Trust

As a follower of Jesus for a long time a person like myself can start to think, I’ve got this whole faith thing figured out. Most of the things where I fail at, where I sin are things that would never make the news, most people would think that there’s a problem with the person whose mad at me. The kind of thing where people say, “he’s a good guy.”

Also it’s a time of blessing in my life. For the most part, many are healthy, no major financial troubles, and while work is hard things could be so much worse.

Then there comes a long a testing so hidden that it seems like no big deal. So troublesome because no one will think I am that wrong no matter how I handle it, but there is a way that Jesus calls on me to handle it. Will I go the way of Jesus or will I do what others tell me do, or what I feel like doing.

Most of you faced and are facing similar tests today. They don’t seem big but they set the stage for other big things. Big sins are almost never a slip, a trip, an instant, but a series of bad small decisions that add up to a cliff, and the last moment is all we remember so we call it a slip-up.

For me the temptation is rage. To attack someone verbally, emotionally, and take actions that will hurt them as they are hurting me. What’s weird is even if I did that most people would consider me in the right. Yet Jesus told us

Matthew 5:44 CSB

44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

and God told us,

Romans 12:17–19 CSB

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. 18 If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.

As I began my week I wondered if I will be satisfied. In one way, I might know the answer already but like most trials this isn’t just coming at me from one place in life but in multiple places. Will I allow someone to attack me, belittle me, hurt my feelings, make my life more difficult, repay the kindness that I have paid them and instead use what I gave them and give nothing in return.

I am not speaking in code for anyone here so please don’t think my sermon is some weird Facebook post where everyone is trying to figure out who the person is mad as they passive-aggressively attack one in front of everyone. That is not why I share with you.

I share with you because I think you can identify with what I am talking about. Perhaps this week it wasn’t rage or maybe it was. Maybe you’ve been raging for a long time. You keep screwing up and hurting people because inside you hurt so, so bad. You can think almost instantaneously of the shame where you totally messed someone up. You can also count of the times where your still proud of how you defeated someone.

This is it. The times we choose our own way to follow our feelings or the advice over the ways of God. So what will happen. What will happen to your relationship with God as you choose your own path in the ways of rage, defending yourself, or how about making money, doing it the way that actually gets you somewhere rather than ways of honesty, generosity, and hard work. Really, in these modern times, perhaps you and me can think quickly of the times we knew we weren’t doing the right thing when it came to how we made or how we spent money. Money, anger, can I bring up more morals, sexuality, how we have fun, how we deal with people not like us.

It won’t take me long for most of us to realize we mess up. A lot.

So what is God going to do with what you did last week? How is God going to treat you after you treated others the way that you? Will God even speak to you with the things you’ve done with others when you knew what He desires for you? With all this bad you know you did right now, do you ever deserve a blessing from God today? Shouldn’t you be hurt in the way you hurt God? Don’t you think you should get off your butt and start doing a lot, a lot of good things to make God proud of you again?

My friends if you are going to start doing good right now, start being generous right now, stop doing all the bad stuff you can think of right now so God won’t hate you or hurt you, I want to tell you

STOP. God Loves You. If you trust him, than He Died For Your Sin. Your Forgiven. You Can Live with Jesus!

This is the whole point about the stuff from the Bible I want to share with you today. It has some technical language and an ancient way of thinking about things that can be hard to understand but it is vital to understand it. Because too many people call themselves followers of Jesus and they live deathly afraid that they are actually too bad to be loved by God, too stupid to be changed, too messed up for God to ever want to do anything for them. That’s not true and in the book of Galatians, a letter written to a church thinking they had to be all about following rules from God, we learn about what God really thinks about the type of thinking where you are good with God if you behave and awful if you don’t.

