How to Find Rest in the Middle of a Storm, Part 2 | Perfecting Imperfect Faith

Luke 8:22-25

Because it’s in the presence of this kind of Savior that we find rest. There’s no other savior we find rest like this, but in the presence of this Savior we find rest. We don’t find rest in money, we don’t find rest in our bank account, we don’t find rest in our, our portfolio, don’t find rest in our stocks. We do find rest in this kind of savior. We find rest in the Sovereigns’ providence. We find rest in the Master’s omnipotence, and thirdly, we find rest in the Savior’s presence. Rest in the Savior’s presence. We’re only gonna find rest though, when we trust in him.

And that’s what the disciples failed to do on this, this occasion, which is why Jesus asked a question, which is it’s a general question, but it’s a clear and obvious rebuke. First part of verse 25. “He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’” He’s speaking to all of them here. Where’s the faith of you all? It’s plural. “Where is your faith?”

So, they’ve come into, through, and then out of a trial. They’ve come through, into, out, of a test. Now they’re getting their grades. And Jesus says boys, you’ve all earned an F. Why is that? Because they ought to have believed in him here. And they ought to have found rest. And instead of coming to a false and panicked conclusion that they are going to die tonight, they should have trusted, they should have rested.

It’s implicit in Jesus’ question here, where is your faith? It’s even clearer when you compare this with the other gospels. In Matthew, Jesus tells them they have little faith, which is a one, word moniker, it’s kind of like a nickname that he gives them. A, olia, oligopistos, it comes from oligos, which means tiny or puny or little.

And then the word pistos, faith. Little faith people. And we also read in the parallel accounts of Jesus, asked questions about their courage. He asked them, why are you so afraid? Matthew and Mark. It’s a deilos which means timid, cowardly, why are you so timid and cowardly? In fact, he’s saying, hey puny, faith boys, why the cowardice here? Come on.

He doesn’t let him off the hook. In other words, he’s telling them, Jesus’ telling them here, there’s no footnote in the Bible that says, Note: in times, when you think you were in great peril, or have cause to worry, you are hereby authorized to stop believing. You’re free to lose your mind. Accuse God of indifference. Enter into a state of panic, and ruepa, pursue any irrational course of anger, worry, fretting, or a binge of self-indulgent sin. No footnote in the bible that says that. You’re not gonna find it in anything Jesus says, that you’re off the hook for trusting in him. You know why? Because that would be utterly, unloving of him, to allow you to unshackle your faith in him, no matter what trial, or provocation, or anxiety, or relational issue, or mortal grave danger.

But so many of us Christians do just that, don’t we? And listen, we do face some perplexing trials. Ones that bring us to the end of ourselves, to the end of our resources. Take these disciples as a, as an example. I would never look at Peter and call him a coward. He’d pummel me. These guys are not sissies. They’re hard and strong men. They’re not given to fits of cowardice about going out to sea. They’re strong, able-bodied fishermen. They know their business. They know this lake.

They had experienced sudden storms on Galilee before. They knew the peril when they saw it. They also knew what to do when storms came. They knew when to take down sails. They knew when to start rowing, like mad for shore, they knew how to bail, they knew how to bail efficiently and furiously. They also knew when it was time to stop bailing, hold on and pray for help and eventually maybe having to abandon ship.

But the violence of this storm brought these strong, able-bodied, self-sufficient men to the end of themselves. That’s exactly where God wanted them to be. That’s why he directed them onto the lake in the first place, and in exactly this time, for precisely this lesson. Listen, write this down. There is no time that it’s okay to stop believing. There’s no time that it’s okay to stop believing, and especially when they’re in the presence, the very presence of the Savior himself.

So, Jesus’ question, “Where is your faith?” It affirms that they do still have faith, but that they’ve lost it, misplaced it, put their faith in the wrong place. Where is your faith, is like asking, in what have you placed your faith? He’s not asking here about the existence of faith. He’s asking here, about the object of their faith. Because they clearly had not been believing in the almighty God, they had not been believing in his Son Jesus Christ, because if they had, they would have reacted in a sensible, calm, and rational way.

No, these disciples here, like so many of us during times of difficulty, they put their faith in something other than God. You can imagine what they trusted in, their own experience, their expertise, their strength, their knowledge of the lake, their ability to react well when storms arose in the past. So, God designed a trial to take them way past their limits, to expose the fact that the object of their faith, whatever it was, could not sustain them. Jesus wants them to learn the lesson, where is your faith?

What is that, but a heart of unbelief? What is that but an inconsistency between the God that we say we believe, but we think he can’t handle this. All it takes to reveal our weakness in believing is the right trial, at the right time. So, we all pray, we pray this together, we say I do believe, O Lord, but help my unbelief. Oh, direct my believing to the right object, namely my Lord and my God, my Christ, and my Savior, because when we believe him, we find rest.

