Where's his boasting now?

What is our Reformation heritage?
There are those that would say that our Reformation heritage is a doctrinal correctness. They see our task as the Lutheran Church to be primarily one of preserving correct doctrine, that the majority of our efforts should be expended at keeping doctrine pure, at preserving every jot and tittle of the true confession of faith that has been so ardently preserved by those precious and valiant warriors who have gone before us. They boast of a doctrinal purity that reaches back for ages. Are they correct? Is that our Reformation heritage? Well . . . that’s part of it.
What is our Reformation heritage? There are those who would say that our Reformation heritage is a dedication to pursuing new truth, new revelation from God. These people would see our task as Lutherans to be one that constantly pushes the envelope, of keeping the comfortable majority unsettled. To them a true Christian is, in some ways, one who lays aside the accepted religious definitions of the previous generation and pushes for a radical, new understanding of what Jesus Christ means in the world today. They boast of their willingness to adapt their theology. Are they correct? Is that our Reformation heritage? Well . . . that’s part of it.
Now, frankly, these two concepts are vastly different ends of the spectrum. How then can I say that they are both part of our Reformation heritage? Well, hold on for a while and let’s see if I can get it explained or not.


There are two men we’re going to talk about today. Two men . . . but with four lives. Each man had an old life and a new one. One man, named Saul by birth, had been trained as a Pharisee; one of the strictest sects of Judaism. He was consumed by his religion, and he zealously pursued a righteousness of fulfilling God’s Law.
Saul’s credentials were impeccable. At one point in his life he looked back upon his early days and said, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless.” (Philippians 3:4-6) Saul was confident—perhaps over-confident—in his righteousness before God.
Like Saul, Martin Luther was a man preoccupied with religion. But where Saul’s religion had filled him with an inner pride, a self-righteousness characterized by a zealous hatred of the followers of Jesus Christ, Luther’s religion filled him with an inner contempt, a self-hatred that could not achieve the demands of God’s Law, no matter how hard he tried.
In Luther’s day the church taught that “God will not refuse grace to those who do what is within them.” If only Christians would do the little bit they could, God would do the majority of the work of saving them. The church taught that Christians could earn the grace of God by doing their best.
Yet Luther took no joy in this teaching, he didn’t take any comfort. He too easily saw the depths of his own sin. He knew how corrupted he was. And so he sought to purge himself of all traces of pride, of gluttony, of lust. As Saul had boasted that he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews”, Luther took it upon himself to become a monk of monks. He sought to make himself as good a monk as could be.
He went down the road of self-denial, refusing food and drink for days on end, sleeping in the dead of winter with neither coat nor blanket. The practice is called the mortification of the flesh—the attempt to kill off one’s own sinful desires through denying the body’s cries for attention—and Luther took it so far that he would beat himself with whips, trying to scourge himself free of the sin that so easily entangled him. For Saul, God’s righteousness was a weapon . . . but for Luther the righteousness of God was his mortal enemy.
Near the end of his life Luther would reflect upon this time, and he wrote, “I hated that word, ‘the righteousness of God . . . Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt, with the most disturbed conscience imaginable, that I was a sinner before God. I did not love, indeed I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners and secretly (if not blasphemously and certainly with great grumbling) I was angry with God.”
The early lives of these two men—the early lives of Saul and of Martin Luther—were so different. One is self-confident and cocky, the other self-loathing and unsure. So different . . . and yet they were missing the same thing: neither understood the grace of God.
The one thing that was missing from both of their attempts at religion was grace! Without knowing grace, without experiencing grace, Saul was forced to say, “Because of what I do, God must certainly be pleased with me!” and at the same time Luther was forced to say, “Because of what I do, God must certainly be angry with me!” Neither of them knew of the love of God, of the gift of God . . . neither of them knew the true message of the cross of Christ.
That message of the cross is radical. The message of the cross is life-changing. The message of the cross is eternal and constant, but the message of the cross does not stand for the status quo.
The message of the cross is life, and the message of the cross is death. The message of the cross is mercy, and the message of the cross is judgment. It both challenges and reassures, afflicts and comforts. It leaves no heart unchanged, no life untouched, no eternity undecided. The message of the cross marks the dividing line in all of earth’s history, and the message of the cross makes the difference between dying for something and dying of something.
It was nothing other than the message of the cross that changed both Saul and Luther. Saul—proud, self-righteous Saul-would meet Christ in a flash of light and the voice of God on the road to Damascus, and he would go on to become Paul. Paul, who wrote half of the New Testament and evangelized the known world. Paul, the man who had formerly persecuted and imprisoned untold numbers of faithful Christians would, because of the message of the cross, become a man who would gladly endure beatings, scourgings, stonings, and shipwrecks if it meant he could continue to proclaim that same message.
The message of the cross redeemed Paul and sent him out with a mission. Writing to his good friend, Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15-16, “15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”
And Luther? The message of the cross took this sad, self-pitying little monk and turned him into a world-beater. Luther embraced the message of the cross and with it challenged a corrupt system of bishops, governors, emperors and popes. A little monk with bad bowels and a funny haircut took on the superpowers of his day . . . and won. The sin that had so easily entangled had not left him, but in the message of the cross he had learned to put it in its true place.
Writing to a fellow monk, Luther would say, “Therefore, my sweet brother, learn Christ and Him crucified; despairing of yourself, learn to pray to him, saying, “You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin; you have taken on yourself what you were not and have given me what I was not.’ Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners.[1]”
In the message of the cross both men found what they had been missing. No longer were they required to attempt to please God through their actions. The Law had ceased to be their measuring tool for salvation. Instead, the Gospel—the free, life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ—now became their power, their strength, their source of comfort.
What is our Reformation heritage? One significant aspect of it is the teaching—no, not just the teaching, but the realization—that we are saved by grace through faith. We no longer need to rely upon our character, our actions, our selves but simply grasp the grace of Jesus Christ with the hands of faith. We no longer look to ourselves for comfort or assurance of salvation, but in faith we rest completely in Jesus Christ.
Paul writes, “27Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”
Where is Paul’s boasting now? In writing to the Romans Paul says that he no longer has a place for boasting in his former deeds. There is nothing in him worth boasting about, because all the stuff that he used to think was so important . . . that just wasn’t worth anything anymore compared to the glorious riches of Christ. Through the eyes of faith, Paul saw Jesus Christ as his All in All, and gloried in Him alone.
And Luther? The learned Doctor Martin Luther, author of numerous books, the man who had the adulation of the German people? When he was called before the Emperor at the Diet of Worms . . . where was his boasting?
(play Luther clip)

