TEXT: Luke 8:22-25

SUBJECT: Luke #30: Where is Your Faith?

Standing before Pontius Pilate, our Lord Jesus Christ revealed His mission in the world. He had not come to found a new Jewish Kingdom, but to "Bear witness to the truth". He did this in two ways: by what He said and by what He did.

In a culture steeped in the Bible and with a reverence for the Holy Name of God, this Man had no qualms about identifying His words with the Word of God. But although the words of our Lord are equal to the Word of God, it is not only in words that He reveals the truth, but also in deeds.

When Philip asked Him to "Show us the Father", our Lord replied, in effect, you’ve already seen Him…in everything I do! If Philip was too deaf to hear the Word of God, let him see it in the actions of our Lord Jesus Christ,

I say all this to introduce the second half of Luke Chapter 8. In the first part, our Lord taught the truth in words, parables and so on. Now, He’s going to teach it in deeds of power, grace, and wisdom. All three are on display in today’s short story.

The story takes place on the Sea of Galilee, a big lake in northern Israel. The Lord had spent a long day preaching the Word, healing the sick and casting out devils. When the people finally went home, the preacher was shot in body and mind.He told His disciples to sail Him across the lake while He caught up on His sleep. They were happy to do it.

It wasn’t long, though, until things got less happy. A big strorm blew up and the boat began taking on water. Peter, James, and John had weathered many storms, of course, but they’d never been in one like this one.

They’re so busy taking down the sails or manning the pumps that they’ve forgotten about the Lord. What’s He up to? Nothing at all; in fact, He’s sound asleep. The disciples shake Him out of His dreams with the frenzied cry,

The Lord wakes up and

This word, "rebuke" is worth thinking about. It may have no special importance at all; it may just mean the Lord sharply commanded the wind and waves to settle down. But others think there is more to it than this. They think the word, "rebuke" is used quite literally. Think of a firm parent snapping at the misbehaving child---"That’s enough!" he might say. But would He speak that way to the winds and waves (that have no minds)? Or, as some hint, is He talking to someone else? And if so, who?

With the permission of God, Satan can put natural forces to his own use. In the Book of Job, the devil sends lightning to destroy Job’s sheep and a hurricane to kill his children. The Magicians of Egypt had similar powers, turning rods into snakes, and bringing frogs and lice upon their people.

This, I think, is quite likely here: Satan may be trying to kill the Lord in His sleep. He had tried it before, already, and "When His hour had come" the devil would succeed in his wicked plot.

In any event, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ mastered the forces of nature, the wind quit blowing and the sea became as smooth as a mirror.

The disciples are flabbergasted. They had seen a lot of amazing things in the last year or two, but nothing like this: they can only stare at each other and ask,

You can sympathize with the dear men—after all, you and I would be as thunderstruck as they were. But you cannot quite excuse their question—"Who can this be?"

As Bible-reading Jews, they knew that only One Being was above nature and turned it to the good of His people. And that is God. He parted the Red Sea for Israel; He sent it down on the Egyptians; He blew up a storm to reform Jonah; and in The Book of Job He appeared to the poor man "in a whirlwind".

Only God. Thus, the Man who brought the winds and waves under His supremacy was God Himself!

There is one other possibility: Maybe the Lord is a prophet and not God Himself. They, after all, did miracles too, and the Apostles would later. But there’s a big difference between what the Lord did and what they did: they did it in God’s Name, but He did it without invoking the Sacred Name of God. Why? Because He didn’t need to call on the power of God to perform a miracle. He had the power Himself!

In light of His Divine Majesty, it’s no wonder He bawled out the disciples for their unbelief:

In other words, Don’t you know Who’s on board with you? Haven’t you seen My power, wisdom, and compassion on display every minute of the day? If so, why did you think I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do anything about the storm?

The men must have been so ashamed of themselves. How could they have doubted—even for a second—the Lord Jesus Christ? But their embarrassment soon wore off. They were guilty of unbelief over and over and over again.

Yet the Lord did not cut them off for their foolish doubts and fears. No, what He did was to confirm their faith time and again by showing them He was worthy of it.

You don’t build your faith in Christ by looking at your faith. You build your faith in Christ by looking at Christ!