Just as a footnote, it’s the only place in Scripture where we read of Jesus sleeping, the circumstances of his sleeping are in the worst place possible, actually. I can’t think of any worse place to go and take a nap than in the heart of a violent and deadly storm in a wooden boat. But he’s able to rest. Finding perfect peace in the good providence of the sovereign God.

Isaiah wrote, Isaiah 26:3 to 4, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever. For the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.” That was Jesus. His mind was stayed upon, fixed upon, the good providence of the sovereign God, and God kept him in perfect peace. That’s what we’re to learn here. That our faith is to be fixed upon God, fixed upon Christ. And what Jesus practiced, we too are to practice. God will keep us in perfect peace when our minds are stayed upon him, meditating upon his word, trusting in him.

Let’s get to our fourth point. We rest in the Sovereign’s providence, in the Master’s omniscience, in the Savior’s presence, and fourthly, we find rest in the Lord’s prudence. We find less, rest in the Lord’s prudence. Could have said wisdom, but it doesn’t rhyme with the other points, so prudence it is. Imagine being in the boat that night. You’re terrified at the power that threatens to crush your boat like a kindling wood, balsa wood boat in a bathtub. Threatens to take your life. And then it suddenly dawns upon you that there is an even greater power than nature standing no more than arm’s length away from you. Oh no, who’s this?

Again, in verse 25, “They were afraid,” no wonder. “And they marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?’” They’re reacting here like saints of old who encountered a theophany, a visible manifestation of God almighty. Because that’s what they’re seeing. A visible manifestation of God almighty in Jesus Christ. And they react here, appropriately with fear and awe and wonder.

The veil has been removed. They see who they’re dealing with, who they’re reckoning with. And what they were afraid of, that is the power of the storm, it’s dwarfed here by the one in their midst, sitting in their boat, rebuking them for not believing. While their boat rests gently now, upon the calm surface of the lake, which this person just commanded, that storm that had been outside of their boat, has moved inside, into their hearts. Causing for them what must have been an existential crisis. Who is this?

They thought they’d known him. They knew of physicians who could heal the sick though. They were familiar with exorcists, Jewish exorcists, who purportedly cast out demons but, only God can control the weather. That’s what their minds are here grappling with. That’s what they’re trying to process here. They’re and they’re figuring it out, that this Jesus here is God. And this God man, he just spoke to these impersonal forces. He commanded the forces of nature. He spoke to the wind and the water, or as we read in verse 24, “He rebuked them,” which is the word, epitimao. To repute, reprove, or admonish, or even to censure in silence.

Why did Jesus speak to inanimate forces of nature? You ever wondered that? He spoke to, remember when Peter’s mother-in-law was sick and in bed, and he, he rebuked the fever? And do fevers have minds? But it’s, we start to, need to start to believe in animism? Is that what Jesus believes? No, no, he doesn’t believe that. But if you ever wondered why he spoke to these inanimate, animate, forces more than that, how did the forces of nature listen to him?

Jesus here could have simply thought the thought, or he could have passed his hand over the waters, or he could have put up his hand in a stop sign motion to the wind. Instead, he spoke. He used words. And the reason he used words is to teach his disciples a lesson about the power of his words. What’s the lesson? The howling and violent winds, turbulent and troubled waters, they became completely calm, perfectly at peace, at Jesus’ command, right? That’s what the disciples saw for themselves. Jesus commands, verse 25, “They obey him.” The result is a cessation of the storm and it’s replaced by a gentle calm.

Look back at what preceded this narrative. Verses 19 to 21 before Jesus calmed the storm, Luke 8:21, “my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” He says in other places, “Blessed are those who hear and obey the word.” Listen, if obedience to the word of God, results in a peaceful calm for impersonal forces of nature, what will the blessing be for Jesus’ family members, who likewise hear the word of God and do it? Here we see, calm.

Our outline points are about finding rest, God’s providence, omnipotence, presence, finding Lord’s prudence. What is prudence? By prudence we’re talking about wisdom. And when we say wisdom, biblically speaking, we’re talking about knowledge rightly applied to the glory of God. Knowledge rightly or righteously applied to the glory of God. That’s wisdom. And whenever Jesus speaks, whenever he rebukes, or commands, or instructs, you know what comes out of his mouth? Wisdom. He’s telling us wisdom. Knowledge rightly applied to the glory of God. It’s wisdom, it’s prudence, and his commands, are all joy producing, fruit producing, rest producing, commands that come forth from his lips.

And just as the wind and the waves obeyed and calm resulted, so also when we obey his wise commands, a calm will set over our hearts. Obedience to our Lord’s wisdom brings cessation of turmoil in our hearts, which is replaced by peace and calm. In obedience to his word, we find rest, rest, as we trust in God’s providence, as we’re safe beneath his omnipotent care. Rest as we commune with Christ as we come into his spiritual presence. Rest in the wisdom of all his words of instruction and command.

