Trust In The Lord
Proverbs 3:5-12
Prayer
Introduction
This week I have thought a lot about what I actually put my trust in. Have you ever thought about what you put your trust in? I have and you know something a lot of things we put our trust in will one day let us down.
I put my trust in pets. I trust that they want bite me when I am doctoring on them or petting them. I will reach down and take their food bowl away from them while they are eating trusting that they want bite me. Have you ever really thought about what they really are? They are wild animals that have been domesticated for a long period of time? When the fail and slip back into instinct we are surprised. They work on pack instinct. As long as I am seen as the pack leader ever thing is great but once I show a weakness then it is over with. My control is gone and I had better not trust them anymore.
I put my trust in the technology all around me just each and every one of do. We get up in the mornings and flip a switch and trust that the lights will come on. We get in our cars and trucks and turn a switch and trust that it will crank. Technology is all around us and we just expect or trust that it will work. But we fail to remember that this is all man made and eventually they are going to fail us. Yet it never fails that we continue to place our trust in technology. We even trust that technology will keep us safe and protect us from harm today. Eventually we will be disappointed because it is man made and it will fail.
I trust family and friends. Don’t we all? Yet they also at time fail us. At times the trust we place in family members is abused. There are times that even the best of families fight and argue. They attack each other with a vengeance from years of perceived slights, abuses and injustices. They say hurtful things that break every ones hearts. You feel like you can never forgive them. But eventually you do and you once more place your trust in them. We forget that all of us are human. We fail at times and when we fail we always someone often times the very ones we love the most. What is the old saying “If you can’t trust your family who can you trust?” Well this saying may not be true all the time but I can tell you who you can trust every single moment of every single day of our lives and that is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior He will never fail you.
I have been pondering a story of a weak sickly man. The man was so sick and he could not afford going to town to the doctor. The man lived in the deep back woods in an old log cabin, his condition seemed to grow worse. Out in front of his cabin was a huge boulder. The rock was massive in front of his place. One night in a very real vision, God told him to go out there and push the huge rock all day long, day after day. The man got up early in the morning, and with great excitement he pushed the rock until lunch, then he rested a while and pushed the rock until supper time.
The man loved pushing against the rock, it gave him meaning. The dream was so real that it was with great excitement he pushed against the rock.
Day after day he pushed. Day rolled into week, and week into months, he faithfully pushed against the rock. After 8 months of pushing the rock, the weak sickly man was getting tired of pushing the rock so much, in his tiredness he started to doubt his dream. So one day he measured from his porch to the rock, and after daily pushing the rock, he would measure to see how much he had moved the rock. After two weeks of pushing and measuring, he realized he had not moved the boulder not a 1/32 of an inch? As a matter of fact, the boulder was in the same place as when he
started. The man was so disappointed, he thought the dream was so special and now after 9 months he saw his work had accomplished nothing, he was tired and his dream seemed dashed upon the rock. The man sat on his porch and cried and cried, he had invested many hundred hours into nothing. Nothing, it was all nothing! As the sun was sitting in the west, Jesus came and sat down next to the man as he cried. Jesus said, "Son, why are you crying?" The man replied, "Lord, You know how sick and weak I am, and then this dumb dream gave me a false hope and I have pushed with all that was within me for over 9 months, and that dumb old rock is right where it was when I started." Jesus was kind and said to him, "I never told you to move the rock, I told you to push against the rock." The man replied, "Yes, Sir, that was the dream." Jesus told the man to step in front of the mirror and look at himself. As an act of obedience the man stepped in front of a mirror and looked at himself. The man was amazed, he had been so sickly and weak, and what he saw in the mirror was a strong muscular man. The man realized that he had not been coughing all night. The man started thinking of how well he felt for several months and the strength that he
had built by pushing on the rock. Then the man realized that the plan of God was not for the rock, but for the man. So, I suggest to you today, that God is building people. God is building churches. The storms, the trials, the heartaches, the disappointments, are all but part of the process. We should never use people to build the church; we must use the church to build
people. Don’t start measuring your success, trust the God that will take the process, and build His people. God is stretching you, God is growing you! Understand the plan! Trust His Hands!
God talks about trusting Him many times in His Word. In Proverbs 3V5 the writer says “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;” We are to trust God with all of our heart. We are not to rely on our understanding or logic. Our understanding and logic is flawed just as we are flawed because of sin. Our understanding and logic will lead us away from God not to Him. God promises us in His word that He will take care of us. That He will shelter us because He knows we need shelter. He will feed us because as our creator He knows that without food we will starve and die. God has promised in His word that He will bless us. All we have to do is to trust Him and take Him at His Word.
After studying this passage I discovered what having trust in Jesus will do for me and for you. The first thing that trusting in Jesus will do for you is to heal you. Before Jesus Christ comes into our lives we are dead and we don’t even know it. The world really is filled with dead people walking. Not a single one of them realize that they are dead spiritually until someone explains Jesus to them. I did not even realize I was even sick much less dead until I was saved. The same is true of every single lost soul out there.
