The Power of Trust

The Power of Trust | Pastor Chip Podcast

What does real trust in God look like when life doesn't make sense?

In this episode of the Pastor Chip Podcast, Pastor Chip explores what it means to live by faith instead of fear. Through the powerful stories of Peter walking on the water, Daniel in the lions' den, and other biblical examples, you'll discover that trust isn't the absence of storms—it's the confidence that Jesus is with you in the middle of them.

Whether you're facing uncertainty, waiting on God, or taking a step of faith, this message will encourage you to stop relying on what you can see and start trusting the One who never fails.

Scriptures: Matthew 14, Hebrews 11, 2 Corinthians 5:7, and more.

If this episode encourages you, be sure to follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs hope today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I'm not gonna dive super deep into these stories this morning. You can if you want to later. You know the verses, you probably know the stories. But we're gonna do it. And when I learned through all of these stories that are not just stories, they're true. Amen. You gotta really believe that the Bible is true. Where it doesn't really have any power in our lives because we won't acknowledge that it does. That's not the sermon, that's just a little free excerpt you can keep. So I named today's message, and I think this is all about what it's about. The power of trust. The power of trust. Y'all look too asleep, so go ahead and look at three people and say the power of trust. The power of trust. Y'all don't care if you have to yell it across the room. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna be looking through the stories that we're reading and teaching the kids, and maybe we'll find some stuff for ourselves. This graphic features all of the stories. Um, I made it very quickly. That's kind of probably why Jesus looks like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Um, but you can you can ignore that part. Uh that part's weird. The power of trust. Do you trust God? Our initial instinct is to go, yes, of course I do. I trust him. But do you trust him in word or deed? Do you trust him in action? Do you trust him when things actually start falling apart? The first story that we learned about was Daniel in the lion's den. I'm going to read Daniel 6, 22 through 23. They'll put it up on the screens for you. Says this. And also before you, O king, I have done no harm. Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the lion's den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he trusted in God. See, what happened was there were these jealous officials, I'll giving you the reader's digest version, and they made a law against praying, essentially. And Daniel continued to pray, so his punishment was to be thrown into a den of hungry lions to be torn piece by piece, bit by bit. It's always interesting that we make this into a children's story, because it's actually kind of gruesome because that's how people were sacrificed, and that's how things were dealt with. So as I start to think about Daniel, who was probably 80 about that time, he's thrown into this den of lions for doing nothing wrong, and I just can't imagine sitting, it would have been more of a pit. We say den, but it was a pit. And I think, can you imagine sitting there on a bench and you just have giant hungry African lions making noises, growling, moving around. That would be an unnerving situation. However, I believe that there's people here today that are in that situation. Not literally, but you're sitting in a pit, you're sitting in a den, you're sitting in a place, and all you can see around you is constant threats. All you can see around you is constant possible problems. All you can see around you is the next thing that's about to pounce and destroy you. Maybe it's just me that's been through that. I'm sorry. I forgot. Y'all might not have been, but I'll talk from experience. Have you ever found yourself in a place where you're afraid that one wrong move, that's it. That's it. Maybe you don't die, maybe you lose everything, maybe your your children go crazy, maybe one wrong move and the marriage is over, one wrong move and the relationship's gone, one wrong move, you see all these threats around you. And how many people would be like Daniel who who prayed and been sitting there in the midst of this? You would think somebody that was righteous, somebody that believed, somebody that prayed wouldn't find themselves in this predicament. Lord, I prayed, what's going on? Lord, I followed you, what's going on? Why am I here? Why is this falling apart? Why is everything around me crushing in? But you have to understand something. God shut down the power of the threat, but he didn't remove you from the presence of the threat. What we tend that was so good, and y'all are sleeping right through it. My gosh. It's alright. I'll go back and watch the video myself and amen, and I don't care. Some of us are so concerned with the presence of the threat, we've missed the fact that God has declawed the very problems that surround you. Just because you see something that can hurt you doesn't mean it has permission to hurt you. Because the