Theme: God in whom we trust
Text: 1 Kings 17:8-16; Heb. 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44
One of our greatest concerns in life is to know whom to trust. This is simply because our whole life, especially our personal relationships, depends on it. Politicians and advertising agencies know that their success depends on it and they use every means and lots of money to get people to trust them or their products. Even con men know that to be able to deceive others they first have to win their trust. Is it any wonder that a lot of money is always spent during elections? When we vote to elect a president or members of parliament would we vote for a person we do not trust? I don’t believe we would. Trust is so important that one of the greatest disappointments in life is to discover that we have misplaced our trust and trusted the wrong person. It really hurts but it will hurt a lot more when this misplaced trust has eternal consequences. Since nothing is certain except death we need to ask ourselves what will happen to us when we die. Who can we trust in life and in death? This is a very important question and we need to be sure of the answer. When the Apostle Paul was near the end of his life, locked up in prison for preaching the gospel, he knew exactly where he was going and wrote to Timothy saying "I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day." Paul was sure of heaven because he knew whom he had trusted. His faith and confidence was in Christ and in Him alone. He was not trusting in his good works or in his self-righteousness. He trusted only in the person and work of Christ. Can we also say that it is God in whom we trust?
There is only one person we can really trust and that person is Jesus Christ. There are, however, some people who put their trust in those who perform miracles rather than in Christ. They forget that performing miracles does not mean that such people belong to and know Christ. In Jesus’ own words some of such people would be rejected on the day of judgement because they did not know Him. We can only trust Jesus Christ when we know Him since it is impossible for us to trust someone we do not know. We cannot trust God if we do not know Him as our Creator. We cannot trust Him if we do not know about His wonderful plan and purpose for creating us. We cannot trust Him when we do not know that He is love and all-powerful and that He desired to have beings of like-mind and like-heart with whom He could share His life. We cannot trust Him if we did not know that He created man in His own image and gave him a share in His authority and dominion. It is very important for us to know Jesus Christ not only as our Creator but also as our Saviour. When man sinned in the Garden of Eden and lost the glory and image of God and the dominion over creation, God did not give up on him. Instead He put into action a great plan to save mankind and restore His original purpose for man. In this plan Jesus had to shed His blood to pay the penalty for sin. If we cannot trust our Creator and our Saviour whom then can we trust?
We can only trust someone we know and we can only know someone by having a relationship with that person. If we had a relationship with Christ, if we really knew Him, we would trust Him and have no reason to put our trust in idols, in man or anything else. Unfortunately because we do not know Christ, because we do not believe in His power, love and care, we cannot trust Him. A survey has found out that many people were using the Internet to connect to online psychics and spirit guides. There are many thousands of Internet sites about witchcraft, reincarnation, sorcery, clairvoyance and necromancy. Some people who visit some of these sites are believers who claim their trust is in God. Do we not make the same claims here in Ghana and still visit fetish priests and make lotto our favourite pastime? The evidence is seen in the many different lotteries operating here and how playing lotto has become a way of life for many people. Is this not telling God that we do not trust Him? How can we put our trust in lotto and believe it will solve our problems? It only makes the problems worse and lotto has in fact destroyed many families. Only God can be trusted to meet our needs in this life and in the life to come. The Bible not only speaks of the certainty of death, it also tells us that death is the divine judgment on all humanity because of sin and that after death comes judgment. The fact that judgment follows death means that the time to prepare for judgement is before death. This judgment is God’s judgment of sin. God cannot overlook or excuse sin because He is holy. The only way an individual can escape the punishment for sin is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Only those who do are saved. All others must face death and judgment without Christ and without hope. Can we truthfully say that our trust is in God? Or is our trust in our natural ability or in man or in any other thing? Many of us claim we trust God but in reality trust something else. Many people who claim they trust in God also consult the occult. In whom is your trust? Do you believe that “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and that He knows those that trust in him?” Nahum 1:7.
Trust in God will always result in faithful obedience and God has done all that needs to be done for us to be able to trust Him. The sacrifice of Christ is the basis for our trust. Jesus Christ, who was without sin, bore the punishment for our sin as our substitute. His sacrifice is all-sufficient and faith in Christ makes us partakers of that one sacrifice. As the writer of Hebrews explains, “by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Perfected and forever speaks of a sacrifice that comprehends every need of the entire human race, and its effects extend throughout time and into eternity. A single sovereign act of God brought together all the guilt and the suffering of humanity and offered one all sufficient solution. A solution that is available to all mankind. The sacrifice of Christ reveals the faithfulness of God as is declared in the Scriptures “He is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfil?” (Numbers 23:19) God entered into a New Covenant with man, which was sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ. This Covenant is the fulfilment of His promise to bless Abraham and his descendants. God can be trusted and that is why we sing that great hymn with the words “Great is your faithfulness, O God my Father, With you no shadow of turning is seen; You never change, your compassions are constant; Still you are true, as you ever have been. Great is your faithfulness, great is your faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed your hand has provided, Great is your faithfulness always to me.”
