Where is Your Faith?

If your faith is firmly fixed in Jesus, there is no reason ever for fear. Do you want calm and peace? There is no situation in your life outside of Jesus’ control. Do you want courage to stand up under the most threatening circumstances? You’ll find it through an ever-deepening faith in Jesus.

Note: This transcript was auto generated and may have errors.  If you would like to volunteer to review and edit our sermon transcripts before they are posted, contact Gail Peterson, gpeterson@calvaryefree.church.

[00:00:00] Well, I have a little confession this morning. Uh, I’ll give you a little insight into something about me. Something I. I actually struggle with. Uh, I am what they call a worrier. Where are my fellow warriors at? Yeah. Not warriors. Warriors? I struggle with anxiousness, I struggle with doubt. This tends to increase when I feel like things are up in the air, and I have to figure out how to get everything together, to coordinate everything so that the details will come together and we’ll come out all right. Everyone struggles. Everybody struggles with something. Everyone has something that causes them to be anxious at times. And for me, it’s not the big questions of life. Okay? I don’t I don’t struggle with any doubt in, say, my belief in the sufficiency and authority of Scripture or in death and eternity, but put me on the side of the road with a car that won’t start. And and suddenly I tend to go into full blown crisis mode at that point. Uh, several years ago, I was a missions pastor, and and I would travel all over the world. You know what my biggest fear was? When I would travel all over the world, it wasn’t going into dangerous countries. It was the fear that I’d missed my connecting flight that that’s what actually scared me about travel. I don’t get to choose how I’m built. Uh, neither do you. We all have differences in the way that we’re built. Uh, but for those of us who have found our hope in Jesus, what we do get to do is, is take a lot of that anxiety and stress and measure how much of that anxiety and stress that we’re going to take to Jesus.

[00:01:52] In prayer. We have the gift of a relationship with our sovereign King. We know the one through whom and for whom all things were made. We know the one that is holding all things together, including his grip on the trials that we’re going through right now. Our passage today is a well known account of Jesus moment with his disciples, where he teaches them this truth in a very dramatic fashion. They’re these disciples are going to be deluged with a literal storm on the sea, and Jesus is going to calmly put it to rest in only the way that he can. And then he’s going to turn and directly address the faith of his disciples. He’s going to show them that the circumstances that they thought threatened them were actually no threat to them at all. If your faith is firmly fixed in Jesus, there is no reason for fear. Do you want calm and peace in your life? I do, I’m sure you do as well. There is no situation in your life in the past or currently that is outside of Jesus control. Do you want to courage to to stand up. Under those threatening circumstances, I do. I want courage and to stand up when when things are hard.

[00:03:25] If you want that, you’ll find it in an ever deepening faith in Jesus. So let’s go on a sea voyage this morning with Jesus. Please open your Bibles to Luke chapter eight, verse 22. If you have them, it will be on the screen too, but you can open there if you want. Luke 822. The account is only a few verses long this morning, and so I’m going to read it in its entirety. And then we’re going to work through each part of this story. And the key to this story is in the details. It’s a short story. It’s the details that really matter here. It’s the order of events that give us hope and fearlessness that we’re looking for. It would be easy and probably a little bit unhelpful for me this morning to simply say to you, stop being anxious. God is in control. You know, just stop being anxious. God is in control. Because what you’d say to me, and it’s the same thing I would say, is that I’m not trying to be anxious. I’m not, I’m not I’m not actively trying to be anxious. I firmly believe God is in control. And yet I’m struggling with these these anxious thoughts. And what we’ll see in the story today is not just how, but why. Faith in Jesus will alleviate our fear as we put our cares on him as we cast our cares on him. So follow along with me as I read this.

