Does God command us to trust him?

This is why the Bible actually commands us to trust and believe. Commands to trust and believe are commands to set aside experience as less reliable than the words of Christ.

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Promotion

Why We are Commanded to Trust

The goal for us today is trust God in whatever good or bad circumstance you find yourself. And I want to open this morning, not with some zinger of an illustration or any sort of word wizardry or anything like that. Let’s just read a simple verse we have probably heard many times and just ask that Spirit of God impress this on our hearts in fresh and powerful ways. What does it mean to trust in the Lord..WITH ALL YOUR HEART. In order to understand that you have to picture the heart as a vacuum. A vacuum cleaner works by exploiting nature’s aversion to having nothing when there could be something. Creating a vacuum is nothing more than creating a space where nothing exists. In nature, any time there is a void created, nature tries to fill it. The human heart works in a similar way. It’s a vacuum. It is always sucking to find something to fill it, so that it can experience that state of equilibrium and peace, or in the language of the Bible, Shalom. Peace happens when you acquire something that fills the heart void and satisfies. On a small scale we experience this when we are hungry or thirsty. That hunger or thirst is a vacuum and then we eat and fill that vacuum and are satisfied. I have four teenage boys that are literally like human food vacuums that can’t be filled. I think that’s a physics loophole that needs to be studied. Now that’s small scale. Because of course there are people who are full of great food and drink and are not satisfied. Why? Because food and drink can only satisfy a very small part of our greater need. They don’t have the qualities necessary to ultimately satisfy. We need something larger and of a different shape to fill those other needs. Spiritual vacuum is nothing more than spiritual hunger, that sense that your heart needs something very significant and you don’t have it. That vacuum is very uncomfortable. We hate that feeling. And we are always searching for things that might fill it. Maybe its career, money, sex, power, hobbies, homes, vacations, entertainment. So we are always searching. And we begin to get hints as to what this thing might be. Whatever it is that fills this vacuum, we know it can’t be something easy; otherwise everyone would have it.

So it can’t just be money, it must be lots of money.

It can’t be just a job, it has to be a really amazing job. It can’t be just marriage to any old person; it has to be marriage to the perfect person (The disney guy). Since this is not easy, the significant fulfillment we are after - we realize this - it may be months, years or even decades away. Now the heart has a little trick to avoid being perpetually miserable in this state of spiritual vacuum. Since ultimate peace almost always exists in the realm of the perpetually elusive future and wont be realized any time soon, there is a something called HOPE where TRUST something to get us from this obviously imperfect life I am leading now and the future fulfillment I hope to experience. And so we find something to trust to bridge the gap. The object of our trust becomes a surrogate placeholder for fulfillment until the reality is realized. Let’s use money as an example, since its probably the most common false trust that American’s have. All of us, to one degree or another, believe that more money will result in greater fulfillment. Since we believe it we pursue it. The more you invest in that pursuit, the more experience you have with the fruits. Soon you begin to taste the fruits - the extra home, car, boat, cabin, vacation and all the ‘worry-free living’ that goes along with being financially independent. Or maybe you don’t have any of it but you watch people around accumulate these things. With every reward that money yields, it increases your trust that money (while perhaps not absolute) is the best ultimate you know. The more you invest into this chosen direction the more established do you become in your trust of money. Note carefully how increased trust relates relates to increased peace (no vacuum in the heart). Regardless of the circumstantial insecurity, if trust is high peace is high. With enough trust in a parachute, even something as unsettling as jumping out of a airplane can be exhilarating, exciting and even relaxing! Many believe that regardless of how difficult and insecure their life is, money will save me. I am admittedly on a trajectory of death (my family is falling apart, my relationship are a mess) but I know that just around the corner, at retirement age, the kids will be gone and this golden parachute will open and rescue me from this descent into the deadly, void of meaningless existence. As long as that can be believed, the trust is high and the vacuum is low (peace).

