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Dr. Kevin DeYoung | More Trusting or More Trying
Sunday Morning, October 12, 2025
Given by Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Senior Pastor
Christ Covenant Church
More Trusting or More Trying
Sermon Text: Ezra 8
Oh, Father, we have just sung these words, and we trust that we mean them. You have led us. Some of us are here this morning, and we look around and say, "Surely the lines have fallen for us in pleasant places.” Others may feel as if they're being dragged through the valley of the shadow of death. And in both cases, you lead us. So as you lead us, you will also keep us and take us by the hand. So now lead us, preeminently so by your word. Speak to us, help us, convict us, encourage us, lead us to Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.
We come this morning to Ezra chapter 8. We've been working our way through the book of Ezra. Ezra and Nehemiah really go together. So we have these building projects for an altar, temple, for the wall. We're in Ezra chapter 8. I don't think that we will go on to Nehemiah after we finish with Ezra, but we will look at Nehemiah and compare it to Ezra in just a moment. Here in chapter 8 – just to remind you where we are, in the first two chapters of the book, we had the first wave of exiles returning under Cyrus's decree. And then there was a big stall out, as there was opposition before they finally got the temple built. And then another gap. So we're fully 80 years from the beginning of Ezra to now here where another group of exiles is returning with Ezra. We saw chapter 7, he got the decree from Artaxerxes. We're onto that king. And now in chapter 8, we have the genealogy of those who return.
The list starts with two priestly families. And then the family of David is mentioned in verse 2. That must have been some good news to know that even though they don't have their own king that the promises to David had not fallen. And then there are 12 families. There's a stylistic number, surely – the number 12 to symbolize representative of the people of God. And if you went and compared the 12 families listed here in chapter 8 with the families mentioned at the first return of the exile in chapter 2, you notice they're almost identical. So they're good families. They send people the first return and now the second return. But more importantly, it's to demonstrate continuity. We can't say, "Well, we're the real people. We came first. You're the Johnny come lately." These are the same families, same people, one nation.
Then you see verses 15-20. They need Levites. Who are the Levites? The Levites attend to the priests. They built the temple, and they need priests and Levites to attend to the daily functions for the sacrificial system. And they don't have enough Levites. You can understand the Levites probably thought we have a better life in Babylon than to go back and have to do the tedious, menial tasks, to work and be servants to the priests. And so Ezra has to round up some Levites because they're essential to the rebuilding and the reforming effort. So he's got the priests and the Levites. He's got the clans – men, women, children. He has to pull together holy vessels. He has lots of money and supplies from the king. He has a letter of support from Artaxerxes. Now all they have to do is make the 900-mile trip back to Jerusalem. So let's pick up with verse 21:
“Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, ‘The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.’ So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty. Then I set apart 12 of the leading priests: Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and 10 of their kinsmen with them. And I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel their present had offered. I weighed out into their hands 650 talents of silver and silver vessels worth 200 talents, and 100 talents of gold, 20 bowls of gold worth 1,000 darics, and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold.
And I said to them, ‘You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers. Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel and Jerusalem within the chambers of the house of the Lord.’ So the priests and the Levites took over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God. Then we departed from the river Ahava on the 12th day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. We came to Jerusalem, and there we remained three days. On the fourth day within the house of our God, the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed into the hands of Meremoth the priest, son of Uriah. And with him was Eleazar, the son of Phinehas, and with him were the Levites, Jozabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah the son of Binnui. The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded.
At that time, those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and as a sin offering, 12 male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. They also delivered the king's commissions to the king's satraps and to the governors of the province Beyond the River, and they aided the people in the house of God.”
I wonder what advice you would give in the following situations, all of which are made up, but all of which have had some resemblance to encounters I've had with people over 20 plus years of pastoral ministry. Suppose you have a 20-something friend of yours who just had another girlfriend break up with him. If that's you, I don't know that it's you. It's not a word from the Lord, just a story. And this is the second time you've been dumped in six months. You're discouraged. You're frustrated. And your friend vows he's not doing the dating thing. He's off the dating apps. He's going to stop looking for a wife. He's going to trust that God all on his own will bring the right girl to him, manage everything for him. He doesn't have to do anything. After all, Adam got his wife when he was asleep.
