These are my notes from my Sunday
morning message that I promised to post for VCC folks. References to previous
blogs will take you to that blog if you click on its title. You can also listen to the message (and a few of my other messages) by clicking here. It will open in a separate window.
Introduction:
- Standing in the midst of the smoking rubble of a completely destroyed city, having experienced rejection again and again, the prophet Jeremiah wrote a lament. In the middle of that lament, he says…
- “My soul has been deprived of peace (shalom); I have forgotten what happiness is. Then I thought: My future is lost, as well as my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and the poison. I continually remember them and have become depressed. Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! I say: The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:17-26 HCSB) Later Jeremiah says, “I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea when I said, ‘Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.’ You came near when I called you, and you said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’” (Lamentations 3:55-57)
- What we see here with Jeremiah is a “transfer of his trust” from himself and his perception of things back to the One he knew who alone could be trusted.
- We often see this transfer of trust in David’s psalms as well. Here’s one example of many: “O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him.” But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill. I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side. (Psalm 3:1-6 NIV 1984) There are many more psalms like this, of course.
- One more example from our friend, Simon Peter: During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little trust,” he said, “why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:25-31 NIV 1984)
- Each of these passages show us a person “transferring his trust.”
- Worry (fear, anxiety, etc.) is an invitation to transfer our trust from ourselves to God. We all have faith. It’s where that trust is placed, it’s where our confidence really rests that’s important, of course. Proverbs 3:5-6 comes to mind: “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Don’t trust your own understanding of things…”
- When our world is shaken to pieces, it’s natural for us to lose focus and become afraid. The fear in that moment is not sin but is instead a wonderful reminder of Papa’s invitation to transfer our trust back to Him. How do we do this? Here are a few of the most important things we can do.
o We
were created for a relationship with God, and trust is an essential part of any
relationship and is especially important in our relationship with God, of
course.
o Interestingly
enough, trust grows from our being in a relationship with someone, but it’s also
required in order for the relationship to grow. We trust as we get to know
them, but we will only get to know them if we trust at least a little!
o We
trust someone deeply because we know he/she can be trusted and because we know
they care about us. We trust God because we know He treasures us and can do
anything He wants for us because of His love for us.
o The
challenge with our trusting God is that the devil’s full-time job is to
undermine our trust by misrepresenting God. (This started with the first
temptation in the Garden when he undermined Eve’s trust in God, and this
strategy continues to this very day).
o God
is good—all the time. Anything that says otherwise: pain, tragedy, evil is not
from God but from the enemy. God when He finished creating the Universe said that it was “Very good.” There
was absolutely no evil present in the world, and that perfectly good world is
an accurate reflection of the nature and character of God. Evil did not enter
the world through God but through the rebellion of a powerful angel followed by Adam’s rebellion.
o So
even though God is Perfectly Good, the enemy tries to get us to focus us on the bad, seeking to smear God’s reputation
and undermine our trust in Him.
o So
what is God really like? He is like
Jesus and He is like what He tells us to be towards others. For more on this
see my previous blog entry entitled Why??? written on 8.30.17. You may also want to read my blog on "What is God Like?" by clicking here (it will again open in a separate window), and here for part two.
o Do
we really get this? Do we understand that God never brings evil, never intended
evil to be part of His creation, and will someday and somehow redeem all of it?
(To see how you’re doing with this, give yourself a “religion check.” If you tend
to focus on your behavior—sin management, doing the right thing so you won’t
get in trouble, etc.—you are revealing your need to get know Papa a lot better.
The Christian life is not about avoiding sin but about living to delight the
One who delights us.)
o I
trust that you can see why this is so very important! We are not likely to
trust a God who sends evil or somehow “allows” it for our good, etc. But that’s
not what God is really like! The following quote from The Shack nails it: “Mack, just because I work incredible good out
of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever
assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to
accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me.
Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you
will find grace in many facets and colors.”
o Even
Martin Luther understood that God was completely good. Many hundreds of years
ago, he wrote this remarkable thing about prayer: “Prayer is not overcoming
God’s reluctance but laying hold of God’s willingness!”
o Do
we need to stop and let Holy Spirit adjust your thinking right now? :-)
2. Refresh
your understanding of who He really is. How?
o
Remember
His Fingerprints on your life.
§ Thanksgiving/Gratitude are
wonderfully helpful in helping us transfer our trust back to Papa.
§ That’s why Paul includes “thanksgiving”
in Philippians 4:6: "When your anxiety detector lets you know that you are
indeed anxious and filled with worry, make your concerns known to God, with all
kinds of praying sprinkled liberally with thanksgiving for all the amazing
things God has already done to reveal His love and faithfulness." (TW
paraphrase)
§ I have a blog entry on this, too,
entitled Worrying About Worry posted
on Sept. 23, 2009.
o
Remember
His Word.
§ God’s Word reminds us of His
absolute trustworthiness. As Pastor Tony has been reminding us, it’s good to
ask God for specific promises when we are struggling to trust Him.