The Disruption of Reason

Now here’s the problem. Money can’t satisfy. It can’t fill the void because it’s neither large enough nor the right shape. And because this is true, trust in money eventually will be disrupted by either reason or experience and usually both. Consider this disruption sequence where trust is disrupted by reason. Imagine in your reading you are struck by the contrast between your obvious desire to be rich and the plain words of That initial confrontation is made even more sharp by the still more plain words of This disrupts your trust in money because in both these texts, the REASON you are trusting money is shown to be very UNREASONABLE. The world is passing away, money is passing away, so we are you trusting it and yet you too are passing away; it can’t stop you from dying; contrast that to the one who does the will of the Lord abides forever. In Hebrews 13 the implication is that money will forsake you but God will never forsake you. It is not REASONABLE to trust money and it is reasonable to trust God and yet you are choosing money over God. That creates a crack in the money you have come to so faithfully trust. The personal implication is clear and painful. You realize that you are being asked to surrender your trusted, experienced direction and you are being asked to exchange it for an untrusted, unexperienced direction. You have invested so much. Very quickly you feel threatened by this. There is a sense of insecurity rising; you feel as if your world is falling apart. Everything you felt so sure would bring you happiness is being called into question. You are being asked to consider an entirely new direction. What if this direction is incorrect? You are beginning to lose trust in money but you have no experience with this suggested new trust and an incredible trust vacuum is created. Naturally, with this sort of disruption you are going to begin to feel some pretty strong emotions. As the trust vacuum opens up in the heart, feelings of discontent, insecurity, anxiety and fear rise like giant sentinels trying to hem in and resist the departure of the previously trusted object. These emotions are counteractive forces trying to restore the loss of trust by pushing that trust of money back into the heart. Fear yells at you, “What do you think you are doing? You are will be nothing without money! What’s going to protect you as you age? Without money, how are you going to live the lifestyle you dream of having?” Insecurity barks, “Don’t you dare leave. I need you to keep me safe!”

These emotions are at their height as we contemplate the implications of living differently which will permanently take us away from our ability to trust in money. If I trust Jesus and serve him rather than money, l will lose opportunity to build wealth. What about retirement? What about that golden parachute I’ve trained myself to so unquestioningly trust?

Every decision I’ve made was in service to this love which I now verbally admit is untrustworthy. But now I must back that claim with new choices that remove me from the proximity of ever harvesting fruits from this love I’ve come to believe will fulfill me. Isn’t there a way I can trust Jesus and money?

Jesus said in the sermon on the mount. You cannot serve God and money because they both want everything.

The Disruption of Tragedy

But it gets worse; tragedy hits. Consider a man who loves his career and finds fulfillment in his career and its financially lucrative. He is at peace so long as he believes that continued pursuit of this career will bring him satisfaction. Massive vacuum is created, however, when he receives word that his son was in a car accident and is now in intensive care. The trust he has in his career to bring him satisfaction vaporizes. Suddenly, everything so important at work means nothing as he looks at his son struggling for life. No amount of money can solve this problem. The more significantly the object of his trust fails him in this critical moment, the more vacuum created. Tragedy is one of the primary trust disrupters and this is why God uses it. Because it is true that no thing is trustworthy enough to ultimately fulfill; the cracks and weakness of our trusted love is revealed in tragedy. No amount of money, fame, success, beauty, intelligence can remove the sting of a dying relative. God often allows tragedy into our life to reveal the weakness of those things we so confidently insist will lead us to fulfillment. As trials clip these unhealthy attachments, we stop trusting our idol loves and turn to the only one worthy of being ultimately trusted. This theme bleeds all over the pages of the New Testament. Consider Peter’s explanation of the purpose of trials.

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Promotion

Peter is showing us the connection between trust vacuum events (a.k.a. trials) and faith in Christ. Trials create the trust vacuums that purify our faith by clipping from our hearts any unhealthy attachment we have to the world and then re-lacing those clipped chords to the person of Jesus Christ. And so when that trial hits, when that trust of money begins to fail, you concede that it is UNREASONABLE to believe that it CAPABLE of fulfilling me, the soil of your heart is ready. When you start trust God instead of money, all of the sudden, you experience peace.