Or consider this scenario: a middle-aged couple feels convicted. They had been depending on their money in secular ways, and they've not been depending on God. So, they liquidate their savings. They give it all away. They drop their health insurance. They drop whatever insurance they're legally allowed to get rid of. They sell off life insurance, all the rest. And they say, "We are so happy to finally be rid of these idols, and now we feel like for the first time we're entirely trusting the Lord.
Or what about this? A young couple is eager to get to the mission field, but the organization requires that they get at least 90% support raised. Well, they've sort of stalled out at about 40%. But they're so eager and they're absolutely certain the Lord has called them to the mission field. They leave that organization, and they find a way to go on their own. They have some friends there, and they just get a tourist visa, and they go. They are confident the Lord is going to take care of them. This is the calling on their life. And if they just go and are obedient, God will surely provide.
Or what about this? A veteran missionary couple has an open door to go to a different part into the interior of the country, but there the area is torn by war. The local government is hostile to foreigners. There's an opportunity, however, to go to the villages to share the gospel. But the couple's friends and family, the other missionaries in the area, don't want them to go. They say it's too dangerous. They should wait. And if they go, they could get in trouble and put themselves and the whole missionary endeavor at risk. The couple goes, believing that we are called to suffer for the gospel, that it's right to do risky things for God, even if it means that they should suffer, even if they should die.
Or what about this? A church finds itself constantly falling behind its budget. Every year, they're barely able to make ends meet. They get to those low spots during the summer, and they have some weeks that they're literally waiting for checks to come in, wondering if they're going to have to shut off the utilities. That's how grim it gets. Well, at the elders meeting, one of the elders says, "We just can't live like this anymore, hand to mouth, especially during these lean months. We need to set up something in savings. We ought to have at least six months of salary, benefits, missionary support. Let's build up a savings. And another elder says, "Well, we should go farther than that. We have this piece of land. We don't use it anymore. We could sell that for a lot of money. We could put it into an endowment, and we would be able off of that investment income to be much more secure in the years ahead." Meanwhile, another contingent of the elders say, "Shame on all of us for not trusting in the Lord. It's good that we get to these spots every year because it forces us to really get on our knees and trust that the Lord will provide.
Or one more – suppose it's 2020. You don't want to, I know, but the government is offering payments to churches if they retain their employees during COVID. The elders of the church can't decide what to do. Half of the men like the idea, and the others say, "Well, I don't want to get entangled with the government, and besides I think we should rely on the Lord, and our people will come through.” And the others counter with, “Well, the Lord is providing for us by means of this government program, and we've checked into it, and there's no strings attached, and what would we say to our employees if we didn't take this and then we had to let them go?” What do you do?
Well, by now you're saying, I would like to know your response in each of those questions. I don't think it is wrong on the last one that organizations did take COVID relief money. We didn't as a church. Others did. Don't think it was wrong, but we didn't. And I won't go through the other five examples. They don't all have right or wrong answers. But each of them I present to you because they all have to do with the question of faith. When does faith look like stepping out and doing something that doesn't make a lot of sense and has a lot of warning sirens? And when is stepping out and calling that “faith” actually poor planning and not listening to good advice? Does God want you to ignore your circumstances when you have a hard decision and just venture out, depending on him? Is that a faith-filled risk, or is that an excuse for poor planning and unwillingness to accept counsel and help from others?