Luther’s boasting was no longer . . . but his simple prayer to Christ was, “I am yours . . . save me.”

“I am yours . . . save me.” That simple little prayer speaks of a person whose life has been eternally changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ. An encounter that is given by grace and grasped by faith.
It is that faith in Jesus Christ that will sustain you, that will change you. In the same way that it changed The Apostle Paul and Doctor Martin Luther, the life of faith will work in you, and before you know it you’ll find yourself bringing Christ to your friend, your neighbor. Faith—true faith in Jesus Christ—has a funny way of turning your world upside down.








At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned two different kinds of Lutherans, one group who boasts of their doctrinal purity and the other who boasts of their willingness to adapt their theology to a constantly shifting culture. And I asked you, “Which one is correct?” Which one is our Reformation heritage?

The answer is: both . . . and neither.

What is our Reformation heritage? It is not found in boasting, but it is found in faith in Christ. We don’t boast in what we have or what we do, but we trust in Christ and allow Him to work in and through our lives.
Our Reformation heritage is revealed when we hold tightly to the sound teachings of the faith, when we strive to keep the message pure, and at the same time strive to speak the message in such a way that those who surround us truly understand it. When we keep one hand holding on in faith to Jesus Christ and the other hand reaching out and constantly finding new ways to grasp hold of those who need a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, then I think we’ve got a real understanding of what our Reformation heritage truly is.
[1]Luther, M. (1999, c1963). Vol. 48: Luther's works, vol. 48 : Letters I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (Vol. 48, Page 12-13). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

