of the bible. God is not small. God is not weak. God is not irrelevant.
Jeffrey Heine:He's the great I Am and He is central to all of life. We should be shocked when we open up the paper and God is not on the front page. All the things that God is doing. But somehow we've distanced him from reality and we put him in a religion section. We could compartmentalize God.
Jeffrey Heine:God is only part of this life, not all of life. But God says, I am. I am the central reality. U2 and their new album coming up, they actually have a line in there that I thought was pretty pertinent. Bono says, quit treating God like an old woman.
Jeffrey Heine:You have to walk across the street. The evangelical community would only heed those words, which we always feel that God needs our help. He needs our help. We say we believe the gospel, and we believe in the sovereignty of God, but yet we gotta make this gospel as attractive as we can to others. Otherwise, they're not gonna believe.
Jeffrey Heine:Or from the pulpit, we've got to be as entertaining as possible. Otherwise, God's spirit can ever captivate you or hold your attention. He needs help. So instead of telling you about God's power, telling you about His love, telling about you His beauty, I'll try to entertain you or I'll give you 10 steps to help you through the problem that you're having. That is totally out of touch with the God of the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:So tonight, I want us to take a a firm grasp, to get a grasp of who God is. And that's why we turn to Mark 4. I love this story. It's it's one of my favorites in the Bible. If any of you have ever been to our house, you know that we have a painting of this scene, And I love this.
Jeffrey Heine:Every morning I get down, I'll get my cup of coffee, sit in a chair, and I'll look up and there will be the painting. And it's of the disciples in a boat, and there's waves crashing over, and there's Jesus standing up, and the sunlight is just starting to break through. And the painter does in such a way where it's not cheesy because I know what I'm describing to you, you know, you're thinking sunlight going through. It's all cheesy. It's really cool.
Jeffrey Heine:And every morning I look at that and I'm reminded, the sovereignty, the the supremacy of Jesus. In this story here, Jesus asks his disciples to get in a boat, go to the other side. This lake here it's surrounded by mountains, but it's got it's got one little area here where there's a gap in the mountains and wind would rush through it. It could cause a really quick storm. And that's why, the sailors they would often travel at night where the weather wasn't as crazy as it would be during the day.
Jeffrey Heine:And so here they are. There is there at night, but this violent storm erupts, and it is so violent that you have fishermen, people who have been fishermen their whole life, they're saying we're gonna die. We're gonna die. So they cry out to Jesus, Jesus help us. Jesus, however, he's asleep in the midst of all this, and so they finally they wake him.
Jeffrey Heine:They say, don't you care? Don't you care that we are drowning? And verse 39 says that Jesus, he awoke and He rebuked the wind and He said to the sea, peace, be still. And just like that, the wind ceased and the waves died down. Now, in the painting that I have at my house, Jesus has His arms really wide like this, and sounds like He's screaming, but really you don't get any of that.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't do any long incantation, oh holy father, all this. He doesn't. He just, he gets up, he stands up, and he looks at the wind and the waves. And you could translate it this way, be quiet and stay quiet. Be quiet and say, Jesus treats this hurricane like a child.
Jeffrey Heine:And it obeyed. And so you got to picture these disciples screaming for their lives. Waves are crashing in. Jesus gets up and says, be quiet and stay quiet, and then instantly calm. No wind.
Jeffrey Heine:Sunshine. It was just howling fury just a second ago, and now calmness in Jesus. I tell you what, they had to be scared out of their mind. I mean they were scared a little bit in the storm, but Jesus, who who is this that they could say to a hurricane, be quiet and stay quiet? And it obeys.
Jeffrey Heine:Right after this, Jesus drives out an entire legion of demons from a man. And the outcome, people are scared out of their minds. They're like, Jesus please leave us. Then right after that, Jesus heals a woman suffering from a hemorrhage, and she touches the back of Jesus's robe. Jesus turns around and looks at her and says, she trembled with total fear as she was healed.
Jeffrey Heine:And you see this over and over in scripture anytime Jesus lets His godness shine, people are scared out of their minds. Scared out of their minds. They want that tame Jesus, not this God shining through. But someone who could speak to the wind and the waves like a child is the sovereign Lord of the universe. If you've ever spent much time with me, you know that I have somewhat of a fascination with Albert Einstein.
