Luke chapter 8, we'll begin reading
at verse 22. One day Jesus said to his disciples,
let's go over to the other side of the lake. So they got into
a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A swall came down on the lake
so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger.
The disciples went and woke him, saying, Master, Master, we're
going to drown. He got up and rebuked the wind
and the raging waters. The storm subsided and all was
calm. Where is your faith? He asked
his disciples. And that's the title of this
morning's message. Where is your faith? In fear and amazement,
they asked one another, Who is this? He commands even the winds
and the water, and they obey Him. I believe that this story
happens fairly early in our Lord's ministry, in our Lord's public
ministry. Now, over the years, both stories
have been a favorite here. And once again, I'm a little
bit taken back. This June, it'll be 20 years
that I have been here, and it's been 20 years since I, well that's
December 6th or 7th, something like that. It was 20 years since
the first time I preached. And it's been a blessed 20 years. And I'm hoping for a good many
more. But over the years that I've been here, particularly
in the early years, we relied heavily on boat stories. Now
this boat story this morning, I don't have to make this one
up. I made up a lot of illustrations using boats. I don't have to
make this one up. God did. It's a historical story, and
he saw fit to record it. In fact, this story is found
in all three of what are called the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke. The word synoptic means to see
together, and those three accounts of our Lord's life share Nearly
all the same material. Three accounts of mostly the
same things. So they call them the Synoptic
Gospels. But all three of them did record this particular story. Now, there are a good many boat
stories in the Bible. The first one we run on to is
Noah. And then later, Moses. And you say, where's the boat
story with Moses? Well, remember, at a very young age, he was stuck
in what amounted to a boat and pushed out into the river. and
so to speak left to the will and determination of God's providence.
There's the story of Jonah who got in a boat to run from the
Lord and was thrown from the boat and found salvation in a
fish. There's also another boat story
regarding our Lord Jesus Christ in which the disciples were in
a boat and a storm came up and the Lord Jesus walked to them
on the water. And then we have the story of
Paul shipwrecked on the Isle of Malta. And all of these stories
about boats, they have something to tell us about the gospel.
Boat stories provide good illustrations of gospel principles because
the sea or the ocean is a good example of irresistible forces
and powers. You know, when we took that cruise
a year ago, Bonnie and I, and it is a little humbling to be
out there in the middle of the ocean and all you can see is
ocean. And here you are. Now, admittedly, we were on a
pretty big boat and I really didn't have any fear that that
thing would sink. Nor, of course, with all their
radar and that kind of stuff, they can see what storms are
coming. So I didn't fear that we were suddenly going to hit
a storm that was going to capsize the boat. But as big as our boat
was, it was an insignificant speck on that ocean. And I could see out on the horizon,
and the horizon was probably 30, 40 miles away, but you could
see out there, you could see the shapes of some other boats.
But there's times that you couldn't see anything. Talk about feeling
alone. I mean, you know, here there
was, I suppose, crew and all. There's 4,000 or 5,000 people
on that boat. For all we knew, that was all the people in the
world there was. And we were at the mercy of what
the ocean did. And a boat seems like such an
insignificant thing on an ocean. And indeed, we are insignificant
in the wide scheme of things. And then the sea is capable of
quick changes. You can be out there and it be
calm. And all at once, as this story says, a squall come up.
And they were just in small, probably fishing boats. Just
meant for two or three men and some nets. That's all it was
intended to hold. Wouldn't take very big waves
to upset a boat like that. Well, the subject of this morning,
then, is faith. Our Lord said, where is your
faith? And I hope that each of us By the end of this service,
we'll know if we have the faith that saves, and that we would
learn to use it for our comfort in this life. There's a difference. We might put it this way. There's
a difference between having faith and using faith in our day-to-day
lives. Just as our Lord showed by His
invitation in Matthew chapter 11, there is a difference in
having rest in finding rest. He says, come to me, I'll give
you rest. And then he says, take my yoke
upon me, and you'll find rest. There are those who have the
faith that saves, and yet they don't enjoy it very much. They
have the faith that saves, and yet they're still easily alarmed,
easily made afraid, easily worried. Well, these people
are as safe as those who have great confidence. They're just
as safe, but they aren't as happy. So two things I want to look
at this morning, two ways I want to use this question from our
Lord Jesus. I want to use it, first of all,
as a challenge to everybody here. Where is your faith? That is,
Every woman, every man, every child here that's come of age
to understand his own mortality, everyone here has some kind of
hope of eternal life. Everybody here believes, for
some reason or another, and somehow or another, when you die, it's
going to be okay. I'm not saying you don't have
fears. I'm just saying that you believe somehow, despite all
your fears and all your concerns, it's going to be okay. And so I want to ask you this
question this morning. Why do you think it's going to
be okay? Where is your faith? Where have you put your confidence?