The questions are difficult, and they often don't have absolute right or wrong answers. When the Bible wants to give us absolute rights and wrongs, it will do something like the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt, thou shalt not, or maybe even Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount, or we know what the fruit of the spirit look like. And then there are all sorts of areas in your life called wisdom. Now, don't hear wisdom meaning none of that matters, or I guess it's all a free-for-all. Wisdom is how God means to normally lead us, equip us, teach us. It's why we need to make decisions with others. It's why we need to listen to those who are wise and mature and have experience. So many decisions in life, you can't just turn to a verse and say right or wrong. And we don't shake up, you know, our prayer life like a Magic 8 ball and expect God to give us the right answer. We have to grow in wisdom. And that means we have to learn what it looks like to trust and to try. I put here as the title for this sermon – More Trusting or More Trying.
And you say yes to both. Well, sometimes it looks like one or the other. How do we know in different circumstances in life when God is saying you need to trust when you don't see the picture? And when is he saying, "All right, I've given you some answers and some wisdom, and you need to try a little harder." Now, what does this have to do with Ezra chapter 8? Everything. I want you to look at that paragraph, verses 21-23. So, we're going to focus our attention. Remember Ezra is setting out on a long journey. Verse 21: “We humble ourselves before God, to seek from him a safe journey” – for what? – “ourselves, our children, all our goods.” They got a lot riding on this trip. This isn't just Ezra and a few of his buddies going on a road trip. That's one thing. 900 arduous miles. It's not Interstate 80. It's a dangerous path. You see later – talks about they were safe, verse 31, from ambushes along the way. Now it's many centuries later, but you think about Jesus telling the story about the good Samaritan who was going down, and somebody came out and robbers on the way. This is what it was like to travel in the ancient world. You go, and you are at mercy of weather, enemies, warring tribes and nations, maybe just bandits. If you've ever watched a movie about the west – the wild, wild west – and the stage coach, especially as they have to deliver from the banks. They got the Pinkertons. That's – they were real people. They got their start as security, as people who traveled around to protect the money, because you're out in the middle of nowhere, and it just takes some well-planned bandits to come.
So, they are running a risk. They have women, children, thousands of them, and goods. Remember, they are loaded up with gold and silver. They got bank vaults. They have a lot going on. So, Ezra prays. Now, notice, verse 22 – notice what he doesn't do. He does not ask for an armed escort: “I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way.” Said, I would have been embarrassed. We said the hand of God is upon us, and he is against our enemies. And he was embarrassed to then go to the king and say, "Could you send us some protection? We don't need no stinking badges. We don't need them. God would take care of them. He had already told the king, "The hand of our God is upon us." And so you say to yourself, obviously the lesson is don't rely on man's help. Don't rely on man's protection. Trust in God to take care of you. That's obviously what God wants us to learn from this passage. Or is it?
Keep your finger there, and go a few more pages over to Nehemiah chapter 2. Nehemiah is going to come. He's the cup bearer to the king, and he's going to come help rebuild this wall, provide leadership along with Ezra. Look at Nehemiah 2. It's a very similar story where Nehemiah is trying to get his paperwork in order to come back to Judah. Let's pick up Nehemiah 2, verse,4:
“The king said, ‘What are you requesting?’ So I prayed to the God of heaven. I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, if your servant has found favor in your sight, then you send me to Judah, the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.’ The king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, ‘How long will you be gone? When will you return?’ So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, let letters be given to the governors of the province Beyond the River’ (same thing happened with Ezra) ‘that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall occupy.’ And the king granted (just like with Ezra, granted) to Nehemiah what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.”
There you see the same refrain. Now, I want you to look at verse 9:
“Then I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River and gave them the king's letters. Now, the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen.”
Okay, Nehemiah. He travels with an armed escort. So obviously the moral of the story is you should always take every precaution that is available to you. Famously in Nehemiah 4:9, one of my favorite verses, "And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night." They had opposition. You know what we're going to do? We're going to pray. Well, Nehemiah, you're praying. Don't you trust the Lord? I am. And we're putting a guard, because one of the ways he can answer our prayer is by posting a guard. So Nehemiah came, and we read in Nehemiah 2:9, he had the king's army, horsemen. He had an armed escort to make the journey with him. So which is it? Nehemiah trying or Ezra trusting?