Jeffrey Heine:My father-in-law, he teaches physics, gives us something to talk about all the time too. He's actually always trying to get get me to be the science preacher is what he says. You need to be the science preacher. Every week give them some scientific fact and you'll wow them. And maybe it's a little outdated.
Jeffrey Heine:I keep saying it probably won't wow them or bring in the masses. So I'm not gonna be the science preacher, but I am very very interested in Albert Einstein. Read a few biographies, read a few books on his, theories. Not that I understand them. Please don't hear that.
Jeffrey Heine:Not that I'm just fascinated. Well I came across a quote 13 years ago about Albert Einstein, and it profoundly changed me. I would go so far as to say there is not another quote out there that has affected my preaching like this one has. It's by a man named Charles Meissner, who was a general relativity specialist, and it's about Einstein. And this is what he says about Einstein, I do see the design of the universe as essentially a religious question.
Jeffrey Heine:That is, one should have some kind of respect and awe for the whole business. It's very magnificent and shouldn't be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion. Although he strikes me as a basically very religious man, he must have looked at what preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing.
Jeffrey Heine:My guess is that he simply felt that the religions he'd run across did not have a proper respect for the author of the universe. Listen to this line again. He must have looked at what preachers said about god and thought they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined. Now Einstein knew things that that we know about space.
Jeffrey Heine:And so let me be the little science preacher for just a second and, light travels at 5.87 trillion miles per year. We call that a light year. Very good. You know our galaxy, it's a medium sized galaxy and it's about a 100 light years across. That means it is 587,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles across.
Jeffrey Heine:Now that's a number that's way too big for you to comprehend. Okay? It's just you can't even think about that. But if we go really even smaller, it doesn't help. It's if we just even look at our solar system, the numbers are still mind boggling.
Jeffrey Heine:If you were to reduce Jupiter down to a period on my my paper here, Jupiter is the size of a period. Pluto would be at the end of the wall and would be the size of a molecule, which is probably why Pluto was thrown out as a planet. You can't fit anything to scale anymore. If we were to keep the same model and you were to try to find our closest star besides the sun, Jupiter's a little teeny period. The next sun will be 10000 miles away.
Jeffrey Heine:We can't fathom our own solar system, let alone a galaxy in the universe. Now there are over in our galaxy, which is a medium sized galaxy, over a 1000000000 stars all spread out. And we can see well over a 1000000 galaxies like ours. So that is well over a 1000000,000,000,000 stars. Once again, you can't comprehend that.
Jeffrey Heine:Put in perspective, it is more grains it is there are more stars than number of grains of sand in all the beaches in all the world. More stars in that. And Einstein knew this. He knew this. We we we know this.
Jeffrey Heine:And so when he would go to a church, and then he would hear them give token praise to a creator, and talk about, you know, maybe giving some long acrostic about how you can deal with depression or something. He would say, they don't get it. They are not talking about the real thing. That's not God. I have seen more than that preacher can even imagine.
Jeffrey Heine:He's just not talking about the real thing. That God is so small. The way you talk about God, that is blasphemy. Absolute blasphemy. I can get that stuff anywhere.
Jeffrey Heine:You want to tell me how I could be a good parent? Well I could go to any hospital that offers, you know, classes and they'll tell me how to be a good parent. You They'll tell me how to be a good husband. Well there's plenty of counseling services I could go to and do that. Schools teach that about how to be a have good morals.
Jeffrey Heine:A matter of fact, the stuff you're you're you're preaching me, I can hear at any synagogue, any mosque, any Mormon church, any Buddhist temple. They're gonna teach me these things. I can get that anywhere. Give me God. What is different about your God?
Jeffrey Heine:And he is absolutely right when he says, most preachers blaspheme. That is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is one who could stand up, and he could look at a hurricane, and he could treat it like a child. And it's time that we start thinking of Jesus Christ, the word Christ is more than Jesus' last name, but it is His proper title. Jesus the Messiah.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus the King. Jesus who is the Lord of lords and who is the King of kings. That's what we mean when we say Jesus Christ. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe. And so when we say Jesus Christ, we're acknowledging Jesus' sovereignty and his supremacy.
Jeffrey Heine:Something that is testified about in every page of scripture. I mean from the very first page, you go to, you know, Genesis 1. Very first line, in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. The apostle John, he expounds on that when he says, all things were created through Him. And without Him, nothing was made that was made.