[00:04:53] We’re going to begin in verse 22. One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, let us go across to the other side of the lake. And so they set out, and as they were sailed, he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake and they were filling with water and were in danger, and they went and woke him saying, master, master, we are perishing. And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased. And there was calm. And he said to them. Where is your faith? And they were afraid and they marveled, saying to one another, who then is this that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him. Well, there’s one thing we have to grasp before we can look at the theology concerning faith in Jesus or His power to save. And that’s the first thing we need to see in this story, is that this journey across the sea was Jesus idea. It was his idea. Look. Look carefully at verse 22. This was Jesus plan. He got into the boat with his disciples and he said, let’s go to the other side of the lake. This wasn’t a bunch of tough fishermen who thought, hey, let’s head over to the over to the other side. Let’s take Jesus with us. Uh, this wasn’t Jesus sitting back and saying, let me just wait on and see what plan these guys come up with on their own.

[00:06:33] This is Jesus jumping into the boat and saying, fellas, grab your gear, let’s push out. I’ve got a plan. I know where I want us to go. Now let me tell you why that is such an important detail in this story. Sometimes you will find yourself in the midst of a really sticky situation. Something falls apart. Something doesn’t go how you thought some sort of mistake gets made. Something doesn’t turn out the way you had planned it to turn out. Not a sinful situation. Okay, that’s not what I’m talking about here. Your sin is always going to cause things to fall apart. I’m talking about just being in a situation in your life where things are going poorly and you don’t know what to do or where to turn, and and right at that moment, uh, some, let’s just say, ill informed but well-meaning Christian in your life sees the predicament that you’re in and says something like, did you get out ahead of Jesus? You ever heard this before? Did you get out? Did you got to did you got out ahead of Jesus? You must be, uh you must be outside of his perfect will for your life. If you heard that before, you must be outside. He’s got a perfect will for you. You must be outside of that in some way. Did you fail to wait on God in that situation? And what they’re doing is they’re they’re interpreting your trial, this difficulty in your life as, as some kind of a misstep, a planning error on your part where you could have avoided pain if you’d only stuck more closely to the Lord’s guidance in your life.

[00:08:16] Because as the logic goes, Jesus would not have led you into a difficult and trying situation. That Jesus wouldn’t have done this for you. So you must be doing this on your own. You must be be there because you put yourself there. And now the answer is to figure out how to course correct. Back to faithfulness. And Luke is telling us here this morning in this passage. That’s not true at all. Everything that happens to these disciples on this lake happened because they listened and were faithful to the command of Jesus. They did exactly what Jesus asked of them. The storm that they encounter is part of Jesus plan. The waves and the wind. The water running over the sides of the boat. The peril that they that they all experience. All of that is part of what Jesus meant to happen when his disciples listened to and obeyed his direct orders to them. So all of the anxiety inducing stuff that happens that’s happening to you right now in your life that you might be thinking about right now, all of that stuff. Is cause for some introspective questions. See, you might be in this situation because of your sin and disobedience that that might be true.

[00:09:43] You can you can usually draw pretty straight lines when when that’s the case. If if you rob a bank and you are literally on trial, okay, then the the you can draw pretty solid lines between your trial and what you did. Right. Pretty pretty simple to draw those lines. And in that case there’s need for repentance and obedience. But even then, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And he’s working through that. He’s working through that, that for his purposes. There’s but that’s a different sermon. If you search your heart, though, and you find your faithfulness has led you to this trial, you’ve been faithful. You were listening to the Lord. You were doing the best you could with the choices that were in front of you. You were turning to Scripture. You were. You were guided by God’s Word. You shouldn’t assume that you’re somehow outside of God’s will. Shouldn’t do that. You should assume that your Lord has led you into this storm for a reason. He’s got you there. Like he did with his disciples, and he is going to use this to mold you and to to shape you. So they get on the water and two scenes unfold at the same time. First, in our first scene, Jesus goes to sleep. We know from the other gospels that Jesus goes down into the hull of the ship and he sleeps on the cushion. That’s what it says.

