Questions:

1. Fill in the blanks from Mark 4:40-41: He said to them, “Why are you so ______? Have you still no _____?” 41 And they were filled with great ____ and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
2. TRUE or FALSE:  Jesus rebuked the disciples because they felt fear during the storm.
3. In Jonathan Haidt’s illustration, the “elephant” represents:
4. Rational thought
5. The soul
6. The body’s emotional system
7. The Holy Spirit
8. In the story of Mark 4:37-41, the disciples’ fear grew because the ______ loomed larger in their eyes than God.
9. Match the concept with the description from Pastor Winans message: Holistic, Tiered, Plasicity
10. Emotions and reason interact, illustrated by the rider and the elephant.
11. Our emotional and physical responses can be reshaped over time.
12. Humans are both body and soul, united as whole persons.
13. What detail makes Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee unique?
14. It was painted on wood
15. It includes Jesus twice
16. Rembrandt painted himself into the boat
17. It shows the storm in complete calm
18. The rider in Haidt’s analogy represents the ______ mind.
19. According to the American Psychiatric Association, what percentage of adults reported feeling more anxious in 2024 compared to the previous year?
20. 32%
21. 37%
22. 43%
23. 50%
24. The ongoing process of transformation by the Holy Spirit is called ______.

Discussion:

1. Pastor Winans begins his message with this data:  “In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022.”
2. Why do you think fear and anxiety have become such pressing issues in our culture today?
3. What things external to you cause you fear and anxiety?
4. What things that are internal cause you fear and anxiety?
5. Are the things that caused you fear as a child the same for the children of today? Discuss the things that are contributing to the anxiety of our children and grandchildren.
6. In his message, Pastor Winans referred to the analogy from Jonathan Haidt on the rider and the elephant.
7. What does the “rider and elephant” illustration teach us about the relationship between reason and emotion?
8. When you sense or experience anxiety, is your first impulse to fligh away from it or do you consider the cause of it?
9. Can anxiety be an alarm signaling to us a need that is calling for us to address? Discuss in your groups.
10. Pastor Winans shared the story of Shaka Senghor and how his experience had shaped his responses to fear.
11. How does Shaka Senghor’s story illustrate the power of “plasticity” in our emotional lives?
12. From the message, how do we overcome the shaped responses from our past or traumatic experiences?
13. What was missing in the disciple’s response to the storm in Mark 4:37-41? Discuss the patterns and practices that create what was missing in Jesus’ disciples.

Sermon Outline

We’re starting a new series on what may be one of the most pressing issues in our culture today—fear and anxiety. The statistics from sources like the American Psychiatric Association make it clear just how widespread this struggle has become.

In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. – American Psychiatric Association.

In just over two years, we can see the troubling direction this trend is taking. Younger generations are feeling the weight of it even more than we are. To put language to that, the same study explains…

83% of adults say untreated mental illness negatively impacts families...71% of adults feel that children and teen have more mental health problems than they did 10 years ago. – American Psychiatric Association

Today, the second leading cause of death among young adults is suicide, with rates of self-harm and depression continuing to rise. As we face these realities, we want to examine fear and anxiety through the lens of Scripture—learning how, as disciples of Christ, we can respond faithfully in this cultural moment. This isn’t only about offering a gospel witness to our friends and neighbors who struggle, but also about preaching that same hope to our own hearts, pointing ourselves and others toward the peace Christ brings.

To begin, we’ll first take a closer look at the nature of emotions, especially fear and anxiety—so we can better understand how they shape us. Then, we’ll turn to a passage of Scripture that shows how Jesus met His disciples in their fear, and how the Holy Spirit longs to meet us today, growing us in faith and faithfulness.

The first step is to explore the nature of emotions. To do that, we’ll use three key concepts: holistic, tiered, and plasticity. We’ll take a closer look at each of these, one by one, to help us better understand how emotions work.

