Luke 8:22-25
Where is Your Faith?
Woodlawn Baptist Church
May 23, 2004
Introduction
In April 1988 the evening news reported on a photographer who was a skydiver. He had jumped from a plane along with numerous other skydivers and filmed the group as they fell and opened their parachutes. On the film shown on the telecast, as the final skydiver opened his chute, the picture went berserk. The announcer reported that the cameraman had fallen to his death, having jumped out of the plane without his parachute. It wasn’t until he reached for the absent ripcord that he realized he was freefalling without a parachute. Until that point, the jump probably seemed exciting and fun. But tragically, he had acted with thoughtless haste and deadly foolishness. Nothing could save him, for his faith was in a parachute never buckled on. His faith was in the right object, but he had never appropriated it. He had never moved from an intellectual faith to an application of that faith, and the results were terrible. The same is true when applied to the spiritual realm. It doesn’t matter how much faith we claim to have in the Lord Jesus Christ, or how much we’ve investigated the claims of Christianity and have found them to be true if we never do anything with them.
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: true, radical, living faith is always best expressed through our actions, not in our words. Think about what James wrote in his letter. He said, “faith without works is dead…” In other words, if you’re all talk and no walk, then it’s useless.
Had you asked the disciples in Jesus’ day if they were men of faith, you would have undoubtedly been told yes. Every one of those men who followed Jesus believed themselves to be men of faith, but their actions often proved otherwise. The account we are going to study today is one such time. Jesus had been teaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee for several days. The Bible tells us that this time spent teaching dealt mostly with parables about the kingdom of God. According to the multitudes that came out to hear Jesus, the people were hungry for the things He taught, but as time wore on, Jesus wanted to get away for some rest, He instructed His followers to get in the boat from which He had been teaching and go to the other side of the lake, but during that trip, something went sour. In Luke 8:22, Luke relates to us the following event:
“Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he [Jesus] went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! For he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”
In Mark’s account, we are given some additional information. Look at Mark 4:35 and following:
“And on that day, when even was come, he saith unto them, Let us go over unto the other side. And leaving the multitude, they take him with them, even as he was, in the boat. And other boats were wth him. And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the boat, insomuch that the boat was now filling.”
This was no little white capping going on that day! Jesus and the disciples were about to go under, and apparently so were all the other little boats that had come out for a show. As the boat was filling up, the disciples went into a state of panic, so they woke Jesus up and pled with Him for intervention, but then when He did intervene, they acted so surprised that Jesus turned and asked them the question we’re considering today: Where is your faith? Why are you so fearful? Don’t you have faith? As I think about what it must have been like for those penetrating eyes to have been looking me in the face and wanting to know where my faith is, I think that they must have been so ashamed. Where was their faith in the Lord, and when He does work, why do we act so surprised? Where is our faith today?
I am convinced that in this day and time God wants you to exercise a radical faith in Him no matter what life may bring your way. A radical faith is not a blind faith; it is a faith that is based on what we know to be true about our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you some reasons God wants you to exercise a radical faith in Him no matter what life may bring your way.
Because of His Omniscience
Tell me something – what is there that God doesn’t know? Isaiah 46:9-10 says,
“Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.”
God is the God who “declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.” How can He do such wonderful things? Because He is omniscient! Which simply means that God knows all things at any given time. He has a universal knowledge, knowledge of all things in all times, unlimited in every way!
How is it that God is omniscient? It is because He lives in an eternal present. We see events in terms of time, but everything from Adam to the return of our Savior is occurring in the present tense to God. He’s the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end! There is no yesterday to God, just as there is no tomorrow to God – it is all today!
Now, think about what that means for you and me. When Jesus told the disciples that He wanted to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, He knew that a storm was coming. He knew that the boat would nearly sink and that their lives would be in great danger, but He sent them anyway. Why? Why would Jesus send His followers right into the heart of such danger? Well you could try to answer that any number of ways and never come up with the right answer. Certainly Jesus wanted to lead them to greater faith in Him, but the important thing to remember here is that no matter what your circumstances are, you can have faith in Christ because you know that He knows what lies ahead!
