SPEAKER_00: Well, Grace Kids, if you are ready to roll, Miss Allie and Miss Courtney are down here on the left.
SPEAKER_00: And then we got some volunteers here on the right.
SPEAKER_00: Grace Kids, you can go down to your area and have some fun.
SPEAKER_00: We've got some Bible lessons planned.
SPEAKER_00: We got some crafts planned.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a good Sunday overall for Grace Kids.
SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Grace Church.
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure to see you all today.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for those of you who are joining us online.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or Bible app, I want to encourage you to open up to Proverbs chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's where we're going to be spending time in the Word of God today, Proverbs chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Specifically, verses 5 and 6.
SPEAKER_00: They're an oldie, but they're a goody.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have these memorized inside their heart and for good reason.
SPEAKER_00: We're continuing our teaching series today called Wisdom for Life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a series designed to help you learn how to live God's way in God's world, because that's what wisdom is learning how to live God's way in God's world.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is there is a right way to live and there is a wrong way to live.
SPEAKER_00: And God the Father is the one who, in his immense wisdom, created all of this and set the standards on which is which.
SPEAKER_00: Now, aside from the Word of God and the Spirit of God, he also gives you a unique tool specific to humanity that comes birthed from his character, which is wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And wisdom is a gift from God that helps you know the difference between what is right and what is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what wisdom is knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, what is God's way versus every other way?
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives you the Spirit of God to empower you to choose to do what is right.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what wisdom is all about, helping you understand how to live God's way in God's world.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're looking at the wisdom of trust.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is a unique thing, really hard to earn, really easy to lose, but the reality of our life is that your world runs on trust.
SPEAKER_00: Every meaningful part of your life is built and runs on trust.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you have healthy bodies, some of you have health issues.
SPEAKER_00: And who do you go to when you have health problems?
SPEAKER_00: You go to your doctor.
SPEAKER_00: And as you consult your doctor, they give you their opinions and you trust their opinion and you order your life around what your doctor tells you to do out of trust.
SPEAKER_00: Inside of your marriage, you have a hopefully a healthy marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're in times of conflict, but every aspect of your marriage runs on trust.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is the most foundational part of your entire life.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be a part of a church, you have to trust the people around you.
SPEAKER_00: Miss Alley is trusting that 250 of you at minimum will show up that week of July 12th and be a part of vacation Bible school.
SPEAKER_00: That's called trust.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have trust, if you can't build the currency of trust with people or you don't operate in trust with others, everything in your life will break down.
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, Pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Why did you even mention the word?
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned the word because I want you to remember how much trust was lost in the United States at that time.
SPEAKER_00: People lost trust in governments, people lost trust in each other, people lost trust in their churches, all because people had opinions about what should be done, and they weren't sure anybody else had their best interest in mind.
SPEAKER_00: It was an incredibly divisive thing in the United States, predominantly because there was little trust that people were pulling on.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of you have jobs.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're in your current job in your workplace, you have to have trust between your employer, you have to have trust with your employees, and if trust begins to break down inside of your job, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: It's not very long until you don't have a job.
SPEAKER_00: So trust is this meaningful currency that all of us have.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think about trust.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is the invisible structure holding your life together.
SPEAKER_00: That's what trust does.
SPEAKER_00: All of your life, every relationship, every job that you've had, every encounter that you have with human beings, all of your finances, your whole world is held together by this invisible and yet very felt thing called trust.
SPEAKER_00: And the more trust you have in every facet of your life, the more stable your life is.
SPEAKER_00: When there's trust with your boss, when there's trust with your spouse, when there's trust with your bank, when there's trust with your doctors, when there's trust with your government, when there is trust, life feels stable.
SPEAKER_00: It holds everything together.
SPEAKER_00: And so their question is not, do you trust?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a lot of reasons to not trust, because, but the reality is all of us trust.
SPEAKER_00: And so the question is now, who do you trust?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you trust and how do you trust?
SPEAKER_00: And why is trust such a meaningful aspect of the human existence?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first thing I want you to understand about trust is this.