truth of the matter is nothing gets by what God decides. And if God says the lions might be hungry, but they're not gonna bite, they're not gonna bite. If God says you don't have enough money, or if the bank says you don't have enough money and God says we're gonna make it through, you're gonna make it through. The doctor says you're gonna die and God says no, you're not, no, you're not. That's the power of trusting. That's the power of understanding that the presence of a threat does not mean the threat will win. See, when God takes the power out of the threat, all the enemy can do is lie to you to believe that that threat is threatening you still. So what that what happens then is you become paralyzed in fear. You're paralyzed in fear by toothless, clawless lions that actually don't have the power to destroy you. Sometimes what we make them in our mind is actually more powerful than what they are in real life. Sometimes you've given something permission to destroy you that God hasn't. Sometimes. Again, not y'all, just me. You know, sometimes the attacks that don't happen, that's the greatest deliverance of all. The car accident you didn't get in. You know how you were upset because you lost your keys and couldn't leave on time. What you might not know is God prevented you from running off of that bridge. You don't know the things God has protected you from. You don't know the things God has delivered you from. You tell we tell little stories. Oh, when I was born, my umbilical cord was wrapped around, or this or that, and we say it like that, but that's a deliverance that you weren't even aware of. You gotta understand there are there are things that you don't even know about, that God's got his hand around you, and when the enemy comes to attack, God says, No. I'm not allowing that. Daniel also teaches us we can't get upset when God doesn't intervene the way we want him to intervene. Now, maybe I'm different than most of you, but I would have liked God to intervene before I was with the lions. I would have liked God to keep me out of the lion's den. But sometimes God's power can't be proven until you're in the midst of hell. Until you're in a situation that nobody understands how you're gonna get out of, until you're in a doomed situation, the that the power of God can't be shown. That's why it says, in your weakness, his power is made perfect. Because what happened when Daniel came out, they said Daniel's God is God. He shut the mouth of the lions. He doesn't always keep us from it, but he will carry us through it. Number two, each of these could be a sermon, so this is hard. I'm watching the clock. The fiery furnace. This is the thing, this king, he had a thing with killing people. And in Daniel 3, 20 through 29, he says, and he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abindigo, and cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their outer garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace, because the king's order was urgent, and the furnace overheated. The flame of the fire killed the men who took Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to the furnace. That not looking good, folks. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell, bound, tied up, you understand, into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished. He rose up in haste and declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound in the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king. And he answered and said, But I see four men. Right there is a hallelujah point. Walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt. And their appearance and the appearance of the fourth is like the son of the gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near the door of the burning fiery furnace, and he declared, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abindigo's servants of the Most High God, come out and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abinago came out from the fire, and the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, and the king's counselor gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over their bodies. The hair of their head was not even singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and the smell of fire had not come upon them. And Nebuchadnezzar answered them and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him and set aside the king's command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any God other than their own. See, the backstory is King Nebuchadnezzar built a big golden statue and said you had to bow down before it and you had to pray to that statue. And they said, No. He said, Well, we're going to throw you in the furnace. And they said what I think is one of the most like I don't have a better word, gangster verses. And they said, Our God will deliver us. I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Our God will deliver us, but even if he doesn't, we still will serve him. Even if our God doesn't deliver us out of this, we will serve him. The other part of this story that's interesting is the fact that the people that heated the furnace died. Because that would mean when Nebuchadnezzar checked the furnace, it had to be much, much later. Means they had to have