Perhaps some of you recently received an email similar to the one I received that urged me not to accept any of the new one dollar coins being minted by the U.S. government. The reason? According to the email they no longer contain the words “In God We Trust” which is due to a government conspiracy to phase God out of America. First of all, those emails are just not true. When this new series of coins was introduced the words “In God We Trust” were engraved on the edge of the coins rather than on the face. That has since been changed and the new coins all have the words “In God We Trust” on the face of the coins. It is true that due to a minting error there was a small quantity of coins that did not have the words engraved where they should have been.
But even if that email had been 100% accurate, the much bigger issue is not whether or not our coins say “In God We Trust”, but rather whether people in fact really do that in their lives. I’m pretty sure that most of the people who spent the time to send or forward those emails to everyone on their contact list would have been a whole lot better off to spend that time in God’s Word, getting to know God better so that they could actually be better equipped to trust Him in their day-to-day lives.
The Psalm we’ll examine this morning – Psalm 125 – could easily be titled “In God We Trust”. Let’s read it out loud together.
Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the LORD surrounds his people,
from this time forth and forevermore.
For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
on the land allotted to the righteous,
lest the righteous stretch out
their hands to do wrong.
Do good, O LORD, to those who are good,
and to those who are upright in their hearts!
But those who turn aside to their crooked ways
the LORD will lead away with evildoers!
Peace be upon Israel!
Psalm 125:1-5 (ESV)
This morning, I’d like to begin by briefly focusing on why we can trust in God according to this Psalm. But then I want to spend the bulk of our time discussing what it means to trust in God and what that should look like in our day-to-day lives.
WHY WE CAN TRUST IN GOD
1. He protects us (vv. 1-2)
As these Hebrew pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem, they would have noted the natural defenses of the city, which was surrounded by mountains that helped protect the city against Israel’s enemies. Those mountains were permanent and immovable.
What a great picture of how God protects His people. But because we can’t always see God at work in this way, it’s easy for us to forget that He is often at work in the unseen realm to protect us against our enemies. I’m reminded of the account of Elisha in 2 Kings 6 when the Syrian king and his men surrounded the town of Dothan in order to try and capture Elisha. Let’s pick up the account in verse 15:
When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
2 Kings 6:15-17 (ESV)
No matter what we face, those who are with us are more than those who are with our enemies. And that protection is not just temporary. As we see here, and as we’ve seen in many of the previous Psalms of Ascent, God’s protection for His people is in place “from this time forth and forevermore.”
So we can trust in God, first of all because of His constant protection. Secondly, we can trust Him because…
2. He won’t let us experience more than we can handle (v. 3)
In verse 3, the Psalmist writes that the scepter of wickedness won’t remain on God’s people and that the reason for that is that God won’t allow His people to be so overwhelmed by the evil around them that they begin to participate in the sins of the wicked.
Paul expresses this very same principle in the New Testament:
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV)
Some of you here are old enough to remember the comedian Flip Wilson and his famous line “The devil made me do it.” But the fact is that neither the devil nor anyone else can force us to sin. God promises that He won’t allow us to experience more evil than we can handle and that He will always provide a way out for us when we face the temptation to join in and participate in the evil that is all around us.
So when we feel like we’re about to be overwhelmed by the evil around us, we can trust God because He has promised that He won’t allow us to experience more that we can handle.
Finally, we can trust in God because…
3. He will ultimately make things right (vv.4-5)
Although it often appears to us that the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, the promise of this Psalm is that ultimately man will reap what he sows. Once again we find this same principle confirmed in Paul’s writings in the New Testament:
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8 (ESV)
Although we may not see it during our life here on earth, God will ultimately make things right. He will reward those who have been made righteous through the blood of Jesus and He will punish for eternity those who have rejected His Son.
Although we haven’t spent a whole lot of time here, we certainly have some great reasons why we can trust in God:
• He protects us
• He won’t allow us to experience more than we can handle
• He will ultimately make things right
But it’s not enough to just know why we can trust in God. We also need to know how to do that. So we’ll spend the rest of our time this morning focusing on…
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “TRUST” IN GOD?
We often talk about trusting in God, but I’m not sure that most of us have a truly good handle on what that really means and what that ought to look like in our lives. So if we’re going to leave today with a better understanding of what it means to trust in God, it seems to me that we probably need to spend some time defining that term “trust”.
I’ve given you some space on your sermon outline to write down your definition of trust. So take a moment to do that – just write down the first thing that comes to your mind. [Wait for people to write down answers].