SPEAKER_00: We were made to trust.
SPEAKER_00: You were actually created by God to be a being that operates with this currency called trust.
SPEAKER_00: So when God made man and God made woman, all the way back in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, there was what we call a perfect trust in the world, where there is trust between man, trust between the woman, trust between God, and it was wonderful, so wonderful that when you get to the end of Genesis chapter 2, verse 2, verse 25, it ends with this weird phrase, but it's a phrase about trust.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know that it's not possible for us to imagine a world in which perfect trust exists.
SPEAKER_00: But what this verse is getting at is that when there's perfect trust, you can be completely vulnerable with the people in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Vulnerable to God, vulnerable to the people around you, and that's what nakedness represents.
SPEAKER_00: Nakedness represents vulnerability, it's total exposure in front of somebody.
SPEAKER_00: It's physical exposure, emotional, relational, spiritual, where there's absolutely nothing hidden between people and God.
SPEAKER_00: It is a world that God created, one in which you are to be fully known in every aspect of the world, and also feel fully loved by everybody around you.
SPEAKER_00: So that when you expose the inner parts of yourself to the world, there is no shame, there's no guilt, and there's no fear.
SPEAKER_00: And as we're driving down that road, she asks me this question.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where it came from, but it freaked me out.
SPEAKER_00: She looked at me and she said, Dan, is there anything you're afraid to tell me?
SPEAKER_00: It's a trap.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a trap.
SPEAKER_00: It's an honest and legitimate question.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything you're afraid to tell me?
SPEAKER_00: As I started to think about that, I started to think about our entire marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And early on in our marriage, there was a lot of things that I was afraid to tell my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be vulnerable about certain aspects of my brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to share with her my hopes or my fears, not in their fullest extent.
SPEAKER_00: And when we first got married, and when we first started dating, for sure, I was terrified of being 100% honest with Amy.
SPEAKER_00: But you learn pretty quickly in life, and if you haven't learned this, you will learn this, it's actually far easier to be physically naked with somebody than to be emotionally naked with somebody.
SPEAKER_00: And as I began to think through all of the things that were inside of my heart, I had fear begin to build up.
SPEAKER_00: Am I afraid of telling you anything?
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm afraid of answering this question wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I fear being exposed.
SPEAKER_00: All of us fear being exposed.
SPEAKER_00: Will she reject me?
SPEAKER_00: Will she not understand the things that are happening inside my heart and my mind?
SPEAKER_00: What are the consequences in my marriage if I expose the extent of my sin or my shame?
SPEAKER_00: You know, will she yell at me at the very least?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that.
SPEAKER_00: When we fear rejection for being honest or for being truthful, we hide.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we do.
SPEAKER_00: When we fear rejection, when we fear the consequences of full exposure, we hide.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Adam and Eve did after they sinned.
SPEAKER_00: God walked through the garden, and what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They went and hid.
SPEAKER_00: But when we are being asked to expose our internal life through questions about who we are and what we've done, we want to hide.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where lying comes in.
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody in this room ever told a lie?
SPEAKER_00: People, what come on.
SPEAKER_00: Give me some hands.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are still hands in pockets.
SPEAKER_00: Well, now I know you're a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Every single person in this room has lied, and lying is a function of deciding to hide.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to hide the internal parts of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we lie, we're trying to cover up our brokenness with more brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: And I've got really bad news for you, that doesn't work so well.
SPEAKER_00: But that's our default position, is that we are so afraid of being vulnerable that we try to hide.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what you need to understand God didn't design you that way.
SPEAKER_00: That fear of being vulnerable is an indication that sin exists in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, over the last 18 years of marriage to Amy, our trust in one another has grown significantly.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course, there's been hangups here and there where I told a lie or she told a lie, and things kind of got frustrated for a while.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that our trust hasn't continued to grow.
SPEAKER_00: And so when she asked me that question last week, and I thought back to the beginning of our relationship, I was terrified.
SPEAKER_00: But honestly, I can share with you that while I still have some minor fears in being totally vulnerable, our trust is so much greater that my vulnerability is a lot easier to possess now, 18 years later.
