Jesus Would Have A Perfect Trust

March 26, 2003 Psalm 22:9-11, 19-21

Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast. 10 From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. 11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. 19 But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me. 20 Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. 21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

It was a Sunday morning - and the church had once again been packed to the brim. With the modern music ministry and play acting, the pastor had attracted people from all around to come and watch the drama. There were over 2,000 members to this congregation, and the church seemed to be going places. All was going well, until one Sunday morning that the pastor would never forget. Just before the sermon, two men came barging into church in sky masks with semi-automatic machine guns by their sides. With a loud voice they proclaimed, “alright, whoever wants to take a bullet for Jesus stay seated, the rest of you can leave.” Hundreds and hundreds of people fled for the doors, as fast as they could. At the end of the melee, there were only about 10 people who remained seated in their pews. At this, the two gunmen took off their masks. To the pastor’s surprise, they were the elders of his church. They turned to the pastor and said, “we got rid of the hypocrites, now you can begin your sermon.”

What does this story prove? It is easy to cheer from the sidelines. It’s easy to come to worship and call yourself a follower of the Lord when there is nothing to lose. But when it comes time to put your life on the line - that’s what separates the men from the boys.

Some of the greatest accounts in the Bible are of people who trusted in the Lord for help and stuck with Him through difficult times. You may think of David’s trust in God when he fought Goliath, or Daniel’s trust in God as he faced the Lion’s Den, or the Wise Men in the Fiery Furnace. These are all great examples of what it means to really trust in the Lord. Today we’ll see that Jesus had an even greater trust in God than any of these did. This will become evident as we look at Psalm 22. Today we’ll see how -

Jesus Would Have A Perfect Trust

I. Based on His relationship with God the Father

David starts out, you made me trust in you. That’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it? “You made me trust in you.” How can you MAKE someone trust in you? Did God the Father make Jesus trust in Him by twisting His arm behind His back? Did He do it by yelling in His face, “TRUST ME!” Of course not. So what did Jesus mean by this?

I can remember a time when I was quite young that I went fishing with my father. For some reason, I had just read a fishing book on how to put muskellunge on a stringer. It just so happened that my father had caught a good sized musky that day. He was accustomed to stringing a fish through the gill. But I had recalled reading that a musky needs to be strung through the mouth by poking a hole through it’s bottom mouth. I told him what I had read, but he didn’t think that was necessary. Shortly thereafter, while the fish was still in the boat, it jumped up and undid itself from the stringer. After that, he had the musky strung through the mouth. Luckily, we didn’t lose that fish that day.

Why didn’t my father trust me in that instance? Probably because he had gone fishing much more than me and knew a lot more than me - and had never heard of doing such a thing. He had probably put plenty of fish on the stringer the old way, and it had worked fine. I could have told him to trust me, but my experience didn’t have the reputation to build that trust. I’ve experienced that a lot in life - no matter how much I tell people to “trust me” - it doesn’t do any good. It has to come with experience. If you don’t have it, they won’t give you their trust. The point I’m making is that trust needs to be built over time. It doesn’t come overnight.

What’s neat to me is walking into a hospital room of an elderly person - someone who’s been through plenty of surgeries already. I might walk in a little bit tentative, concerned over what will happen in the upcoming surgery. I know that I am supposed to be there to help give them confidence in the Lord, but it is hard for me to convey that confidence at times, since I haven’t been through surgery before. What’s neat is that the elderly person whom I was supposed to strengthen, sometimes ends up strengthening me. After talking with an experienced veteran Christian - you can sense the confidence that they have in the Lord. God has used every stitch, every bill, and every drought to slowly but surely build their confidence in the Lord. And so they convey their confidence to me - confidence that the Lord will guide them through and take care of them if it is His will. I end up being edified and strengthened from the person in the bed, instead of vice versa.