Peace in God

The Sermon on the Mount illustrates this connection between peace and trust masterfully. After commanding us to not love money Jesus issues a trust command. “Do not worry about what you will eat or drink.” Positively stated, “Trust me for your food and drink and you will have peace.” Jesus say, I know you’ve always trusted money to provide you with those things, but I want you to now trust me. Here’s why that is better because you can run out of money but you can’t run out of me! If your bank account reads zero and you are trusting in money, then you worry. If your bank account reads zero and you are trusting in God, then you don’t worry, because you always have God. Now admittedly, this is going to feel strange. Setting a new direction creates a vacuum in the human heart because we lack experience in uncharted territory. The previously trusted direction has been siphoned out of the heart and now an untested, unexperienced direction is now being suggested as the fulfillment trajectory. All sorts of fears arise as the heart tries to orient itself. A new direction means a loss of many things I have grown to love; it is the forever surrender of certain beliefs which leaves me disoriented, frightened and insecure. The vacuum of the heart wants to pull back in its familiar trajectory and reestablish that sense of equilibrium. The heart, always resisting unexperienced (untrusted) directions, needs a force to resist degenerating back into old patterns of love. When we trust God he becomes for us that vacuum-resisting disposition of the heart to believe - in the absence of experience - that God’s unexperienced, counterintuitive direction is superior to our experienced, intuitive direction. It’s exactly the concept referenced in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” The most tragic thing a follower of Jesus can do according to this verse is lean on his own understanding, intuition and experience. Trust is the placement of confidence in an entirely different location. Rather than trusting our experience or reason, God says, trust me.

Now initially that might seem paradoxical. How am I supposed to trust without experience and reason? What do you mean, do not lean on my own understanding?

Is it not through my understanding that I evaluate my experience and determine what is trustworthy?

Is it not true that all trust must be established through experience?

How can we trust something with which we have no experience?

We trust chairs because we have experience sitting in them. We trust banks because we have experience with them. We either trust or don’t trust people as a result of our experiences with them. In what sense am I to not lean on my own experience/understanding?

Here’s the sense: Proverbs 3:5-6 is a call to leverage your understanding to not lean on your understanding. It’s a call to leverage your experience to not lean on your experience. In other words, given the sovereignty of God, his loving nature, his omnipotence is it really reasonable to think that your limited understanding of the world and your limited experience in the world is to be trusted over his direct command? The most reasonable, sensible things to do is chuck what you think and go with him. We exercise this Proverbs 3:5-6 type of trust any time we try and assemble a piece of furniture from IKEA. You have an entertainment center vacuum sealed into a cubic foot. Somehow this is going to orgami into what I saw on the showroom floor. In these situations, we realize we have no experience and we need to lean on the experience of the guy who designed the thing to guide us toward the solution. When assembling furniture we get in trouble when we ‘lean on our own understanding’ thinking, “Oh, I’ve done this before. I know how this goes together.” Fifteen minutes later, the horror-stricken realization sets in that you missed a critical piece and the whole thing must be disassembled! The face-palm moment when you confess that you should have leaned upon the designer rather than lean upon your own understanding. Now it might make intuitive sense to trust God who made us rather than our intuition. You’d get that right 100 times out of 100 on a test. So why is it so hard to lean upon God rather than our own understanding? Here’s the short answer. Because we believe our understanding is quite complete. Let me illustrate this.

Survivorship Bias

One of the main reasons we lean upon our own understanding rather than God, is that we believe our experience is pretty reliable and a pretty good representation of the available data. Well, it’s not and here’s why. During WWII, the Russian Air Force was losing a lot of aircraft and the engineers were tasked with making improvement to the plane’s defenses. A statistician named Abraham Wald began tracking patterns of bullet holes that penetrated on returned planes. Close examination of returning planes revealed patterns of bullet holes in certain areas. Naturally, they began armoring the planes in these areas, but it didn’t help to increase the chance of survival. Why not? The obvious reality struck them! They needed to armor the parts of the plane that weren’t damaged since damage to the undamaged area was what brought down aircraft. They never saw returning planes damaged there because a hit in that area meant the plane would never return! Deadly penetrations to the gas tanks in the wings or the engines was rarely detected because those are almost always catastrophic and hence never recorded. This has become known as the survivorship bias. The total evidence can never be seen since only the evidence of survivors is recorded. Let’s apply the survivor bias to the concept of trusting in the Lord. It’s easy to misinterpret the fulfillment data in a similar way. We look around and we say, “People with money are better off then people without.” And the available data supports this.

