Sabbath School Week

Read for This Week’s Study

Mark 4:35–41; Mark 5:21–34; Rom. 5:3–5; Job 19:23–27; Job 23:8–12; Luke 24:13–27; Rom. 8:18, 28.

Memory Text:

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:3–5, NKJV).

One evening, as the sun dipped over the horizon, a girl was walking home when a dark storm blew in. She quickened her pace, knowing there was still a way to go. A lone raindrop fell on her cheek, then another, and, before she knew it, she was drenched. She started to run toward the front door of her home, where her father rushed to meet her. He had been watching her from the front window. As he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, he asked her, “I saw you just now, in the rain. Why, with every bolt of lightning, did you stop running to look up and smile?”

“Oh, I stopped to look up,” she said, “because God was taking my picture!”

What is our response when the storms of life come or when we have certain setbacks in our relationship with God? Do we put our head down as the rain pelts upon our backs or do we look up, knowing and trusting that God is there as we turn our face toward Him?

This week, we’ll explore some responses we often have when life is challenging. We’ll consider how we might use life’s setbacks to strengthen, not weaken, our most important relationship.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, June 13.

Supplemental EGW Notes

A strait gate means a gate difficult to enter. By this illustration Christ showed how hard it is for men and women to leave the world and the attractions it holds, and heartily and lovingly obey the commandments of God. The wide gate is easy to enter. Entrance through it does not call for the restrictions which are painful to the human heart. Self-denial and self-sacrifice are not seen in the broad way. There depraved appetite and natural inclinations find abundant room. There may be seen self-indulgence, pride, envy, evil surmisings, love of money, self-exaltation.
Said Christ, “Strive”—agonize—“to enter in. . . .” We must feel our continual dependence upon God and the great weakness of our own wisdom and our own judgment and strength, and then depend wholly upon Him who has conquered the foe in our behalf, because He pitied our weakness and knew we should be overcome and perish if He did not come to our help. . . . Think not that by any easy or common effort you can win the eternal reward. You have a wily foe upon your track. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:21). Here is the battle to overcome as Christ has overcome. His life of temptation, of trial, of toil and conflict, is before us for us to imitate. We may make efforts in our own strength, but not succeed. But when we fall all helpless and suffering and needy upon the Rock of Christ, feeling in our inmost soul that our victory depends upon His merits, that all our efforts of themselves without the special help of the great Conqueror will be without avail, then Christ would send every angel out of glory to rescue us from the power of the enemy rather than that we should fall.—That I May Know Him, p. 304.

The purity and soundness of our religious life is dependent not only on the truth we accept, but on the company we keep, and the moral atmosphere we breathe. Faith, elasticity and vigor, hopefulness, joyfulness, doubts and fears, slothfulness, stupidity, envy, jealousy, distrust, selfishness, waywardness, and backsliding, are the result of the associations we form, the company we keep, and the air we breathe. . . .
Christ, the Great Physician, has given a prescription for every believer. He must eat the food provided in the Word of God. And the faith that works by love to God and man is dependent not only upon the food we eat but upon the air we breathe. If we associate with those who are evil, we breathe an atmosphere tainted with the malaria of sin. Be sure, by association with the meek and lowly followers of Jesus, to breathe a pure, holy atmosphere.—Our High Calling, p. 255.

The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.

Jesus had spent the day speaking to large crowds of people on the shores of Galilee. Jesus’ words would echo in the people’s minds for a long time and down throughout eternity.

As evening fell, Jesus spoke to His disciples, inviting them on a journey with Him. “ ‘Let us cross over to the other side’ ” (Mark 4:35, NKJV). Jesus knew a storm would come but suggested they go anyway. He had an important life lesson to teach His closest followers.

You likely know what happened next.

Read about this storm again in Mark 4:35–41. What lessons on faith can you take from these verses?

Consider these points:

1. Jesus falls asleep on what was likely the only pillow in the boat. The fishing boats usually had one pillow, which the driver of the boat, at the stern, sat on. The person at the stern guided the boat to the destination. So here, Jesus is in the position of the boat’s “driver,” but He falls asleep at the wheel.
2. Not all the disciples were new to sailing. Peter, James, and John were experienced fishermen. They knew the Sea of Galilee, and they would have known how to navigate a storm.
3. This is the only recorded Gospel account of Jesus sleeping. During one of the worst storms in their lives, when the disciples are ter­rified and think they’re going to die, Jesus is asleep at the stern.
4. The disciples’ response in their time of crisis is “Do You not care?” They questioned Jesus’ character and His love for them. Too often, this is also our response when we face hard times.

It’s in the midst of hopelessness that we might try to save ourselves (like the disciples), or sometimes it’s when we feel pain or loss that we start to question or doubt God’s love and care for us. We presume that He should act in a certain way based on what we think and see from our human perspective. But, as with the disciples, it’s in life’s storms that God can work the greatest miracles. God is always faithful, even when His apparent lack of involvement doesn’t make sense to us. He’s in our storms with us and can calm the storm when we cannot.

What is your usual response when you face a storm in your life? How do such moments impact your relationship with God? When have you lived out 2 Corinthians 5:7?

Supplemental EGW Notes

Before our Lord went to His agony on the cross, He made His will. He had no silver or gold or houses to leave to His disciples. He was a poor man, as far as earthly possessions were concerned. Few in Jerusalem were so poor as He. But He left His disciples a richer gift than any earthly monarch could bestow on his subjects. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,” He said; “not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
He left them the peace which had been His during His life on the earth, which had been with Him amidst poverty, buffeting, and persecution, and which was to be with Him during His agony in Gethsemane and on the cruel cross.
The Saviour’s life on this earth, though lived in the midst of conflict, was a life of peace. While angry enemies were constantly pursuing Him, He said, “He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.” No storm of satanic wrath could disturb the calm of that perfect communion with God. And He says to us, “My peace I give unto you.”
Those who take Christ at His word, and surrender their souls to His keeping, their lives to His ordering, will find peace and quietude. Nothing of the world can make them sad when Jesus makes them glad by His presence. In perfect acquiescence there is perfect rest. The Lord says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” . . .
Every man’s experience testifies to the truth of the words of Scripture: “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest.” . . . Sin has destroyed our peace. . . . The masterful passions of the heart no human power can control. We are as helpless here as were the disciples to quiet the raging storm. But He who spoke peace to the billows of Galilee, has spoken the word of peace for every soul. However fierce the tempest, those who turn to Jesus with the cry, “Lord, save us,” will find deliverance. His grace, which reconciles the soul to God, quiets the strife of human passion, and in His love the heart is at rest. “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. . . . So he bringeth them unto their desired haven.” . . .
The heart that is in harmony with God is a partaker of the peace of heaven, and will diffuse its blessed influence all around. The spirit of peace will rest like dew upon hearts weary and troubled with worldly strife.—Reflecting Christ, p. 278.

The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.