Where have you rested your hope? And then I want to ask this question
In the same spirit, our Lord asked it, because He asked it
of people who do believe. That is, they believed Him. They trusted Him. They were followers
of Him. Consequently, He was asking them
this question. Where is the evidence of your
faith? Where is the conduct that's becoming of someone who believes? times that this story appears
in Matthew and in Mark, he says, Oh, you of little faith, why
did you fear? And in Mark, he says, Have you
no faith? Now, I don't know whether our
Lord actually said all three of these accounts. He may have,
you know, each one of the writers here may have just picked one
sentence out of his rebuke. He may have said, Oh, you of
little faith, why do you fear? Have you no faith at all? Where
is your faith? He may have said all of those
things. Or it may simply be that each one framed the question
in the way that it impacted him. I don't know. But inasmuch as
the Lord God was pleased to inspire this in these three different
ways, we gain an understanding from all of them. Little faith. Why did you fear? Have you no
faith at all? They were acting like they had
no faith. Where is your faith? Well, first of all, let's ask
this question of all people indiscriminately, both those who claim to trust
Christ and those who do not. Where is your faith? In what do you hope this morning? How is it that you're able to
make it day to day, knowing full well that someday your day shall
end and you'll face God? Because you do know that. You
know there's a limitation to the days you have, and you know
that it's a point when the man wants to die, and after that,
the judgment. And you have some measure of peace about that.
Maybe not complete, but you've got some, or you'd go start craving
man. Well then, where is your hope? Where is your faith? What have
you put it in? Every man has faith in something. Everyone
has some hope of eternal life, or maybe their hope is that there
is no afterlife. That's the hope of some. The
atheist, that fool who says in his heart there is no God, such
a one, his hope, his calmness about the afterlife is that there
isn't one. I remember reading an article
by Isaac Asimov, who was a pretty good scientist and a well-known
science fiction writer. And he just, he was talking about
his impending death. He says, I have no fear of it,
because I know that just like with all the other animals, when
I die, I'm done. Isaac Asimov is over. Now to
me, that's a troubling thought, but it seemed to him that that
was a suitable way to live life, and it kept him from any kind
of fear of death. Well, that may be the hope of
some. I doubt it's the hope of anybody here, else you wouldn't
be here. But it's the hope of some in
this world that there is no afterlife. But among those who believe there
is an afterlife, what is your hope? Well, according to this
Scripture and according to the illustration we have before us,
your hope is identified by this, just what boat are you in? The
hope illustrated here, as it's illustrated, is illustrated by
the boat. Now, if you're in the ocean, if you're in the sea,
your hope is in the boat. You hope that that boat has the
capacity to get you from one side to the other, that it is
strong enough, and that it is big enough, and that whoever's
in charge of it knows the way and how to get it from one side
to the other. That's your hope. Now, so when we ask, Where is
your faith? We could say it in the terms
of this illustration. What boat are you in? Now, for
all people in this world, there's a lot of things that are exactly
the same. For instance, everybody in this world is on the same
ocean. Same one. The ocean of life. It has two
shores. It has a beginning and it has
an end. And in the middle of it, a whole lot of things go
on. Everyone is on that same ocean,
or someone might want to say that this ocean actually represents
the judgment of God. And that would be an apt application
of it. Because, you know, you get far
enough out there, it doesn't matter whether the ocean is pitching
or if it's calm. If you go overboard, you're lost.
You're gone. I've stood by the rail of that
ship sometime, and I did enjoy watching it. I'm the kind of
guy who looks straight down. I don't know why I'm mesmerized
by the water as it goes by the ship, but it did occur to me,
you know, if you fell overboard, it wouldn't matter how good a
swimmer you are. You're a gone Jesse. If somebody doesn't see
you, if they don't stop the boat and come back and find you, you're
just gone because there's no way you're swimming to some shore. And so the boat is the hope. What boat are you in? We're in
the same ocean. We all face the same storm. And
we all have the same destination, the other side of life. Now,
some have embarked on a boat of self-wisdom. They've gotten
themselves some education. They've gotten themselves some
understanding. They believe that their hope lies in their ability
to absorb information and make their own judgments about things.