David in Psalm 73

Here’s the problem. David is looking at sample data set which contains only the living. When I look at the living, it appears to me that the rich are the ones that are happy. They are full of great food. They don’t suffer and worry; they have servants and luxury and appear to be always laughing and full of great joy. They are posting on Facebook from Thailand and Hawaii and driving new cars and great big houses. And look at my life?

And so we look at the experience map of the living and we say to ourselves, “Self, to possess fulfillment, I need to armor myself up with money.” We put trust in armor applied in all the wrong locations (exactly the wrong locations). That conclusion makes perfect sense if that were the entire dataset. What if we were to overlay the data set of both the living and the dead. When David enters the temple, God reveals this to him. What happened to that plane that never returned? Where did it get hit? Behold the statistical pattern was exactly reversed! God says, your armor map needs to be inverted because you’re looking at life through heavily biased eyes. Do you not see that a direct hit to the cockpit would bring him down? He appears fulfilled, but just wait till he dies (a direct hit) and you will see that his confidence was misplaced. How much data do you have that God’s way will bring some level of fulfillment? Answer: if not tested, or only lightly tested, very little. How much evidence do you have that your way will bring some level of fulfillment? Lots. It is, after all, your experience. If you just look at the evidence based on your experience, the statistics reveal that your own way, is a way that is to be trusted. But be careful with that evidence! Trusting that evidence will lead you down a trail that leads to death. The data set is horribly ridden with bias. Clearly the full data is not seen. The full data would reveal a very different picture. The dataset of our life says happiness is to be found in all the wrong places. Were you able to cleanse your experience palate of the survivorship bias, you’d see that trusting God will never disappoint. It’s the reason Hebrews chapter 11 is in our Bible’s. It’s the reason God records stories of great victories exercised in faith (Hezekiah). God resurrects those experience data points we don’t possess, and he gives them to us to bolster a trust, knowing that experience will follow if we continue in trust. Here’s the point to bold in your mind: the only way to experience a new fulfillment claim is to abandon your trusted experience and trust something you’ve never tried. This is why the Bible actually commands us to trust and believe. Commands to trust and believe are commands to set aside experience as less reliable than the words of Christ. God says to us through these trust commands, “I know you think this will make you happy based on your experience, but I want you to trust me that your experience is wrong. I know you think this will make you happy based on the way you are reasoning, but I want you to trust me that your reasoning is wrong.” Remember Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

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Promotion

What path is he referencing? The path to peace! The path to shalom. Stop searching for the path and trust that he is the path.

Application

Trust HIM that he will give you what you NEED. Trust is rooted in need. Trust admits need. Consider even an act as simple as sitting in a chair. The legs are fatigued from walking many miles; the body admits need for rest and trusts in a simple chair to provide that needed rest. The concept scales to a man who admits his need for purpose and trust that a career will give it to him. A woman admits her need for relational intimacy and trusts that marriage and family will give it to her. Trust is a person’s vote of confidence in a power to meet a need. Faith is belief that the power exists. Trust is putting your confidence and hope in that believed source. This is why the Bible says consistently that without faith (trust) it is impossible to please God. The fundamental posture of anyone who receives Christ is the posture of need. Lord, I need you and I trust in your sacrifice to meet that need.

Here’s the application. You have a need for happiness and everyone admits it. Where are you really searching for happiness? What are the what if’s of your life?

If only this….then I’d be happy.

If only I was married

If only I had married differently

If only I had kids

If only I had no kids

If only my father hadn’t been so cruel to me.

If only I didn’t have to live in the shadow of my brother.

If only I could finish school and get on with my career.

If only I was more beautiful

If only I had a that dream job.

If only I get that scholarship

If only I get recognized for my talent.

That reveals what you trust in.

