Theme: A blessing on the one who trusts in the Lord
Text: Jer. 17:5-8; Gal. 3:6-9; Luke 6:17-26
Read Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. And whose hope is in the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But her leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from bearing fruit.”
Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness and the other is for guidance. Consciously or unconsciously, his inner being longs for both. There are times when he actually cries out for them, even though in his restlessness, confusion and fear, he may not know what he is crying for. God met our need for forgiveness at Calvary. He sent His only Son into the world to die for our sins, that we might be forgiven. And this gift of God’s salvation is for everyone who truly admits he has sinned, repents and turns to God by receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. God also met our need for guidance and answered it at Pentecost when He sent the HS. God does not want us to come to Christ by faith, and then lead a life of defeat and discouragement. Rather, He wants to “fulfil every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us.” God has given to each of us our own respective talents and abilities but many of us are doing nothing with them because of fear. The only way to get the courage to use our talents and abilities is to believe what the Word of God says about us. We must believe that it is God’s will that we live successful lives, and that He has given us everything we need to achieve it. All we have to do is trust Him and venture out boldly to live the kind of lives He has called us to live - lives filled with His blessings. This is why Jeremiah writes, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. And whose hope is in the Lord.” Blessed means to be happy, contented, and at peace with oneself. That is God’s will for our lives. We are “like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But her leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from bearing fruit.” This is a description of every person who trusts in the Lord. Putting one’s trust in someone is to make that person your refuge, like David nestling under God’s wings for refuge as described in the Psalms. In the same manner, a defenceless but trusting baby bird hides itself under its parent’s feathers. There is a blessing on the one who trusts in the Lord.
The person we trust determines our conduct and attitudes and the way we behave. Our behaviour gives an insight into our true human condition. Trusting Christ should result in total dependence on Him and in right and Godlike attitudes. It does not result as many preach today in wealth, 4-Wheel Drive’s, BMW’s and houses with swimming pools. Many people prefer to not put their trust in Christ but in man or in themselves. Some rich people usually see themselves as “self-sufficient,” and believe that they have no need for God. We all need to trust Christ and as the Psalmist concludes, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we will remember the name of our God.”
Some people really believe that it is possible to put their trust in both God and man. An atheist, a person who does not believe in God, knowing he was about to die called for a minister and wanted to be baptised. Asked why he had changed his mind he replied that he was only making provision just in case what they had been saying about heaven was true. Such people belong to those people who wear a belt and braces at the same time. This is proof that they do not trust the one or the other and a double minded person receives nothing from the Lord. We need to trust the Lord completely like a little child trusts its parents. A child playing with his or her father will not hesitate to jump into his arms because he or she is sure that the father will catch him and not let him fall. He is sure because the father had done so on numerous previous occasions. The child has a basis for its trust. God has done so much for us that we have no excuse not to believe and trust Him. How can we not trust the One who gave His only Son to die a cruel death so that we might be saved?
The basis of our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ is His love and mercy – His divine Grace and His faithfulness. Because Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead as He promised, we know that all what He said is true - that He is God. Because He died and rose from the dead we can be sure that our sins are forgiven. We are also sure He is alive and represents us to God and because He defeated death, we know we will also be raised from the dead. God’s simple all sufficient requirement to attain righteousness is that we trust ourselves to Him, believing that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification. We cannot achieve righteousness with God by observing a set of rules. When we trust in the divine grace of God we also trust in God’s ability to meet our needs and not in our own natural ability. The nature of man is determined by our inheritance from Adam. Adam did not have any children until he himself had transgressed God’s commandment. The essential motivation of his transgression was not so much the desire to do evil as the desire to be independent of God. This desire is still at work in every one of Adam’s descendants. It is the distinctive mark of the “flesh”. In the field of religion, it seeks to perform righteous acts without depending on the supernatural grace of God. Scripture regularly refers to the flesh as being corrupt, and though it can produce much that is designed to impress the mind and the senses, it is all tainted by corruption. The outcome of all its efforts is described in Heb. 6:1 as dead works, from which God requires us to repent.