They know the way. They have the charge, they have
the compass, and they've got a boat, maybe even a boat they
made or a boat they bought. But whatever, they think that
they can get in that boat and go from side to side safely and
find safe harbor on the far side. And such people think, what need
have I of anyone else? I've seen that kind of people
in church. They like to visit churches.
They like to check out churches and see why one church differs
from another. They kind of get a kick out of
church shopping because they go to the churches not to learn
anything, not to see if maybe someone is telling the truth,
But they think they already have the truth. They have the wisdom
and they sit there disconnected from the church just as an observer. And they listen to find out if
there's something that will tickle their ears or catch their fancy.
They are self-wise and they've got it figured out and they don't
go to learn. They just go to test. And when
they're done, they get back in their boat and they go a little
farther down. I was going to say down the road,
but you don't go down the road in a boat. You go a little farther out in
the sea. And they find someone else preaching, and they pull
up beside them and listen to that. But when they're done,
they always pull away. They always go on. After all,
they know the way. Then there's the boat of self-righteous
morality. Oh, this kind of boat's easy
to detect. There's no sail on this boat,
no sir. They're not going to get help from anything. They're
not going to look for the wind that blows to get them from the
other side. Nope, this is a rowboat. It's just made of boat oars and
a man with a strong back. These people appear very good.
They're pleasing to look upon with their rippling muscles of
law keeping and an orderly life. They're impressive. And they're
appealing to the religious world. You know something? Sometimes
they're even appealing to me. Sometimes I can just get enamored
by these people. They just, they do everything
right. And you see them put the back
to the oars, and their ship seems to be, their little boat seems
to be doing pretty good. And they're happy, and they're
content. And they look like the well-rounded
Christian. And you know something? It's
easy. Even for believers, to get distracted
by such people, say, I wish I had a boat like that. I imagine these people, have
you seen those racing boats? I think they call them crew.
I'm not sure, but I think that's the word used for that kind of
race. They're just as skinny as can be. You know? And those guys get in there,
sometimes it's a team, and then they do have individual ones. Man,
they put their back to the oars in those things. They can really
move those boats. And it's impressive. Of course,
such boats are no good in the storm at all. I'd rather be in
any boat than one of those boats when waves start. But some people have put their
hope in such boats. And you know, so long as the
sea is calm, such boats work. So long as conscience doesn't
bear upon you, that boat works just fine. so long as you're
able to keep your back to the oars and just keep rowing and
rowing and rowing, everything goes along just fine. But you,
if there be any here who are in that boat, isn't your back
getting tired? Isn't that a wearisome way to
go? And if there be none here this morning that are in that
boat, well, I thank God if there are none in that boat. But many
of you have been in that boat, don't you remember it? And isn't
it good to be out of it? Isn't it wonderful to be free
of that obligation to row yourself to the far shore? Being in this boat is kind of
like singing that song, row, row, row your boat. You never
notice that it never ends. The only way to end that song
is just quit. It doesn't come to a conclusion.
You just got to quit singing it and then go on to something
else. And if you're in this boat, it never comes to a conclusion.
You never rowed for the last time. No matter how much water
you cover, there's more water yet. And if you ever do hit ground,
it's not ground you want to be on. Some have put their hope in that
boat. Some are in the boat of ceremony.
And sadly, many preachers and parents are very quick to put
their children in that boat. No sooner does a child come into
the world, they stick him in this boat. And it's kind of like
a cruise boat. They always got something going
on. You know, we do have two ceremonies. And that's because we find them
commanded in the scriptures. And we find them practiced in
the scriptures. But you know, even among Baptists, they try
to invent ceremonies too. And here's why. People love ceremonies. Now, I was raised a Baptist.
And I can tell you that despite what Baptist confessions say,
most Baptists have more ceremonies than the two the Scriptures command. Say, what's that? Well, they
got cradle roll ceremony. Since they don't baptize infants,
they put them on the cradle roll. And your baby's born, you know,
and you take it down to church and they'll have a dedication
ceremony. And you take him up front and the preacher will hold
him in his arm and pray for him, give him a kiss on the cheek,
and they put him on the cradle roll. Well, they may as well
dip their fingers in water and sprinkle them on his face. It's
the same thing. People think that they've gained
a little more. They've done something for that child. They've performed
something that's going to give it a little bit of a boost. But
they got the cradle roll in dedication. And they got the invitation.