been there for hours for it to cool down enough for him not to die. So they were in there a long time. This wasn't, oh, they will get in the fire and then step right out, hokey pokey, turn all about. This is you're going in, you're tied up, you're laying on the ground, you can't escape it. It starts out with them being bound. Have you ever been bound by your own clothes? Let me rephrase that. Have you ever been bound by your own problems? Have you ever found yourself all tied up, not feeling free, not feeling able to be who you need to be or do what you need to do? Have you ever found yourself feeling like there's just something missing? I'm tied up. Maybe you're tied up in an addiction, an affair, maybe you're tied up in something that you shouldn't be doing. Maybe you're tied up in a situation that you were somehow involved in, and now you're just locked in and it's getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Bound up. And then you look around and you see people in the same situation that didn't make it. See, the people that threw them in the furnace didn't make it. So if the furnace killed them, certainly it'll kill me. But that manifests itself like, well, if their marriage didn't survive, how can ours? If their kids didn't do right, how can ours? If we if they couldn't get along with everything that I know about them, how could we? How could that happen? But you've got to understand the fire that killed those before you is not the same fire that is allowed to touch you. You've got to learn that just because you've seen other people fall under something, that doesn't automatically mean you'll be defeated by it. Amen? Because God's got different plans and different reasons for different things and different people, and his goal is always deliverance. The other part about this story. They look in the fire and they see not one, not two, not three. Not only did the bodies not burn up, now a fourth one is in there. And he looks better than the rest of them. And the Bible says he's a son of the gods. This is what we call a Christophany, an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ. So, whatever furnace you're in right now, and whatever you're going through, you might feel completely alone, abandoned, outcasted. You may not feel like anybody around you understands and you're all by yourself. But what you need to know is this Jesus is in the fire with you. You're not alone. Jesus is in the fire with you. Your husband may not be, your wife may not be, your kids may not be, your parents may not be, that boss may not be, your preacher may not be, but Jesus is. And he's the best friend you can have in a situation like that. Because when your life is burning down and it seems like there's nothing but you're just bound up, Jesus is the one who can who can deliver. In fact, they were set free in the fire. Sometimes God uses things and situations, and in those situations, the very thing you're fearing, the very thing that's causing you pain is the very place God's about to set you free. How many times have we missed our freedom? Because what we do is we look around and say, oh, this is bad, this is bad. When God says, Don't you understand? I'm trying to free you through this. Because I'm old now. I got a little gray in my beard. I'm old enough. I'm old enough to know this. I'm 35, I'm getting up there. I'm about to have a birthday. It's not good. I've lost my total train of thought. Because Harry. But that's okay. I was old. See, I am old. I can't remember. Oh, I'm old enough to know this. Sometimes, that better be Jesus calling. Lord. Some I'm apparently not supposed to say this point. Sometimes God frees you in the worst pain of your life. Sometimes God frees you in the hardest time of your life. Sometimes God unties you before everything looks okay. It says they were walking around the furnace. That meant they were untied in the furnace. Do you understand that? That means they were walking around. That means they were still in the fire, but they were free. Can you be free in the fire? That's Christianity. Can everything be burning down and you're still free and you still say, God, you'll deliver me? But even if you don't, I'll still serve you. I'll still do it. Is there a literal phone up on the stage? You will be you will not be burned. Okay, number three. The day of Pentecost. Acts 2, 1 through 4. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as the fire appeared to them, and it rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance. You know, sometimes I've seen people that are praying and they think they're speaking in tongues, but they're just saying Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo over and over. So if you need, don't be faking tongues, because I know biblical Nebuchadnezzar, Shadterak, Meshach, and you're just naming Bible characters. But this is less about tongues, which I believe in and our church believes in, but it's more about the part where it says, you'll receive power. Amen. You'll receive power. God empowers us. The Holy Spirit will give you power for living. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence. That's 2 Peter 1:3. His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness. When you don't know how you're living, when you don't know how you're going to survive, when you don't know where the provision's coming from, where you don't know where the purpose is coming from, what you need to know is that God's power has come upon you and within you as a believer, and He is going to help you live your life. It is very hard to live your life. Half of us have to, and I'm not against these things, but half of us have to take 50 pills to regulate our minds, go to 700 counselors, go to 900 doctors, all because we can't find peace. And it's not that you need to find peace, you need to find power. Because when you feel the least peaceful is when you feel the least powerful. And you can never feel powerful in your own self because if you do, that is a trap, because you will never advance anywhere. But if you rely on the power of the Spirit, amen, who has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness, then you have power for living. Maybe your wheels are spinning in life because you're trying to drive the car with your own power. Maybe you're not getting anywhere because your power from living is coming from something you think you need to do, or something you think you need to be, or something you think you need to say, or a position you think you need to hold. When in reality, the only power for living you need, and that is sufficient, is the power of Almighty God in you. You have it. Don't miss it. You have the power to do the things you've been called to do. You have the power to build the things God has called you to build. Those dreams in your brain, those visions in your brain, those thoughts about good things that you wish you could see, that you never think you can do. You already have the power. Look at somebody, tell them, you've got the power. You've got the power. I got the power. I can't sing that high. Why are you living defeated? Really ask yourself, what today is making you live defeated? Because it's no match for the spirit of God that's within you. The same spirit that created creation, the same spirit that helped Jesus rise from the dead and resurrected him. That's the spirit in you. And you're gonna let your life break down because your tire went flat? You're gonna let your life break down because you only have $20 in the bank. Sometimes $20 in the bank is a good day if you've been low enough. Some people have to keep $40 in the bank because they know somebody's gonna take the $20 out without you don't know in it, without you knowing it. But y'all never happen to y'all. You know, you pull up to Burger King or Walmart and you try to buy something because you know you have $100. And then all of a sudden it's like $50 left to pay. And then you're like, why did my card only pay $50? Then you look and it's like Apple subscription, Netflix, this, that, this, that, bill, this, that. Like, oh, never mind. I'll put $50. That should not ruin your life. It's annoying, but it shouldn't ruin your life. Kids spazzing out should not ruin your life. Guess what kids do? They spazz out. The parents are like, amen. You can't. Here's a hard one. The things other people say and think about you should not keep you from living your life. There's a saying, we've all heard it and said it. They're trying to steal your power. Don't give them your power. I would say, actually, give up all your power and walk. In his power. Because you might think that whatever's coming your way you can handle because you're smart, you're intelligent, you're big and bad, you don't let people talk to you like that. You stand up for yourself, you have a good, you know, I'm a strong person, I've done this much. That's not going to get you very far for long. It just leads to more heartache and more pain. Leads to more problems. Leads to more issues. You're not bigger and badder than the Spirit of God. So you need to learn to live in his power. Amen. What else does the Holy Spirit give us? The Spirit gives us the power to be free. 2 Corinthians 3.17. Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Well, where is the Spirit of the Lord? If you're a believer, right here in you. So if freedom is wherever the Spirit dwells, why are you bound? And this isn't challenging you saying you're bad. This is me pointing things out for your attention. Because nothing I'm preaching is something I've arrived at. I want you to understand. I'm the most screwed up of everybody in this room, most likely. My family's like, Amen. Praise God. Let's get them to the altar. But you understand what I'm saying. The spirit in us, if we're not aware of him, we're not aware of the benefits he gives us. You should not be subject, and I know it's a struggle, but it's not too much of a struggle. You should not be subject to addictions. You should be able to break out of that. You should be not subject to temper tantrums, especially as a grown adult. You should be able to break out of that. You should not be chained by your past, by your shame, by your mistakes, by your failures, because if the Spirit of the Lord is truly in you, freedom is in you. God doesn't call us to be bound up. God doesn't call us to be burdened. That's why He freed us from the law to walk in grace. Grace is freedom. There's something, I don't care who you are, that you need to be free