Jeffrey Heine:Exodus 15 says, Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? 1st Chronicles 29 says, Lord, you rule over all. Job 23 says, the Lord does whatever he desires, he does. Job 42 says that, I know that you can do all things and that no plan of yours can be thwarted.
Jeffrey Heine:Psalm 115 says, our God is in Heaven. He does whatever He pleases. Psalm 135 says, the Lord does whatever He pleases, both on the earth and in the heavens. No one can stay his hand. Proverbs 16 says that, the lord works out everything for his own end.
Jeffrey Heine:Proverbs 21 says, even the king's heart is like a water course in his hand, and he could direct it wherever he wishes. Proverbs 21:30 says that there is no wisdom, there is no insight, there is no plan that can succeed against the lord. Jeremiah 32 says, oh sovereign lord, you created the heavens and the earth by your mighty power and your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you. Daniel 4 says that his dominion is an eternal dominion.
Jeffrey Heine:His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing before Him. He does what He pleases in the powers of heaven and the peoples of earth. None can stay at His hand. None can say, Lord what have you done?
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus, he talks about the very practical and the the very, simple and detailed application of the sovereignty of God when He says, I tell you are not 2 sparrows sold for a penny. Yet not one of them falls to the ground. Not a bird falls to the ground, apart from the will of my father in heaven. Even the very hairs on your head are numbered. Matthew 19, Jesus says, with God all things are possible.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul in Romans 11, in that that pinnacle of that chapter, he says, for from Jesus, through Jesus, and to Jesus are all things. In Ephesians 1, he says that God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. 3:20, he can do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that he asks, we ask, or think. Colossians 1, possibly I I think one of the greatest hymns in the bible says, for by him all things were created, And heavens and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created from him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Jeffrey Heine:James tells us the attitude that it this should work in our lives when he says in James 4, do not say what you will do tomorrow. Be humble about it. Say, if the Lord wills I will live and do this or that tomorrow. Hebrews 1 says that God sustains everything by his powerful word. Revelation 22 says, I am the Alpha, I am the Omega, I am the First and the Last, I am the Beginning and the End.
Jeffrey Heine:Probably the the chapter more than any other in the bible that screams the sovereignty of God is Isaiah 40. Do you not see? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the world?
Jeffrey Heine:It is He who sits on the circle of the world. Its inhabitants are as grasshoppers, who spreads out the heavens like a curtain, stretches them out like a tent from which to dwell. He makes princes into nothing. He makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted.
Jeffrey Heine:Scarcely sown. Scarcely does their stem take root in the ground, and then the lord, he blows on them, and they waste away. They wither. And the tempest comes and blows them away like the stubble. To whom will you like me or who is my equal?
Jeffrey Heine:Says the holy one. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who calls out the starry hosts 1 by 1, and calls them by name. By his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
Jeffrey Heine:God calls the stars by name. Over a 100000000000,000,000 stars and he could look out there and he could say, Bob, you know, or or Danielle or something like that, or r3q9 c. He looks at them and he knows all of their names. More stars and grains of sand in all of the beaches in all of the world and God knows their names. Now what is the point of this?
Jeffrey Heine:Why does God give you details like this? Because He wants you on your knees in worship. He wants you to absolutely bow down and surrender to his lordship in adoration. And that is what the world needs to hear. That's what they need to hear.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what you need to take to them. Not the 5 q's of whatever. Tell him God is supreme. He's sovereign. He's beautiful.
Jeffrey Heine:And if you don't see God as that, listen to me, you're actually in danger of blaspheming because your god is so small. Now I I know some of you are thinking, wow, Joel, you really went off on all that. What's the point? Really, what's the point? I mean, give me application.
Jeffrey Heine:I really need some good application here. Great theology, give me application. A number of you are, you know, you've got your notes there, and you got one line, and you're waiting for the application. Well some of us are geared this way. But you gotta understand if I give you any application without anchoring it to the sovereignty and supremacy of God, you're gonna fail.
Jeffrey Heine:Because obedience has got to flow out of love and adoration of who He is. Paul understood this. In Paul's letter to the Romans, he spends 11 chapters telling us about Jesus before he finally gets to chapter 11. Therefore, here's the application. Eleven chapters.