SPEAKER_00: And the same is true in your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: The more you grow in your trust with God, the more easy the easier it is to be vulnerable with him.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where vulnerability comes from.
SPEAKER_00: We have to grow in trust that there's no sin too great that if I expose it to God, he won't love me anyway.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it comes from.
SPEAKER_00: I believe, I trust that God's love is so great for me that even if I am vulnerable with him, that I share the core parts of who I am, which he already knows, but I have to verbally say out loud, I can trust that he will love me regardless of that.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is we did break trust, didn't we?
SPEAKER_00: We broke trust with God.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of the reasons that we fear exposing ourselves fully over to God.
SPEAKER_00: And we broke that trust through sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened way, way early on in the garden when God created Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them a pretty simple command, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00: You may eat from every tree in the garden, but you may not eat from that one.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of people think, oh, God's just being restrictive, but God is actually trying to build trust.
SPEAKER_00: It's a decree of trust.
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust that in my wisdom I know what's right for you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust that if you don't eat from the tree, it will be better for you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust everything I've laid out here for you?
SPEAKER_00: And that's what it was.
SPEAKER_00: It's really an exercise in trust.
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust your creator's wisdom?
SPEAKER_00: Until they were deceived.
SPEAKER_00: And they were deceived into thinking that their perception of reality was more true than what God said was true.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Genesis chapter 3, 6.
SPEAKER_00: This is such a common human experience.
SPEAKER_00: When the woman saw the fruit, see what happened?
SPEAKER_00: She had her eyes on something that wasn't God.
SPEAKER_00: When she saw the fruit was good, she saw that it was pleasing.
SPEAKER_00: She saw that it was desirable.
SPEAKER_00: She replaced God, the thing that should have been in front of her, with something else, the thing immediately in front of her.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of recognizing the desirability, the beauty, the wonder of who her creator is, she put her eyes on the creation.
SPEAKER_00: And the creation became the object of what she actually desired.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever done that in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Replaced trust in God with trust in something you see, or something you can touch, or something you can hold?
SPEAKER_00: I'll get real personal with you.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: So much of the Bible, God says you need to trust me with your finances.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, how many of us have looked at our bank accounts in the last couple of weeks, or maybe looked at the stock market, or looked at all the things happening around the world, and we thought to ourselves, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, Lord, I know you say trust, but I'm actually just gonna hold back a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep some more in my storehouses just in case, instead of giving to a charity or giving to something God has asked me to give to.
SPEAKER_00: And God's word says, all over the place, there were to be people of truth, people who speak the reality of what's happening in our lives and not hide things with lies or dishonest scales.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you in the last week, in a moment of pressure, sacrificed God's wisdom for telling the truth and instead embraced your own wisdom of telling the lie for convenience's sake?
SPEAKER_00: How about this?
SPEAKER_00: God says, forgive.
SPEAKER_00: It's all over Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We're told to trust God and actually forgive those who've wronged us, but instead of choosing forgiveness the way Jesus has forgiven you, you hold back into your own sense of frustration and bitterness because it just feels good to be mad about it.
SPEAKER_00: I trust what's in front of me more than I trust what God has asked me to do.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the foundation of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is trusting yourself over God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: The foundation of all sin is trusting yourself over God.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the reality: that's not just Adam and Eve's story, that is our everyday story.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Romans chapter 1, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: People, that's all people are without excuse.
SPEAKER_00: They exchange the truth about God for a lie, and we worship and we serve created things rather than the creator.
SPEAKER_00: Our constant struggle is choosing to trust in the things in front of us or trust ourselves more than trust the invisible, ever-present, loving, holy, sovereign God.
SPEAKER_00: That is the constant struggle.
SPEAKER_00: And when sin entered the world in that moment, an amazing shift happened.
SPEAKER_00: People went from trusting the creator to trusting created things, from trusting the promises of God to trusting what's immediately in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the essence of broken trust.
SPEAKER_00: It's where you're no longer placing trust in the truth of what God has said, and you're placing trust in the things you can manufacture.