Think about that storm in your life. Right now you may just be seeing all the warning signs of an impending storm, and you know one is building in your life. You may be right in the middle of a storm, and your life is being tossed in every direction. Your storm may be financial. It may be marital. It may concern your health or some great loss. No matter what your storm is, you can have a great faith in Christ because even when you can’t make sense of it, God knows what lies on the other side, and as He said in Isaiah, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” God knows what He’s doing – so trust Him when things are raging out of control.
Because of His Omnipresence
I can picture the disciples frantically working to keep the ship under control, doing everything in their power to stay the course as the storm got worse, but finally there came a point where they realized they were going to sink, and they panicked. Where was Jesus while all this was going on? He was right there in the boat asleep. Had there ever been a time when Jesus wasn’t there? There was another time when they got out on the sea and a great storm overtook them and Jesus wasn’t in the boat, but He came walking up didn’t He?
When we talk about Jesus’ omnipresence, we’re talking about Him being everywhere all the time. There’s not one single place that Jesus isn’t right now. In Jeremiah, the Lord said,
“Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.”
There’s not a place on this earth that God is not present. No matter where you go, no matter what you’re going through, Jesus Christ is there with you. You may not see Him, you may not feel His presence, you may be angry with Him and not even want Him there – but He is there all the while.
One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump, I’ll catch you!” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father replied, “But I can see you and that’s all the matters.”
God sees you this morning, whether you see Him or not in your trial – so trust Him, cast your cares and your burdens on Him, and let Him catch you. Like Jacob, you may find yourself saying, “Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not.”
Because of His Omnipotence
I would love to have been in the boat that day when Jesus got up from His nap, stood up in the boat and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. I imagine Him saying something like, “Be still! Can’t you see I’m trying to get some rest here?” I don’t know the exact words, but I know that even E.F. Hutton could have learned a thing or two from Jesus, because when He spoke, all of creation listened.
As soon as Jesus spoke, the wind and the raging stopped, and what does the Bible say? “There was a calm.” There is no calm like the calm that Jesus brings into your life, and it is a calm that only Jesus can bring. Is anything too difficult for the Lord? Job said, “I know that you can do everything,” and Matthew recorded the words, “With God all things are possible.” Now here’s the problem with all of that. You already know it. You know that nothing is too hard for God. You know that He can do anything and everything. You know that all things are possible with God. You see, like so many who have gone before you and like those all around you, you have an intellectual faith in God, but are you making application of it?
I wonder how long the disciples worked before they woke Jesus. They were fishermen. They had grown up in a boat and had lived their entire lives on the water. This wasn’t their first go ‘round with a storm, so they undoubtedly did what came natural to them, and I suspect that most of us here today are doing the same thing. Now don’t get me wrong – Jesus didn’t rebuke the disciples for trying to handle the boat. He rebuked them because they forgot who was in the boat with them. Did they think He brought them out there to drown? He’s driving them to the cross – not to the bottom of a lake! They lost their heads, so Jesus puts it to them – “Where is your faith?”
Conclusion
Most of us today are like the disciples: we have a great knowledge of Jesus. We know and believe that He knows all about us and the storms in our lives. We know and believe that He is present with us, even when we can’t see it, and we know and believe that Jesus is the all-powerful God who can put an end to the storms and bring peace and calm into our lives. We know all those things, but what are we doing with them?
God doesn’t expect us to submit our faith to Him without reason. Look at the passage again; consider all you know to be true of Christ and you will see that He is worthy of your faith. He doesn’t ask us to submit our faith without reason, but the very limits of our reason makes faith a necessity. The storms you face are bigger than you are, and they are beyond your ability to control, and the only response you should make today is to be honest and admit that you can’t bring calm into your life any other way than to trust God and turn it over to Him.
How has He been speaking to you about this today? Some of you have walked this road before and have such a deep faith in Christ that is so evident to those of us around you. God has brought peace and calm into your life so many times that perhaps today your greatest response would be to bow and praise Him for His goodness and faithfulness in your life. Others of you are experiencing great storms and you feel like just a little bit more and you’ll go under. I simply ask you, Where is your faith? And what are you doing with what you know to be true about God in the midst of your storm?
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