Trust God; Don't Try to Fake It
Luke 12:1-12
Introduction: Our text is Luke 12:1-12. Generally the chapter is about trusting God instead of the things of this life. That includes getting your priorities straight. This kind of trust must be real, you can’t fake it, and must be based on respect.
In May 1995, Randy Reid, a thirty-four-year-old construction worker, was welding on top of a nearly completed water tower outside Chicago. He unhooked his safety gear to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and bumped the scaffolding on which he stood. The scaffolding tipped, and Reid lost his balance. He fell 110 feet, landing face down on a pile of dirt, just missing rocks and construction debris.
A fellow worker called 911. When paramedics arrived, they found Reid conscious, moving, and complaining of a sore back.
Apparently the fall didn't cost Reid his sense of humor. As paramedics carried him on a backboard to the ambulance, Reid had one request: "Don't drop me." (Doctors later said Reid came away from the accident with just a bruised lung.)
Sometimes we resemble that construction worker. God protects us from harm in a 110-foot fall, but we're still nervous about three-foot heights. The God who saved us from hell and death can protect us from the smaller dangers we face this week.
—Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois
I. Some who don’t really trust God try to fake it vs. 1-3
A. Hypocrisy
1. Playacting. Hypocrisy does not mean sinning, making a mistake, or even being inconsistent; it refers to acting like you are something that you are not.
2. “Somebody who tries to appear more spiritual than he or she really is.” Wiersbe
3. The basis of hypocrisy is insincerity. God would rather have a blunt,
honest sinner, than someone who puts on an act of goodness. Barclay
4. Yeast / leaven - indicates evil everywhere in NT except parable of leaven - Matthew 13 & Luke 13
B. Hypocrites will be found out vs. 2-3
1. The art of being a hypocrite depends on the ability to keep some things concealed. Leon Morris
2. Liars have to have perfect memories; they forget what they said and are found out.
3. I don’t believe this is talking about Judgment, but it certainly could apply to that
4. This section is not talking about secrets that are nobody’s business but your own; it is talking about being found out when you are faking your spirituality / faith.
II. Trust God means to fear Him vs. 4-7
A. What does fear mean?
{1. fobew
a. Put to flight, terrify, frighten
b. Fill with awe, respect, reverence, worship
2. yir-ah
a. Fear
b. Reverence
3. It is not a trembling dread that paralyzes action, but neither is it a polite reverence. Expositor’s Bible Commentary
4. Should we be scared of God? Luke 12:4-5
5. God can strike you dead; burn your house; kill your spouse; get you fired from your job; send you to hell.
6. We don’t usually emphasize these qualities of God, but they are just as real as His love, mercy, & grace Romans 11:22
7. If you don’t smell the smoke and feel the heat of Hell, maybe that is why you are not motivated to do God’s will. } From old Proverbs sermon: The Fear of the Lord
8. It is an attitude compounded of a recognition of the greatness and the righteousness of God on the one hand and our readiness to sin on the other. Fear of this kind guards against presumption Morris
B. “Fear” used 5 times
1. Don’t fear people vs. 4
a. It can lead you to act like a hypocrite
b. They can’t do your real damage
2. Fear God - three times
3. But don’t fear because God considers you valuable vs. 7
a. You are more valuable than a sparrow
b. Even though God knows everything about you (physical things about your body that even you don’t know - # of hairs), He still considers you valuable
C. Fear and trust are usually opposites, but here they mean the same
III. We learn how to trust God by trusting the Son and the Spirit vs. 8-12
A. Acknowledge / confess Jesus vs. 8-9
1. To recognize and act on the reality of something
2. Confess Jesus’ identity with its implications for one’s life Ash
3. Requires trust to make that kind of confession
a. To rely or depend on; have confidence in
b. If we can depend on Jesus to forgive our sins, we can depend on God to keep His promises
c. Jesus is not only Savior, he is also Lord
B. Holy Spirit must be trusted
1. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit
a. One could reject Jesus during his personal ministry and still accept him by accepting Spirit inspired preaching. But reject the latter and there would be no further overture from God regarding the manner of revelation. Ash
b. We must understand this, not of the uttering of any form of words, but of the set of the life. This blasphemy is so serious because it concerns the whole man, not a few words spoken on any one occasion. Morris
c. To understand this we must remember that Jesus was talking about
the Holy Spirit as the Jews understood that conception, not in the full Christian sense, about which his audience at that time obviously knew nothing.
To a Jew, God's Spirit had two great functions. Through the Spirit he told his truth to men, and it was by the action of the Spirit in a man's mind and heart that he could recognize and grasp God's truth.
Now, if a man for long enough refuses to use a faculty he will lose it. If we refuse to use any part of the body long enough it atrophies.
Just so we can lose the faculty of recognizing God. By repeatedly refusing God's word, by repeatedly taking our own way, by repeatedly shutting our eyes to God and closing our ears to him, we can come to a stage when we do not recognize him when we see him, when to us evil becomes good and good becomes evil. That is what happened to the scribes and Pharisees. They had so blinded and deafened themselves to God that when he came they called him the devil.
Why is that the unforgivable sin? Because in such a state repentance is impossible. If a man does not even realize that he is sinning, if goodness no longer makes any appeal to him, he cannot repent. God has not shut him out; by his repeated refusals he has shut himself out. Barclay
2. Rejection is the opposite of trust
3. Holy Spirit will help you know what to say when you are defending the faith vs. 11-12
Conclusion: If you are going to be a Christian, it must be something that is real. It involves developing the kind of association, connection, or relationship with the Father, Son, & Spirit where you properly fear them, yet you trust them to keep the promises they have made concerning you.
Wichita, KS. Central. June 6, 1999. PM.
Stewartville Church. WCD. Guyana. October 21, 2001. Revised