§ But remember that for God’s word
to have power in your life, it has to be seen and experienced in the context of
your intimate relationship with Him.
§ Scripture speaks to me in the time
of testing because of my relationship with Him, not to cause me to have a
better relationship with Him. In other words, because I know Him so well, His
words mean everything to me!
§ God’s word doesn’t create faith in
you as much as it reminds you that He is trustworthy and has given many, many
promises that you can count on because He is the Promise-Keeper!
§ If you trust Him, you will trust
His word (and that leads to even more trust).
o
Remember
His kindness and faithfulness to and through others.
§ Have you already found yourself
being renewed by the amazing Harvey stories about people helping people? I
have! And I see God’s hand in it all!
§ Philippians 4:8-9 comes to mind
where Paul encourages us to intentionally focus our minds on good, true lovely
things. You see, it doesn’t “feed my faith” to look at bad news, etc. I don’t
mean we ignore things completely, but rather we can make good decisions about
what we focus on. I don’t need to know everything about bad things—that puts
the emphasis upon me and my need to understand (Proverbs 3:5-6 again). But I do
need to refresh my mind often by thinking about the good I see in others and in
what others are doing.
§ We all “meditate” don’t we? It’s
probably best to meditate on what God is like, what He’s doing, His word, what
His people are doing, etc., instead of what the enemy is doing (worry is simply
meditating on the wrong subject! Kris Vallotton: “Expecting something bad to
happen is coming into agreement with the wrong Kingdom.”
§ You see, in order to trust Papa I
need to be able to hear what He is saying (all the time), and it’s much easier
to hear Him if I am meditating on good stories that reflect God’s goodness,
love and power.
3. Surrender
your need to understand everything!
o Proverbs
3:5-6 eliminates our asking “Why,” doesn’t it? (Think about it--asking "why" comes from a desire to trust our understanding!)
o God
rarely answers the “Why” question because He translates “Why” into what you are
really saying: “Papa, I’m afraid,” and because we almost certainly wouldn’t
understand His answer to “Why” anyway.
o Instead
of telling us why, God’s answer is almost always, “I am with you” or “I will be
with you.”
o Which
would you rather have: answers to your questions or God’s Presence? Yes, sometimes He will indeed
show us some reasons for things, but most of the time He knows that what we
need most is not one more answer but rather His Presence and power at work in
our lives.
o Remember,
too, that biblical faith (trust) always includes a longer view—one that
stretches into eternity (which we definitely can’t understand at present!).
Read Hebrews 11:13-16 and you will get a glimpse of what I mean by this. The
bottom line is that a lot of things in this present life won’t make sense until
we see them from Eternity’s perspective, and because of this, we gladly
surrender our need to understand things. Remember, we are encouraged not to
trust our understanding, and if we refuse to surrender our need to understand
everything, we won’t be able to “trust in the Lord with all of our heart.”
o Clinging
to the need to understand means that you are trusting you and your perception
of things, exchanging your very limited perception of things for God’s embrace.
Surrendering our need to understand everything frees us to transfer our trust
fully to the One who really does understand everything and works it all to our
good.
4. Shift your focus back
to Him and return to His embrace.
o “Faith
is the gaze of the soul upon the face of a saving God.” A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God)
o Faith
is ultimately a decision, not a feeling, a choice to look at God and not
anything else, a choice to lean upon, trust in, rely upon the Totally Trustworthy
One.
o “Whenever
I am afraid, I will choose to lean upon Him, to fully rely upon Him.” Psalm
56:3 (TW paraphrase)
5. Continually
rely on and give support to the people around you.
o We
were never meant to live the Jesus life alone. The most common word for
believers in the New Testament is “brothers/sisters,” and that means we are
family and were never meant to walk this journey alone.
o We
need the encouragement of others in order to keep our trust securely
transferred to Papa God, especially in difficult times.
o And
amazingly enough, it also strengthens us to strengthen others. How can you not
be encouraged while encouraging others with stories of God’s fingerprints, His
Word, etc.?
o I
love how the Passion Translation reminds us of this (Hebrews 10:23-25): “So now
we must cling tightly to the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always
keeps his promises! Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate
them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love.
This is not the time to neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit
of doing, because we need each other! In fact, we should come together even
more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate
that day dawning.”
Concluding Thoughts
- Remember Jeremiah? The books of Jeremiah and Lamentations contain reflections of his intimate, if bumpy at times, relationship with God. It was Jeremiah’s intimate relationship with God that enabled him to shift his focus and transfer his trust to God. And we see that this intimate relationship started with Jeremiah’s call in Jeremiah 1:8 “Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,” says the Lord. (NET)
- Does that promise sound familiar to you? It’s the same one God makes to each of His children!
- I close with a quote from an earlier blog entry I wrote about Jeremiah on February 5, 2011 (“Standing in the Smoking Rubble”).
Oh, Papa God! How truly amazing you are! Even as I stand in the rubble, smoke
clouding my vision, your radiant goodness gives hope. How can I not hear your
invitation to trust you and wait quietly for the goodness that is yet to
come?!!