GOD LOVES YOU. He is worthy of your trust

Take this to the bank. I will show you in just a second where this in the Bible. Before I do I want to give you an example of what is meant by this. You see I could have raged this week. I have in the past. In fact, this week as I thought about how I would act, and at times I might have crossed the line into gossip as I tried to get advice, I thought about all the ways I hurt others and myself as I sought to defend myself and make people understand how much they were hurting me. How often I went into arguments, hurt feelings and other things. I wondered how this had affected my life and my relationships, what blessings God wants to show me if I will trust him. If I will agree that his ways, loving others, treating them how I want to be treated without regard for how they treat me, will work out.

John 3:16–17 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God, gave us Jesus, He is God in the flesh. Both man and God. He was born, lived, died for our sins. If you believe in Him you will not face eternal death but eternal life. This is not a punishment but a rescue and it isn’t just for our end but Jesus is also for our now.

Belief is faith. Faith is Trust. Trust is what you do with things when you know they work, they are true, they are right. We trust that turning on the AC, if it is working will make us cooler and not kill us. We trust that our seats will hold are buddies thus we sit in them without putting the weight on our legs. We have faith in our seats. Would I have the faith not only that Jesus died for me but that I can love others as He has called me to do? Can we trust that Jesus loves us and his death can cover our sins so we don’t have to earn his love only trust Him

This was the problem for the church in Galatia.

The law, the restrictions of life, which include the Ten Commandments, among other regulations and teachings, is the way defines what God expects. Break the law and there is a cost to be paid. Nothing gets made right again. We see that in our legal system today. A person can pay the price but then it doesn’t fix anything. Restitution can’t make hearts right. Rules, Laws, are not how we get made right with God because we are horrible at keeping the law. We broke it, We needed a savior! God loves us so much, that as I said earlier, He became that savior for us. In Him, we learn that we are completely powerless to save ourselves but He saved us.

So then why do we have God’s laws in the first place.

Galatians 3:19–26 (NLT)

19 Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins.

The promise, this verse is referring to is the one given to Abraham, centuries before the law was given, in which God told Abraham

that he would make out of him a great nation and bless Abraham and make his name great so that he will be a blessing, to bless those who bless him and curse him who curses him and all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abraham. His descendants all the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. To make Abraham the father of many nations and of many descendants.

This last part of the covenant is especially fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Most of us do not come from Jewish ancestry. We are not part of God’s people but through trust in Jesus Christ, that He is who says He is and that His ways are now our wyas we are brought into the family of Abraham.

Now even in the time of the covenant God made with Abraham people knew that there was sin, that there was wrong. Murder happened. Rape happened. People knew this was wrong. It takes just seconds hanging out with little kids as I do all the time to see there are a whole lot of things that are wrong, and then, just get a tattle-telling 1st grader in your life and you will learn that there are a whole lot of things that aren’t wrong. They are just different. Now please stop tattling and go back and play.

Yet the law defines what is pure. What is holy. How the Jews were to worship and sacrifice. And so much more. But it isn’t the promise fulfilled in Jesus.

But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised.

The child is Jesus. God became one of us. Man and God. It’s a big deal we have a whole light show about it in a couple of weeks.

God gave his law through angels to Moses, who was the mediator between God and the people. 20 Now a mediator is helpful if more than one party must reach an agreement. But God, who is one, did not use a mediator when he gave his promise to Abraham.

A mediator is a go-between. The person at the front desk before you talk to the manager. The property manager is the mediator for the home owner.

For those who don’t know and haven’t seen the movie, Ten Commandments, God with angels, gave Moses the 10 commandments and told Moses the other laws, and then Moses revealed the laws to the Jewish people. Technically at that time they were called Hebrews, but that’s getting too technical. Yet when God gave Abraham his promise, the one that foretold Jesus, no mediator. It was a conversation between Abraham and God.

My friends for anyone who has ever had a better relationship with their owner of the store than their manager. You know it is better to have an agreement with no mediator!

But do understand, there is value to the owner in the manager they hired. There is value in God’s laws for God too. It just can’t make us right.