The Trust Test--Part II

w This is now the fourth week—the final week—in our series on stewardship. Stewardship: It’s a Matter of Trust began with us looking into God’s trustworthiness, continued with God looking into our trustworthiness, and now for the past two weeks has been involved in what author John Maxwell calls The Trust Test.
The Trust Test, if you recall from last week, is a line to be crossed, a decision to be made. At some point in each of our lives we come to a point where we must decide if we will make our actions line up with our words. A.W. Tozer said it this way: “The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day.”
To get a handle on the Trust Test, last week we began with an acrostic:
“T” stands for take a personal inventory. Taking inventory is looking at and taking stock of our lives. It is seeing how we are measuring up against what we know we are to be doing. It means we need to look at every facet of our lives and ask, “Am I trusting God in this area of my life?”
“R” is for recognize God as our supply, and it basically means that we acknowledge God as not only the source of what is good in our lives but that we recognize that He is, in fact, continually supplying us with all that is good.
“U” is for the fact that must understand God’s principles of stewardship. And here we began to unpack what it means to be a steward of God. The first two principles—the Divine Boomerang principle and the Give and Grow principle—we heard about how we must keep those two principles not only together but in order. First God gives to us and then we give in response, and to separate those two actions is unbiblical and results in not just poor stewardship, but no stewardship.
Principle number three—and this is where we pick up again on the interactive sermon sheet—principle number three is the “Who is number one?” principle. This is the principle of stewardship that most people are immediately familiar with. It goes back, way back into the Old Testament times when God declared to ancient Israel that, in order to honor Him rightly, they were to give the firstfruits of all that they had.
This can be difficult for us; instead of giving to God off the top, instead of giving Him our first and our best, there is a tendency for us to give Him of our leftovers. At times we’re like the little girl who went to her mother to ask for some money. Her mother handed her two dollars—one for ice cream, and one for giving to God on Sunday. Now this little girl heard the ice cream truck coming down the street, and so she got in a hurry, and as she was running down the street, one of the dollars slipped out of her little fist and blew down into the sewer. She stopped, and wasn’t sure what she should do. With her little lip quivering, she looked down in the sewer, then to the dollar in her hand . . . and then finally at the ice cream truck just down the street. Then she looked up at the sky and said, “Sorry God . . . I dropped your dollar” and off she went to get some ice cream!
Now, is that how you give to the Lord? Do you deposit your check, then pay the bills, then buy the groceries, then go out to eat . . . and THEN drop a bit of whatever might be left into the plate on Sunday? That’s not the way God says brings Him honor. Instead, God says we are to set aside His portion first—before taxes, before bills, before groceries, before play money.
Don’t go dropping God’s dollar.
Now you may be thinking, “Well, I’ll give to God of my firstfruits; but I’m not gonna like it.” And that offering plate comes around and BAM! . . . you chuck your money in the plate. Oooooooohhhh . . . . bad idea. That goes against principle number four: the “Cheerful attitude” principle.
The Cheerful attitude principle tells us that the management of God’s resources, that stewardship begins with the love of God working in us. It begins with loving, and not giving. It is a legalistic view to look at stewardship primarily as a religious duty to be filled, a spiritual checkbox to mark off once a week. What we need is an attitude of gratitude, a cheerful heart that is eager to give.
We talked briefly about this last week: How the Apostle Paul was so impressed by the church in Macedonia that he wrote to another church, the church in Corinth, saying in 2 Corinthians 8, “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. 5 And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will.” The church in Macedonia had been infected with God’s love . . . and His love just poured out of them. They were cheerful givers.
Legalism says, “What do I have to give?” Love says, “I want to give!” Legalism says, “What is the least amount that I must give and still do my duty?” Love says, “Please let me give!” Legalism says, “How little can I give?” . . . but love says, “How much can I give?”
See, it may be true that we can give without loving, but we cannot truly love without giving. Each one should give what they have decided in their heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
The fifth and final principle that falls under the heading of Understanding God’s Principles is the “Do it now” principle. This, too, is a bit of a reminder from a few weeks ago. Recall that stewardship is built around what we are doing now. It’s very real, very concrete. Stewardship doesn’t deal with hopes or intentions, saying, “I would give more if I had more,” stewardship doesn’t say, “I’m not giving anything now, but I’m planning on getting a big refund check in the mail, and I’ll be sure and give then.” See, you can’t do that! A trustworthy steward is one who is correctly handling what God has given him right now. There’s a little poem that goes with this, and it goes, “Procrastination is my greatest sin, it brings me untold sorrow. I’m going to stop putting things off . . . perhaps I’ll start tomorrow.”
Don’t do that! We can’t keep putting off to some indeterminate time in the future when we’re going to start being trustworthy stewards. Because if we keep on banking on what we’re going to do tomorrow, with what we may have tomorrow or the next day or the next month or the next year . . . if we keep on banking on tomorrow sooner or later there won’t be a tomorrow. The Master of the house, Jesus Christ, will come back and ask you, “What did you do with what I gave you?” And the fact that we had good intentions will really mean very little. Do it now—today is the day.