David trusted God because he had a relationship with Him and knew Him. The basis of his trust was the faithfulness of God. Because of his trust in God he was able to protect his father’s sheep from a lion and a bear by killing them, not in his own strength but in God’s strength. When he faced Goliath David remembered the faithfulness of God and did not rely on himself but on God. His words to the Philistine were “You come to me with sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied”. David knew who was fighting for him and he trusted Him and no giant could frighten him. We have a much greater proof of the faithfulness of God. His faithfulness led to the perfect and eternal sacrifice of Christ and no other sacrifice is needed anymore. Before the sacrifice of Christ the High Priest had to offer sacrifices yearly in the temple to cover the sins of the nation. This was done on the Day of Atonement, the most important day in the religious year of the Jewish people. It was the only occasion that the High Priest was allowed into the innermost part of the temple, the Holy of Holies. He went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifices that covered the sins of Israel one more year. The blood of animals was sprinkled on the mercy seat to make atonement for his sins and the sins of the nation. This act only covered the sins of the nation for one year and had to be repeated yearly. Because of that, the High Priest never sat down while performing the ceremony. The blood of bulls and goats accomplished an annual covering or atonement. However the blood of Christ is forever. It has accomplished eternal redemption for the Church. Jesus does not come before the Father once a year - He is seated at the Father’s right hand. As our High Priest, Christ is our advocate, the mediator between God and us. He looks after our interests and intercedes for us with God. He is the only one in whom we can put our trust.
Christ is the basis of our trust and the evidence of that trust is seen in our love for God. It is seen in how we spend the time waiting for His return. It is love for Him that makes us long for Him as a wife longs for her husband or as a husband longs for his wife who has travelled. To long for His coming is to be prepared and ready to welcome Him when He returns. If you were expecting the President you would make the necessary preparations. What preparations are you making to welcome the Lord? These preparations should please and delight Him and they can only do so when they result from our obedience to His commandments. We are to love God with our whole being and also to love our neighbour. It pleases Christ if we obey Him especially when it involves making sacrifices on our part. We please Him through our giving, which is an act of worship and says a lot about our values and about our relationship with God.
Our trust in God is evidenced by our actions. The story about the widow’s mite is not so much about money as it is about trust, the kind of trust that determines the way we live our lives. Jesus made a contrast between people who had a lot of money and trusted in their own resources and a poor widow with nothing who put her complete trust in God. We never hear anything more about the widow in the gospel account but we can be sure that her needs were met. She knew God could be trusted and she put her trust in Him and God is faithful. The Lord always takes care of those who trust in Him as is recorded in the case of another widow. When the widow of Zarephath met Elijah she thought she was preparing her last meal. But because she trusted in God and gave all her food to Elijah she and her family had food throughout the time of famine. This confirms the teaching of Scripture that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Receiving brings a blessing but giving results in a greater blessing. This is because when we give to God, He blesses what we give to Him and gives it back to us. God needs our gifts to bless us and the opportunities that come our way for giving are opportunities for our blessing. If we give nothing to God we cannot hope to receive anything so it is in our self-interest to give. God always provides for those who trust in Him. But every miracle, large or small, always begins with an act of obedience. Very often we may not see the solution until we take the first step of faith. When the winds and waves threaten us, God can be trusted; When the bottom comes out of our world and we start falling, God can be trusted; When the financial resources we had counted on are suddenly gone, God can be trusted; When we have hit the bottom and are afraid we will never get back up, God can be trusted.
If we really trusted Christ we would realise that the best thing for us is to obey His commandments. The Bible in fact teaches us what we should do and how to avoid those things that would harm us. There are warnings about everything from adultery to alcoholism and from greed to gossip. When we listen to God’s warnings we are kept under his protecting care. When we disregard what God says we place ourselves in danger. Imagine a vicious dog chained up in someone’s backyard. We can see the wear marks in the ground where he can run so we know how long his chain is. There are hundreds of warning signs that tell us not to go near the big dog on the chain. We are safe when we heed the warnings and stay out of reach. But when we ignore all the warning signs and wander within the reach of the dog we only have ourselves to blame. Ignoring God’s warning signs show lack of trust in God when we have every reason to put our trust in Christ. He is the only one who can come between a righteous, holy God and lost sinful men and reconcile the one to the other. The blood of Jesus Christ is both the means and the price by which reconciliation has been achieved. Just like the sin offering, the sin of the whole world was transferred to Jesus. When Jesus became identified with our sin, it was inevitable that He should also experience the death that is the outcome of sin. By His sacrificial death, Jesus made atonement for the sin of the whole human race and made it possible for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. This is not any kind of righteousness that we can achieve by our own efforts, but God’s own righteousness, a righteousness that has never known sin. Trust in Christ and His atoning sacrifice enables us to lead a new life. Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sin with His blood. He has restored to us all the blessings and promises of God. The least we can do is accept what Christ has done, trust Him, and lead a life of faith. Can we say that it is God in whom we trust? Can we say with the Psalmist “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God”. It is our prayer that today the Holy Spirit will convict all those who have not put their trust in God and lead them to confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Amen!
