Mark 4:33 – And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.

Mark 4:34 – But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.

Mark 4:35 – And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.

Mark 4:36 – And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.

Mark 4:37 – And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

Mark 4:38 – And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

Mark 4:39 – And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Mark 4:40 – And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

Mark 4:41 – And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Mark 5:1 – And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.

Mark 5:2 – And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

Hello readers, today we are going to be talking about the “other side” experience. I really hope this is a blessing to you as it is every time I read about this story of Jesus Christ. He said, let us go over to the other side. Reader, there is an other side for you. There’s an other side to a life of sin. There’s an other side to an ungodly relationship. There’s an other side to that depression. There’s an other side to suicidal thoughts. There’s another side to a life controlled by Satan. So often we can’t see the other side, let alone make it there. There’s an other side where God wants to take you in your life. And with Jesus Christ, you will make it, but as we will see, it’s not going to be plain sailing!

Jesus said let us go over to the other side. Your life and your service to God will start with the Lord Jesus Christ, and with the word of God. Until we are saved, and until we obey the word of God, we won’t be going to the other side. We need to get back to God’s word, and we need to launch out in obeying it. It’s a deep sea, it’s going to take the power of God to make it. It takes a real relationship with Jesus Christ to be saved and to live it.

It’s going to be an “us”. You see, you’re not alone, if you’re saved, Christ is not just with you, he dwells in you. It’s not going to be a journey you’re going to be taking alone. Thank God for “us”, God hasn’t just left us to make it ourselves, he’s with us.

There’s a destination for the believer. You see, we are saved to serve. There is a purpose for our lives. So many people only want to get out of hell but don’t want the journey of obeying and following Jesus Christ. We are saved for a destination and a purpose. Our purpose is to honour God and glorify him. We do that by honoring his Son with our lives. You can live a life for yourself, or you can live for God, but there will never be the other side for you. You’ll not know the other side, you’re happy this side. Just like the tribe of Gad, they were happy with the land this side of the Jordan, they hadn’t even seen how much better the promised land was… the land entered by faith and obedience, but the land refused by hard hearts, fear and unbelief.

There is an other side to lies, to deceit, to darkness, to lust, to pride, to sin. There is an other side when you can’t see past the life, the situation, the circumstance, the state you are in. Believe in Jesus Christ. Hear his word today, and launch out at his command with him onboard.

Well they launched their boat out in faith. Pretty good start, I’m sure they thought it’d be pretty straight forward. They’d been riding high learning about the word of God as Jesus explained it to them and gave them understanding. We don’t know what life’s got in store for us. But be assured, there’s a storm coming, a mighty trial of our faith. That storms going to reveal a whole lot of things about us. Thank God for the storms, which when they’re gone, show what remains and what really wasn’t real at all. Being saved isn’t the promise of worldly riches, acceptance, fame, popularity, pleasure, it’s not going to be a life of ease, it’ll be a life where you will have to be bailing some water, it’s a life where you’ll take on some water.

Well they launched out, and you may launch out and the weather is set fair. But that weather can change in heartbeat. Some days we don’t know what hit us. Our life is going along, and one day it all changes. It all caves in on us. They’re sailing and Jesus fell asleep. Often we can think Jesus is asleep in our lives, where is he? Where’s God in this? Where’s God in my life? He’s disappeared!

See a storm arose, and they doubted that Jesus even cared when they found him sleeping. We get to doubting Jesus even cares for us. We doubt his goodness, we doubt his grace, we doubt his deliverance, we doubt his word. He’d said let us go over, but they think they’re going to die. Life has happened, and God’s word is out the window. They’re not full of faith, they’re possessed by fear.

After the parables and after the teaching here is a journey to the other side. And it’s suddenly gotten very real after they’ve launched out in faith in obedience to the word of Jesus Christ. They’ve got him on the boat and the wind arose and a storm started raging, and the boat starts taking on water.

We start out full of hope, and faith, and joy, and we get to a point in our life when we are in jeopardy, when things are looking bleak, impossible, beyond us. That storm comes in and rips our joy up, dashes our hope, shipwrecks our faith and we start sinking and where is God in all this?

So often circumstances and situations and experiences are what rules us and dictates our life, rather than the Lord and what he has said and promised us. All we see is the waves, all we feel and hear is the wind. But it’s all noise, and God is trying our faith. Be still and know that I am the Lord the Bible says. But we can’t see God for the storm that we are in. Our faith is tested but a little, it seems very big, and where is our faith really?

There’s a storm on the way to the other side. Life isn’t going to be plain sailing. That isn’t God’s promise to us. But our promise is that we are going to go to the other side, because Christ is in the boat. He seems asleep and it seems he cares not… but he does.

They found Jesus in a panic, he was the last resort. See, they’d tried bailing the water, they’d tried solving the problem and riding the storm out… but then they finally go to Jesus. How often Jesus Christ is last resort as we try and manage and negotiate and walk our way through life. He’s in the back of our ship. That’s where we’ve got him. Jesus is our spare tyre. Jesus you just stay back there, and then suddenly things go bad and what do we do. Oh then we are asking God where is he and why doesn’t he care for us.

We need to go to Jesus in the storm That takes a real God doesn’t it. A real relationship. So often we are trying to journey to the other side, but Jesus isn’t even on our boat. We don’t have a real walk with God, he’s not even in the vessel to hold out his hands and rebuke the wind and still the raging sea. We’re just doing our own thing, we’ve got our own boat headed in the direction we want to go, no Jesus required, no obedience to God’s word. There was a journey in Acts 27, a voyage that got smashed to pieces because they disregarded the word of God. Nah we’ll be fine Paul. We stick Jesus in the back of of our life while the going is good, we only come running to him as last resort when things get impossible. God needs to take us to impossible territory for us to finally need him.

