Where is Your Faith 1988

I'm going to start out today with a very, very familiar passage to us here, one that we use a lot. Luke chapter 5, starting at verse 1. When the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

When he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word I will let down the nets. When they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish, and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.

And they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished at all that were with him at the catch of fish which they had taken.

So also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid. Henceforth you will be catching men.

And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Jesus. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Jesus. What was it that gave these men the courage to stop what they were doing, leave everything they possessed, and follow Jesus? Put yourself in their shoes.

Where would you get the power to leave everything and follow Jesus? There's no other word in the language to describe it, to explain it, but the word faith. They had heard words from Jesus' mouth that absolutely turned their hearts, stripped them bare, brought them toward God in repentance. And they had seen a sign from Jesus' hand that shook their souls with holy fear.

Don't be afraid. Henceforth you will be catching men. And now, every practical consideration just melts like butter, along with lust and fear and greed and vain ambition.

And they can see that there is only one thing to do here. Nothing is more important for them than to spend time with this man, Jesus, and learn what he has to teach. And so they leave everything and follow him.

That's faith. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is not a mood.

Faith is not a state of mind. Faith is an act of the will. Faith took them on a new road.

Faith brought them into a new life. Faith gave them power. Faith opened their eyes to see things they never saw before, opened doors for them.

And they saw the sick healed. They saw the deranged restored. They saw dead synagogues like dead churches brought to life.

And soon, by this faith in Jesus, they would be the channel of healing and grace to others. But this faith, which brought them into such wonderful things in God, is easily lost. You can have it today, and if you're not careful, it slips right out of your heart tomorrow.

You can move mountains with it today, and if you don't watch, those same mountains will overwhelm you and crush you tomorrow. And so we just jump three more chapters in the book of Luke to chapter 8, verse 22, and read, One day he got into a boat with his disciples. Back in the boat.

And he said to them, Let us go across to the other side of the lake. So they set out. And as they sailed, he fell asleep.

And a storm of wind came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and they were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, Master, Master, we're perishing. And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased.

And there was a calm. And he said to them, Where is your faith? Again, they're in the boat with Jesus. But this time, there is no miracle of fish.

There is a storm. The boat is out of control. Jesus is asleep.

So they wake him up. Master, Master, we're perishing. Jesus awakes, rebukes the wind and the raging waves.

But this time, his word to them is not, Don't be afraid. Henceforth, you'll be catching men. This time, it's a rebuke.

Where is your faith? Where is your faith? Don't always be dependent on my faith. Where is your faith? Where is the faith that moved you to leave everything and follow me in the first place? Where is the trust that caused you to stay with me up to this point? Exercise it. Live it.

Believe that even in this storm, I am with you. If we follow the disciples through the New Testament to the trauma of Calvary, the resurrection, Pentecost, we find that the thread that ties it all together and binds them to Jesus in such a way that they see the kingdom and breathe the breath of the kingdom and produce the fruit of the kingdom is faith. Where there is faith, they live.

Where there is unbelief, they die. Where there is faith, they find the strength to love one another and to lay down their lives for the brethren. Where there is unbelief, they stumble into legalism and ritualism and every kind of hypocrisy.

Constantly, Jesus is calling them to faith and hesitates never to rebuke them for their unbelief. Because without faith, it is not possible to please God or walk in His will. This is still true.

Whatever there is of God's life in this place, whatever power from God is among us, if lives are being changed, if living souls are being drawn off the streets and out of the neighborhoods and out of our places of work, into the kingdom, it is because there are people here who are responding to the presence of Jesus and the word of Jesus in faith, who are doing something with their lives in response to the word of the Lord. We are like those disciples. There was a moment somewhere in our past where we saw that sign of the kingdom and it was like looking through an open door to a life.

The only life that makes any sense. A new life. And we chose to walk through that door.

We forsook everything and we followed Jesus. That's faith. And that faith was answered by God in wonderful ways.

New life. New vision. New power.

A new heart. Answered prayers. Healings.

We began to serve God. And we served God in faith. We trusted that this word we were hearing from God was true and we acted on it.

The spirit of God drew us together into this body. Which is like Peter's boat. In the boat with us was Jesus himself.