Holistic

As human beings, we are made up of both body and soul—mind and spirit united. We are not merely minds trapped in bodies, nor bodies without souls, but whole persons formed by both. Genesis tells us that God created Adam from the dust of the ground and then breathed into him the breath of life. It was the union of body and spirit that made him truly human. This is important to remember, especially in our age of artificial intelligence, where questions about what it means to be human are increasingly common. To be human is to be both body and spirit together.

Tiered

The mind, spirit, and body exist together in a deeply interrelated way. To illustrate this relationship, psychologist Jonathan Haidt offers a helpful word picture: the rider and the elephant. The elephant represents the body, particularly the limbic system, the amygdala, hippocampus, and related structures that regulate hormones, store and retrieve memories, and generate emotions. Emotions largely arise from this system. The rider, sitting on top, represents our rational mind—our intellect and conscious thought—which interprets and responds to the impulses of the elephant. Together, the rider and the elephant show how reason and emotion interact in shaping our actions. Let me give a couple of examples to make this clearer.

One, as a child, I dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. I loved the ocean so much that I even wrote to the Scripps Institution in California to ask about their entrance requirements, while still in elementary school. By fifth grade, I was choosing the scientific names of sharks as my spelling words, because sharks fascinated me more than anything else. Then I saw Jaws. The movie thrilled me, but it also planted a seed of fear. The next time I went swimming, even in a freshwater pool in Colorado, I imagined sharks circling beneath me. My rational mind insisted it was impossible, but my emotions said otherwise. Each time I jumped off the diving board, I panicked and raced to the edge, terrified of being dragged under. It taught me an important lesson: feelings aren’t always something we choose—they can overwhelm logic.

Secondly, when I was younger, I also dreamed of being a trumpet player. I played well in practice and rehearsals, but on stage my body betrayed me. Fear and anxiety would take over—my heart raced, my mouth went dry, and no amount of reason or prayer could make it stop. My elephant reacted, and the rider could only struggle to keep up.

Plasticity

Plasticity means that our minds and bodies, shaped by the elephant and guided by the rider, naturally form patterns in how we respond to our environment. Think of it like Play-Doh or Silly Putty—once molded, it holds a shape. In the same way, our bodies and minds develop grooves or ruts in how we react, repeating familiar responses over time. Fear, for example, can become a learned pattern. But the good news is that plasticity also allows change. Just as something shaped can be reshaped, our responses are not fixed forever—we can, over time, form new patterns and healthier ways of responding.

Our emotions are responsive to thought and experience and can be shaped over time in ways that may seem impossible in any given moment. – Matthew Lapine The Logic of the Body

You might feel like, “This is just who I am—I’ll always respond this way, I’ll always feel this way.” But hear the hope of the gospel: through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can be reshaped into the image of Christ. You are not bound forever to the emotions and responses that feel inescapable today.

Let me give you an example. A man named Shaka Senghor grew up here in Detroit in an environment that powerfully shaped him—his “elephant and rider” formed by the experiences around him, just as each of us are shaped by our own environments. At seventeen, Shaka was shot three times. Imagine what that does to the elephant—the emotions, the memories, the fear—shaping not only the body but also how the mind responds. After that, Shaka made a promise: if he was ever in that situation again, he would shoot first. Fourteen months later, at two in the morning, that moment came. Shaka pulled the trigger and killed a man, shooting him four times. Looking back, he reflects…

That decision was filtered through high levels of gun trauma, child abuse, etc., and that's not an excuse, it's an explanation. For me, what it came down to was simply being afraid, and I reacted out of that fear.

Here we see an elephant shaped by trauma, creating deep patterns of fear and reaction. When those emotions surged, the rider responded out of fear, resulting in the tragic choice to take a man’s life. Shaka was sentenced to 17–40 years in prison, carrying those same patterns with him. They led to frequent clashes with other inmates and, eventually, an altercation with a guard that placed him in solitary confinement for four years. But in prison, mentors came alongside him who spoke truth and hope into his life, showing him a different path. Slowly, his elephant and rider were reshaped. Over time, Shaka learned new ways of responding, and today he lives a productive life, no longer trapped by the destructive patterns of his past, but transformed through the power of plasticity.