SPEAKER_00: And so I have a really simple self-diagnostic question for you.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you trusting today?
SPEAKER_00: Are you trusting in yourself or are you trusting in the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta grips with that.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta wrestle with that.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta understand where your heart is actually resting.
SPEAKER_00: Because what happens when you begin trusting God, and you really trust God, you begin trusting other people.
SPEAKER_00: There's an overflow of trust inside of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now I understand that it's difficult to trust people.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody in this room been hurt by people?
SPEAKER_00: Others of you without your hands there, now you're still liars, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Every single person in this room, those of you watching online, you've been hurt by somebody, and in that hurt they broke your trust.
SPEAKER_00: And so it can be easy to not want to extend trust in light of the hurt that we've experienced.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the primary reasons that we have difficulty trusting other people is not just because we don't trust God all the time, it's because we can't even trust ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about this.
SPEAKER_00: If you are the standard of trust in the world, can you still be trusted to act in your own best interest all the time?
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
SPEAKER_00: If you're your own standard of trust and you don't even act in your own best interest, then it's really difficult to extend trust to other people.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why you can't make yourself the standard of trust.
SPEAKER_00: You're ready?
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 17, 9 says that the heart is deceitful above all things.
SPEAKER_00: Our heart will lie to us and make us believe that we know what's right, that we know what's true, only to act on it and realize the consequences of our actions because we were wrong, even though we believed that we were right.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can't build your trust on the foundation of your own perception.
SPEAKER_00: Your own perception is limited, your own perception is weak, your own perception is unable to truly see what God is asking you to do in the world or what is right for you in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Here's when I learned that I was not trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I'm a trustworthy person, but I'm not always trustworthy to myself.
SPEAKER_00: I break trust with myself a lot.
SPEAKER_00: When I was 20 years old, I got my first credit card.
SPEAKER_00: And I got my first credit card because Amy and I were going to get engaged, and believe it or not, I didn't have the cash to buy an engagement ring.
SPEAKER_00: They're expensive.
SPEAKER_00: So I got a 0% interest credit card for six months.
SPEAKER_00: I did the math, I could make the payment, and I bought myself a wedding ring or an engagement ring for Amy.
SPEAKER_00: And I was responsible for six months.
SPEAKER_00: I paid the entire thing off, paid no interest.
SPEAKER_00: It was just like an extended 0% loan.
SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
SPEAKER_00: It was worked.
SPEAKER_00: And I was 20, I felt really good about myself.
SPEAKER_00: Fast forward to a year later, I believe now that I am a person who's responsible with credit.
SPEAKER_00: I've proven it once, I'm certain I can do it again.
SPEAKER_00: And so I walked in to a motorcycle dealership.
SPEAKER_00: And I began having a conversation with the salesman.
SPEAKER_00: And as the salesman and I talked, buying that motorcycle sounded better and better and better.
SPEAKER_00: But the only problem was I didn't have the cash to buy it.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what he was willing to do?
SPEAKER_00: Let me put it on my credit card.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this time I did not have 0% interest for six months.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I had a whole lot of interest, and I didn't even think twice about it.
SPEAKER_00: I bought that motorcycle, I rode it back to the apartment, I said, Amy, hop on this hog, we're going for a ride, and we rode for a month in total bliss until I got that credit card statement in the mail.
SPEAKER_00: And I realized that my interest was greater than my principal.
SPEAKER_00: I was sunk.
SPEAKER_00: 21 years old, 25 years old, two jobs, no kids, but part-time jobs.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is 2008.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't even get a job.
SPEAKER_00: We were scraping for money.
SPEAKER_00: What a dumb decision.
SPEAKER_00: If I can break that kind of trust with myself in a whim, I'm not a very trustworthy person for myself.
SPEAKER_00: So I can't be the standard of my own trust.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm confident that everybody here in this room, you've broken trust with yourself too.
SPEAKER_00: There's things you said, I will never do that again.
SPEAKER_00: And my guess is you found yourself doing it again.