And we began to fish living souls into this boat. We began to see people drawn into the kingdom and we saw lives changed just as ours did. And as long as we walked in faith, as long as trust in Jesus was the basis of our daily life, not just when we're together for a meeting, but all day long, wherever we are, in all that we're doing, as long as we follow Jesus with childlike trust in him and did what he told us to do, we were sustained by the power of God.

The word was confirmed before our eyes. Doors opened. Evil.

Injustice. Evil. Unbelievable.

Darkness. Deceit were driven back. And everything we did was surrounded by the atmosphere of heaven.

Then, the weather changed. A storm came up. And our boat began to toss and rock.

And somehow, this confidence that we had not only slipped a little bit away here, but it began to look a little bit ridiculous to us. I must have been crazy to believe like that. I was a fanatic.

I was believing like a child. And what good is childlike faith here in the real world with real storms? We even began to doubt whether Jesus was in the boat with us, here with us, listening, speaking to us. But the storm keeps getting worse.

And when the storm gets bad enough, and when we get desperate enough, we cry out anyway. Even in our confusion and even in our unbelief, we cry, Lord, if you're here in this boat, help us! And when we cry in this desperation, even with our confusion and even in our unbelief, the Lord, who is in the boat and has been in it all the time, is able to get through at last. And he says to us exactly what he said to the disciples.

Where is your faith? This is his word to the body of Christ, surely on earth at this hour. And this is his word to this congregation and to each person here right now. Where is your faith? Where is the faith that moved you to leave everything and follow me in the first place? Where is the trust that caused you to stick with me this far? Believe, even in the storm, that all that you really need is to have me with you in this boat.

During the coming days, we're going to be hearing that word from the Lord, I am sure, over and over again. Where is your faith? Sometimes when we're in the middle of a crisis and we don't know which way to turn, just when we get quiet enough, we will hear the Spirit of the Lord saying to us, Where is your faith? Or we're sitting there looking at the floor and brooding and feeling sorry for ourselves. And if we're quiet enough inside, for all that, we will hear the Spirit of the Lord saying to us, Where is your faith? And we need to understand that when he says this to us, he is calling us from darkness to light.

He is bringing us from death to life. He is drawing us up into the realm of his kingdom. The storm is raging.

Our boat is tossing. And we're sure we're going to sink. And we cry out.

And he says, Where is your faith? Which means, believe that I'm with you. And believe that I'm going to get you through this storm. And lo, it comes to pass just as he promised.

We look around us and we see this sea of humanity. You know, in the midst of all these broken down buildings and holes in walls and rubble, living souls, sheep without a shepherd. And we say to ourselves, I don't have what it takes to bring them any kind of help.

What can I do to give them hope? What kind of power do I have to bring them healing? And the Lord says to us, Where is your faith? Which means, my presence with you, my spirit dwelling in you, is power enough to bring them healing and to lift them out of their despair if you will but go to them and speak to them in my name. And it comes to pass just as he promised. When we act on that.

But the greatest problem of all, really, is How are we going to bring these helpless, harassed sheep all the way into the kingdom? How are we going to bring them to faith? How are we going to make them committed disciples? And again he says, Where is your faith? Which means, Did I not tell you that I would make you fishers of men? Did I not promise you that if you believe rivers of living water would flow from your heart across your mouth, powerful enough to turn hearts, believe, trust me, and go to them and tell them who I am and watch the spirit move. At the bottom of every weakness in the body of Christ at the root of every sin in our personal lives beneath every failure is the sin of all sins which is unbelief. But the Lamb of God who died on the cross for that sin above all is in our midst.

And his word to us is clear. Where is your faith? You will calm the storm. You will free the prisoner.

You will open the eyes of the blind. You will catch living men and women into my kingdom if you will only believe. This week, and in the days perhaps that even follow this week, see if it isn't going to happen that every time we find ourselves in a crisis and every time we feel our back is driven against the wall and we just don't know which way to turn, that we're going to hear this word from the Spirit of the Lord speaking in our hearts.

Where is your faith? And to remember that that's a word not only of rebuke but of encouragement. Because I'm with you and I'll get you through if you'll trust me. Let's wait upon him now in silence for a few moments.