The Pursuit of Trust

What does it mean to trust?

What impact does trust have?

Proverbs 3:1–5 NLT

My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation. Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.

Prayer: Meet us, fill us, open our ears to hear, our eyes to see and let us understand. Let my words be your words.

In the last number of weeks we have expolored three positive words: Prayer, Love and now this morning Trust.

Trust is defined by merrium-webster as the firm belief in reliablity, truth, ability or strength in someone or something.

The person or thing in which confidence is placed.

Trust can also mean confident hope.

What is something or someone in whom you put your trust?

For instance when you flop on your bed do you trust it to hold you up?

When you turn on the switch in a dark room do you trust that there will be light?

Do you have total and complete trust in that person or thing?

Have you ever been let down by a person you trust?

I believe it is safe to say that all of us have experienved yes to these questions. We may have placed confidence in someone or something and they may have let us down.

No one or no thing is perfect.

Over time we will be let down and trust is replaced with mistrust, despair, worry, doubt, anger and fear. These are perfectly acceptable responses to broken trust.

The writer of proverbs writes words and speaks to us today in a very different time and place but it is still as relevant as the day the words were penned.

Trust is a firm belief in somone or something.

Trust is where we place our confidence.

Trust is Faith and Hope

Take a listen to this passage again as I read it from the message translation:

Proverbs 3:1–5 The Message

Good friend, don’t forget all I’ve taught you; take to heart my commands. They’ll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well. Don’t lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God’s eyes and the eyes of the people. Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.

I love the part where it says take heart my commands. Don’t loose your grip. Carve their initials on your heart.

Do you remember in Deut. where Moses gives the people of Israel instruction to write God’s words on their hands and on their head.

He literally tells the people to BIND them to their wrists and BIND them to your heads to wrap them in order to help them remember.

We may see this as Osmosis maybe?

But it does not work like that so kids don’t think about putting your books under your pillow to study it does not work!

It is a constant reminder of the physical placement of God’s word.

The same image is used here in Proverbs. Tie them around your neck they to hold these things in their heart.

Trust is a matter of the heart

So it is not something that is out of order to talk about on this special day - Mother’s day.

We trust our Mother’s to a very high degree. No one defends us more than our mother hey?

Who or what we trust is the same as who or what we love.

It is the heart that gives direction to life by making the primary choices between arogant self reliance and trust.

We often seek answers from others in our lives asking for advice when looking for direction for what is next.

How can I move forward?

When we are seeking to answer the question who will I trust?

It comes in knowing that the other will help you see the right answer and will guide you in the right direction or help you to follow your heart.

Insert an illustration for the love for mom’s advice, guidance, prayer and support.

Knowing mom is praying with you on things.

The fear you have for your mother just have to give you the look and you know behave or else big trouble later! This is out of respect for her.

The heart that trusts God has a healthy fear of God and honors God and understands and knows that life can only be found in the paths that only lead straight towards God and no away.

For we are made to TRUST!

Trust is where we place our confidence

Our Text this morning tells us to trust God from the bottom of our heart and don’t try to figure out everything on our own.

We need to listen to God’s voice in everything we do and everywhere we go.

He is the one who will keep us on track.

Trust is the antidote to worry

Not because it means we will have everything we want because we trust but because trust will keep us from taking matters into our own hands.

That is to turn from God’s way, life and blessnings to grab the fruit for ourselves that we may have been given in time. If we were only to wait on Him!

God’s blessings are abundant we just sometimes need to WAIT and be PATIENT for God’s perfect timing.

Having confidence that God has our best in mind and holding on to that confidence even when things get rough because that’s life.

Good times, happy times, sad moments, no matter what we are facing God is faithful through it.

God is faithfully walking beside us waiting for us to trust.

There are moments when trust is easy. But honestly how many of us when life is going great would say we are trusting God?

We trust our own self reliance more don’t we?

How many of us when faces with worry or anxiety, when life seems to go sideways or plain upside down would say we are trusting God?

Again we tend to trust our own self reliance but it is in those moments when things are good and when things are the opposite of good that we need to put our confidence in God!