SPEAKER_00: Or there's times in your life where you said, you know what, I will change.
SPEAKER_00: And you didn't change.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're the barometer of trust, you're never going to have a fully trusting relationship with other people.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's very difficult to rely totally on yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And if you oh, if you know yourself is not reliable, good luck extending that reliability to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the good news about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what God does for us.
SPEAKER_00: Even though we broke trust with God and we break trust with ourselves and we break trust with others, God saves us back into perfect trust.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is really all about.
SPEAKER_00: God saving us back into perfect trust.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read for you this verse.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it before, and it sounds powerful, and it is.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 3, 5 and 6.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
SPEAKER_00: This verse has three commands and a promise, right?
SPEAKER_00: Three commands and an outcome.
SPEAKER_00: First one is this trust in the Lord with all your heart, command number one.
SPEAKER_00: Command number two, lean not on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Command number three, in all your ways submit to him, and then you have the promise, and he will make your paths straight.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the wisdom of trust.
SPEAKER_00: The wisdom of trust says when you stop trusting yourself and you start trusting God, everything else in your life is made straight.
SPEAKER_00: So if there's something in your life that's crooked, something in your life that doesn't make sense, something in your life that's frustrating you to no end, something in your life that you're struggling with, the solution is to stop trusting in your own solutions and lean entirely on the person of God to resolve and to solve your problems, and trust that by his spirit and through his promises, he will make that path straight.
SPEAKER_00: Now, trust trust is a unique thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually an emotion that is found deep inside the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I believe about trust for the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is not something that you just manufacture, it's not something you just choose to have and therefore extend it to people.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is actually a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: It's a miracle because it's a result of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to listen to 2 Corinthians 5, 17.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: The old is gone, the new is here.
SPEAKER_00: And with that new creation, you actually receive a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: There is a promise from God in Ezekiel 36 where God says, I will put in them a new heart, and I will put in them a new spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So the day you placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you were given a new heart, and you We're given a new spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The human heart, which is broken and has difficulty trusting in Christ, is now made new, and miraculously you really can trust God with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have a new heart able to trust.
SPEAKER_00: God has placed it in you.
SPEAKER_00: It was not there before, but through the miracle of Christ on the cross and your faith in him, it is now inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: You have a new heart, and with a new heart, a new capacity to trust.
SPEAKER_00: And it happened the day you said yes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what happened on the day you said yes to Jesus for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: You actually, for the first time in your life, stopped having self-trust and you chose Christ trust.
SPEAKER_00: That's the miracle.
SPEAKER_00: The miracle is you stopped having self-trust and you chose Christ trust.
SPEAKER_00: You chose to trust him with the most valuable part of your entire being, which is your soul.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the miracle, you ready?
SPEAKER_00: If you can trust God with the most precious thing you have, your eternity and your soul, and that's the miracle, don't you think you can trust him with something else a little less precious, like your money, or your time, or your relationships, or your marriage?
SPEAKER_00: I know those things are right in front of you and they feel very tangible and very pressing, but I got some really good news for you.
SPEAKER_00: Those are just small things in light of the reality of your soul.
SPEAKER_00: So miraculously, God deposited in you through his spirit the ability to trust him with your eternity, and it's on that foundation that God begins renewing your mind so that you don't lean on your own understanding, that you trust in him with all your heart, mind, and soul, and acknowledge him in all your ways.
SPEAKER_00: Now our trust has an opportunity to grow.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share with you how your trust grows because you have a new foundation and a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: We start building on top of that, and here's how it grows.
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple five-step process.
SPEAKER_00: Although it's not simple, it's just simple to say.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is this you hear the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is filled with promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's spoken his word, and he has a long track record of fulfilling those promises.
SPEAKER_00: It's what he is, it's what he does.
SPEAKER_00: He's a promise maker and he's a promise keeper.
SPEAKER_00: So you have to hear the promise.
SPEAKER_00: That's where trust begins.
SPEAKER_00: It's a promise made to you by somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is you have to believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Is there enough credibility behind the person making the promise that you can believe that they will do what they say?
