MAIN IDEA
Faith comes from knowing Jesus personally.

WE KNOW JESUS WHEN WE GO WITH HIM
After teaching in Galilee, Jesus goes to preach and teach in the Decapolis, a predominately Gentile region. Jesus came to bring salvation to the world, not just to the Jews. And so if we are to have any chance of knowing Jesus on a personal level, we have to go with Jesus where He goes. What that means is to reorient and reprioritize our lives around God’s agenda—to fill the earth with His glory in Jesus’s name, through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families. That is, to fill the whole earth with Christians and churches! And we should go with Jesus because we owe Him our very lives. But reorienting and reprioritizing our lives may not be as hard as we think. House church is an example of this shift. Our marriages also show us how “having to” make sacrifices becomes “getting to” because doing so is good.

WE KNOW JESUS WHEN WE TURN TO HIM
As Jesus and the disciples were crossing the lake, a furious storm suddenly broke out that threw even the seasoned fishermen into a panic. To their credit, the disciples turned to Jesus for help, but He was sleeping in the back of the boat. Jesus slept because He knew that His life was in the Father’s hands, whatever may come. On the other hand, the disciples were in a panic, and so they accuse Jesus of not caring for their lives. But Jesus cares more for our lives than we do ourselves. Jesus gets up and rebukes the wind and the waves, and suddenly there is an immediate calm, even the water. Such a demonstration of power and authority was on a whole other level. And indeed, in the OT, commanding the sea is something only God can do. We would do well to remind ourselves that Jesus is indeed God, because when we go with Jesus, we will encounter some furious storms. And these storms will test our faith. These storms come so that we might turn to Jesus and know Him as God.

WE KNOW JESUS WHEN WE BELIEVE IN HIM
The disciples were acting like cowards because they still did not believe in Him. But after Jesus stilled the storm, they “feared a great fear.” They went from experiencing a great storm, to a great calm, only to experience a great fear. They don’t come to fully know who Jesus is until they see Jesus face-to-face after the resurrection. But we do know because we have the testimony of the Apostles. What this episode tells us is that the opposite of faith is fear. The most common command in the whole Bible is “Do not be afraid” because we are so often afraid. And we are so often afraid because we so often lack faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But faith can give us courage when even facing death (Psalm 23:4). And even the tiniest bit of faith is all we need to go with Jesus (Matthew 17:20). And it’s not a matter of how big or strong our faith is but that we exercise it every day (Matthew 6:11). When we believe in Jesus, we believe in Him crucified for the forgiveness of our sins, and Him resurrected for the hope of eternal life, and Him returning so that we might go with Him to seek and to save the lost. There are things to fear in this world, but most things that we fear are made up in our heads. Yet even for the real fears that we have, faith overcomes fear. And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ comes when we believe in Him. And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ will never, ever fail us.

DISCUSSION QUESTION
How have you witnessed the power of God in your life? Or what fears have you had that you came to realize were just in your head?