Now let’s see how your definitions compare to the Biblical concept of trust, particularly what we see here in Psalm 125. In English the word “trust” represents something that is abstract – we can’t sense it with our five senses. But the Hebrew concept of trust is much more concrete. As you might suspect, there are actually several different Hebrew words that can be translated “trust” in English. The word that the psalmist uses here, and which is most commonly used in the Old Testament to describe trust in God is the word “batach”. Written in Hebrew it consists of just three letters and looks like this:
בָּטַח
When the Hebrew language first began to be written, the Hebrew letters were actually pictographs that not only represented sounds but also painted a picture. So we can get a better idea of the meaning of the word “batach” by looking at the pictures that are found in the individual letters (remember that Hebrew is written from right to left):
Beth – pictures a house or household. The original picture portrayed the idea of being inside something
Tet – pictures going around or being surrounded
Chet – pictures a fence or wall and represents the idea of protection
So the overall idea of trust pictured by the Hebrew letters is certainly consistent with picture the Psalmist paints her in Psalm 125 - God surrounding His people like the mountains around Jerusalem.
To the Hebrew mind, trust was not merely an abstract idea. Instead it represented the fact that God’s people were in a sense “walled off” and separated from the rest of the world by God:
You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
Leviticus 20:26 (ESV)
With that background in mind, we are no ready to make this really practical and describe what trusting God should look like in our day-to-day lives:
• Holding tight to the truth of God
Primarily because of our understanding of the English word “trust”, we often make the mistake of viewing trust as merely a feeling or emotion. But trusting in God is not merely a matter of our feelings. It is a decision to live my life based on the facts of God and not my feelings about God.
In His book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson rightly observes:
My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors.
Let me illustrate the importance of this application with a Biblical example. The only place in the Old Testament where we find the Hebrew word “batach” used in a positive way to describe the relationship between humans is in Proverbs 31:
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
Proverbs 31:11 (ESV)
So let’s apply that verse to Adam when he was in the garden with Eve. When the serpent came along and tempted Eve, we know that Adam was with her. And obviously when Eve took the forbidden fruit and handed it to Adam he trusted her. So the question is: Was he wrong to trust her? After all in the verse we just read, the husband is to trust his wife in the same way we are to trust God.
The problem was not that Adam trusted Eve. The problem is that he ignored the truth that God had communicated to him earlier. And that points out a crucial universal principle that must govern us as we endeavor to trust God:
Trust without truth is sin
That’s exactly the point Eugene Peterson was making in his book. Trust must be based on the truth about who God is, not on what I feel or what I believe about God.
The Psalmist begins this Psalm by focusing on God’s character. He can be trusted because He is like an unmovable mountain who surrounds His people in order to protect them and keep them from being overwhelmed. And because of His nature as a holy and just God, the Psalmist could trust that God will ultimately make things right.
So it’s not surprising that as Jesus prayed for his followers shortly before dying on the cross for them, He prayed these words to His Father:
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
John 17:17 (ESV)
The fact is that it’s just not possible to trust God apart from the truth that is found in His Word. It is there that we find the truth about who God is and about His purposes, plans and ways. So one of the best ways to evaluate how well we’re trusting God is to consider whether we’re spending consistent, focused time in His Word. And along with that we also have to evaluate whether we really hold God’s worth to be truth. Do we view the Bible as our guidebook for how to live or do we just view God’s commands as suggestions that we can choose to obey or not obey depending on how we feel?
The second way I can demonstrate our trust in God is by…
• Acknowledging and confessing my sins
This application might not be real evident, but let me demonstrate why this is such an important part of trusting God. Let’s start with a question: What is the opposite of “trust”? [Wait for answers].
In English that is entirely correct. The opposite of trust is doubt or mistrust. But in Hebrew, the opposite of trust is actually the idea of hiding something or keeping secrets. It is deliberately trying to hide something from God. Isn’t that exactly what Adam and Eve did when they sinned? They tried to hide from God. They chose not to trust Him.
