Trust

The print version of the Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 4:31-37.

            The events we read about tonight took place early in Jesus’ ministry.  He did not have a big reputation yet.  A lot of people had not heard about him, and those who had heard about him did not know a lot about him.

            And so, when Jesus did the things he did, people were amazed.  In fact, when people heard Jesus teach, we’re told, “They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.”  And when Jesus got a demon to come out of man, we’re told people said, “What words these are!  With power and authority he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!”  People were impressed.  They were more than impressed, they were astounded.  They’d never heard anyone teach the way Jesus taught, and they’d never seen anyone who could do the things Jesus could do.

            You and I, of course, are familiar with some of the things Jesus did.  Most of us know the basics of Jesus’ teaching–love God, love others, pray for your enemies, things like that.  And most of know that Jesus could cast out demons while he was on earth.  And we know other incredible things Jesus did–healing the sick, curing the lame, giving sight to the blind, even raising someone from the dead.  And of course, we know that Jesus himself was raised from the dead, appeared to the disciples, and eventually ascended back to heaven.

            Jesus had tremendous power.  And of course, Jesus was always clear about the fact that this power was not His own.  Jesus was using the power of God the Father.  Jesus said in John Chapter Five, Verse Thirty, “By myself I can do nothing.”  Jesus did what he did by the power of God.

            And of course, we know God has tremendous power.  God has so much power that He was able to create the entire universe and everything in it out of nothing.  And God has so much power that He was able to do that just by saying a word.  God did not have to work hard to create the universe and everything in it.  God did not have to exert Himself at all.  He just spoke a word, and boom, there it is.  Incredible power.

            Now, I realize, I have not told you anything you don’t already know.  In fact, you know more.  You know that God is good.  You know God loves you.  And God loves me.  And God loves everyone else.  And you know that God can work all things for good.  All of this stuff is stuff you know and have known for a long time.

            So here’s the question.  If we know God is good, and we know God loves us, and we know God has tremendous power–why are we so hesitant to trust God?  Why do we worry so much about how things are going to go?  Why do we always feel like we have to take care of everything ourselves, rather than just doing our best and trusting God to take care of things?

            Now, maybe those questions don’t apply to you.  Maybe you do trust God with everything.  Maybe you never worry about anything.  Maybe you have complete and total peace in your life, just doing your best and trusting God with the results.

            I hope you do.  If you do, that’s wonderful, because you really are living an awesome life.  But for a lot of us, it’s hard.  And a lot of us don’t do it.  Or, a lot of us are able to do it once in a while, but not very often, and not for very long.

            Why not?  And here’s the other thing:  on the rare occasions when we do trust God, when we do just do our best and trust God to take care of things, and God actually comes through for us–we’re amazed, just like the people in Capernaum were.  We’re astounded.  It’s like we’re thinking, wow, this God really does have the power He says he does.  He really does love us the way we’ve always heard.  God really is good after all.  It’s like a revelation to us.  We’re blown away by God actually being who we’ve always heard God is.

            Now, don’t get me wrong here.  I don’t think it’s a sin when we have trouble trusting God the way we should.  As I’ve said before God understands us better than we understand ourselves, because God made us.  God knows our faults and our failings better than we do.  I don’t think God’s going to send us to hell for this or anything.  

But I do think maybe God’s a little disappointed in us, that after all He’s done for us we still have trouble trusting Him.  And I also think it makes God a little bit sad.  God sees us putting ourselves through all this worry, all this anxiety, all this distress.  God sees us trying so frantically to do things by ourselves.  And God knows all this stuff we’re putting ourselves through is so unnecessary.  God knows we’d all be so much happier, so much more at peace in our lives, if we would just do our best and trust Him with the results.  And yet, we won’t do it.

And you know, that’s not really the right way to say it, either.  Because saying “we won’t do it” implies that we’ve made a conscious decision that we’re not going to trust God.  And that’s not true, at least no for most of us.  It’s not that we refuse to trust God.  It’s not even that we don’t want to trust God.  It’s just that, well, trusting God can be really hard sometimes.

Why is it hard?  I think it comes down to two very human traits:  arrogance and impatience.  

When I say arrogance, I don’t necessarily mean it the way we usually think of arrogance.  It’s not necessarily that we think we’re better than everyone else.  It might be that, but a lot of times, it’s not.  It’s that we think we know how things should go.  We think we know what’s best and what’s right.  And a lot of times, we don’t think that in a selfish way.  It’s just that, well, we convince ourselves that what we want is the best, not for ourselves, but for everyone involved.  We cannot see a possible downside for anyone.  And so, when things don’t go the way we’ve convinced ourselves that they should, we feel like, well, God’s not getting this done.  I’ve got to make it happen myself.  I’ve got to force it to happen.  This has to be what God wants, so I’ve got to do whatever I’ve got to do to bring it about.

It’s a lack of trust in God, of course.  But the point is that, at the time, we often don’t see it that way.  We’ve convinced ourselves that we’re doing what God wants us to do.  It simply does not occur to us that we’ve become arrogant about it, and that God has a different plan from our supposedly “perfect” plan.

And the other thing, of course, is our impatience.  We want God to act right now.  We don’t want to wait.  We don’t even want to wait until tomorrow, much less next year or next month or even next week.  And so, again, when God does not act when we think God should, we try to force the issue.  We try to make it happen right now.  And again, we convince ourselves that we’re doing what God wants us to do, that we need to be the ones that make things happen, rather than waiting for God’s timing.

Again, God understands all this.  I don’t think God’s mad at us for it.  But God knows that our lives would be so much better, that we’d have so much more peace in our lives, if we simply did our best and trusted Him to take care of things.

So what should we do?  Well, pray, for one thing.  And yes, I know, that’s always the pastor’s answer for everything.  But the thing is, it really is at least part of the answer for pretty much everything.  We need to ask for God’s help.  We need to ask God to help us trust Him, even when it seems to us like things are not going the way they should or that God is not acting when we think God should.  We need to ask God to help us trust in His wisdom and His timing.

But it also might help us to look through the Bible and look at all the times God used His power, and all the times He used it to help people.  From the creation of the universe to the parting of the Red Sea to Jesus’ miracles to everything in-between.  Over and over, God uses His power for the good of those who love Him.

And if that does not help, I have one more suggestion.  Think of all the times God has been there for you in your life.  Because if you really think about it, I suspect there have been several of them.  Times when you were not sure how things could possibly work out, but somehow they did.  Times when you did not think you could possibly get everything done that you needed to do, but somehow you did.  Times when you thought a relationship could not be repaired, but somehow it was.  Times when you were in trouble, and you could not see a way out, and somehow a way out appeared.  And that’s just a few examples–we could go on and on.

            When that happened, that was God using His power to help you.  Maybe you did not realize it at the time.  Maybe you’ve never thought about it that way.  But it was.  It was God using His power to help you.  If you look back at your life honestly, I suspect you can see time after time when God was there for you and helped you.  

            If God has helped you before, God will help you again.  The God of the universe, the God of Israel, the God through whom Jesus worked His miracles, will be there for you.  The God who loves you, the God who uses His power for good, will be there for you and will help you through whatever it is you need to be helped through.

            We should never take God’s power or God’s love for granted, but we should not be surprised by it, either.  Time and time again, God has shown that we can trust Him.  So lets put our worries and our fears and our anxiety aside.  Let’s do our best, put our trust in God, and be at peace.