SPEAKER_00: It's not just intellectual, it has to become genuinely personal.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you became a follower of Jesus and you placed your trust in Christ, now your soul is saved by God.
SPEAKER_00: There's this internal deposit of deep trust, and you can look at the other promises of Scripture and say, all these promises are now true for me because I am in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, new heart in Christ, the promises are true for me.
SPEAKER_00: I can believe the promise.
SPEAKER_00: And if I believe it, I'm gonna act on it.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's one thing to hear it, another thing to believe it, but you actually have to do something with the promises that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: They're made for you to place your faith in and then live your life accordingly.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the promises of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is trust in the Lord with all your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Lean not on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.
SPEAKER_00: The promise is that he is the one who will transform your world, not you.
SPEAKER_00: So you hear it, you believe it, but you have to act on it.
SPEAKER_00: Acting on it allows you to experience God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to experience the full power of God in your life, the amazing miracles of Jesus in your life, the promises of God's word coming to life inside of your daily living, you have to act, and then you'll experience God's incredible faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And when you see God's faithfulness at work, you know what happens?
SPEAKER_00: You grow in trust.
SPEAKER_00: Incrementally, one step at a time.
SPEAKER_00: And the longer you journey with Jesus, the more you find out how trustworthy He is.
SPEAKER_00: And the trust that you have in Jesus today and in God the Father today is going to be incrementally, incrementally, incrementally, whatever that word is, incrementally more today than it was yesterday, and far greater today than it was when you first started following after Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is a growing process.
SPEAKER_00: And when your trust grows a little bit more, you then hear a new promise, you believe the promise, you act on the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Ready?
SPEAKER_00: Last week I had you all say, uh, God is God and I am not.
SPEAKER_00: If God is God and I am not, then here's what you can say.
SPEAKER_00: God, I trust you more than I trust myself.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end result of what it means to actually have faith in an almighty and all-powerful God.
SPEAKER_00: God, I trust you more than I trust myself.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the wisest decision you can ever make is to trust God more than you can trust your own self.
SPEAKER_00: And now God gives you assurances.
SPEAKER_00: Assurances that you can trust Him.
SPEAKER_00: All of God's word is an assurance.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the testimony of all the men and all the women of the Old and the New Testament who trusted in God's promises and saw God's promises fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you a second set of assurances, the testimony of other believers.
SPEAKER_00: This church community is filled with people who have grown their trust in God over the years, who can give you story after story after story of his faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're in a place where your trust is low towards God, hear the testimony of Scripture, hear the testimony of people in this church.
SPEAKER_00: They will assure you that God's promises are true.
SPEAKER_00: But don't take their word for it.
SPEAKER_00: Trust God yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Develop your own testimonies of God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: It's the end of Matthew chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard this before.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who puts these words of mine into action is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard that phrase?
SPEAKER_00: You are a wise person when you hear the words of God, the promises of God, and you put them into action.
SPEAKER_00: We do not lean on our own understanding, we lean on the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We do not lean in our own power, we lean on the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: We do not lean on our own flesh, we lean on the Holy Spirit of God within us, who leads us into the truth of all of God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: You know what leaning on your own flesh is like?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it looks like to lean on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: If you're driving down the road in your fun little vehicle, whatever you drive, and then your check engine light pops on.
SPEAKER_00: You ever seen that?
SPEAKER_00: Have you had that happen to you?
SPEAKER_00: When that happens, here's the temptation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna ignore that little light.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to believe that if I keep driving, it'll miraculously just go away.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a fluke, because that check engine light is a warning sign that something's not right, and you're you're pretty sure it's probably nothing big.
SPEAKER_00: So you're just gonna keep driving.
SPEAKER_00: And you're driving and you're driving and you're driving until all of a sudden something else happens in your vehicle that you can't really ignore.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like to live your life leaning on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: You know there's something broken, but you're just gonna keep going anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Just waiting for it all to collide and collapse and fall apart.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, you have a new heart that's capable of having full trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Take what is your life, bring all of it over to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of the pride that you've been carrying around about choosing life your own way and submit it fully over to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let him fix the check engine light.