But rest from what? Up to this point, we haven’t really defined that fully, have we? Just, it’s been self-defined. What do we need rest from? Perhaps you’ve been thinking about that in your own thoughts. You’re saying, you know, I could really use some rest from my job. It’s really taken it out of me. You, you really use rest from this relational drama and conflict. I am tired of this and I can’t do anything about the other person’s will. I could really use rest, you know, from parenting toddlers. I’m losing hair over this. I can lose, use rest from financial worry or whatever it is. Hosts of things that trouble us and disturb our peace, rob us of mental tranquility and prevent all rest.

For disciples that night, rest is easy to define, isn’t it? They wanted to not die, that’s rest. They can’t reason with the weather. They can’t calm the storm at sea; natural forces in a fallen world are prone to kill and destroy. They have no feelings, no remorse, no regret. These disciples are facing a power that they can’t reckon with or overcome on their own. They’re utterly hopeless apart from divine power. But learn the lesson here and let it go down deep. A great, calm results when God exercises his power to save those who are perishing. By Jesus’ command, by the exercise of these omnipotent power, a great, calm results bringing salvation to men. And in the grip of God salvation, like we see in Jesus’ calm behavior in the midst of the storm, while the winds and the waves are still raging, he remained at perfect peace and rest.

Those who know God’s full salvation, deliverance from sin, deliverance from divine judgement, from divine wrath, from eternal death, they know perfect peace in the midst of any storm. No need to get out of the trouble on the job. No need to escape the relational drama and the human conflict. No, no need to escape, toddlers, kids, parenting drama, no need to escape the pressures of finance. Like Jesus asleep in the boat, there’s a deeper rest for those who are rightly related to God. That’s what the disciples instinctively realized this night, and not during the storm.

In the calm after the storm their hearts are suddenly gripped with an even greater fear, as they marveled and feared, and said to one another. Who then is this? They instinctively sensed the need to be in right relation to the greatest power in the universe, the power of almighty God. They knew him, yeah. Clearly, they didn’t know him fully. Yeah, they’d walked with him, and ate with him, and talked and laughed with him. They’d watched him as he performed miracles and compassion, demonstrating power over demons and disease and death. They listened to his teaching; they observed how deftly he handled his opponents and yet they ask in this moment. “Who then is this?” Incomplete knowledge means imperfect trust, weakness of faith.

Ah, but to know him is to trust him. And to trust him, that is, to trust him fully, and consistently, and completely, is to never be afraid again. Why? Because he came to put death to death. By the power of God in Christ, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The greatest power of the universe, power beyond natural forces, greater than the demonic realm, greater than disease and even death, power to overcome the curse and give eternal life. That power resides in the almighty God.

And if that power is no longer oriented against you, then you have nothing to fear, nothing; not tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ, Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, not enmity. We have peace with God, no longer war with him. We have peace, not hostility. That means we’re save from his wrath. A wrath that’s mightier than the fiercest storm, more terrifying than the most destructive forces on earth, a wrath that doesn’t merely destroy the body, but is able to destroy both, body and soul in hell. Salvation from that power. Salvation from that destructive force of wrath, well, that is salvation indeed.

Listen, if you’re at peace with God, then you know how to find rest in the middle of any storm, right? You just need to believe consistently. Right, really, rightly related to God because you put your faith in the atoning of death of Jesus Christ for your sins, because you trust in his perfect life of obedience that merits your eternal life. You’ve been saved from the greatest storm, the coming judgment of God in his righteous wrath.

So, if you’re at peace with God, you can find rest in his providence, you can find rest in his omnipotent power, you can find rest in the Savior’s presence and you can find rest in obedience to the Lord’s commands, discovering the joy of walking in his wisdom. That is how to find the rest in the middle of the storm.

And that’s why Luke actually leaves us in this narrative with a question ringing in our ears. “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water and they obey him?” Impersonal forces of nature. Forces that cannot be reasoned with or themselves reason. And yet at his command their agitated state is stilled. How about you? Will you trust the one who commands even winds and water and find rest for your troubled souls? If you trust him to accomplish the greatest of all miracles, namely the salvation of your soul, and your ultimate rescue from the wrath of almighty God, will you trust him to take care of even the lesser trials and storms in your life? Where have you put your faith? Let’s pray.

Our Father, we do pray. We believe, we do. But help our unbelief. Help us to walk before you in a consistency of believing. That we believe you fully, completely, without hesitation and without regard to circumstances around us. But that by, whenever we’re afraid, we come and trust in you, and pray to you. With thanksgiving, in every circumstance, making our request known to you. Knowing that your peace, which surpasses all of our understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Father, let our faith, being purer than much fine gold, when it’s passing through the fire, let our faith when it’s tested, prove that you are the only legitimate object of faith. Let our faith, when tested, when trials come, when pressures come, when stresses come, and worries come, let our faith demonstrate that we belong to an almighty God who cares and loves. We thank you for this in Jesus, name, amen.