[00:11:22] And that’s the whole scene. That’s the whole scene. Jesus goes down below and he sleeps on deck. A much bigger scene is taking place on deck. A storm kicks up. A windstorm comes down on the lake. Now the Sea of Galilee is 700ft below sea level, and it’s surrounded by high hills, so it would be easy for a storm to spring up very quickly on the Sea of Galilee and overtake the boat. It is dangerous to be on a boat in the Sea of Galilee, even for seasoned sailors. But this this must have been an especially bad storm, because they couldn’t handle it themselves. Even as seasoned fishermen. It says they were filling with water and they were in danger. So from the disciples perspective, what they’re experiencing is imminent death. Okay, they see themselves dying. So those are the two scenes. Uh, the the certain death of Jesus disciples. Okay. Certain death on top, right? And then below Jesus, so calm that he just sleeps through the whole thing. I have to tell you, this is precisely the sort of situation that would cause me to lose my cool. Okay? This is this would be my thing. This would be my problem. All right? If I was bailing water and I was trying to save the ship, and I had even a second to think about it, I’d probably start to think. Whose idea was it to sail today? Oh, yeah. It was Jesus idea that we sail today, I remember now.

[00:12:59] And where is he? Oh, he’s asleep below deck. He’s not even up here with us. Not a care in the world down there for sleepy Jesus. He doesn’t. He doesn’t mind calling me to trust in him. Right. Come. Follow me. Come trust in me. But when I need him. Where is he? He’s asleep. He’s not here. There may not be a better historical picture of the difference between how we as people see chaos in our world and how God sees that same chaos. See, we see and we feel danger, don’t we? When it when it comes up, we see it, we feel it. We look at everything and we we can’t hold it all together in our heads. So our fear comes from our inability to see all the danger and all the problems and all the evil in our world from God’s perspective. And so to us, when we see all of these things happening around us, these things look like chaos. And to God who sees and controls everything, who’s designed everything to work together for his glory. It looks like a fine tuned machine. These two scenes working together are the reason that amusement parks can run their roller coasters. Follow me on this. Okay. You know that terror you feel when you just come over the top first hill and you start to plummet down and you feel like you’re falling straight down, like you were going to die.

[00:14:34] You remember that experience. You know why the they can give you that experience at the park. It’s because there is a designer and a team of engineers and safety professionals ensuring that no matter how much danger you may feel that you’re in, you’re in no danger at all. Do you think they would? They would. There was any chance that you would you wouldn’t survive this. They’d let some disinterested 17 year old put you on that ride. Course not. The tallest roller coaster in the world right now is Kingda Ka. It’s in Six Flags in New Jersey. It’s 456ft tall. There’s a 20,000 horsepower hydraulic launch engine that shoots passengers straight into the sky. You think the designer of the King, of course, is pacing his home in a cold sweat? Praying today isn’t the day they launch a train of people into the Atlantic Ocean. You think that’s what’s going on every day of the summer? Of course not. There is a there is a calm, confident, fun atmosphere because those who designed the tracks and the cars are confident that though you may feel like you’re out of the out of control, your course is sure. You’re perfectly within their control. And you know who gets that? You know who understands that dynamic. It’s the people who put their hands up on the roller coaster. Right. It’s gonna die. But I know I’m not. To get it. They know the danger, and the trials are entirely in the hands of a designer they can trust.

[00:16:16] And so they can have boldness and they can have courage. The disciples don’t have that level of confidence yet, and so they don’t yet have that courage. So they they run to Jesus. Master, master, we are perishing. Now hold up. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it a good thing that they would run to Jesus? Shouldn’t those who are in fear run to Jesus and and share their concern and trust that that Jesus can do something? And yet jumping ahead a little bit in the story here, Jesus seems to indicate that that he can’t find their faith in what they do. But isn’t this exactly what we see throughout Scripture? People reaching out to him in moments of crisis as a way to display their confidence in him? Well, that’s exactly what we see in other places in Scripture. But that’s not what is happening here. We don’t see the disciples here reaching out to Jesus in confidence. They’re reaching out to him, but not in confidence. Take them at their word here, master. Master, we are perishing. The implication is that Jesus plan has led them to the point of death. There’s no confidence here. In fact, if you read the account, the same account in Mark it, it gives you even a better sense of the tone of what the disciples said in that moment. They say, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? That’s the tone.

