Unsinkable

So Allie and I are planning our vacation this summer. Our vacations usually involve camping. It’s a fun and economical way to see the world; and the kids love it. That may be because they don’t have to bathe for days at a time. I know that there are a few of you who really love to take cruises for your vacations. That’s always sounded very glamorous and exciting to me. But tell me something - aren’t you afraid you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and find out water coming under your cabin door because you’ve hit a coral reef or an iceberg or something? No? Why not? “Those big ships can’t possibly sink!” Yeah, do you remember the last ship that was billed as ‘unsinkable’? Go on to Google and type the word “unsinkable.” Do you know what the first few entries will be about? That’s right, the RMS Titanic. While it is a myth that the Titanic was advertised as being unsinkable, the Irish Times newspaper and Shipbuilder magazine both described her as “practically unsinkable” and that was the perception in the mind of the public. Until of course it sank with the loss of 1800 people. Would you like to hear the story of the only truly unsinkable ship? Listen now to the Word of God as it is found in Luke 8: 22-25. (Read passage)

There’s a story about a truly unsinkable ship. And we could talk about a number of aspects of the story but let me ask you a question: Why does Jesus correct the disciples? What exactly did they do wrong? They’re in a small boat. There is a violent storm. At least some of them are fishermen who have made their living out on the water in small boats. They know a truly dangerous storm from normal weather. This translation of the Bible even makes that clear saying, “. . . they were in real danger” (v. 23). But when they wake up the Lord who is sleeping in the boat, he gives them a rebuke: “Where is your faith?” (v. 25). What exactly did they do wrong? Now, it’s not that they should have remained quiet and stoic in the middle of their danger. It’s not that Jesus is annoyed at being awoken: “Why are you bothering me?!” If you have kids, have they ever woken you up for some dumb reason while you were desperately trying to catch up on your rest? “Daddy, can I watch a movie?” Aargh! Some people don’t pray to God because they don’t want to bother him with the trivial details of their lives – as if they were afraid of waking God up from his nap. “I really don’t want to bother God with that.” But that’s not why Jesus gets upset with the disciples. One of my favorite verses, which I quote with some regularity, says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5: 7). We are clearly told that the Lord wants us to bring him our doubts and fears. He delights when his children bring him their worries. So it can’t be the case that Jesus is upset with them because they need him. He is not chastising them because they voiced their concerns. They were in danger. It was appropriate for them to go to him.

So why does he find fault with them? Well, what exactly does he say? “Where is your faith?” (v. 25). There is something about the way they are bringing their concerns to him that is not faithful. We already know it can’t be that they were coming to him with their fear of the storm because we’re told that the Lord cares about our fears and asks us to bring them to him. The thing about faith is that it has expectations. Psalm 55 gives the age old prayer: “But I will call on God, and the LORD will rescue me.” There’s an expectation there. I call on the Lord because I think he can save me. When the disciples go to Jesus, they don’t have faith that he can actually do anything about their situation. How do we know? Because when Jesus shows he can help, they are, the Bible says, “terrified and amazed” (v. 25). They had no expectation that Jesus was going to be any use at all to them in that boat.

What do we mean when we say we have faith in God? For too many people it simply means that we believe the right things so that they can go to the right place when we die. Now, it is a good thing that we have the expectation that God can help us with our little death problem. But is God limited to what happens after life? How involved is God? That’s a question that usually gets answered one of two ways. And they are very very old ways. When the message about Jesus Christ was first proclaimed in the Roman Empire 2000 years ago there were two main options for how the citizens of the Empire viewed God. One was the philosophy of the Stoics. This philosophy held that everything was God. The universe is God. I’m god. You’re god. Sometimes this kind of thinking is called pantheism, which comes from two words -pan which means all and theos which means God. Pan thesim – God is all. It sounds good at first but the problem with Stoicism and all forms of pantheism is that if everything is god, then even the bad things are god. If god is everything – then sickness is god. Crime is god. War is god. Death is god. It’s all god. So as a Stoic, your job is to just kind learn to accept everything. It’s not going to change. It’s all a part of God.

The other option for how to perceive God in the ancient Roman Empire was something called Epicureanism. Epicureans were kind of the opposite of the Stoics in how they viewed God. Instead of seeing God in everything, the Epicureans said that we can’t know anything about god or the Gods. He or they may exist. But they’re out there and we’re down here. Instead of seeing God in everything – being pantheists – they saw God in nothing. God is completely removed from our lives. So the Epicureans said our best shot at happiness is just to do our best to enjoy life. Make the best of it. Don’t hope for too much. Try to maximize your pleasure and minimize your pain. Being an Epicurean really wasn’t any more hopeful than being a Stoic. If the Stoics believed all our problems were just a part of God, the Epicureans saw God as too remote and so uninvolved that he couldn’t help us with our problems. Either way you had to just deal with it.

