Trusting the Lord when our understanding Fails

This is now our fourth sermon in the book of Proverbs, and in this lecture that the wise Father gives to His son, we have probably the most famous verses in the entire book of Proverbs…Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understand.

What appropriate words for us to hear as a church this morning! That this would be the passage, on this day, again is evidence of God’s grace and love towards us!

Life so often makes no sense! Things happen that we don’t understand, that we can’t work out, that doesn’t seem to fit! And it’s not that we mustn’t try to think these things through, God has given us minds and expects us to use them! But the joy of wisdom is found, not in our intellectual efforts to understand, but rather in our total surrender to the Lord in all things!

If you’ve ever seen those giant inflatable cushions, that you can climb up onto a frame of some sort (like at jump box or we are vertigo), and then jump off! You’re not in control, you can’t stop yourself falling, but you’re trusting completely that the inflatable cushion is going to break your fall, it will save you!

That’s a similar idea here. A lying face down in complete surrender to God! When we don’t understand, when we can’t get it straight in our heads, not being arrogant and thinking, ‘because I don’t get this I won’t accept it!’ But rather throwing ourselves upon the Lord, the One who is the great I AM, and saying, even at times through tears, ‘I don’t get this, but I trust you, because it’s you!!’

This morning I want to take just a little time to answer 2 questions?

In What soil does this trust grow? (v.1-4)

In Keeping His Word

If someone came up to you tomorrow in school or at work, and they said to you, ‘I’m going to do something that you will not understand, but you must trust me’ and then they handed you a package and ran off! I’m sure there would be countless things going through your head! ‘What’s in this package? Why did they give it to me? Why did they run off? Why should I trust them?!!’ Now just to be clear, if this were to ever happen in an airport, then you reject the package!!!

As you stand and think through the situation, there will be one question that governs everything else. Who is the person, and do I trust them?!

God calls us to this wholehearted trust, but He expects us to trust Him, because He’s already shown us who He is and what He’s like! As this wise father counsels his son, and in that the King of Israel counsel’s God’s chosen people, so we too, hear the loving direction of God! Do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.

The teaching here is mainly the teachings of these proverbs, but again we can rightly extend that to all of God’s Word! But how easy it is to forget! I think for many of us, myself especially, we are naturally forgetful people! It takes effort to remember!

Have you ever had that frustrating experience where you spend time reading God’s Word, and really enjoy that time. Then hours later you’re asked what you read, and it’s gone, or at least takes real effort to retrieve it from those dark caves of forgetfulness!!

The opposite to forgetting here is let your heart keep. Remember for this son and for the majority of Israel the words of God were learnt by heart. They didn’t have they’re own bibles, kids Bibles, study bibles, pink bibles, electronic bibles! They memorized these words. And then they sought by God’s grace to keep them, to walk in them.

The more we remember, the more we keep His Words, the more we see who He is, what He’s like, what His character is! And as we walk in accordance with these things, we see the good of it! For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. God shows Himself to be trustworthy, He shows Himself to be true and faithful! As we see who He is in His Word, and walk in His ways it brings us wholeness, peace!

Now that’s not to say everything goes smoothly, that we don’t have problems and troubles and issues! We would have no need to trust Him if we didn’t! Our understanding would be enough! But as we walk in His ways, we see that it’s best for us! And we learn to trust Him! We know we can believe Him in what He says!

We

Our ability to trust God when our understanding fails, when things do not turn out the way we thought they should, will be directly related to how much we’re exposed and clinging to His Word! Do you see the God of the Bible, do you see His character as you read? And do you see the evidence of how what He says makes sense! He can be trusted!

In Embracing His Love

One of the clearest truths we see about God in His Word, is that He loves His people! Do you remember as Moses goes up Mt Sinai to get the law of God (for the second time)! And Moses asks to see God’s glory...

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ()

The very giving of this law is evidence of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness! God had chosen these people, not because they were good, not because they were powerful, not because they were significant, but because He loved them! ...For you are a people holy (set apart)to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, ()

For those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, God’s steadfast love, and faithfulness is ours for all eternity!! He has entered a covenant (an agreement) with us that He will not break! But we must not forsake it! We must not be neglectful of it. It’s easy to go through a whole day and not once remind yourself that God’s love for us is immovable, and in every situation He is faithful! But when we are neglectful of that truth, it becomes very difficult to trust Him with all our hearts!

This truth we’re to bind around our neck, write on the tablet of our hearts! This is to be our meditation! This is to be ever before us! It’s interesting again the link here to the commandments, with the use of tablet. The 2 things are inseparable! Knowing God’s love, and keeping His commands go hand in hand! Now it’s not that we keep His commands to earn His love, He loves us, because He loves us! But to enjoy that love, to prove that love in our lives, we walk in His ways!