They are living in a world that is lost. Where hope is not present. They struggle to live from moment to moment seeking riches and pleasure here on earth. Death to them is something to fear because they don’t know where they are going or even if there is anything to go too. They reach for and grab every little bit of pleasure that they can get their hands on. Their greed knows no bounds. Some don’t ever realize how miserable they really are. They will argue that they are happy and content with their life. That they don’t need any God to tell them how to live. How arrogant are these people. They have cancer and they refuse to take the cure because they don’t believe that there is a cure or that there is a reason for the cure.
Jesus heals you when you place you trust in Him for your salvation. He comes into your heart. HE quickens or awakens your dead spirit and causes it to live. He fills your broken heart. The pain that once was there is gone to be replaced by a joy that knows no bounds and a peace that can’t be destroyed. The assurance of salvation is an ointment for a tortured soul.
How can anyone reject this cure? They do, many each day. Every Sunday many feel a tug at their hearts and reject it. I have a life to live before I give it to Jesus. Oh I have plenty of time before I need to give my life to Jesus. That is what many are saying everyday as they refuse the Master’s Call. They don’t know the danger. We don’t know when our time may come. One moment we are here the next we are gone. Poof just like that it is over. No more opportunities, no more chances our choice has been made hell bound we are because we refused the Master’s call in Life. No appeal just eternal damnation in Hell. Burning, burning never to burn up. The worms eating the flesh never to be eaten up for all eternity never to end. Or one day you may be sitting in church saying okay I have done what I wanted to do in life today I will go. You wait to feel that familiar tug but it does not come well the preacher really did not hammer it home maybe tonight. Never again do you feel the call. There is nothing no more striving with you any longer. Your chance is past He gave you chance after chance and you rejected Him one day He will stop striving with you. We don’t know when but one day He will.
But Jesus is the cure. This does not have to be your fate. Jesus can and will heal you. He will make you whole again. He will strengthen you so that this world can no longer control you. He will make a new man of you.
The second thing trusting Jesus will do is that He will guide us. Before we trusted Jesus we were blind. We stumbled, tripped and fell everywhere. We attempted solve problems using our own knowledge and wisdom. Boy was that the wrong thing to do. The lost are the same way. They are blind and they are stumbling around in the dark right now.
But Jesus is the light. He will guide you out of the darkness if you let him. He will cure your eyes so that you may see. No longer will we do what we want to do we will do what God wants us to do. Amen. Jesus will be with us every step of the way.
Why oh why do we still refuse to walk with Him? Why do we refuse to allow Him to lead? Why do we want to drag Him along with us when we go into bars and other places we have no business being? We are more concerned about what we want than what God wants. Whenever we go off on our own we fail. Jesus is the only guide for the blind and with Jesus we are blind. Only Jesus can guide us home safe and sound.
Steven Simala Grant tells this story:
I remember Christmas, 1980, when I was 9. My mom, who was a secretary in a small 3-person company, got a Christmas bonus – a trip for her and my brother and me to Disneyland. Plane and hotel, all covered – and even some cash. Her boss was not a Christian, but wow did they have a spirit of generosity. We got off the plane in Los Angeles, and immediately felt scared, overwhelmed, and more than a little lost. A single mom on her first trip outside Canada, second time on a plane, a 9yr old and a 12yr old… And there, right where we came through customs, was a man holding a sign that said, “Grants.” My mom joked as she walked past him, “That’s my name but I’m sure you aren’t looking for a mom and two kids.” “Wendy?” He asked. “Yup, it’s you I’m looking for. I’m here to guide you through the airport, help you find your motel, and make sure you have everything you need.”
Three Canadians feeling lost and overwhelmed in the middle of the LA airport, until the guide steps forward and says, “follow me. I’ll lead you.” He took us to find our luggage, then to the bus that would take us to Anaheim, and told us exactly where to get off.
In the same way, the Holy Spirit is our guide into all truth.
Thirdly trusting in Jesus will give us blessings. Not only do we receive the blessings of healing and guidance for trusting but many, many more are added. When we place trust in Him we serve Him. Our trust causes us to go to work for Him, serve people for Him, and share Him with those around us.
His blessings are over flowing. Have you ever counted the number of blessings God gives you in one day? We are blessed because we are saved. We are blessed because God loves us. We are blessed because we woke up this morning. We are blessed because He provides food, clothing and shelter for us. We are blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit and Jesus in us. There are thousands of blessings we receive each and every day. Are you sharing them? Are you Sharing Jesus today?
Do you need to be healed this morning? Is your heart an open bleeding wound? Have you tried to fill it with drink, drugs, sex, things in life and nothing works. It is just a huge black bit. Understand Jesus can cure you this morning. Right now you can come to the alter and let the Master Physician cure you.
Are you wandering in the darkness this morning lost and can’t find you way out? Then let Jesus be your guide. Let Him be the light that guides you out of the darkness. Let Him be your eyes.
Are you here and everything is falling apart. Let Jesus bless you. Surrender and trust Him. Let Him lead, guide and bless you today.
