Trust
Proverbs 3:5-7
Perhaps you have not caught on to what God has had me doing in the past few weeks.
Two weeks ago we had a message on Authority where we were reminded about the authority of every Christian. We discussed teachers, the president, and police as sources of authority. We talked about how power is shared in our government and how that happens in the church as well. This means that Christians have the authority to act on behalf of God in every situation. To be more exact we talked about the fact that we are accepted to do things for God with His authority. IF we don’t use it we will loose it.
If you don’t act with authority or a person with real knowledge, then no one will see you as a person that knows anything about God….That means you are not letting anyone know that you are a Christian…..If no body knows…then are you a Christian? God’s army does not have a secret service.
Most Christians are frightened to live as an authority for God.
Then last week we talked about commitment. How we make them all the time, just an automatic way of life. We avoid commitments using selective listening. Scriptures tell us that we all too often fail to do anything beyond listening. God expects us to be dong something. Our commitment to God actually requires us to listen to God and do something. God is speaking are we listening?
Today we have the third word and it is the last letter of the word that God gave me. Today we are talking about trust.
Trust is not something that we give very easily. I have heard it said that, “Trust is never given it is earned.” That seems to be a true statement to me. In the past few years there has been a fad for businesses to send their employees on team building trips. Berry College has executives come on campus all the time. Lots of other groups do the same.
The course starts with simple things like getting a person to fall backwards and TRUST another person or group of people to catch them.
By the time the weekend is over. people are jumping from telephone pole to phone poll 30 to 50 feet off the ground, trusting their team not the let them fall to certain injury or their death. The team holds the safety ropes as the person takes these serious risks….It’s really dangerous, if the team does their part.
I guess that we learn how to trust as infants. We understand encouragement as we learn to walk. We learn hot, and No and jump from family.
When my children were little it seemed they would never trust me with one thing. When they were in the bath and I shampooed their hair…I would tell them to keep their eyes closed and lean back into the water coming from the bath tub faucet. It would be going pretty good until the trust wore off and the child suddenly leaned up and soap and water flooded their face, getting it into their eyes.
They rubbed their face and eyes with their hands and the crying and anger would start. You would have thought that I had tried to drown them.
It they would just let me help them it would be over in two minutes. But they blamed me when they failed to do as I said.
As I thought about the word trust, I started to notice that in reality we trust things all the time without testing. I trust bridges as I drive my car around town. I trust my alarm clock to keep time and the alarm to go off at the correct time.
I expect my bank to keep the little money I have safe and to process the checks we write correctly.
Do you know how many times I have gotten on a plane and not known any body that built it, the repair people and not even the pilot? Talk about trust…
All the things that could go wrong with that and I got on the plane. What was I thinking?
So where does that leave us with today’s scripture? Starting with 5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
This passage in proverbs tells us to trust God with all our heart and not to depend on what we understand. That sounds easy enough. But, how often have I had doubts in the trust I have placed in other people, businesses and even objects.
Have you ever been walking and picked up a stick to use as a walking stick and have it prove to be rotten even though it looked sound it failed your purpose. How about when a family member failed to do as expected? Does our trust get destroyed? What about when the new car fails to crank or any other situations where we felt let down? Doesn’t that leave us a little timid on giving our trust to any person or thing?
Do we take that same resistance to trust into our relationship with God?
What is trust, for a Christian?
Isn’t trust the outward expression of the faith a Christian claims to have?
When we exhibit faith aren’t we physically demonstrating the intangible element of faith? Aren’t we living with authority and commitment?
The reason I used to get on to airplanes is that they don’t crash that often. The bridges rarely fall. The bank normally gets it right and even my alarm clock is more accurate than I seem to be at setting it.
So I live a life of trust in the faulty things I experience.
But, I know that every one of these will let me down…it could happen at any moment. My knowledge of reality keeps me from being too disappointed, and I am ready to react.
The scripture seems to expect a lot out of normal, sinful human beings….Trust. Complete trust even of God is very hard. Then to tell me not to depend on MY understanding well that is sort of an insult…God gave me the ability to think and to reason and to remember…
Isn’t the real problem most of the time, that we think that we know better than God.
-We know that won’t work we tried that in the 60’s.
-We can’t do that because it would cost time and money.
-It won’t do any good, people don’t respond to that.
-We don’t need to meet; we have nothing to talk about!
-I don’t care what the preacher says, I will be here long after he is gone.
Many of the proverbs are credited to King Solomon, David’s son. It is said that he was the wisest man in the world because he asked God for wisdom.
We would do well let Solomon who wrote these very words we’re looking at be an example to us of the dangers of leaning on our own understanding.
He started off great by asking God for wisdom and then building the temple.
At first Solomon pleased God and was obedient to him, but then he began to think he knew better than God.
He assembled an army and imported horses from Egypt; he accumulated vast amounts of silver and gold and built himself a palace even more opulent than the temple he’d just built. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines.( I don’t really see any wisdon there) He began to opress the people to feel his personal need for money and power.