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And the more we embrace this love of God, the more then we are able to walk in that love and faithfulness towards others! We love because He first loved us! When we’re confident that God’s love for us will not and cannot change, we’re free and secure to offer love and faithfulness to others, even if at times that doesn’t turn out the way we planned!

You think of that person in school, in the office, next door, that you really struggle with. That maybe makes you feel small and silly! And you really just try to avoid. Yet when we are resting in the truth that God loves us, will always love us, and will always be faithful in every situation, we can go to that person and seek to love them, seek to serve them, even if they’re not nice in return!

When we walk in light of God’s love, then we find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. That doesn’t mean everything goes smoothly, it doesn’t mean that everyone like us! But God sees, and others see, and God will honour those who honour Him. And we trust Him to do that in whatever way He sees best!

If you’re Christian this morning, do you believe that God loves you, and will always be faithful to you?! Do you believe that as the Lord said through Jeremiah, so He says to you in Christ, And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. ()

Don’t forsake that love! Keep it close to you, think on it, remind yourself daily of it! If even for a second when trouble comes you doubt it go to the cross...For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ()

When we know He loves us, we are able to trust Him even when it things make no sense! That’s the soil in which his type of trust can grow! There’s a lovely parallel to this in as Jesus speaks of the vine and the branches. ...Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ()

What will this trust look like? (v.6-12)

How can we tell if this is the kind of trust we’re walking in before the Lord? Well, to trust Him with all our heart, means we acknowledge him in all our ways. In a sense it’s easy to acknowledge God in the big things that we have no control over, but it’s a harder thing to acknowledge Him in the smaller issues, the things that we feel like we can control, we can manage and work out ourselves.

And often times it’s when those things don’t go the way we plan, it can reveal our hearts!

You sit down at the table to eat dinner, and just as you’re about to take the first bite, a little one says ‘I need the toilet’. You go out of your way to help someone else, and then they fail to even say as much as thank you. You wake up in the morning and realise you’re alarm hasn’t gone off and you’re now late and in a panic! You tried to get your homework done but didn’t realise there was a whole subject you’d missed!

Trusting in the Lord with all of your heart means acknowledging Him in all of your ways, the big the small, the significant, the seemingly trivial!

It also means walking in humility! v.7…

Proverbs has much to say about this! It is so tempting to be wise in our own eyes. To think we’re always right! I can be guilty of this way too often! We think we know best, we think we understand the situation properly! And the end result is we can be arrogant and proud!

Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him… ()

But trusting in the Lord with all your heart will lead to walking in humility! Because above all our desire is to fear the Lord and turn from evil! Above having to be right, above having to have our own way! We will acknowledge that He alone knows all things, and at any moment and in every situation, we can fail to see, think, understand clearly!

And the reward of this humility is beautiful here, v.8… How much stress, how much anxiety, how much tension is caused by our pride?! Caring about what people think of us, obsessing over whether we said something in the wrong way, being toppled by someone disagreeing with us!

Oh to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, and walk in humility, believing that He is able to work out the things that we can’t, we don’t need to have all the answers, we don’t need to try and be god!

As we finish there are 2 areas that this trust I think can be seen most clearly, and that in our wealth, and in our understanding of discipline!

v.9-12...

Let me just leave you with 2 questions to ponder in the week ahead...

How do I use my money? Does it demonstrate that I trust the Lord with all my heart, is my main goal to use it to honour Him! Or if I’m really honest, does it actually reveal that my hope lies elsewhere, that my main goal is to use it to honour me?! . And that’s maybe a question it would be good to think through with others also. It’s easy to be deceived into thinking money holds no power over us, but when we dig deeply it holds more than we think!

And the second question is, when we face hardship, when we endure suffering, when God brings things into our lives to refine us. How do we react to them? Do we despise it, do we resent Him? Do we think something’s gone wrong and stop following? Or do we trust Him, do we see it as evidence of His love for us, Do we believe that it’s great evidence of His delight in us?

Life so often makes no sense, if you haven’t experienced that yet, you will! If you lean on your own understanding it will fail you. But in the Lord there is One we can trust with all our hearts! And He will never fail us!!

Surely there was no act in all of history that made less sense to the human mind than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ! An innocent man, a work of miracles, a teacher with authority, one who was without sin, the very Son of God!! And yet, as our understanding fails us, God is at work, bringing about the greatest act of rescue the world has ever known!! If you’re here this morning and you still haven’t made that jump, surrendering yourself to Him wholly. Today He calls you to come, trust Him, and He will never fail you.