The path is crazy crooked if you are trusting in other things. You try this and then this and then this. If only I had more fame, I’d be happy. Nope. Now let’s try this. Nope. Trust in the Lord and the path is straight as an arrow. If only I had more of Jesus I’d be happy. Yes, that’s right. Say that and pursue that. Stay on that path. The further you go down that path the more sure you will be. I can testify to that absolutely. You know what this is saying? “Go all in with Jesus. Don’t argue with God. Go all in with God.” Consider the game Texas Hold ‘em. It’s a betting game where your wealth is represented in plastic chips. Generally speaking, the more confident you are, the more you bet. And the ultimate display of confidence in your hand is, "I’m all in!" That means you push all your chips onto the table. It’s all or nothing. If I win, I win big and if I lose, I have nothing to fall back on. I have invested everything that represents any value to me and it’s all on the table. This is a pretty good illustration of trust. It is one thing to state the claims of the gospel, but it is another thing entirely to push it all in and trust those claims. It is one thing to say that Jesus is more precious that money, that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and that this world is not our home; it is another thing entirely to trust that those things are true and live in light of them. Most of the time we hedge our bets.

“Jesus is more precious than money. Who wants in?” “I’ll bet two white chips.” It is one thing to say that heaven is real, to sign a paper and affirm a statement of faith. It is another thing entirely to trust and push all the chips on the table. Do you see the difference hedging your bets and going all in?

What do the chips represent. Your life decisions. The actions you choose. You can’t just say you trust Jesus. If you do something different that means you really don’t trust him. Consider an archer who is super skilled with a bow and arrow. And he draws back his bow and in display of amazing precious, 10 out of 10 times from 50 yards he nails the bullseye. And so he raises the stakes. And he says, “How many of you think that I can hit the bullseye if my assistant here holds the bullseye with his hands.” And you say, “Oh he’s good….no problem.” And sure enough, he hits it. *And then he says, “How many of you think I can put an arrow through an apple that my assistant is holding.* That’s risky you say to yourself, but he is good. “No problem! Let’s see it.” And sure enough, he hits it. And then he says, “How many of you think I can put an arrow through an apple that is resting on my assistants head. Let’s see a show of hands. And you say, “Oh wow, that is extremely risky, but he is really good. I think he can do it. Let’s see it!” So you raise your hand and he points to you and says, “Okay, put the apple on your head.” In that moment, you are forced to move from intellectual affirmation to trust. The command to trust is a way of calling your bluff. You say you believe? Show me. Do you believe enough to stake your life on it? Do you believe in such a way that you are willing to go all in? Many of the things God asks us to do feel like putting the apple on the head. We’ve never had apples plucked from our heads with arrows and the consequence of a mistake are fatal. Why should I trust? It seems crazy to do so. Why should you trust God? Here’s the answer: Because he is powerful which i evidenced by the fact he made you and the universe. And he loves you which is evidenced by the fact that he sent Jesus to die for you. Stop trusting in things that will fail you. It’s time to go all-in with God.

Application Prayer by Scotty Smith

Heavenly Father, many of us are living in seasons of transition and are facing decisions with weighty, long term implications. It’s over-the-top comforting to know you to be the God who works on our behalf. You’re at work in us, around us and through us. There’s nothing passive or inert about you. You’re not a reluctant deity we have to motivate; a moody lord we have to placate; a celestial computer we need to program; a far away father we have to find; a god of contingencies, fine print, or bait and switch. Indeed, “who among the gods is like you, LORD? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? (Ex. 15:11). You do anything and everything you want, with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back your hand or say to you: “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35). Whatever pleases you, that’s what you do, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths (Psalm 135:6). Oh, the centering, settling, peace-infusing joy this brings! So, gracious Father, we trust you to work in our hearts to fulfill your good purposes. Help us find our place in your Story. Give us a greater desire for your glory than for our happiness. Fill us with joy and anticipation, as we surrender to your plans and timing. Keep us from impatient obsessing; “walking by the light of our own torches” (Isa 50:11); and idol-laden scheming. It would be better if we did nothing, than to start leaning again upon the shallow and fragile foundation of our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). We know everything you purpose is good because everything you purpose has Jesus in view. All of history is being summed up in your Son (Eph. 1:10). Everything you do, Father, you do with the Day in view when every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to your glory (Phil 2:10-11). So until that Day, we will seek to make our plans in keeping with your Word and the gospel of grace; trusting you to be the God who opens doors we cannot shut, and the One who shuts doors we cannot open (Rev. 3:7-8). Oh, the blessed peace and confidence this brings. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ merciful and majestic name.

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