Four times Jesus said, "O you of little faith".
The Greek word for "little" used in the orignal manuscripts could be translated "lacking confidence".
So we can conclude that at least four times Jesus expressed dismay that His disciples lacked confidence in Him.
The first is found in Matthew 6:30 (and Luke 12:28). It is important to read the entire context of the quote.
Matthew 6:25 - "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?"
26 - "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
27 - "Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?"
28 - "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;"
29 - "And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
30 - "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more cloth you, O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH?"
Jesus is teaching us that experiencing anxiety over material needs is unspiritual. Its natural; but it denotes a lack of confidence in God.
Question: How can my confidence in Christ in this area of my life be increased?
Answer: By looking at the birds and flowers.
"Stop and smell the roses" is not a phrase from the Bible but it is based on scriptural principle.
The birds and flowers don’t depend on money, they depend on God. Only man depends on money - and money eventually fails.
Actually, material possessions can give the allusion of security and even keep some from depending upon God at all.
IT IS NOT OUR LACK OF MATERIAL POSSESSIONS BUT OUR LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN CHRIST THAT IS OUR PROBLEM.
Three times in verses 25 through 34 Jesus says, "Do not worry".
The literal meaning of the Greek word for worry is "to be drawn in different directions".
We become like the lion in the circus.
Ever wondered why the lion tamer holds up a stool when he enters the lion’s cage? It is so the lion will be frozen by not knowing which leg of the stool to strike out at first. He is pulled in different directions and so he does nothing.
That is what worry does to us. It immobilizes us. It renders us ineffective. We are drawn in different directions, can’t decide which direction to go in first, and end up doing nothing at all.
That is why worry is such an effective tool of our adversary the devil. He does not need to make us overtly wicked people. All he has to do to render us ineffective is get us to lose our confidence in Christ.
Spend time every day viewing God’s created order all around you. "Consider the lilies". Become a bird watcher! Look into the night time sky with wonder as the ancient Psalmists did! Take a hike in the woods. Plant a garden. Mow your lawn. You will see a manifold display of the handiwork of the Almighty!
If He can create and sustain all the universe He can take care of you!
Then again Jesus uses this phrase in Matthew 8:26 (also Mark 4).
"But He said to them, ’Why are you fearful, O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH?’ Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm."
The Sea of Galilee is only about 13 miles long and 8 miles wide. It isn’t unusual for violent storms to totally engulf this small body of water.
It doesn’t really take much for a storm to rock our boats either.
The storm wasn’t from disobedence. The disciples were not a bunch of rebellious Jonahs. Actually, they were on the boat because they followed Christ. (verse 23)
Some erring teachers propose the idea that Christ’s followers who have enough faith never get in trouble.
Baloney. It is because we follow Christ that we sometimes face trouble.
In fact, Jesus knew all things so He certainly knew the storm would come. Christ permitted the storm in order that the disciples might learn from it. It is apparent from their response that they had a lot to learn.
Mark’s parallel account records the words of the disciples when they went to wake Jesus up. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (Mark 4:38)
"Don’t you care?"
How many times have we said that to God?
God seems to be sleeping and we are going through some of the worst storms of our lives.
How can we increase our confidence in Christ in these situations?
By refusing to believe the weather forecast of the flesh.
Storms will come to all of our lives. In our relationships, in our finances, in our jobs, in living for Christ...
Anxiety, nervousness, fear, and panic come from wrong thinking patterns. As humans, we mainly feel the way we think. We actually upset ourselves more than the storms of life upset us.
We must say to ourselves, "If Christ is asleep while there’s a storm, then everything must be going to turn out in a way pleasing to Him".
It is said that D. L. Moody once faced a storm on Lake Michigan while on his way to Chicago. While the crew members of the ship were scurrying about trying to keep the ship from capsizing, Moody was on the deck singing hymns.
A crewmember asked Moody why he was not more upset.
"I have a sister in Chicago and one in heaven, and I’m not concerned about which one I get to see next."
Even if the storms of life overwhelm us as children of God - we have an even better resurrection. (See Hebrews 11:35)
It was then on another ocassion on the sea that Jesus made another "O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH" statement. (Matthew 14:31)
Apparently one storm is not enough for faith construction.
The disciples saw Jesus walking on the water and impetuous Simon wanted to give it a try. Things were going fine until he began to pay more attention to the wind and waves than he did to Jesus.
There is a lot to learn from this classic event.
But for the sake of building our confidence in Christ let’s just consider this: SUCCESS CAN BE JUST AS RUINOUS AS FAILURE.
What do we do when we are "walking on water"?
All too often take our eyes off of the Lord.
Success can do that to people.
"O you of little faith, why did you doubt" is actually the entire rebuke of Jesus to Simon Peter.
We doubt when we begin to see ourselves as the total source of our success.
Some would argue, "it was the wind and waves that began to make Simon doubt". That’s true to a point. But the wind and waves were surely there when he first stepped out on to the water. When Jesus was his confidence he stayed on top. He began to sink when self-confidence replaced Christ-confidence.
There are a lot of people still enjoying success who have taken their eyes off Christ - but it is only a matter of time before they sink.
Then consider Matthew 16:8 - "O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH, why do you reason among yourselves because you have bought no bread?"
Jesus had just warned His disciples to "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Saducees."
Since leaven was used to make bread the disciples got confused. They thought Jesus was actually talking about literal bread.
As usual, they were thinking on a material plane while Jesus was trying to teach them on a spiritual plane.
Matthew 16 is a turning point in our Lord’s ministry. It includes His first mention of the church (v. 18) and of His death on the cross and resurrection (v. 21).
Surely He was concerned about a group of followers who couldn’t even tell what He was saying about bread when He needed to take them even deeper into spritual truth. He was going to die and leave them and the church needed leaders with a spiritual compass.
This last scripture teaches us, that, in order to increase our confidence in Christ, WE MUST BEGIN TO THINK MORE SPIRITUALLY ABOUT EVERY PHASE OF OUR LIVES.
Our faith is often "little" because we are thinking solely on a material level.
To undertand that God is involved in every aspect of our lives increases our confidence in Christ - because it limits our confidence in the flesh.
Faith in Christ is the very foundation of the Christian life. If our faith is "little" and we "lack confidence" in Christ, we should give serious consideration to the "O YE OF LITTLE FAITH" sayings of Jesus.