Jeffrey Heine:Ephesians, he waits until the 4th chapter to give his first command. Four chapters. It's only after he talks about the majesty of Jesus. In Colossians, he's gonna go on and on about the supremacy of Christ before he finally gets to his first command in chapter 2, which is walk in God before you try to live for Him. Now Martin Luther understood this.
Jeffrey Heine:During the Reformation, he would debate a lot with a man named Erasmus. And, you know know most people when they think of the Reformation, they think it's about, you know, the papacy, it's about indulgences, it's about justification by faith. Most people think that's what the reformation was about. Martin Luther did not think that's what the reformation was about. And so he would write letters to Erasmus, and Erasmus got to the heart of the issue because Erasmus had attacked him at the sovereignty of God.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what Erasmus attacked. And listen to this letter that Martin Luther wrote him. He says, moreover, I praise and commend you highly for this. Unlike all of the rest, you alone have attacked the real issue, the essence of the matter in dispute, and you have not wearied me with irrelevancies about the papacy, purgatory, indulgences, and such like trifles, for they're all trifles. They're not the main issue.
Jeffrey Heine:With which almost everyone hitherto has gone hunting for me without success. Erasmus, you and you alone have seen the question on which everything hinges. That's is God sovereign over all. You have aimed at the vital spot, and for that I thank you. Martin Luther knew that which everything we hold dear, what it rests on.
Jeffrey Heine:That's the sovereignty of God over all. He knew that's what the battle of the reformation was about. And it is still a battle because the belittling of Jesus is everywhere. You know, I became very aware of this. It's something I read a few years ago, and it it didn't come from some great theological work.
Jeffrey Heine:It came from a children's Bible. Once you have a kid, you start reading a lot of children's Bibles, and it's hard to find a good one. I I pick up every time I'm in a bookstore, I pick up different children's Bibles, and I always go to 2 stories, David and Goliath and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego because every children's Bible has those stories because they're action packed. Great illustrations. And so I always go to them, and it's amazing how wrong the vast majority of them are.
Jeffrey Heine:And one of them I picked up and it said this, there was a lot of heresies there but I won't go into that. I'll go to the to how it ended the story of David and Goliath. This is the line: David was brave. David was very brave. But David knew that God had helped him.
Jeffrey Heine:It's blasphemy, right there in a Bible. I mean this Bible teaches that God is not the center of the story. David is. David was very brave, but God helped him. I mean I'm glad, I'm really glad that David knew that the very God who holds his next breath, the very God that speaks the universe into existence, that that very God decided to help him beat that mean little giant, mean old giant there.
Jeffrey Heine:And the way that this portrays God is no different. This is the the picture I have is when some baseball player hits a home run, runs around the bases, beats his chest and points up to god, thanks. I'm giving you props. I did the work, but I'm giving you props. God is the center of that story.
Jeffrey Heine:God is the center of our story. And as a parent, I've got to make sure my girls understand that. That God is the center, that he is sovereign, that he is supreme, and so when I tell them things like to be kind, I can't say, why should you be kind? Because you're supposed to. I need to say, you know why you need to be kind?
Jeffrey Heine:Because God is so kind to you. God is kind to people who don't love him. He causes the rain to fall on the good and the wicked. The sun to shine on the good and the wicked. He is a good God.
Jeffrey Heine:When I tell them to be forgiving of one another, I can't say because you're supposed to. I just say, because Jesus forgave you. So we forgive others. When I want them to share, I shouldn't say you should share because we all need to get alongest. No because everything you have is God's.
Jeffrey Heine:Everything. It's His. God is the center of everything, girls. From God, through God, to God are all things. And as a pastor, I have got to make sure that I never give you guys a laundry list of good moral things to do unless you understand God is at the center of it.
Jeffrey Heine:You shouldn't ever leave a message here and think, wow, I could have heard that anywhere except for the closing prayer mentioned Jesus. No. God is sovereign. He's supreme. And when we call him Jesus Lord Jesus Christ, I want us to remember that He is the King of kings, and He is the Lord of lords.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me. God, I ask that our lives would reflect that. My words are so inadequate. How can I talk about the supremacy of God? So God I ask that you would press your words into our hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:You would change us. We don't need self help. We need to understand who you are as supreme. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, King of kings, Lord of lords, our present and our future King. Amen.