Whenever we try to hang onto our sins by rationalizing or excusing them, that is really just a form of personally idolatry where we determine for ourselves what is right and best and refuse to trust that God’s purposes, plans and ways are what are best for us. The writer of the Proverbs points out why acknowledging and confessing our sins is so important:
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Proverbs 28:13 (ESV)
As we’ll see more fully in a moment, trust never operates in purely an individual sphere. There is also a corporate aspect of trust. So when we choose to hide our sins, it not only impacts us, but also the entire body. That is why James, the half-brother of Jesus, who writes his epistle primarily for the Jewish believers, includes this command:
Therefore, confess your sins to one another…
James 5:16 (ESV)
The Jewish believers, who had the same understanding of trust that we’ve been learning about this morning, knew that trusting God not only required them to acknowledge and confess their sins to God, but they also needed to do that with their fellow believers in order to maintain trust within the body as well. That idea leads us directly to the third way that we need to trust in God in our day-to-day lives…
• Carrying out God’s purposes in His community
Although most of them also have a personal application, we find that most of the promises that God made to His people were made to the entire community of His people. That has certainly been the case in all of these Psalms of Ascent where the primary emphasis has been on the entire body rather than just on individuals.
So, at least to some extent, the operation of God’s promises to His people is dependent on their participating in the community of faith into which they have been placed. That is why in the New Testament there is so much emphasis on how we are to relate to others in the body of Christ. One commentator estimates that 44% of the material in the New Testament letters deals with relationships within the body of Christ and we have nearly 60 “one another” commands to guide us in those relationships.
In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul makes it clear that each believer has been placed into the body of Christ exactly as God desires:
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
1 Corinthians 12:18 (ESV)
Since God has placed each person into the body as He desires, then if I really trust God that means that I will actively be involved in carrying out His purposes within that particular local body where He has placed me. This principle really reinforces the importance of making a commitment to a local body of believers and of the need to make sure that it is God who wants to change my placement before I decide to leave and find another church home.
When mountain climbers attempt to make a difficult climb they rope themselves together. That way if one of the climbers loses his footing and falls, he will be saved by being connected to the other climbers. The church is a lot like that. As we go through life, we all lose our footing at times, and left to our own we would suffer serious harm. But when we’re a part of the body and connected to other fellow believers, we can be confident that they are going to be there to help us get back on our feet. And when we trust them to do that we are really trusting the God who has placed us into that body in the first place.
• Putting my “money” where my “mouth” is
Last week the Chairman and CEO of General Motors, Daniel Akerson, decided to put his money where his mouth was. In order to demonstrate his confidence and trust in his company, he took over a half billion dollars of his own money and purchased 25,000 shares of GM stock. Whether that was wise or whether his faith was well-placed remains to be seen, but you have to at least give him credit for taking action that was consistent with his professed faith in General Motors.
There is an important spiritual lesson for us to learn from Mr. Akerson. We can say that we trust God all that we want, but unless that trust is demonstrated by our actions, then it is nothing but a religious cliché.
In many regards, this really comes down to how we view the commands of God.
To those outside of the body, and sometimes even for those who claim to be Christains, the commands of God are usually viewed as a list of “don’ts” that are designed to somehow rob us of happiness and joy in our lives. This blog post from a young woman who has since committed her life to Christ reflects that thinking:
One of the reasons I thought God was a kill-joy was because He said in the Bible we should not get drunk. But getting drunk was the only time I felt confident and spiritually numb. It was the only time I felt "fun" and so I thought if God didn't want me to do it, then why would He make me this way? I will never forget a friend of mine saying that to me..."Leslie, God made you to like alcohol so He must want you to drink it!" It made sense when I was drinking. Now it sounds ridiculous.
Another reason I thought He was a kill-joy was because He said not to have sex before marriage. How ridiculous, I thought! Everyone was doing it and it wasn't a big deal. It made guys like me, so it must be good, right? What I didn't know or realize was that guys didn't like me at all - they liked what I would give them. There was absolutely no love involved...only lust and afterward, a vulnerability and heart break that was not intended to be experienced by a young woman. It stripped me of my self-confidence and drew me to drink even more (because at least when I drank I was numb).
Sometimes, the commands of God are viewed as optional or as guidelines that we can choose to either follow or ignore based on how we feel about them.
And often, even in the church, God’s commands are viewed as the means to produce morally superior people. That’s certainly how many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day viewed them. While it is true that His commandments do provide protection, direction and real joy and that they help us to become more like Jesus, those commandments don’t exist apart from God’s character. When viewed properly, keeping His commandments becomes outward expression of my trust in the character of God.
As we’ve seen this morning, trusting in God is much more than just a motto stamped on our coins. It is even more than merely believing in God. It is the confident assurance, based on His true character, that God wants the very best for me and that He has promised to protect me and keep me from experiencing more than can handle. It is the complete confidence that one day He will make all right.
And we demonstrate that trust by daily living our lives in a manner that is consistent with that trust:
• Holding tight to the truth of God
• Acknowledging and confessing my sins
• Carrying out God’s purposes in His community
• Putting my “money” where my “mouth” is