The first Christian missionaries came out of Jerusalem with a different message – the message about a Creator God who made the world and was yet was distinct from it. And these first Christian missionaries could say to the Stoics, “Yes, you’re right that God is very present and very involved in the world but he’s not the same as the Creation. He’s not contained by it. Just like you can tell something about the artist by looking at his painting, but the artist is more than his painting. And the first Christians could say to the Epicureans, “Yes, you’re right that God is distinct from the world but he’s not remote and uninvolved. He loves this world and is very involved in it. Yes it often seems like we are separated from God. But Go has a plan to change that – and this plan was brought to fullness through his Son Jesus Christ who has defeated death and human selfishness which separation from God.

All this was very good news because people for the first time could have expectations that God actually could do something for them. The Christian message about God is distinct from the world and yet not disconnected from it. God has the power and God has the love to save you and to make a real difference in your life.

And I know some of you must be thinking, why are we talking about 2000 year old philosophies? Because our situation today is very close to the one that existed way back in the Roman Empire two millennia ago. Up until a few hundred years ago most people believed in the Biblical idea that God is distinct from the world and yet intimately involved in it. But then a shift occurred. Science, which is a wonderful tool for understanding the world and at least partially shaping it, began to make great strides in explaining how things worked. And the more people understood about the processes of how the universe worked, the less they began to talk about God being involved in the world. For instance, do you remember that beautiful passage from the Psalms that Greg read to us last Sunday? Psalm 147 says of God, “He sends his orders to the world – how swiftly his word flies! He sends the snow like white wool; he scatters frost upon the ground like ashes. He hurls the hail like stones. Who can stand against his freezing cold? Then, at his command, it all melts. He sends his winds, and the ice thaws” (Psalm 147: 15-18). There we have a picture of the Biblical worldview. God is not the same as creation. He is distinct from it. But he’s closely and intimately involved in it. But if you turn on the Weather Channel is the meteorologist going to look into the camera and say, “All right folks, this weekend God is going to send a big icy blast across the Midwest , while in the Northeast, he’ll be hurling down some hail on New York City. And, on the West coast, he will send orders for things to be dry and warm”? No, they use very different language, don’t they? It’s not that they shouldn’t talk about the jet stream and barometric pressure. It’s not that understanding the processes of how the world works is wrong. But because we understand more of the processes for how things work, it is assumed that we don’t need the concept of God to explain things. And soon we push God a bit farther outside the normal realm of things. The first step in pushing out God is we relegate his activities to miracles. By miracles we mean rare and extraordinary events in which God interacts with the world. And then the next step is that many of us say we really don’t believe in miracles. And we push God’s activity all the way out of the world. And today so many people today say they believe there is a God but they don’t really know too much about him. He may exist, but he really doesn’t have much to do with our lives. And who do they sound like? Exactly! Just like the ancient Epicureans. And just like the ancient Epicureans these new Epicureans tend to think that we can’t really hope for too much in this life. And so we try to minimize the pain and maximize our pleasure, whatever our pleasure might look like. But ultimately it’s a very hopeless way to live because the world in its current shape is a mess. No matter how well things go on for a while, ultimately there is pain and suffering and ugliness. And if we don’t believe that God is really involved, if he either doesn’t exist or he’s so remote that he doesn’t care, then there’s no hope for this world or us personally. We have no expectations of God to have any real part in this world. We have no faith.

A world completely separated from the divine is a cold and sterile place. And so many people in the last few years have trying to put God back into the world. The New Age movements in all its forms says that everything is God. Everything is a miracle. I’m god. You’re god. We’re all a part of the divine. And trying to put the wonder and magic back into the universe, they sound like who? The ancient Stoics! They are pantheists who believe that God is in everything. And it sounds much more appealing and hopeful but really just like the ancient stoics, the modern pantheists can’t have much hope either. Because if God is everything, then everything, even the bad stuff, is God. And who is going to save you from the bad stuff if God is the bad stuff? And so most New Age teachings don’t hold out much hope for things to get much better either. Expectations are low. There is no faith.

When the storms of life and death and tragedy come upon us most people are either Stoics or Epicureans. And they don’t have a very great expectation that God can be of any use. And in the end, they don’t have much hope. It’s much better to be in the boat with Jesus. The God of the Bible is distinct from this world; he is the Creator who transcends the world. And yet he is also this world’s Redeemer; He is intimately involved in the world’s destiny and in yours’.

Listen to what the Bible says: "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters.” (Romans 8: 28-29). And for that reason you can have some expectations for him. You can put your faith in him. You can call on him and know there is no situation, there is no problem, there is no aspect of life that he does not have power to help and sustain you. God is working through all things to bring about his purpose of shaping you into something wonderful – of shaping this world into something wonderful. Put your faith in Jesus Christ. Go to him with your expectations in every situation.

And just like the disciples in that boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee you will learn something: You are unsinkable.

Amen