That's another ceremony you go through. They stand down front
after the service. Or at least the minister of visitation
will. And they'll tell everybody to bow their head and close their
eyes. I remember everybody bow their head and close their eyes
except the invitation minister. He'd bow his head and then look
at the top of his eyes because they're going to ask if anybody
would raise their hands. And he wants to see if anybody does.
Somebody called him Old Eagle Eye. I mean literally, Old Eagle
Eye up there, you know. And he was watching. And the
preacher tells sad stories, or if it's near Christmas, they'll
say, you know, give your wife a Christmas present if you be
of a Christian husband. And they'll go on and on about
that, and they go through all of this, and if people respond
to it, if people participate in that ceremony, that's just
a little bit more. It's a leg up. Oh, Baptists can
say what they want. They're just like all other men.
They love ceremonies. They love to get in that boat.
And you know, you ask some people, you ask some of them, are you
saved? Yes, sir. How do you know you're saved?
Well, you know, on September 4th, 1962, as I recall, that's
the first time I made a profession of faith. September 4th, 1962,
I was standing there, I was seven years old, and a preacher gave
an invitation, and I was full of anxiety and so upset, and
I thought, I've got to get saved. And I prayed the sinner's prayer,
and I went down front, and I became a Christian. It's a wrong boat. I'm not saying I didn't believe
on that night. I don't know. And I'll be honest with you,
I pretty much don't care. It does not matter whether I believed
40 some years ago. It matters whether I believe
right now. But that's a boat of ceremony,
a boat of past experience. And that's what some people are
trusting in. Some are in the boat of their church. I heard
a message, or heard of a message preached in a church that our
brother Doug Weaver pastors at, but they had a fellow come in
there, uh, candidating. And I always thought that was
a funny word to describe how preachers go around and try to
find a church. They're candidating, you know, and I'm just wondering
if we ought to put up some bunting, you know, when he comes and have
a brass band, like the politicians do if we're going to candidate.
But that's what he was doing. And he was one of these guys
that believed that the Baptist church was the only church. And
so he had a boat story to tell. And he talked about the boats,
the boat out there on the ocean, and he was on that boat, and
the waves came and beat against it, and it heaved up and down
and everything, but finally it came in the harbor, and at the
front of that boat, and the waves heaved up out of the water, it
had Baptist written on it. Can you imagine that? You say,
yeah, I can imagine. Mine didn't have Baptist, but
I'll tell you it had the name of another church on it. All my folks think their church
is going to save them. I was born in this church. I
grew up in this church. My name is on the cradle roll.
And I'll tell you what, I'm going to die in this church just like
my daddy and my granddaddy did, and it's going to be alright.
In the boat of church or denomination. Well, I wasn't born a Baptist.
I think we went to a Methodist church for a while when I was
about four or five years old, somewhere in that neighborhood.
But I'd say 95% of my memories have been as a Baptist. But I've
learned this. The Baptist church cannot take
you to heaven. This church can't. This church,
you say, well, how do we go? I go to Sovereign Grace Baptist
Church. I go to that Grace Community Church down there. Well, I'll
tell you something. This church, now listen, this
church is going to sink just like every other church is going
to sink. I don't know what's going to
be preached here in 50 years. I seriously don't. I know this. that it is a very
rare thing. Listen carefully. It is a rare
thing for the gospel to survive more than one generation in one
location. It shouldn't be that way, should
it? Maybe too. Maybe too. The only church I can speak of
that I know of that went on for many generations was the church
which eventually Brother Spurgeon preached But I think there were
times even in that church that they parted from the truth, and
then it came back. You know, the Lord sent someone
else, but for a period of a couple of hundred years, that church
was faithful sometimes, not at others. But shortly after Spurgeon
died, they were just getting right into freewillism very quickly. Some put their hope in preachers,
in Corinth. They said, I'm of Paul. Well,
I'm of Peter. It doesn't matter. If that's your boat, you're on
the way down. And here's something I thought
was interesting. Look back at Mark chapter 4. And you know, if I have any concern
for those who regularly worship here, whether a member or not,
if there's any concern, it would be here. And we're talking about where
is your faith? What boat are you in? And here in Mark chapter
4, beginning in verse 35, it says, That day when the evening
came, he said to his disciples, Let us go over to the other side.
Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was
in the boat. Now notice this line. There were
also other boats with him. The interesting thing is we never
hear about these boats again. I don't know what happened to
them. I don't know if they sank in the storm. I don't know if
they went so far and decided to go back. I don't know if they
went out and said, you know, really, I don't want to go all
the way across here. I'm just, I'm going to go over there. Here's the thing is, we don't
know what happened to them. We are sure of the safe arrival
of only one boat, and that is the boat with Christ in it. And
even though these other boats were with him, and I don't want
to make too much out of this, you know, we don't want to try
to take every detail of the Scripture and the Scriptural story and
build up some intricate theology about it. But if the Scripture
put the detail in there, it's in there for a reason, and we
can gather something from it. And here's what I fear, is that
we could be in one of those boats with him, but not. in His boat. Not in His boat. We want to be careful here. I
don't want to stir up fear where there's no need for it. I don't
think I will, but there are many who travel with Christianity,
but don't travel with Christ. Who follow in His wake, but never
in His boat. These illustrations make any
sense to you? They believe the doctrine. They heard it. It makes
sense to them. It sounds good to them. At least
there's parts of it they like and they want to hang on to.
They can become emotionally moved by the gospel. They pull their
boats up beside the boat of the Lord Jesus Christ and they hear
Him preach and they weep. And yet they don't get in His
boat. They may love to hear the gospel.
They may follow his boat throughout their lives as one of the many
boats with him. They may tell the preacher they
enjoy hearing him on the radio, but they won't tell anybody else that that's gospel preaching.
Here's the issue. Here's how I believe we can make
use of this little statement. that there were many boats with
them, and what distinguished those people from the real believers,
they never left their boat. They may have been in a boat
of ceremony, and followed close to the boat of Christ. They may
have been in that rowboat of the law, and their aching back
loved to hear the message of rest that Jesus Christ preached
from His boat, but they never got out of their boat. You see what I mean? Getting
in the boat of the Lord Jesus Christ means getting out of yours. You can't just tie on to His
boat. You can't just row close to it.
The Scriptures speak of repentance and faith, and it's not so much
that they're two different things. It's like going out of one room
into the other, you know? You can't enter one room without
leaving the first one. And repentance is the leaving
and faith is the getting in. And you cannot believe. You cannot
enter the boat of the Lord Jesus Christ unless you are ready and
willing to leave whatever boat it was you were in. And I'll
tell you this, that the most difficult part of gospel preaching
and gospel persuasion, it's not convincing people of the doctrines
of Scripture, it's convincing people to get out of the boat
that they've been in all their lives. That's the hard part.
And that's the hard part of faith. That's the hard part of believing.
That's the part a man cannot do apart from the grace of God. There's much about faith that
a man can do without the grace of God. He can hear the gospel
and understand its doctrines without grace. He can be emotionally
moved by the truth of the gospel without grace. He can even have some kind of
desire. to follow the Lord Jesus Christ
without grace. That rich young ruler did. He
said, what good thing must I do to obtain eternal life? He had
a desire for these things. Here's what a man cannot do without
grace. He can't get out of his boat.
He can't abandon his hope. He cannot cease from his labors
and enter into God's grace. If you don't get anything else
out of this morning's message, catch that. Oh my, that's the
spiritual part. That's the part that requires
the sovereign grace of God. Jesus Christ standing up in His
boat preaching a message may thrill your heart, but it will
never get you out of your boat. It's going to wait until He pulls
alongside your boat and grabs you by the hair of the head and
pulls you out. It says, get in. But I ask you this morning, what
boat are you in? What are you really trusting?
What is it that if it were taken away from you, you would feel
that you were lost? You know, with a believer, you
can take away everything. And it may cause him some fear.
It may cause him some confusion of mind for a while. But you
can take away everything but Christ, and he will yet have
hope. Because Christ is his hope. You
take away Christ, he's lost. But there are people that can
go tripping through their religious lives and they haven't a clue
whether they've met Christ or not. And it doesn't matter to
their emotional well-being. That's not where their hope was.
That's not the boat they were in. So let that boat capsize
as far as they're concerned. It makes no difference. Now let's
look a little bit at this faith. I have asked you as a challenge,
where is your faith? Now, our Lord says to His disciples,
to those who have believed, they've got faith. And we're going to
look here as to what demonstrated that they really had faith. These
men did have faith. But our Lord says, where is it?