[00:17:55] If Jesus was sleeping, how can he care about what’s happening? If he’s sleeping through it? He clearly doesn’t care. We’ve all been in the place at some point where we approach the Lord just like this. God, don’t you care about me? Don’t you care about me? If you really cared about me, I wouldn’t be going through this. You’d come to my rescue. We don’t want to admit it, but the implication of that attitude is that we are owed safety. A God owes us safety. We’ve been faithful, so we are owed smooth sailing. We’ve bought the lie that faithfulness to God’s plan always leads to prosperity and comfort. We’ve judged ourselves faithful, so God needs to hold up his end of a promise he never made. I am faithful God, so you owe me smooth sailing. God never said that. And yet we demanded of him. Now, if you were experiencing fear and doubt and anxiety, I’m going to tell you to run to Jesus. Do exactly what these disciples did. Run to Jesus. Jesus said, come to me, all of you who are heavy laden. Why? Because I will give you rest. Jesus said, he’s using your crisis to drive you to him. That’s what the crisis. That’s what the trial in your life is for. It’s that you would run to him just like these, like these disciples are doing here. But that level of anxiety isn’t the norm for faith in Jesus.

[00:19:39] Faith in Jesus might take you to him in great fear, carrying a very heavy burden. You might even be a little upset with God. I will still tell you to run to Jesus, even if you’re a little upset with God about what’s going on here, because Jesus says, come. But he’s going to do two things. The first thing he’ll do is he’ll calm the storm. It says, Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind. That’s a great image, isn’t it? Wind, you are out of line. You’re going into time out. He rebukes the wind. And then it says he spoke to the sea. He doesn’t have to rebuke the sea. See? The wind started it. The sea. It’s true, actually. The wind whipped the sea around. Sea just reacted. So he says sea. Peace. Be still. So he stops the aggravating wind. He stills the raging sea. And it says that there was great calm. I can guarantee you, if you run to Jesus in your time of crisis, if you will cry out to him in prayer, if you will apply his gospel, if you will seek Him in His Word, and from those who know His Word, you will find help in your time of need. I have never known anyone who truly sought help from the Lord, who did not find the help that they needed. They didn’t receive help. Even people who are angry at God for their situation. I have seen the Lord working great power to bring healing to people who go to Jesus, and they trust in His word.

[00:21:25] Jesus power to save and to heal and to transform hearts and to bring restoration is not contingent on the strength of your faithfulness. It is contingent on the strength of Christ, as we’re going to see in a moment. And so no matter what the trial is that you’re in, I would tell you this morning that its purpose, the purpose of that trial, the reason God has allowed it in your life, is to drive him, drive you to him, to throw yourself on the mercy and the grace of Jesus. And the first thing he’ll do is he will calm that storm, or he’ll give you the strength to endure it, to bear up under it. But there’s a second thing he’ll do, and you may not like the second thing he’ll do quite as much. And that’s that. He will challenge your faith. He’ll challenge your faith. He will use he will cause you to to question why your heart is troubled at all. He will address your fearfulness. And that’s what he that’s what he’s doing here with the disciples. That’s the point of the question. Where is your faith? He’s he’s he’s calling them out for their faith. He’s not questioning the fact that they came to him. That’s what they should have done. He’s questioning why there wasn’t a quiet confidence when they came to him, knowing that with Jesus in the boat, there’s no storm that could ever cause them to perish.

[00:22:55] Master, master, we are perishing. No you’re not. No you’re not. I’m on the boat. You think the wind and the waves can take you out? I’m sleeping on the boat. Where is your faith? Where is our faith is not a question for the unbeliever. It’s a question for those of us who believe and trust in Jesus. It’s a question Jesus asks of us to measure the quality of our faith. It’s the it’s the assessment of the level to which we actually trust in the sovereignty and power of the Lord when we say we do. You won’t know the degree to which you’ve trusted in Jesus. Until pain and sickness and trials and loss and pressure come into your life. You. You won’t know the confidence that you have in the sovereignty of God until you experience something from his hand that you would never have asked for from him. If you’re confidence in God’s power and goodness is rattled by bad circumstances, then your faith isn’t as strong as it needs to be, and God wants it to get to the place where it’s strong, like steel. And this trial in your life is Jesus at work showing you that? Tempering you, strengthening you. You remember that second soil? From the parable of soils still here in chapter eight, beginning of chapter eight, that second soil. Verse 13, they have no root, they believe for a while, but in time of testing they fall away.