SPEAKER_00: He'll do that through the renewing of your mind through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He'll renew your mind so that you can trust, he'll renew your mind so you don't have to lean on your understanding.
SPEAKER_00: He will renew your mind so that in all of your ways you can acknowledge him.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, his desire through his spirit and through his word is to give you the very mind of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul encouraged us to have.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is you begin to change, you start to become a whole lot more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You start to reflect the same mind of Jesus, the heart of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how Jesus lived: He lived in perfect trust with God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: On the night that Jesus was to be crucified, he found or to be arrested, he found himself in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he was praying fervently.
SPEAKER_00: And in his prayers, he said the ultimate phrase of trust back to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: That's what perfect trust looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Where every follower of Jesus walks in perfect trust with God the Father, saying, Not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Whose will do you want accomplished in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Do you want your own will accomplished?
SPEAKER_00: You want that check engine light will run in your life?
SPEAKER_00: You want yourself running your life, the thing that has proved time and time again to get you into trouble time and time again?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you want the Spirit of God that indwells you, the power of Christ that was given over to you, to be the very source of wisdom and will for your life?
SPEAKER_00: I know my decision.
SPEAKER_00: I know where I want to land, but that doesn't mean the struggle isn't real.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle is real.
SPEAKER_00: It happens.
SPEAKER_00: And so we trust in the Lord with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens when you trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in God fully changes how we trust people.
SPEAKER_00: It really does.
SPEAKER_00: When you trust in God, it really changes how you trust in people.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't trust God, you're gonna try to take total control of every situation in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna try to have every answer, you're gonna try to have your hand over everything, manipulate outcomes, all in your best interest to protect the self.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how the world in which we live operates.
SPEAKER_00: But as you trust God, you can release control, you can extend trust, you can live open-handedly.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to 1 Corinthians 13, 7.
SPEAKER_00: What a powerful verse.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Love believes all things.
SPEAKER_00: It's not foolish to trust people.
SPEAKER_00: It's believing people at face value because you understand that your security is not in your own ability.
SPEAKER_00: Your security, your provision, everything about your life rests solely in the hands of God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: And when all of your trust is placed in the Lord, when all of your trust is rooted in Christ, you are now a person who is free to trust.
SPEAKER_00: You can be a person who's free to trust.
SPEAKER_00: Right now?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: Right now we live in a world where there's very little trust in government and leadership.
SPEAKER_00: And that very little trust is creating significant division in our land.
SPEAKER_00: You see it everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Follower of Jesus, hear me now.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to feel overwhelmed and burdened by the events of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Your trust is in God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: Your trust is in a sovereign creator who's made promises to you specifically and to his people and to his church.
SPEAKER_00: When you trust God fully, you are free from the burden of being overwhelmed by the political realities of this world.
SPEAKER_00: When you trust in God, you are free from the burden of being overwhelmed by fear that people in this world are going to hurt you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna live in this world, you're gonna get hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says there's troubles in this world, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: So you now become a person who's no longer controlling, no longer angry, no longer overwhelmed by the breaking of trust.
SPEAKER_00: Because your trust is fully in one who's always faithful, who's fully in one that always does what he says is going to do, and allows you to be free to operate in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we close this morning, my last question is this In what area of your life do you need to trust God the most?
SPEAKER_00: It's different for each of us, but my guess is you already know which one it is.
SPEAKER_00: Take that area of your life, open your hands up before the Lord and say, Lord, not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you so much for how you have proven yourself time and time again throughout history that you are trustworthy, that your promises uphold the test of time, and that in Christ you have made us new, new to the point where we can trust you, new to the point where we can follow you, new to the point where we can be people who are free from the burdens of this world.
SPEAKER_00: Because, Lord, you care for all of the burdens of this world.
SPEAKER_00: You look at us and you see a beautiful, precious creature that you're going to provide for.
SPEAKER_00: God, help us to have the faith, help us to grow in trust, to live the way you've asked us to live, and perfect trust with you and with one another.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.