Where is it? Akin to asking a man whom you
know is wealthy, But as walking around town in rags, you might
say, where's your money? A man who has more money than
he could possibly spend in a lifetime, and yet he drives around in a
car that's leaking oil and noisy and ugly. Where's your money? What are you doing with it? Where
are you hiding it? Now these men had faith. And
we can see their faith. demonstrated in several ways. Look over here at Matthew 8,
verse 23. And if we don't catch anything else,
this is the evidence, this is the one true evidence of faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 23, Then He, that is the
Lord Jesus Christ, got into the boat, and His disciples followed
Him." Now that's faith, friends. That is as good a definition
of faith as you're going to find anywhere. Faith follows Christ
wherever He goes. It says in the book of Revelation
concerning that 144,000 that everybody gets, who's the 144,000,
you know? And you got religions based on
trying to figure out who the 144,000 is. They say the 144,000's
special kind of Christians. It defines for us who the 144,000
is, and here's one of their descriptions. They follow the Lamb wherever
He goes. Friends, that's faith. They may
not follow Him with confidence. They may not follow Him with
the real peace of mind that they should be able to have, but they
don't. They may not follow Him with a real strong step, but
blessed be God and His grace, they do follow Him wherever He
goes. And if He gets in a boat, they
get in there with Him. If He walks on the bridge, they'll
walk on there with Him. If He climbs a mountain, they'll
climb the mountain with Him. If He goes in the valley, they'll
go in the valley with Him. That is the one true characteristic
of faith. And in truth matter, I mean,
you can't tell it on somebody else. It's just something you've
got to know for yourself, about yourself. Do you follow the Lamb?
Now, notice it says they follow the Lamb, wheresoever He goes. They follow Him as the Lamb,
the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. They see
in Him all the sacrifice necessary to put away their sin. And wherever
that sacrifice is going, that's where they're going. Some of you followed the Lamb
for a long time, wandering from church to church. But that's
why you were wandering from church to church. You were looking for
the Lamb. You were trying to find Him. And you thought maybe you heard
Him over there and you went. It turned out that's not where
He was. Or He was there for a while, but He moved on. But wherever
He went, you went. Brethren, that's faith. That's
believing Christ. They follow him wherever he goes. Moreover, as they followed him, they got in the
boat, and they headed across the lake with him. And then a squall came down on
the lake. Strong wind, a storm showed up all at once, and the
boat was being swamped. They were in great danger. Let
me tell you that faith does not deliver you from danger. It delivers you through it. Don't
think that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is going to make
your life this peaceful, calm existence from shore to shore.
You will not sail a glassy sea. Rather, know this. that the Christ
in whom you believe will see to it that whether rough or peaceful,
whether high seas or calm seas, you'll make it. They were in
great danger, and you know, you and I can see great dangers to
our lives. We can see great dangers to our
souls. We see our sin, don't we? And
our conscience testifies, doesn't it? It testifies to us that our
sins are worthy of the wrath of God. And in our mind's eye
and our heart's eye, we can see that wrath. But faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, or maybe better put, the Lord Jesus Christ in
whom we believe, delivers us safe through it. The ark did not save Noah from
the flood. It saved Noah in the flood. and through the flood. And these disciples were in great
danger, and they realized it, and the fear gripped them. And
the disciples went and woke Christ. Now, for all their franticness,
for all their frenzy, this was an act of faith. What did they
do? Did Peter stand up and say, Alright,
fellas, leave the Lord alone. I've got this in hand. I'm an
apostle, after all. going to be the chief among you.
So here's what you do. Thaddeus, you grab that oar.
Matthew, you didn't. They didn't start that, did they? Here, you get a pail, start bailing.
They in faith. And here's what faith always
does. They went to the Lord. They drew His attention to what
was going on. Do you know that's what prayer
is? Now, the Lord is not asleep. That is, The Lord Jehovah, He
never sleeps, He never slumbers, but God in human flesh needed
His rest like everyone else. But when they went to Him, all
they were doing was making Him aware of the situation. Notice that they didn't advise
Him on what He ought to do. They just said, Master, Master,
we're going to drown. And that's all the eye of the
flesh could see. Apart from Him, that's exactly
what was going to happen. They recognized by faith that
there was no strength or ability in themselves to handle this
storm. So they went to the only one
they knew of that could do anything about it. They didn't know what
he would do. They just knew that he's the
only one. And faith is often reduced to
nothing more than that. Don't think that your prayers
to the Lord have to be filled with theological discourses and
lofty words and you have to frame everything just exactly right.