from. Whether it's the fear of other people or something much darker. All you've got to do is say, Holy Spirit, you promised me I'm free. What's going on? And he'll tell you. And usually the answer is, you haven't surrendered. You're still trying to control it. You're still trying to run the show. You're not free because you won't give me the key to unlock you. Many of us are in cages that we have keys that only Jesus can use to open. And the sick part is we built the cages. There's other things where other people have built the cages. There's times your parents growing up probably said things to you. I've been a pastor now for years. I've met with 70-year-olds who are still dealing with something their mom said to them when they were five. 70-year-olds who are still dealing with physical, mental, sexual abuse from when they were a child. Carrying that their whole lives, and I'm not shaming them for that. What I am saying though is you can be free today from all of that. And God wants you to. What time is it? I just realized the clock is broken. Okay, thank you. I was like, wait a minute, what's going on? So, anyway. The Holy Spirit comes in us to change us, to transform us. Did you know your personality is actually built up of defense mechanisms? How can you test that? You just say, you just, this is how. When you do something wrong, their answer is that's just how I am. That's just how I talk. That's just how I think. My whole family's like that. When we get an unteachable spirit, I I it one of the hardest things for me to deal with is an unteachable spirit. Probably because I used to have one. So sometimes you get frustrated by your own problems. But when somebody is struggling their whole life, and the answer's so simple, but they just can't learn it because their spirit isn't willing to submit and be taught. And I don't mean submit to a man, I mean submit to the Spirit of God. I don't mean submit to your preacher. I can't change you. I don't want to change you. I can't. But the Holy Spirit can. But at some point you've got to realize the way you are and the way you come off to the world is strategically designed to protect your heart. It's strategically designed to keep you safe from harm. Are you following me? So many of us are fighting God tooth and nail to stay the same miserable person we've always been. Why? Because it's comfortable. It's possible there's a man in the Bible, he's been crippled for 34 years, and Jesus comes up to him and says, Hey, you want to be healed? And he's pretty much, he doesn't say it like this, but he's pretty much like, no, they're gonna throw me in the pool later, and I'll be healed. Why? Because the man had become comfortable in his affliction. Some of us can become comfortable in our affliction. That's why people can have marriage problems, they don't get a divorce, but for the rest of their life they have separate dens, separate bedrooms, separate houses, separate. And they you're like, hey, y'all been married for 30 years and haven't slept in the same bed for 28? Why? And I don't mean because he snores or she snores, that's a different story. I understand that. Make sure you have a marriage bed, but that's a different conference. We're not teaching that with the kids. But you understand what I'm saying? When you go through these things where you make a decision and then you just stick with it and it's a bad one, and you never change it. And because it becomes comfortable to not communicate, communication now feels like the wrong thing to do. Because you've never been exposed to people who talk it out, you've never been exposed to people who don't go to bed angry, you've never been exposed to any of that. So when it comes time for that, it feels like something that's not right. Although there's a gnawing in you that is the Holy Spirit that is saying, change. You've thought this way for too long. 90% of your entire, that may even be a low percentage, 90% of your life would change if you allowed the Holy Spirit to give you the mind of Christ. If you allowed the Holy Spirit to guide and direct you without fighting him, kicking and screaming, you know, the story of we've all heard the joke, but I'm gonna tell it anyway, of the footprints in the sand where there's two sets of footprints in the sand, and one is Jesus, and one is the person walking next to him, and he's leading him, and then there's there's no footprints because that's where Jesus carried him. I always like the other version where it's like there's two sets of footprints, there's one set of footprints, and now there's a big drag mark for where Jesus had to drag him because he was trying to go the other way. Some of us, Jesus is trying to drag a. You want to know why your life's not going anywhere? Jesus has been pulling you this way for 10 years, and you for some reason still want to go that way. Isn't this a fun circus message? You have the power to change. God wants you to change. He would love for you to change. Not because he's trying to subvert your will, not because he doesn't love you, but because he loves you. He wants you to be better than you currently are. So the question's simple. Do you want peace? Isaiah 26, 3 through 4 says this. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.