The Bible says Jesus rebuked the wind and spoke to the sea, and said peace be still. And there was a great calm. You know, in life’s greatest storm, there can be a great calm. What an amazing thing the Bible says. There was a great calm. Have you ever known the great calm that Christ brings to a believer’s life? When we are in the storm, we need to go to Jesus first and foremost, we need to trust what he’s said and we need to pray for him to solve the storm. Because we’re going down and all our management and resolution of our problems ain’t working. You can try and bail water your whole life, but there’s a calm that Jesus only can bring in your storm to your life.

Have you ever experienced the great calm on your journey of life? There may be a lot of moving parts, there may be a lot of things out your control, but you can turn to Jesus Christ and simply trust him. And there was a great calm, because he stilled the wind and the waves. We don’t have the power to do that, but Jesus can and will do that.

There’s a storm. But then there’s a witness and testimony. Because these guys experienced the deliverance from the storm themselves. There’s nothing like firsthand knowledge. There’s nothing like the personal testimony of someone who trusted Jesus, and Jesus delivered them. We can read all about it, but until we live it, we don’t know. So often our own lives are based on other people’s experiences rather than our own personal walk with God. We read the Bible and externalize it, it applies to someone else, it’s for someone else to obey. It’s empty and dead to us because it’s not our life. Our life is divorced from what we read. There’s no testimony quite like your own, when Jesus has delivered you, when Jesus brought a great calm to your life. You see, they’d been taught so much by Jesus, but the teaching was quite useless in the boat where real faith in the real Saviour is needed. Your testimony of how Christ saved you carries weight, nobody can deny the salvation God has given you.

They went through the storm to win someone to Christ. You see, their destination was the soul of a man who had been oppressed, bound, afflicted and tormented by the devil. The other side for our lives is a side of salvation of the souls of men. These were fishermen who would become fishers of men, God’s greatest calling, to tell others about the Saviour who saved us. To make a difference.

God’s greater than the storm. Or is that just a cliche? You know about that, but you’ve not experienced it. You know, there’s a sea between this side and that side of your life. There’s a journey through a storm, but there’s also the promise of a great calm, and there’s a witness and testimony on the other side. Jesus brought them to the other side. They made it because of him. So can we. Life is all about Jesus Christ, they got to know their Saviour better, their faith was built, their faithlessness rebuked. God brings us through storms to build our faith, to help us to learn to trust him, to believe that we can trust him, to believe he truly is who he says he is, to see and experience his deliverance and power in our personal lives.

There’s a destination, there’s a purpose, there’s a journey for you. There’s a storm, there’s a witness, there’s a testimony… there’s a Saviour. Is he in your boat? He cares for you a lot more than you think. Are you still trying to bail water in your life… when will you seek the one whom the storm obeys? It’s through the storm that someone will be won to Christ. They come over to the other side, and immediately they were met by someone who’d perhaps seen them out on the lake heading their way. Ships brave enough to cross the sea. This world is watching, those little ships were watching, the man filled with devils was watching… what are they going to see? Are you going to sink? Are you going to turn around? Or you’re not even trying to cross? You’re not going to make a difference, and people aren’t going to be delivered from the power of Satan.

There is an other side to your life reader, or do you prefer this side, and that’s the side you’re going to be staying. You’re never going to launch out as these guys did. The water’s too deep, the weather too unpredictable, the faith required too much. You don’t wanna obey Jesus Christ, the word of God. Nah Jesus we’ll stay on dry land thanks.

Boats are designed to float, not to take on water and sink. We can soar like an eagle, but so often we are in the snake pit of sin. So often instead of floating, we are sinking, and we’re trying to bail our way of our problems. We didn’t count on this when we signed up. Life was so good while we had Jesus in the back of the ship sleeping and we’ve got the helm and it’s plain sailing, great weather and easy going.

Life is going to sort out if Jesus Christ is on your boat. The only way you make the other side of your life is with Christ on board. Hear his voice, obey him today. He’ll give you purpose, he’ll give you destination, he’ll be with you to make it there. He’s not going to tell you to do what he doesn’t enable you and anoint you to do. Grace is God giving us the ability to be saved and to serve him. Your life can count, and your life can give glory to the Son of God, who died for the sins of the world, who has power over the sea, the wind, the waves… and Satan. Because he had power over those many devils that possessed that man they met on the other side.

There’s an other side experience for the true believer. Not many people got on the boat and got sailing. Many heard Jesus teach and preach, but very few launched out. Very few are prepared to obey God’s word in their own life. That’s for someone else right. Let someone else do it. There was a separation, because many people were left on the shore that didn’t go on the journey. Don’t expect many to be on the other side journey and up for the other side experience.

He taught them, he gave them understanding, then he said let’s go. There’s an other side to your life, your ways, your beliefs, your direction, your purpose, your sin. There is an other side with Jesus Christ, he’ll take you there. It started with the word of God, and the way there is launching out in obedience to him. Obedience unto salvation, and obedience to serve and obey him and follow him where he’s going with each of us in our lives. You know, they did make land. Because they were passing over to the other side as Jesus said, you won’t be in what you’re in forever, you can make the other side, life shouldn’t be forever passing over, we should make the other side and our feet touch down on dry land. Will you have the other side experience? You know, the ultimate other side is heaven as opposed to the hell you will be going to if you aren’t forgiven and saved by Jesus Christ. Where are you going when you die? It’s time to go over to the other side reader, let’s go over to the other side with the Lord Jesus Christ.

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