Sunday Sermon

Out pastor has been out ill and I was asked to give the sermon at our church today.  It was more of a talk, which started out with this video.

From there, I read 1 Kings 19: 1-15 as the Scripture verse, and you can read it here.

Here is the message:

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Today’s Scripture reading is from 1 Kings 19 1-15

Lent is a time for introspection; a time for us to take a look at where we’re at in our Christian walk and to compare that to where we should be.  In keeping with that, today we’re going to talk about trusting and obeying God. 

I’m not giving the message today from the pulpit.  I’m not preaching TO you.  I’m talking  WITH about this as one of you.  I struggle with trusting God sometimes.  I’m not as obedient as I should be.  I’m working on it.

The idea for today’s message came to me as I was driving down the road and is pretty much in response to a question God asked me.  That’s kind of an audacious statement, I know, but it’s true nonetheless.   Here’s the story:  A man on the radio posed the question:  If you died tonight, you would wind up in H_____.  My response was:  “I KNOW I’m going to Heaven.”    The question posed to me in reply to that statement was this:  “If you trust Me about this (going to heaven when I die), why don’t you trust me about….?”

“Yeah, Why don’t I trust You for that? “  was my reply.  It’s an answer I’m working on. 

If you reach into your purse or pocket and find some spare cash, upon a quick examination you’d find these words:  “IN GOD WE TRUST”

It’s a statement of fact.  But change that statement to a question, and it kind of more reflects where we, as a people, are.  We live in a secular society, where pretty much anything goes these days, and yet there are those words on our money and on our license plates.  IN GOD WE TRUST.

Really?  For what?

I asked the guys at the Rescue Mission this question on Wednesday morning.  The consensus was, that as a people, Americans do everything but trust God.  Individuals, though, do.  And when I asked them what we could trust God for, they said things like “salvation”, “grace”, “forgiveness of sin”.

When I asked if we could trust God to help us find our car keys though, well, that didn’t illicit the same response.  Seems it’s OK to trust God for the big things, but when it comes to the everyday of our lives, well.....we either feel it’s something we ought to take care of ourselves or we don’t want to bother God, who is busy running His creation, with something small.

We just heard an impressive message from Doctor S.M. Lockridge about our Lord…Our King.  I played this for you, not for the entertainment value, but for the powerful words Dr. Lockridge spoke about our Savior.  We trust His finished work on the cross for our salvation.  In that, He’s our “all-sufficient Savior”.  We trust that death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him.  But when it comes to running our own lives? 

I had originally planned on using Jeremiah 29:11 which says, “ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” as the Scripture reading today, but when I came across the story of Elijah in 1 Kings earlier this week, I thought it made a better point about trusting God.  Elijah had just called down fire from heaven and had the priests of Baal killed by the sword.  And the minute he hears Jezebel has threatened his life, he takes off running.   He believed God could come down and consume a soaking wet sacrifice with fire but couldn’t trust that same God to protect his own life.    Hey, it happens to all of us.  So what was God’s response?  He calmed Elijah, fed him, and set him on a journey.  At the end of 40 days, he showed up and then told Elijah what to do., which by the way was to go back the way he came.

God has plans for us.  Do we trust them?  Or do we trust ourselves when we get tired of waiting on God?  Sometimes that wait is crucial for God’s plan, but when you’re in the waiting room, it’s easy to lose focus.  We get wrapped up in wanting things right now, as Steve talked about last week.  We’re so used to instant that waiting, well, it’s not something we’re very good at these days.  It’s also hard to trust God when it looks like your life is a train coming off the tracks.  It’s hard sometimes to see, let alone understand what God is doing in the midst of tragedy or strife.  It’s easy to doubt that it all fits into God’s plan.  Let alone that it’s working for our good as Romans 8:28-29 tells us.  Sometimes we think we can handle it ourselves.  Run our own lives better than God.

There’s going too far in trusting Gog, though, and I’m sure by now you’ve all heard of the story of the guy in the flood who didn’t get into the rowboat, didn’t get into the speed boat, didn’t get into the coast guard helicopter and drown on the roof while he was waiting for God to rescue him from the flood.  God’s reply was:  I sent the rowboat, the speed boat, and the helicopter…..

While always good to pray for healing, it’s good to remember that God has raised up medical professionals.  They don’t take God’s place in the process, but sometimes He uses them as His healing hands.  God gives us wisdom if we ask for it, and there are times when trusting God involves asking for His wisdom, along with the godly counsel of other mature believers. 

Doubts happen.  The Bible talks about it.  Thomas is the textbook story and in John 20, we read the account of doubting Thomas.  Thomas’ doubts were on such a grand scale that through the ages, someone who is a skeptic who won’t believe things until he or she sees them is called a “doubting Thomas”.  But a week after Thomas expressions of doubt, Jesus showed up and well, Thomas response is nothing short of epic:  “My Lord and My God”. 