[00:24:35] That’s what’s being tested here. Jesus is is asking the diagnostic question are you the believer with no root? Or are you the believer that is rooted, rooted in me, that no trial would ever take it from you? And the disciples rightly grow in their knowledge of Jesus. And you can tell by their answer, who is this that he commands the waves and the water, and they obey him. Who is this? Who is this that he commands the waves and the water. And they obey him. What have they? What have they seen so far? Well, they have seen him heal. They have seen him cast out demons. They have seen him forgive sins. They have seen him welcome sinners. But they have not to this point seen him speak to the created order and command it to do his will. They haven’t seen Jesus move the weather with his word. They’ve not seen him speak to the chaotic elements of the world and put them in their place. Now, these are activities they have seen elsewhere in the Bible, in their scriptures, in the Old Testament. They have seen this before. These these abilities the disciples have heard, taught throughout their lives, but in relation only to the Lord, to the to the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. So what they’re seeing now, this this isn’t just Old Testament prophet stuff where the Lord acts through the prayer of a prophet.

[00:26:16] Do you remember Elijah on Mount Carmel? When, when, when when he set the sacrifice ablaze on Mount Carmel with lightning? See, Elijah prayed to the Lord, and the Lord caused that to happen. Here Jesus speaks directly to the wind and the sea, and they listen to him. Who does that? Who does that? See, the disciples just found out that they’re not traveling with a prophet of the Lord. They are traveling with the Lord. To hear Jesus is to hear the Lord. To follow Jesus is to follow the Lord. To trust Jesus is to trust the Lord of all creation. If you want your faith firmly rooted in growing in the God who created this world and is sovereign over everything in it, you need to root your faith in Jesus. That’s where it needs to be. When your faith is firmly rooted in Jesus, it’ll cause you to grow in quiet confidence in him, because you’ll know that there is no storm in this world that can crush you. There is no burden that can be brought on you that will take you down. There’s no burden he won’t bear for you. And there’s no reason to fear. I have a friend named Cara who a few years ago went through one of the most difficult trials of her life. Now we, Cara and I were close many years ago. She was on my missions team. I performed her wedding. She and her husband loved the Lord very much.

[00:27:56] Back in 2021. Her husband got Covid and pneumonia at the same time, and he fought for his life in the hospital for weeks. And during those weeks of struggle, Kara got to work. In addition to simply updating people on his progress, which most people do, and for asking and asking for prayer, which some people do, Kara actually organized prayer meetings. She asked people locally to join her in the parking lot outside of the hospital, to stand in the cold and to call on the Lord for her husband. And she didn’t ask for prayer and then go off and sulk and cry and question God. She recognized that this trial is presented by a God who is fully in control of this situation, and is using this trial to build up her own faith. She knew that was what was happening, and I share that story with you because of what she wrote to me during it. I was interacting with her on this and I want to share with you what she what she wrote to me. I asked her to tell me why she had so heavily focused on prayer. And in response to me was pretty amazing. She wrote this. I know this is a life or death situation. But regardless what happens, God is on the throne. I know prayer is the best thing anyone can do. God is sovereign. His plan and timing are perfect. Even when my heart and mind want to default to maniacal, frantic panic prayer and walking closely with him calms our souls regardless of outcome.

[00:29:44] And corporate prayer stills us even more. He hears our fervent prayer. There is power in praying for one another and in gathering together to pray. Weakness and illness are another opportunity for Satan and his minions to attack. Prayer is an essential piece of our weaponry. She faltered at times when she felt the urge to fall into despair. She said. So she told me that. But then she remembered that her husband belongs to the Lord. She said she had to keep reminding herself, my husband belongs to the Lord. All creation is under the sovereign hand of the Lord, and there’s nothing more to do than to pray and find comfort in the quiet confidence that we have in the Lord. And even when her husband passed away. She maintained that fearless, quiet confidence. And that’s what Christ is calling us to this morning. I want to close today with just a few quiet moments for you to go before the Lord in prayer concerning the trial that you’re in right now. I want you to consider these these words from Psalm 46. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Should take a few moments to pray before the Lord as we close today.