Well, there's nothing in the text that suggests that somebody did something wrong. Well, Nehemiah, you weren't quite as spiritual as Ezra. He was a priest and a scribe, and you weren't very spiritual there. Or Ezra, you're a bit pie in the sky and woo, I'm glad you sort of lucked out there. You rolled the dice, but you shouldn't have done that. There no indication that either man did something wrong. And yet we see Ezra, full of good wisdom, wanting to honor the Lord – no escort, no army, no horsemen. Nehemiah, also full of good wisdom, good leadership, says, "Yes, I'll take the army. I'll take the horsemen." So, which is it? Do you get life insurance? Do you save money for retirement? You say, "Nope. God will take care of us." Well, let's go back to Ezra, because he did the right thing in this circumstance. He trusted God to take care of him apart from the ordinary means of protection. Sometimes we face decisions, or we are attempting something for God, or you feel called to do something for the cause of Christ, and it will not check every one of the normal common sense boxes. I'm saying this as a parent – that will be hard if my children bring this up, this sermon, to me sometime. The older you get, the more common sense boxes you have on your list. And sometimes it doesn't hit all of the items for precaution, and yet it's still not folly. I want you to look at four things about Ezra's risky move. We'll go through these quickly, and then we'll finish with two applications for us.
So I want you to notice four things about what Ezra does here. Number one, very simply, I want you to notice it was a risk. Now, in one sense, you risk every day. You know what risk is? Not knowing the future. You got safe school, you got safety precautions, you got safety insurance. Whatever you do, every single one of you takes risks. The only person who doesn't take risk is the one person who knows the end from the beginning. That's God. God cannot take risks, because he knows everything and he's sovereign over everything. For all of us, you take risks. You don't think you took a risk every time you get out, and if you don't get out from your house, you're taking a risk, because you do not know what the future holds. You do not know all the details about the rest of today, let alone the rest of your life. But here he takes a special risk. Look at verse 23. We fasted and implored God for this. He had said the hand of our God is for our good. But there's an element of risk here. Then we're saying, "God, would you do this?" He does not know absolutely. It's not because he's wavering in confidence. They get back, and they weren't ambushed. They made it all the way there, and he praises God. Why? Because it was a risk. He didn't have a crystal ball to tell him the future. So, I want you to notice it was a risk.
Two, Ezra had a track record of hardworking and strategic thinking. Now remember last week we saw chapter 7, verse 6: he's a skillful scribe. Chapter 7, verse 10: he has a heart to study God's word. He had asked the king for the decree, and he got everything he asked for. Chapter 7, verse 6: in fact, an employee of the Persian government, it's quite possible Ezra wrote the whole decree himself, exactly what he wanted, and that he got Artaxerxes to sign on the dotted line. Why do I bring that up? Because when Ezra takes a risk, this is not someone who has a track record of being foolish. This is not an excuse of someone who never quite organizes things, always flies by the seat of his pants. He has a record of being very skilled, working hard, being thoughtful. In other words, he has earned the right to be followed. There's a difference between a 16-year-old – love risks – and a 56-y old saying, "I know what this is about. I've earned the right to be followed, even when it means a risk."
Third thing I want you to notice: they fasted and prayed. That's clear. Verse 23: “We fasted and implored our God for this.” Verse 21: “I proclaimed a fast. We humbled ourselves before God.” That means they trusted God, but they did not presume upon God. They implored him. Elijah, James tells us, was a man with like nature as ours, and he prayed – notice the word – fervently that it might not rain. He didn't go out and just say, "I'm close with God. God, no rain.” Just wait. Not going to rain. He prayed fervently. Here's the point. If you are going to pursue a course of action which does not employ the usual ordinary means, then you should be prepared to petition God with extraordinary prayer. When you are not going to use the ordinary means, you ought to be ready to petition God with extraordinary prayer. This was not out of laziness. Eh, I don't have time to get this – we're ready to go. I can't be waiting on this, Artaxerxes. I can't get your whole army together. We'll just go. It'll be fine. They fasted. They prayed. They committed themselves before the Lord as they took this risk.