You say, well, I don't know what I ought to pray for. Well, then
don't pray for anything. Just tell Him the trouble and
let Him come up with the answer. Lord, I'm going to drown. Lord, I'm overwhelmed. Lord,
my sin is crushing me. Lord, my guilt has taken away
all my joy. You may not have faith enough
to know the answer, but you know the problem, don't you? Well,
then do as did these disciples. Don't specify to the Lord what
you think He ought to do. Just make Him aware of the problem.
and leave it in His hands. Brethren, that's easy, isn't
it? That's easy. Even if your prayer
can be as this, Lord, I can't believe. You ever been there? I can't
believe. I know I should, but I can't. I can't see. I can't perceive. Lord, I went
to church today. I didn't hear you. In fact, I've
been gone for the last two or three months. I haven't heard
you. And just leave it there. The
Lord alone knows what to do about it. And brethren, even the prayer
that says, Lord, I have no faith. Here's the wonder of it. It's
a prayer of faith. And I'll tell you why. Because
faith is not always revealed in what is said. It's revealed
in who it speaks to. Faith is that which appeals to
Jesus Christ. That's what faith is. It's known
by who it appeals to. Sometimes its appeals are wrong.
Sometimes, in fact, always there's something wrong with them. But
it talked to the right person about it. Master, master, we're going to
drown. They went and woke him. In faith, they made their case
known, made their situation known. And here's the result. This is
verse 24, halfway through. He got up and rebuked the wind
and raging waters. The storm subsided and all was
calm. The Lord did not say to them,
all right, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to wait until you all
have some peace of mind here. I'll calm these seas once you've
learned to ride the waves in calm and peace. Oh, how gracious
the Lord. He is aroused. He sees the problem. And almost nonchalantly, He says,
peace, be still. He tells the wind to stop. He
tells the waves to lay down. And they did. The wind did not
say, oh, one more puff, okay? Just quit. The waves didn't say, wait a
minute, I'm not quite done. They laid down. Everything obeys the Word of
Christ. Now, do you hear that? Everything
obeys the Word of Christ. All he has to do is speak. After
all, it was His Word that brought it into existence in the first
place. In fact, I would have you note this, in all your trials,
in all your troubles, in all the turmoils of your soul, He
is able to calm it because it's Him that brought it. Who do you
think brought that squall up? Whose voice do you think it was
that said, wind blow, waves, shake this boat up good? It was His voice that said that.
The disciples didn't hear it. But they did hear Him say, peace,
be still, be calm. It's good to know that in the
midst of our storms, who it is that called the storm forth.
Because I know this. By faith, I'm confident of this.
No storm sent by God will destroy me. Rather, He has written that everything
has been sent for my good. And since there are no storms
that weren't sent by God, no storm can hurt me. It can shake
me up. It can knock me about. It cannot
throw me overboard. Why? Because before God will
let the storm get to that pitch, He will say, Peace be still.
He sends the storm to make us call on Him. That He might demonstrate
His grace and mercy and power to us. Because friends, there's
a really big storm coming. A really big one coming. And everybody here is going to
face it. And you're going to face it in
whatever boat you've chosen to be in. The end of life shall
come. And all these smaller storms
of life, if you're in the boat of Christ, they are to prepare
you for that one. So that when you see that huge
tidal wave coming down upon your boat, You can say, you know,
the same Lord that calmed all those waves will take care of
this one. I will not be pitched out. Where is your faith? Where is ours? In the day of
difficulty, where is our faith? Hopefully, as time goes by, We
learn to relax more easily in this boat of Christ, this boat
of the gospel of His grace. Hopefully we grow in grace and
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, you know where
their fear came from? Look here, in fear and amazement,
they asked one another, who is this? He commands even the winds
and the water and they obey Him. These were young believers. They
were new to trusting Christ. And they really didn't know Him
very well. That's why Paul says that I may know Him, because
Paul knew the better he knows Christ, the better the trip through
this world. And the more you ride the waves
with Him, the more you patiently endure the storms until He stands
and says, Peace be still, the more you learn He has power over
the wind and waves. And each time it goes by and
you survive by His grace, you rest a little more easily, and
a little more easily.