Sermon Tone Analysis

When its hardest to trust God

What do you think about when you hear the names Noah, Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, Peter, or Paul?

What comes to mind?

We often look at these men and others as examples of what it means to trust and follow God, but a closer examination shows some examples of exactly what not to do!

God’s love, our trust.

Trusting in God’s love can be tough.

The world can discourage us, our friends can make us doubt, for some of us, even our family might discourage us from trusting God’s love completely.

But tonight, I want to talk about what can be the most difficult time to trust in God’s love, when we have, by our own decisions, fallen from God into sin.

Let me know if this sounds familiar, you come home from church camp, and a little time passes, maybe its a couple of months, maybe its a few weeks, it could even be just a couple of hours.

But there’s going to be a moment when you look around realize your life looks nothing like you thought it would when you gathered around the fire circle with your family here at camp and thought “Lord, I want to follow you and feel this much love forever!”

I’m a firm believer that when we pass through that gate we are immediately under attack from our enemy.

The enemy is cunning and knows how powerful this camp can be in our lives.

The sooner he can make us forget everything we learned and felt here, the sooner he can start all of his tricks in our lives again.

Maybe you realize you’re fighting with your parents more and more.

Maybe you wandered back to parts of the internet that you know you shouldn’t be in.

Maybe you’re spending too much time on video games or social media and neglecting your relationship with God.

Whatever it is for you, when we get to that place from this place the enemy likes to whisper in our ear “you don’t deserve God’s love anymore...” and we think that means that God doesn’t love us anymore!

So what do we do?

How do we fight this battle when the battlefield is in our own head and hearts?

Noah

Noah

So we all know the story of Noah:

Genesis 6:5

When God’s own creation cause Him distress with their wickedness, Noah alone was righteous in the eyes of the Lord, and through Noah, by God’s grace, humanity continued.

Genesis 6:9-14

Got drunk and cu

The most important thing to remember when you fall into sin is that YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

Everyone who attempts to walk in the Lord’s narrow way fails at one point or another.

If we were capable of doing it without messing up, there would be no reason for the cross!

It’s easy to think about the main characters of our Bible stories as being examples of exactly what we should do as we try to follow God.

A lot of youth lessons especially focus on these people as relatable characters for y’all to relate to.

But what if I told you these characters are just as flawed as we are?

Let’s talk about what some of the key characters in the Bible have struggled with.

Let’s take a look at some well-recognized biblical figures who also fell into sin.

Adam

How about Adam?

Classic example of someone who was living in perfect harmony with God and ruined it with his own sin.

Genesis 2:

Genesis3:

Adam tried to hide his sin from God, but of course he could hide nothing from the Lord.

Abraham

Abraham

Had a child with his slave even though God has promised him a son.

When God promises Abraham a “great nation”, making his “name great”, and other such “blessings”, it would be clear to a person of that time that he was referring to his children, grandchildren, and future generations.

These promises confused Abraham because he and his wife Sarah were well past when people usually had children.

At first, Abraham trusts God’s promise, no matter how unlikely it seemed.

Time makes things we were once sure of seem less likely, and Abraham and his wife no longer wanted to wait for God’s timing.

Over time, they lost their trust in God’s love.

However, God’s love remained true, and God established His covenant with Abraham and promised to do the same with Issac, who would be born the next year.

Abraham let his trust in God waiver, but God came back to him and commanded him to be blameless.

Genesis 17: is the father of God’s people and an ancestor of Jesus Christ

Even as Abraham failed, God blessed him greatly, God made him blameless despite any failings he had, and made him the father of God’s people and an ancestor of Jesus Christ.

Jacob

Stole his brother’s birthright.

Genesis

Oh by the way also in the bloodline of Jesus.

Saul

David

David was a 7th son who owed everything he had to God’s love.

1 Samuel 16:

1 Samuel 17:45-47

**Ask Troy to come up.

1 Samuel 24:6-7

**Ask a small kid to come up.

Who would send this child to fight this giant?

Who would trust God to defeat Troy?

Solomon

2 Samuel 1

But David is soon corrupted by his own power...

He has 6 children by 6 different women

THEN he demanded that Michel be taken from her husband and brought to David

:15

And it doesn’t stop there!

David has Uriah killed so he can have his wife.

So the Lord used Nathan to rebuke David:

2 Samuel 11:14-

2 Samuel 12:1-

And David was convicted before the Lord, and repented.

God’s blessing remained with him and through him came Jesus.

Solomon

Peter

First of Jesus’s disciples to recognize who He is.

Matthew 16:16-18

But after he sees Jesus arrested, he doesn’t trust God’s love as much, and denies Jesus when confronted.

Matthew 26:69-75

8:15-

After Jesus is resurrected, he goes to Peter and asks him 3 times:

John 21:

Peter is redeemed before Jesus and goes on to be a leader in the early church.

Paul

Only one person in the Bible never has a crisis of faith

Jesus

Our hope through faith

Hebrews 11:1-

Conclusion

Being followers of Christ means that we have chosen to follow the narrow way, to do the extra work and make the sacrifices to live in a way that is pleasing to God.

It’s not an easy path and it is extremely easy to stumble.

WHEN we stumble, we need to know that God wants us back, immediately, fully, and just as we are.

I know it’s easy to want to “fix yourself” before you face the Lord, but that’s just like waiting until you get over your cold to go see your doctor!

God is the only one strong enough to defeat the power of sin and the enemy on our behalf.

If you know you are living in sin outside this camp, don’t wait any longer to come back to God, He’s waiting to welcome you home.