Fourth thing to notice: taking a risk in one area does not preclude being responsible and taking necessary precautions in other areas. Did you notice this – in this paragraph, 21-23, he tells Artaxerxes, "Nope, I'm not going to ask for the armed escort. I'd be embarrassed to do it." So, you might think Ezra's principle was we’ll be fine no matter what. But then you see the heading before verse 24: Priests to Guard the Offering. So, the issue here was not that he didn't believe in guards or he didn't believe in people to watch over for the safe journey, but as we'll come to, he was embarrassed, rightfully so in this case, because he thought it would reflect poorly on God if he had to get, from the pagan king, his help to make it safely back to Jerusalem. But this whole section from 24 onward is about Ezra's careful attention to detail. He consecrates the Levites. He says, "You're holy, and you're going to keep the holy vessels.” Now, your eyes probably glazed over a little bit as I was reading it. You got all these talents of gold and silver, and what is this about? Well, it's very important what this is about. This is about good fiscal responsibility, transparency in accounting. Why? Weigh out everything. And then he makes a point to say – you know what the first thing they did when they got to Jerusalem is they weighed out all the gold. Because Ezra doesn't say, hey, we got a bunch of money. Let's just trust. We're God's people. It'll be fine. You know what? The Levites, you're in charge, but I’m not even sure I completely trust all the Levites. So, we're going to weigh out every bag. We're going to have a counting. We're going to write it down. We're going to have an Excel spreadsheet. We're going to have a ledger. We're going to go. We know exactly what we're traveling with, because we don't want anybody on this long four-month journey to be pocketing some of it. So when they come, they weigh it all out and the books balance. Ah, God brought us safely here. The Levites didn't take any of the money.
The point is that Ezra is not afraid to use good, careful thought. He rejected the ordinary means of God's protection through the Persian king, but he made every effort for the ordinary sorts of protection from his own Levites. He did not view “faith” as the opposite of wise planning, caution, or the use of means. It is fitting we introduce Tim to be our director of church administration, and we talk here – a passage about church administration. Didn't plan that. Church administration – it's kind of like your skeleton. You don't think a lot about it. If you didn't have it, you'd miss it. When it's all going well and everything's in order, it allows the ministry to move forward. Maximum levels of trust. And by God's grace and lots of good people, we've been blessed with that. And when it goes poorly, you can hardly do anything else of consequence for the Lord. So, this is really important, that Ezra is using careful, necessary precautions. So to take a risk in one area doesn't mean he was going to be a ne’er do well in every other area.
So those are four things, and I want to bring this home with two points of application for us. Number one: remember that risk, and I mean deliberate risk, because I said we all take risks every day. You can't help that. Deliberate risk – that is the choice to take a risk – is sometimes right. This will be harder for us, the older we get. That's natural. You have more people that depend upon you. You have bills to pay. You got mortgage. You owe things to people. You have family. We have a life, most of us, in this country and in this community – let's be honest – most of us, most of the time, trust in God as a sort of abstract concept. Somebody gets a diagnosis, there's a hard medical intervention, there's some scary thing, and then we really got to do it. But a lot of the times, it's sort of an abstract concept. You're not concerned, most of you, about whether you'll have food. A downturn in the economy might affect people on the margins. And certainly we have folks who are forced to trust him in very real ways. But for many, many people here in South Charlotte, it is a fairly simple thing, it feels like, to trust. But then Ezra and this story tells us, might there be some times where you deliberately forego those ordinary means and in an experience and expression of gutsy faith, you would say, "Yeah, I know that that’s not checking all of the precautionary boxes, but we're doing it anyways.”