That’s the story and its message.

Do you trust the Lord Jesus Christ? Every believer says he does. But does he? Do you? It is easy to trust Him with you’ve got a safety net to catch you if He’s not there. I trust the Lord to provide my daily bread, as long as I have a regular paycheck to fall back on if He doesn’t! We don’t say this very often, but I suspect we all feel this way more than we’d care to admit.

What storm of life is more threatening than the one the disciples were in that day? I thought of three things they stood to lose:

• Their lives. Peter, James, and John had worked these waters since they were boys. They knew the difference between a squall and a storm—an inconvenience and a deadly threat. Their panic meant they feared for their lives—and with good reason.

• Their families. The Apostles were married men. If they sank to the bottom of the sea, who would take care of their wives and children? These were poor men who lived hand-to-mouth, and didn’t have insurance policies or trust funds. Drowning mean poverty and loneliness for the wives and no future for their kids.

• Their souls. If they all died that day, then Jesus was not the Messiah they believed He was. Thus, they had pinned their hopes—their eternal destinies—to a false prophet. And that would not win them the favor of God when they stood before Him at the Last Judgment.

The stakes were high, they had a lot to lose: yet their unbelief was inexcusable. They knew the Lord well; they had seen Him up close and personal for more than a year. And they had never seen anything untrustworthy about Him—not one thing to make them wonder about His power, wisdom, and goodness.

Yet they doubted all three.

Why had He put them out in this weather? Didn’t He know that a red in the morning meant a storm that evening?

Or, maybe He did know that, but didn’t care. Maybe He was reckless with their lives, putting His own desires above their happiness. Mark hints at this. In telling the same story in his Gospel, he has the disciples saying,

Or maybe He was the best man in the world, but that’s all, just a man. The wisest man doesn’t know everything and the most tender-hearted man cannot save his friends from some dangers. And maybe that’s true of the Lord—If He had known about the storm, He would have kept them out of it, but, now that they’re in it, what can He do about it?

These are the same doubts that plague us when things go wrong. We wonder if the Lord saw them coming—and if He did—why He didn’t do something to prevent them from hurting us so badly.

Is He less than all-knowing? Less than all-powerful? Less than all-loving? The disciples thought so. But they were wrong. The story proves them wrong on all points. The Lord who sent them into a storm knew what He was doing and was able to help them when they needed Him most.

But, knowing He was going to get them out of the storm at the last possible moment, why did He put them into it in the first place? Was it all a cruel joke? I heard of a man who thought he’d play a joke on his wife. Sitting in the chair one night, he grabbed his chest and fell on the floor. She screamed, of course, and ran to the phone to call 911, but then the man got up and said, "Just joking!" Do you think that was funny?

Is that what the Lord is doing to us when things go badly? No, He isn’t. There’s no cruelty in Him. When his young wife, died, Sheldon Vanauken wrote a book about her and their life together. He called it

Why, then does the Lord do these things to us? Or, if you prefer, why does He let them happen to us? There’s an element of mystery here (as the Book of Job shows so clearly), but the Bible offers a partial reply:

Trials come our way to build our faith in Christ and to bring glory to Him as He proves to everyone—including you-- that you were no fool to put your trust in Him.

Of all the great things Abraham did, nothing made him a better man than his willingness to offer up his son to God on the altar. And nothing he did ever glorified the Lord more than that single act of grace under pressure.

It’s not easy to trust the Lord, but it is the right thing to do. It’s right because He commands you to (Proverbs 3:5) and because He is worthy of that trust,

That’s the promise, at any rate. But not only a promise, it’s a kept promise. No one who ever put His trust in the Lord Jesus Christ lived to wish he hadn’t. Old Germans are ashamed of themselves for trusting Adolf Hitler. Russians won’t admit to once believing in Communism. The people who drank the deadly Kool Aid wish they hadn’t trusted Jim Jones. Every day, people die in despair because their gods let them down—money, family, church, career, pleasure.

Yet the Word says,

No one ever has been. Or ever will be. Because Jesus Christ can be trusted. With your eternal soul and with the details of daily life.

If today’s story teaches us anything at all, it teaches us that the old Psalmist was right,