Trusting God is more a matter of yielding to the wisdom of God’s ways than expecting provision.

Trust is the solution to the self rule of independence.

As one commentator wrote by putting obedience over the concern for the goods of this world we do find God is trustworthy.

To give God the reigns means God knows what’s good for us better than we do ourselves.

This is not to say we are no longer responsible for figuring out the best course of action. But we put God’s desires at the center of our own decision making.

For we are made to Trust!

Trust = Confident Hope + Faith

Proverbs says don’t assume that you know it all - RUN to God

RUN from evil

Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life.

Confident Hope is where we are when we trust God.

Knowing with our head and our heart what is right and not always what is easy or lucrative or beneficial but trusting where God is leading.

Trusting in one who knows more than we do.

Running towards the trust that comes in knowing Christ.

Holding to the confident hope that we are not alone. That God is with us always. He is guiding, protecting and gently leading.

It is when we give up our self centered fantasy and replace it with a God centered reality that we can be said to be trusting completely.

It is putting our faith in something beyond ourselves.

It is in that moment in that sense of overwhelming confidence that living FOR God is most reasonable.

The place where we can find that confident hope.

That reminder that God is working for our good in the pages of scripture.

The Bible is filled with God’s words of encouragement, directions and gentle correction for those of us who seek to trust in God.

I love God’s word!

I love the fact that when we someone gives their heart to Christ the first thing we make sure they have is a Bible.

Do you remember that moment when God’s word was put into your hands?

When you read it and it started to sink into your heart, how powerful was that?

Throughout the pages of scripture we are reminded of God’s amazing, unconditional love for God’s people.

No matter how much God’s people messed up in scripture and they did!

God continued to love them.

And the people they continued to trust God, not always perfectly but as humans we are far from perfect and they did their best.

But the people of the Bible always came back to that place of faith and trust in God.

Friends we are made for more.

God wants more for us than we can ever begin to understand or imagine and it comes with trust!

Comeplete and total trust

24/7 356 days a year.

The difference between faith and trust

Trust goes a lot deeper than faith.

Having faith in God simply means believing in God or God’s word.

Whereas trusting in God means placning confidence in and relying on God.

With faith the emphasis is on having a strong belief in God.

With Trust the emphasis is on having complete confidence in God.

Faith is something we possess.

Trust is something we do!

Trust is faith in action!

Trust is the solution to autonomy, worry and reoccupation with holding and taking...

Trust is the way we learn how to love God.

How to love the things of this world and how to love other people.

Keeping each in its proper place and with trust complete and total trust comes PEACE!

The deep SHALOM of God.

The peace that can only come from God.

When we place our trust in Christ and truly trust, we hand over all of our insecurities, worries, doubts, fears and our failures.

All of those things that we hold on so tightly to.

Those things that are not life giving. But instead hold us back from the life God wants for us.

When we trust all of those things are replaced with peace.

We may not understand and it is highly likely we may resort back to what we know when we hold onto those things.

But if we trust, and trust what we know is true through God’s word.

We trust what has been written on our hearts God’s promises, God’s presence, and God’s unconditional love and forgiveness.

That confident hope puts all other things into perspective.

Prayer

Love

Trust

These are what we are made for.

All these things are a relationship with our creator.

Prayers are converstations where we share all our problems, worries, hopes, and dreams with God.

Trusting He hears us and has our best in mind.

Love - we were made to love and be loved. And to be in relationship with God and one another. Through the good and bad.

All of this comes back to trust.

Wholeheartedly believing in a God who knows us and loves us without condition.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart. Do not try to figure out things on your own.

Listen for God’s voice in everything you do and everywhere you go.

He is the one who will keep you on track.

Trusting in God means putting all our belief in the one who is greater than all our troubles. Holding on with hope is what the life as a believer is all about.

It does not mean life will be easy

It does not mean that there will be no troubles.

It does not mean that we will not be alone and when our trust, our confident hope and all that we are is placed in God alone. We will experience peace.

Even in the midst of Chaos.

This is what we were made for!