Abraham, the father of all those that believe, was saved by faith and all believers share Abraham’s blessings. We need to believe what God has made available for us. The story is told of a poor farmer and his wife living in Texas. They could hardly make ends meet when one day a well-dressed man approached them saying that he had good reason to believe there was a reservoir of oil underneath their property. If the farmer would allow them to drill he could perhaps become a wealthy man. The farmer refused and continued to live in poverty. Every year the gentleman returned and made the same offer and this went on for the next 8 years. During those 8 years the farmer and his wife struggled to make ends meet. Nine years after the first visit from the oilman, the farmer came down with a disease that put him in the hospital. When the gentleman arrived to plead his case for oil, he spoke to the farmer’s wife. Reluctantly, she gave permission to drill. Within a very short time the farmer and his wife were millionaires. They had been sitting on a reservoir of wealth while they struggled to make a living. As believer’s God has made His abundant blessings available to us. If we are not enjoying His blessings it is not because God has not given them but it is because we have refused to receive them. We desire the wrong things. We desire what God has not given.
Many people in the time of Jesus sought Him because they wanted physical healing or the chance to see the spectacular. Things have not changed even today and only a few seek Him desiring His forgiveness and pardon and love. For many God is a cosmic magician who can be told to perform His tricks anytime one wishes to have them done. We rather need to see Him as our master and see prayer as a way not to control God but to put ourselves under His control. We come under God’s control when we realise our poverty in God’s sight, when we recognise our own limitations so much that we feel our own emptiness and weakness. In this state we can depend on God for our strength. We also do this when we have an appetite for spiritual truth. Many today are concerned with the things that the world values - things like success, prosperity and health. It is not that those who trust in the Lord are not concerned about these things but they strive to do that which is right in His sight - they desire to be right with God. And being right with God brings with it the blessing of true success, prosperity and health.
When we are under the control of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will be concerned with the evil that we find in our own hearts. As we recognise the facts of human existence, looking at the end of life and realising that the future is a sober and sometimes sad thing, we react with sorrow. This sorrow can actually make us reconsider our ways. When we are under the control of the Lord we will tolerate it when others hate us, when the cause of their hate is our obedience to God. When we trust in man we bring ourselves under a curse. In Jeremiah, a curse is pronounced on the desire to be independent of God. The kind of person described is not a stranger to God’s grace but “whose heart has departed from the Lord”. His conduct shows he has more confidence in what he can do for himself than in what God can do for him. It is like snubbing God and such a person brings upon himself, the outworking of a curse. He finds himself living in “parched places” and “a salt land”. All that surrounds him is barren and dreary. Refreshing may come to others all around him, but in some mysterious way it always passes him by. He is doomed to bareness and frustration. Looking at many sections of the contemporary Christian Church, we notice that almost every movement of any significance in Christendom can trace its origin to a powerful, supernatural work of God’s grace and God’s Spirit. Today however, many of these movements no longer place much emphasis on the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, but have turned to relying on what they can accomplish by their own efforts. They have made flesh their strength and their heart has departed from the Lord. Many of us have experienced God’s supernatural grace and power, but then we turn back to relying on our own natural ability. Have we put human ability in the place of divine grace? Have we exalted the carnal above the spiritual? Is the curse of Jeremiah at work in our lives?
It is no sin to have riches, to eat well, to laugh, and to be popular but we should be careful not to put our ultimate trust in these things. We should be careful not to regard these things as sure and certain indicators that we are better than other people who lack them. We should never despise the poor, the hungry, the mournful, and the rejected ones in the world. Instead we should help them, share what we have with them, pray for them, and love them in the same measure that God loves them. For as they are blessed by the unconditional love of God, so also you and I are blessed when we find ourselves in their position. The grace of God can all too easily be forgotten by the self-satisfied and never enter their souls. But for those who acknowledge their need and weep in anguish over their inadequacy, the grace of God finds welcome entry and infuses them with blessing they can never create for themselves. When the weatherman predicts heavy rain but instead the sun shines all day, we know that human predictions and opinions are not infallible. And when the world tells us that certain kinds of people are blessed and others are not, we do well to remember that such predictions and opinions likewise are not infallible. On the other hand, God is infallible. And when his Son Jesus Christ proclaims that the grace and mercy of God is for all sorts and conditions of people, we can count on that—forever. Obedience and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ should motivate us to live under His promises and blessings. If Israel on the shores of the Jordan had folded their arms and said that God had given them the land and done nothing to take the land, those occupying the land would only have laughed at them. Christians are over comers and should enjoy the blessings of the Lord. Are we as Christians enjoying the blessings of God or are we enduring the effects of curses? There is a blessing on the one who trusts in the Lord. Amen!
