3 Reasons to Trust God
Proverbs 3:5&6
Sunday, December 27th, 2015-MRWC
As we stand on the verge of a New
Year, I would like to draw your attention to one passage of scripture that
could possibly serve as an anchor in your life for 2016. If you have a Bible
with you, I would invite you to turn to Proverbs chapter 3.
Found
in this chapter are 2 verses that some of you have probably memorized, and these
verse same verses are the ones that you have recited whenever you have felt
alone, or if you are left scratching your head, wondering what if God really
knew what He was up to.
These
2 verses have often brought me comfort as I have tried to rely on the promise
that they bring.
The
verses I am referring to this morning are Proverbs chapter 3 verses 5&6,
which says: Trust
in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in
all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
(NIV84)
I
think these 2 verses can be summarized with just 2 words: TRUST GOD. Proverbs 3:5
and 6 teach us that we are to trust in God and not in ourselves.
This
was the same admonition that Jesus gave His followers in John 14. In verse 1 of
John 14, Jesus says: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust
also in me. (NIV)
For Jesus to make a statement like
that, a statement that basically says
“Don’t worry; don’t begin to question when things get out of
hand. Don’t wonder if I’m coming back for you, all you have to do is trust in
God and trust in Me—
For
Jesus to say a statement like that, He must have known that at some point in
our lives, we would have wrestled with the question “Can
I—Can We—trust God?
This is a question that people have been
dealing with for ages, and it’s a question that we will be dealing with until
the end of time.
Can we trust God when evil is
running rampant in our world?
Can we trust God when earthquakes
are killing millions of people?
Can we trust God when we are faced
with the very real possibility of a terrorist attack at any moment?
Can we trust God in the midst of our
personal crisis; when the wheels fall off the cart of our lives?
Are we really to take the command Trust in the LORD
with all your heart seriously?
In a day and age when it seems
that the kingdom of satan is running the show, can we really trust in God?
Have
you ever pondered that question?
I
would have to say “yes”—at some point in all our lives we have wrestled with—or
will wrestle with--- the “Can I trust God” question.
Well I have searched the Bible for
the answer to the “Can I trust God question”, and I think the
Bible gives us only 1 answer.
In answer to the “Can I trust God” question, the writers of
Scripture would respond: YES. Yes you can trust God.
Think about it: if God told you all
the secrets of the world such as: why do bad things happen to good people, or when
you are going to die, would you really trust in Him?
The
obvious answer is no, you would not trust in God if He told you everything.
You
would trust in your own self. You would live life the way that you want, and
then just before you died, you say a nice little prayer, and then expect God to
let you into heaven.
There’s
little chance that you would trust God if He told you everything at once. You’d
then be walking by sight, not by faith.
The
truth is this morning friends, God wants us to trust Him at all timesà when we think we
know the way, and when we don’t know the way at all.
God
wants us to trust in Him at all times. And I would like to give you 3 reasons
why we can trust in God.
#1
God is perfect in Love. What this means is God will
always do what is right.
There
has never been a time; nor will there ever be a time--when God makes a mistake,
or does something evil. God is not tempted to do evil, nor does He tempt anyone
to do evil.
James
1:13 address this very truth. “When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting
me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;
14 but
each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and
enticed. (NIV)
God
has never—nor will He ever-- entice you to do wrong. God does not know how to
do wrong. If He did, He would not be God.
So
what about all the evil things taking place in our world today? That’s a good
question. I don’t think God causes those things to happen; He simply allows
them to happen.
That
might be a hard statement for some people to grasp. How could a loving God allow some
horrendous things to happen? While I don’t have a complete answer, I
do believe that God is respecting our right to Free Will and at the same time I
must believe that God knows what He’s doing.
ILLUSTRATION- I have worked my
way through the Old Testament Book of Job. I’ve even pondered it over these
last few months.
It’s
an interesting book, it’s a difficult book, it’s a book that has more questions
than answers, but one thing the book of Job makes very clear at the very start,
is that God allowed satan to inflict troubles upon Job. God allowed them, He
didn’t cause them.
Job
1:6-12: “One day the members of the heavenly
court came to present themselves before the Lord,
and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.
7 “Where have you come
from?” the Lord asked Satan. Satan
answered the Lord, “I have been
patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
8 Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my
servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of
complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”
9 Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to
fear God.
10 You have always put a wall
of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him
prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is!
11 But reach out and take
away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
12 “All right, you may test
him,” the Lord said to Satan. “Do
whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.”
So Satan left the Lord’s presence. (NLT2)
From this exchange, we see God
allowing Satan to go so far with Job, and satan does, and he inflicts
tremendous turmoil on Job.
Friends—don’t miss this
statement-- God is not the
cause of your problems. God has not caused your problems; God is seeking to fix
them—mainly you—and He has done so through His Son, Jesus.