So, when do we do that? Well, here's at least one answer from this text. We should reject the normal means of God's provision when accepting them would be an obstacle for the gospel. This is what Paul does. He had a right to get paid. Said, "I'm not going to get paid." He had a right to eat all the food like the Gentiles. He said with certain people, I'm not going to take those rights. So here Ezra had every right to do this, but because he had boasted, it seems, rightfully, before the king, God will take care of us. God is so good to us. God will do everything. He's going to provide for us. They said, "Ah, now I can't turn around and say, but you give me a guard." He thought it would be an embarrassment, an obstacle for the king and for the people to truly trust in the Lord. He didn't do it to test God. He wasn't presuming upon a promise. But sometimes you take an extraordinary risk and you do the thing that doesn't quite make sense because otherwise it would reflect poorly on God. The filter, then, is God's reputation. As you think about decisions in your life, use the filter God's reputation. So on the one hand, if you excuse and call it faith and it's laziness, that makes it look like, well, the Christian God approves of laziness and poor planning, or the Christian God doesn't care about how resources are spent, or the Christian God must be a mighty fortress and a strong tower. The Christian God must be so supremely precious and valuable that they would take this risk.
You know, Jesus told a couple of stories like this, almost back to back, in Luke 12 and in Luke 14. Luke 14, Jesus says, "When you're going to be a disciple, you need to count the cost." That is, you need to see if you can finish what you start. Like a soldier going out to battle or like a workman who builds a building, they count the cost, so they don't get to the front lines and they realize they don't have enough men. Or they start the building and it only gets halfway there. Jesus says you should plan – you should think through, before you follow me – have you really counted the cost? And just a couple chapters before that, in Luke 12, he tells a story about a rich man who built bigger and bigger barns to store all of his wealth, and Jesus says he was a fool. So what's the difference? In chapter 12, Luke – Jesus’ story here – in Luke 12, the man takes no risks so he can serve himself. In chapter 14, we are told to think and plan carefully so we can maximally serve Christ. That's the difference. The one man took no risks in order to simply say, "Soul, I am well provided for. I need nothing. No risks. So you say, well always take risks. Well, Luke 14 – plan, think – there the motivation is how can I be maximally helpful and useful as a disciple of Christ. So risk is sometimes right, and the filter is God's reputation.
Here's the second last bit of application. In whatever way God provides and protects, whether through normal or extraordinary means, we ought to see his hand at work and give him glory. Notice there are three problems in this story. They need Levites. They need a safe trip. And they need to guard the treasure. Those are the three problems. We don't have Levites. We don't have a safe trip. And we need the treasure. In two of those problems, Ezra used means. He organized, and he went out, drummed up support, got some more Levites. He got those Levites, then, to guard the treasure. So two of them, he used means. The one in the middle – the safe trip – said we're not going to use the king's escort. This one we're going to do by prayer and fasting. In all three, the two with means and the one with extraordinary means, we have the same refrain. So look again. Notice this, verse 18: “And by the good hand of our God on us, they brought us a man of discretion of the sons of Mahli the son of Levi.” So we got the Levites. You know what that is? The good hand of God is upon us. Verse 22: it was a shame to ask the king for a protection since we had told the king the hand of our God is for us to do good. Same refrain. And then finally in verse 31: we departed from the river to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. Each of these three obstacles – we need Levites, we need a safe journey, we need the treasure to be guarded – each one, the refrain comes “and God was with us.”