Jesus’ reply is what gives us hope Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Through experience, we learn to trust God.  Often those experiences are difficult ones; a financial setback, a health scare, a job loss, or the loss of a loved one, or any number of trials.  Through them, God proves Himself trustworthy to us and our faith grows. 

When we trust God, you can bet that the enemy is going to show up.  We don’t talk a lot about the enemy, but when you’re walking in step with the Lord, you are going to experience the enemy as well.  A quick look at Ephesians chapter 6 explains this fact to the believer and why you find the admonishment to put on “the whole armor of God”.  Doubt is a weapon the enemy uses in the life of a believer.  A discouraged Christian makes the enemy happy.  And he is a powerful enemy; on our own we don’t have the strength to defeat his attacks.  If you haven’t read Ephesians 6 in a while, I hope you’ll take the time this week to do so.

The amazing thing about God’s word is that it covers just about everything in the human condition, doubt included.  The account of Thomas’ doubts helps us to understand that, along our journey, God knows there will be times of doubt.  When, though, we focus on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, those doubts just kind of seem to disappear in the shadows of the cross, which leads me back to the video I showed you this morning, and I think the answer for all of us to think about the next time we doubt:

WHAT IS THERE NOT TO TRUST?!

By now, you should see that, like the hymn we sung, trust and obey go hand in hand.  If we trust Him, we need to obey Him.  Yet, what does that look like?

Jesus pretty much spelled it out like this.  John 14:15  "If you love me, keep my commands.

Obey.  Small word.  Big meaning. 

In the video, I shared with you, it ends with these words:  That’s my King.  That’s my King. 

King?  Surrender?  What?    We’re Americans.  Those concepts are as foreign to us as other countries are.  Those are things “Other People” have and do.  We’re a free people, yet Christ calls us to surrender “all” (Remember that hymn, I surrender ALL?) But as Americans, we’re ingrained with the idea that we don’t surrender.  We’re free and we’ll fight to the death to be free, yet as Christians we serve the Master.  We serve our King.  And sometimes that obedience is tough when we’re used to doing things our own way.

We like to celebrate freedoms.  We have more choices than ever, and every day we’re faced with multiple opportunities to go our own way.  We’re inundated with stuff on TV and the radio.  We see it driving down the street and hear about things that are anything but Biblical on the radio.  Even in our politics we find opportunities to be, well, less than what Christ calls us to be. 

That whole obey thing is hard, because it means we have to let go of a bunch of stuff.  We have to love people that don’t look or smell like we do.  We have to sometimes forgive the unspeakable.  We have to love the unlovable.  We have to be less unlovable in the process.  It means we have to quit pretending God’s word doesn’t say what it does about the poor, the unfortunate, immigrants, sin, hate, lust, being unforgiving, etc…

I want to stop and ask a rhetorical question, one that I really want you to think about:  Why is it that we think the Bible is the only book we can know and understand by not reading it?

Obedience takes many forms, but starts with reading and following God’s word; by listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  Have you ever done this:  Told God what you wanted, and had Him give you that thing, which turned out to be the biggest lesson you ever learned about why that thing was the WORST thing you could have wanted?  The cool thing about y’all being part of my church family is you know me, and chances are you know something of the struggle I’m in right now.  I told God what I wanted instead of asking Him what He wanted for me.  So He gave it to me.  And it was a disaster of EPIC proportions.  When I finally got around to asking God what HE wanted, it turns out that the thing He wanted me to have was what I had and let go of.  I didn’t mean to disobey.  I just thought I knew better than God what was best for me.

Fortunately, God is a forgiving God, and once I gave in, and dare say, submitted to His will, I found out that He’s also the God of second chances.  He’s working diligently on restoring what I broke.  But that’s a story for another day

I’m not alone.  Back in the day, Israel had judges.  They decided they wanted a king like everybody else.  God told them it was a bad idea, and much like my situation, he gave them what they wanted to show them that it wasn’t what they needed.  As you look at the history of Israel’s kings, by and large, it was a mess.  Fortunately, God is the God of second, third and twentieth chances, and when we yield to His will, submit to His rule in our lives and obey his commandments, things start to turn around..

Obedience.  Jesus laid it all out for us in once sentence.  If you love me, keep my commandments.  It’s not optional.  If God is your co-pilot, you really need to switch seats.

Now.

So, how’s your walk?  It’s my prayer today for all of us that during the week, we’ll take the time to talk with God about trusting and obeying Him.  And listen to what He has to say about where He thinks we are, and where we should be.