1 John 4:8 reminds us that: God
is love. (NIV)
All that God does, all that God is, all that God will ever do is because He is
love.
Now, His love might rebuke us
from time to time, but because God is always good and always loving and always
righteous, we can trust Him to do what’s right.
Even when we are left scratching
our heads.
One of the greatest verses in the
Book of Job comes at the end of the book, when Job had come through his storm
and in chapter 42:3 he said this about God: “My ears have heard of you,
but now my eyes have seen you.” (NIV84)
This is what it looks like to
trust in God’s perfect Love.
The Second reason that we can
trust in God is because God is infinite in His wisdom.
ILLUSTRATION- Often
times when I tell my kids not do something it’s usually because I know what
will happen to them if they follow through with what they wanted to do. I can
see the end result of their actions.
The same can be said about God. While
we might think we see the whole picture, the truth is we have finite minds—or
limited understanding.
We cannot see what the end result
will be of what God is asking of us, we simply must trust that He sees the
entire picture, and what He is asking us to do, will bring honor and glory to
Him.
“Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator
of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths
of his understanding.
29 He
gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and
tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
31 But
those who trust in the Lord will
find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and
not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
(Is. 40:28-31, NLT2)
Because God is infinite in His
wisdom He will always do what is right. It might not seem that way,
especially when we are going through a dark time, but God sees the entire
picture and He knows what is best for us, and we must trust in Him.
…my thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Is. 55:8-9,
NIV).
If we want to
trust in the Lord, we must understand that He sees and knows all things, and what
He wants from us is to “trust and obey”
The third
reason that we can trust in God is: He is completely sovereign in His control.
ILLUSTRATION- Some people think that stuff “just happens”. I’ve
met some of these people (maybe some are in this church) you’ve met some of
these people.
No matter how hard you try and
tell them otherwise, they’ll always believe that “stuff just happens”.
Well I agree
that stuff happens, but only because God makes things happen.
Colossians
chapter 1 teaches us about the Supremacy of Christ.
Look at Col.
1:15: He—JESUS-- is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by him all things were
created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (NIV84)
Nothing just happens.
Things happen—or don’t happen—because God said
they would—or would not—happen.
Because God is
completely sovereign, He does not need to consult with the “Higher up’s” before
He makes a decision.
Because God
cannot do evil, He will always do what’s right—not necessarily what’s right to
us—but He will always do what’s right in His sight.
We can trust in
the Lord because He is perfect in His love, because He is infinite in His wisdom and
because He
is completely sovereign in His control.
Perhaps you
have been wondering if you can really trust God with your life. You’ve been
wondering if God will do the “right thing”.
To answer both
of these questions, we need to look no further than to the Cross of Jesus
Christ.
The Cross is
proof that God will always do the right thing. Why?
Because it was
on the Cross that God sent His one and Only Son to die the death that we were
supposed to die.
God could have
sent us all to hell, but because of His love for us; He chose to send Jesus to
pay the price for our sins.
Can God be
trusted? Yes He can. The Cross should be all the proof that we need.
The Bible says
that we are to 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.
Notice friends,
that our paths will only be straight if we are trusting in and acknowledging
God. We cannot walk a straight path and live in disobedience to God.
If we want to live lives on purpose, we must trust in the
Lord. We are to seek His face when times are good and when times are bad.
We must trust
that God is in complete control and He does not need our help to make things
work. God knows the way.
ILLUSTRATION- Some travelers, not satisfied with the ordinary
packaged tours that some travel companies offer, have chosen wilderness
vacations, safaris, and other exotic trips.
For those interested in such
adventurous travel, the following advice has been given: Find the best guide available.
When you find him, hire him quickly. Trust yourself unreservedly to him. Do
exactly what he tells you.
Friends; we
have been given the Best Guide in the world. Our Guide, Jesus, has walked the
same path that we are now walking on, and He says to us: Come, follow me.” (Matt. 4:19, NIV)
As we’re
following Him, we will face some times of uncertainty, but we can be sure that
He knows the way (Jesus himself said: “I am the way… John 14:6) and all we have to do is
trust in Him.
As
the worship team comes back, I want to invite you to apply this sermon to your
life. Maybe you’ve been having difficulty trusting in the Lord.
Maybe
you’ve been dealing with something on your own, and the Lord is inviting you to
turn it over to Him.
Maybe
you just need a little boost as this year winds down and a new one ramps up.
If
so, then I want you to know that the alters are open, where you can come and
pray, or you can find someone next to you who will pray with you where you are…
but don’t leave this moment without praying a prayer similar to this:
“Lord Jesus, I
want to trust in you, I want to follow the path you have laid out for me. Help
me to trust in you more.”
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