How do you view your life? I mean, you know the right answer is providence and sovereignty, but do you really, honestly, see your life moreso as a random collection of events and circumstances, or maybe one that God intervenes at super special times and somebody's got cancer or you need a miracle, or do you see your life as one in which God is directing your affairs, guiding your steps, and has his good hand upon you every step of the way? Now, we would like for God to tell us at every fork in the road which way to take. Was it Yogi Berra who said, "When you see a fork in the road, take it." We would like to know, but that's not the way God does. God lays out – he shows us the path looking backward, not usually looking forward. Takes risk going forward. But you look back, you say, well, I didn't know. I was deciding what seminary to go to, and I was looking at Trinity Seminary in Chicago. I was born there. I was – sorry I didn't go to RTS, but I didn't know – the South was different. You know, I didn't know what to expect down here. I was looking at Trinity. I was looking at Gordon Conwell out in Boston. I went to Gordon Conwell for a very, very spiritual reason. They gave me more money. Now, I didn't know. I didn't say, Lord, which way? Where's my wife here? Oh, where's my wife? Because Trinity Seminary had a college. Gordon Conwell had Gordon College there. Oh, which way? I didn't know that. I can look back. I said, that's part of what God was doing, leading me to meet Trisha Bebee, sitting there at the same OPC church together. You can see what God is doing looking back. He doesn't usually show you the steps the way we would like going forward.
Even some people have said, you know, the psalm and the lamp is a light unto my path. This is maybe a little over-interpreting, but I think there's something to it. You know, a lamp – it's not a giant floodlight. What does a little lamp show you? Again, everything comes back to our six chickens. When we have to go and put those chickens to bed at night, and it's dark, they get in bed by themselves. Smart chickens, they are. You have to go out with a little lantern and make sure they're all in there and there's no fox in the hen-house, and it doesn't light up the whole neighborhood. It just shows you the next, just, that far. It's kind of like that with the Lord. Doesn't usually open up the whole vista. Gives you enough light to know where maybe the next step is. It's only in looking back that you can see what God was doing. Do you see your life like that? I can't believe I got that appointment. I can't believe the surgeon was so skillful. I can't believe the medicine helped. I can't believe physical therapy got me back on my feet. Yes, God used all of those means. But do you say the Lord's hand was upon me in all of those situations? Give thanks in all circumstances, because in every circumstance, God is doing something good for his people. So, of course, it is trusting and trying.
So, let me just say this in closing, and you know what your own personality is like. Try not to think of the other person, the opposite of your personality. Some of you love to trust in Jesus. You love to talk about trusting in Jesus, but you want him to do the things for you apart from your hard work and your planning and your discipline and your organization. You love faith. You love relying on God, but yeah, obedience – let's not, I don't want to get into the weeds. I don't want to get into too many details. You just kind of go about life. Well, this passage tells us that's a phony, fake spirituality. That's pretending to be faith. It's not the right answer. Like I heard John Piper say years ago, when you're wrestling with theological questions, some of them do end with mystery. Don't start with mystery. All right, we're going to study the Trinity. Here's the answer: mystery. No, that's laziness. Why don't you think about it for ten years and read the best things you can read, and then you can land. So God will guide you, but he does it through your hard work, through your planning, through listening to others, through counsel.
But let's talk about someone with a different personality. And this may be more of us here, given our age and circumstances. You love to talk about trusting God. You love to talk about “he leadeth me, he leadeth me,” but it's been a long time since you took any risks, really. A risk to share your faith. A risk to give away your resources in a way that might even hurt a little. A risk to do a scary ministry opportunity. Or maybe a risk to just rest, because all you know how to do is try and try and try and prove and prove and earn and earn and work. There is no true Christianity apart from trusting in Christ. And there is no true Christianity if all you do is try, try, try. That's leaning on your own works. The most important trusting you can ever do is to turn from your works and rest alone in Christ. Turn from your sins, turn in faith to Jesus. Trust him, then obey him. Or as Ezra said, “The hand of God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” Let's pray.
Father in heaven, help us as a people, as a church, to be full of trusting and full of trying. You give us lots of means to do so – education and hard work, planning, savings. You give us opportunities, too. Help us to know when you would have us, like Nehemiah, take the armed guard, and when, like Ezra, for the sake of the fame of your name, we might bypass the normal ways of doing things. In all of this, Lord, our desire is to please you. Our desire is to see men, women, and children won to faith in you. Our desire is to see your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for it in Jesus’ name. Amen.