21 Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. 22 But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ.

Please remember that fact. We receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. And what is believing? It is full trust, trust that results in action.

If you believe in that chair you will sit on it properly. If you do not believe in that chair you won’t sit in it or you will sit improperly.

If you believe in a person to give you a ride, you know that you can count on them. You will do nothing but wait for them to be at your door at the appointed time. If you do not believe, than you will call them repeatedly, you will help them set multiple alarms, you will make sure you have a backup uber, because you do not have faith in them to follow through.

If you believe in Jesus, if you trust Him, if you count on what He did, and you count on him to be Lord of your life than you will follow him in everything and in that THERE IS FREEDOM!!

Without Jesus, all we have are the signs of the law. We have the do nots and the do this.

23 Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed.

24 Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. 25 And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.

Let me get nerdy with you, because this might be something you can share with others to seem all smart. It also might help you understand why some people make the mistake of believing that following Jesus is all about rules and not about trust.

This part of the Bible was not written in English but Greek and it was written over 2000 years ago and some things have changed since then. Specifically now we have school bus drivers which is what this verse in the Bible is talking about.

Interested?

Guardian. It is the best the translators could do with the greek word. (PAY-da-ga-GOS) which is a kind of person in Paul’s day 2,000 years ago who would usually be a slave in a family who would take care of a child by making sure they were able to walk to there school ok not get into trouble or get hurt. They might watch the child during the day like a baby sitter. Slap the kids hand from sticking it in a light socket. Wait, nope that part never happened, no light socket. But they definitely would prevent them from hurting themselves in whatever ancient way they could. They would make sure the child carried out the parents wishes. They weren’t teachers. They weren’t nurses. They weren’t even as cool as our guardians today or even our bus drivers. They were an adult set of eyes, ears, hands to make sure the child was ok and followed the rules of the parents. They weren’t as cool as teachers who could give new wisdom, or as amazing as parents to a child.

That is the metaphor of what the law. It is a guide until we could to the promise of Jesus

Galatians 3:25–26 NLT

25 And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. 26 For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

I trust Jesus. I trusted Jesus with my rage this week. God carried me through, His ways allowed me to be supported by people I didn’t know had my back. His ways of laying down my life for others allowed me to say the kind words that soothed a relationship and restored it too health. I didn’t think it was possible but it is happening.

It wasn’t a rule that made that happen. I really didn’t know what to say. Conversations and relationships are constantly changing. It wasn’t even prayer alone that made that happen. In my prayers I told God I knew I was to love others, I asked God to show me His ways in this situation. God reminded me of his scripture that we are to love others as we love ourselves, what is not part of that verse but is implied, we are to love others as we love ourselves and not love them back in the way that they treat us. Yet I still didn’t know exactly what I was going to say or do. But I knew I could trust Jesus. His Holy Spirit gave me the words at the exact right time, just as Jesus said He would. For God is trustworthy and true.

Have you trusted Jesus with your whole life like you trust that chair with your weight?

Have you trusted Jesus with your life but forgot to trust him with the issues your dealing with right now?

Do you trust your own anger, your own smarts, your own feelings more than Jesus to get you through?

Today, Trust in Jesus!

Have you ever been in a cave, like a deep cave that you had to pay to go into. I have, in the cave there are paths that have railings, and lights. The stuff that everyone who pays to go into the cave gets to see. You can walk it if you just follow the posted signs.

But there is a better way to go into the cave, with a guide. A guide who will light the way, point out the coolest features, prevent you from dying. Yeah, caves can be places of death. There can be caves with no oxygen and a person can die without ever knowing why. Yet if you trust your guide than there is nothing to fear, there is freedom and fun in the journey.

The law are posted signs and railings. Jesus is our trustworthy guide, but even more He is our God!

Commit to trusting in Jesus!

He will guide you into all right things. He is our Savior and our God! He is worthy of praise!