I'm not going to react like I did before, and I'm going to develop other reactions...now it takes a LONG time to get there. That's development, repetition over time. But if you start to practice it, you can reframe your situation. – Shaka Senghor: From Prison to Purpose

In the church, we call that sanctification—the transforming work of the Holy Spirit over time. And as we walk in it, we learn to reframe our situations. That is the power of plasticity.

As we close, let’s turn to a passage in Mark 4 that brings these ideas together. By this point, Jesus’ disciples had already seen Him heal, heard Him declare Himself Lord of the Sabbath, and listened to His teaching about the kingdom of God. At the end of the chapter, Jesus tells them to cross the Sea of Galilee. He had been teaching from a boat, so they set out, and Jesus, taking a cushion, lay down to sleep. But as they sailed, a sudden and violent storm swept over the water, crashing against their boat.

Mark 4:37 - ³⁷And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.

The original text emphasizes that the storm came very quickly and very strong. Imagine yourself in the disciples’ place—what emotions would you feel? Fear. Anxiety. Their very lives were at risk, and they were frantically trying to bail water from the boat. Here we see the elephant and the rider at work: the body’s emotional system signaling danger, and the intellect scrambling to decide how to respond. In that moment of desperation, their minds turned to Jesus, and they cried out to Him…

Mark 4:38 - ³⁸“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Here we need to distinguish between the emotions we feel and the choices we make in response. The disciples weren’t calmly weighing their options—they were overwhelmed by fear. And out of that fear, they turned to Jesus and accused Him of not caring. That kind of reaction is deeply human; when we’re under pressure, we often respond out of raw emotion. In this moment, Jesus turns to His disciples and says…

Mark 4:40 - ⁴⁰He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Was Jesus rebuking the disciples simply for feeling fear in a life-threatening situation? I don’t think so. Fear itself is not the issue—God designed us with a limbic system that reacts before we can even think. For example, when a car suddenly cuts in front of you, your foot is on the brake almost instantly. That’s how God made us—to respond quickly in moments of danger. The real issue is how we react after that initial surge of fear. The disciples turned their fear into an accusation against Jesus: “Don’t you care?” I believe Jesus was rebuking that response, not the fear itself. And then, He turned and spoke to the sea…

Mark 4:39 - ³⁹And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Only God has the power to do this. So the disciples turn to Jesus, and the text says…

Mark 4:41 - ⁴¹And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

At first, the disciples were terrified of the storm. Now, they’re afraid of Jesus. Why? Because in that moment, the storm loomed larger in their eyes than God Himself. The waves seemed bigger than His power, which is why they cried out in fear, asking, “Who then is this?”

Many of us face storms of our own. And in those moments, the questions rise: Is God good? Does He care? Will He ever stop caring for me? The silence that follows reminds us—He never does. The disciples’ elephant reacted in fear, but their minds forgot who Jesus was. They needed to be reminded that He is the God who always cares.

The same is true for us. As storms come, our emotions surge, but sanctification—the slow, steady work of the Spirit—shapes us over time. Day by day, as we walk with Jesus in His Word, in prayer, and in relationship, He molds us like clay into His image. Slowly, our responses grow more faithful, and less fear driven.

This is a process of grace. Over the next six weeks, we’ll explore what it means to walk with Jesus in that grace—learning how He shapes both rider and elephant, bringing all of who we are into alignment with Him.

Rembrandt’s painting The Storm on the Sea of Galilee is striking not only for its beauty but also for a fascinating detail—Rembrandt painted himself into it. He is on the boat, wearing a robe and cap, clinging on in the midst of the storm. And he’s looking straight at us, breaking what is called the fourth wall, as if to draw us into the scene.

By placing himself in the painting, Rembrandt invites us to do the same—to see ourselves in that storm-tossed boat with Jesus. Because each of us faces storms in life, and we need the reminder that Jesus is with us. We need to remember not to let our storms loom larger than God, and to trust that He is at work shaping us—elephant and rider together—into the image of Christ. Over the coming weeks, we’ll continue to unpack these themes so that we may grow in faith.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

____________________________

Want the sermon guide delivered to your inbox?