All of this was directy against laws for kings laid down in Deuteronomy 17 of which Solomon was well aware. He simply thought he knew better than God. He leant on his own understanding and the eventual result was the split in the kingdom of Isreal and effectively the end of God’s people as a whole nation.
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In the same way, if we persist in leaning on our own understanding rather than trusting in God with all our hearts then we will leave the path that God intended.
• Ministries will stop.
• Young couples will disapear
• there will never be any visitors.
• We will avoid doing anything new or perhaps anythng that takes time and effort.
• We will even just stop doing anythng at all.
Do you think God takes away time if we are not using it properly, or will he just ask on judgment day what you did for Him with the gifts of time and resources He provided?
Whenever and however we exorsize our own understanding we are supporting our plans on sticks of our choice. The sticks we select to prop ourselves up will prove to be weak and rotten and we will completely collaps int an embarising lump on the floor of the community.
When we fail to comitt to God and repsent him with his authority we are demonstrating our DISTRUST of God. We are saying that we don’t believe in God, hs power, his love, his presence. We are saying that nomatter what the situation we know better thatn God..
When we fail we are going to blame God for getting soap in our eyes.
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If we fail to rely on God things are not going to go as well as if we put our full trust in Him and His plan. We we let go of what we think and let God lead every decision and choice.When we rely on God, then the seemingly smallest twig will prove to do the most amazing things. When tt is God’s plan it will never fail.
We must show our faith in God’s understanding and not our own.
What is the alternative to leaning on our own understanding? It is to lean instead on God’s truth. God’s ways are not our ways, so we need to learn them from somewhere.
Just look back a little to Proverbs chapter 2 verse 6 where it says, the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
This is solid, reliable understanding that we can lean on, that we can build our lives upon.
Oh, but you have to know that they are there before then can give you any comfort and direction….
We have talked about that before haven’t we? That rading the Bible is importnt.
Then the scripture goes on to remind me to acknowledge him and HE will make my paths straight. It leaves me with a question of acknowledging Him.
All our ways….We are here in worship this morning. We are all acknowledging him…That is pretty good…how about tonight when the big game is on….will you be acknowledging God then. Oh and how about Monday or Tuesday when you are out and about. Will you even think of God then?
What about when you open your gas Bill?
All too often Christians separate their lives into God stuff and world stuff.
We have Sunday and Wednesday God stuff and then everything else. We have a dividing line the size of the Great Wall of China that separates God and portions of our lives.
We don’t want God messing around in our lives. We control the other days of the week. And we are happy with the division we make.
That takes us back to the scripture and the word all. All – mean that we are not allowed to separate our lives into zones…God and no God. With God it is all or nothing.
That is part of the message that we have had over the past few weeks
How about when we accept God’s authority and use it for work in His kingdom….That would be an acknowledgment of Him, especially if we only reflect his authority and don’t try to claim it as our own.
Then how about last week when we talked about making a commitment. When we commit to the promises and take on the responsibility to do something.
Then he will make our paths straight…. HE
I have no personal experience with plowing a field with mules or a tractor but, I have heard that you can’t make straight rows if you look backwards. As I understand it the plow operator had to have a target on the far edge of the field and aim for it….If they ever look back the row will drift left or right.
Let me share that I know that the same is true…With a little less precision when using a bush hog or a box scrape. I have found that if I try to look backwards to see if I am leaving a gap in the cut it is usually not long until I do.
When I take my focus off of the distant goal I end up zigzagging my way across the field
If we let God be the focus of our attention, if we let him lead our journey, we will make a straight shot. But we need to remember that God’s idea of straight and ours are often very different.
When we try to discern God’s path we often think we are gong the long way around. We sometimes find doors closed or no door as all and think we reached a dead-end. But God asks us to trust his leadership. I have often learned that God has changed my direction because I have unknowingly drifted fro his direction. The wall I hit pointed me again toward the path. The correction is the way God interned in my willing movement.
I don’t know abut you but I need encouragement all the time to keep going. I need direction. Have you ever thought about the fact that a boat has to be moving in order to steer and go in a direction? I don’t just mean with the current, because in that case the boat has no control at all. It will eventually crash into the bank to get snagged on the bottom.
Consider the difference between a sailboat and a rowboat. In a spiritual rowboat the sailor is dependent upon human effort, In a spiritual sailboat the sails are raised in faith and the undying power of the wind of the spirit moves the boat--it is still entirely necessary that the boat move, but the power source of the sailboat is unquenchable. The power of the boat does not exhaust he crew. The boat moves wit the force of the spirit and the general direction is set based on the prevailing wind.
Folks, God can only led us if we are willing to move.
God can only use us if we will live as his authority on earth.
God can only use those that will commit to being used which God can only use those that ultimately trust God for all the details.
All Glory be to God!