If we take each of those five principles—the Divine Boomerang principle, the Give and Grow principle, the Who Is Number One principle, the Cheerful attitude principle, and the Do It Now principle—if we take each of those and truly understand how God is working through us in each of those principles, then the next step in the Trust Test is to Surrender everything to God.
This is an aspect of stewardship that, frankly, can get pretty uncomfortable to us. Surrendering everything to God is closely related to the first commandment. Remember the first commandment? A little catechism test, here . . . it starts “You shall have no other gods before Me.” What does this mean? Answer: We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. And so if we surrender everything to God, it simply means that nothing in our lives comes before Him. Nothing else is number one.
Now, folks always seem to want to qualify the meaning of “everything.” You mean my money? I mean EVERYTHING. You mean my time? I mean EVERYTHING. What about my health? EVERYTHING. How about my family? EVERYTHING. What about * EVERYTHING.
EVERYTHING means . . . every thing. It means that there is nothing that you or I have, eat, breathe, spend, or use that is not a gift from God. The trustworthy steward acknowledges everything as a gift from God, and everything is in it’s place—beneath God. Not overshadowing Him, not blocking our view of Him, not gripped so tightly that He can’t use it . . . but everything we have is held in an open hand, for God to take and use as He sees fit.
Surrendering EVERYTHING means this:
You can’t only give and not serve.
You can’t only serve and not give.
You can’t give money but no time.
You can’t give time but no money.
You can’t pick and choose what you’d like God to have from you.
You can’t pick and choose what you’d like to have from God.
You can’t come to church on Sunday and forget about God on Monday.
Leviticus 27:30 says this, “A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.” Everything you have already belongs to the Lord, refusing to surrender it to God doesn’t make that any less real . . . but it does make stewardship more difficult.
The final letter in the Trust Test is “T”—Test God’s promises. I like this one. It has seemed at times like all the rest of the stewardship principles have been Law-oriented; they’ve been things that God has commanded us to do in His word. And that’s okay, because David says in Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.” God’s Law is good . . . but it can’t save us. And so I find it simply astounding that God says not to test Him in His Law, but in His promises! The Word of God recorded in Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Right there you have the one place in all of Scripture where God says to test Him. He encourages us in that chapter to put Him first and to test His promise.
But what is His promise? Is it simply that if we tithe that He will increase our wealth? No . . . that is far too chintzy of a promise for our God. His promises go well beyond mere material comfort here on earth.
The Apostle Paul, speaking to the church in Corinth, says in 2 Corinthians 1:19-20, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.”
The promise of God is Christ. And so when God invites us to test His promises, He first points us not to money, not to things, not to stuff . . . but to Christ. And in Christ God gives us rich promises, real promises that mean something. Not just for now, not just for a little while, but for all eternity.
You want to know something? You want to know the absolute bedrock of being a steward? You want to know the foundation of having a relationship with Christ, of receiving great, big, enormous gifts from God and returning a portion to Him and His work in thanksgiving for what we’ve received? That is in the promises of Christ, and there is ultimately no better reason I can give to you for being a trustworthy steward, of taking the Trust Test, than the promises of Jesus Christ.
Jesus says in John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
In Matthew 5:11-12 He says, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Again in John 10:28: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”

And there are so many more:
In Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
In Matthew 28:20 “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 6:35 "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
John 10:11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-- just as the Father knows me and I know the Father-- and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And John 11:25 "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies”
We test the promises of God that we read from His Word, we test our trustworthy God against what He has promised and given in Jesus Christ, and in that testing He proves His trustworthiness and through the Word our faith grows.

Today we are talking primarily about giving, about money. But the principle is that Stewardship is not a single action or, indeed, a set of actions—it is a way of life, it is a matter of trust. It encompasses all of us, our outlook on every aspect of life. It is a matter of trust.
A friend of mine a few years back told me a story about a preacher he knew. When people came by and greet the minister on the way out the door at the end of the service, it often happens that someone will say, “Good sermon, preacher!” And this wise old preacher would always respond by something just a bit odd. When they came by and said, “Good sermon!” this preacher would simply nod and smile and say, “ . . . We’ll see.”
“We’ll see . . .” This preacher was wise enough to know that the mark of a good sermon is not whether the people get pumped up on Sunday morning, it’s not if you get an emotional reaction to a story he told, it’s not how passionately he spoke. No, the mark of any sermon worth preaching is whether you can measure it’s effect in changed lives. A good sermon is one in which the Holy Spirit has worked in you to change your heart, to bring about a change for the better in your walk with Jesus Christ. That is what you call a “good sermon.”
When the preacher said, “We’ll see” it simply meant that if the message had been truly good that people’s lives would be visibly changed . . . the preacher would be able to see it. He might have to wait until next week, next month, maybe even next year . . . but in the end his reward wouldn’t be a compliment on the way out the door but in being able to see how God had used him in to work a spiritual change in the lives of the people whom he had been given to watch over.
The end of this sermon, then, isn’t mine to write, but yours. Today I ask you to write the end of this sermon by hearing the Word of God and obeying it, by allowing the Holy Spirit to work a true change in your hearts and in your lives. The end of the sermon is our Trust Test.
We’ve heard the Lord speak from His Word on this particular aspect of stewardship and giving, over the past week you’ve been in prayer over the amount you will commit to give towards God’s work in this place, and now has come the time for you to step up. In just a moment you will have the opportunity to put down on paper the dollar amount and the frequency that you’ve already committed in your heart to give. Simply take your pledge sheet, fill in your information and fold the sheet in half. And then, any time during this next song . . . when you are ready, I ask you to come forward and place your commitment on the altar. Just put it right up there . . . right on the altar. Take the Trust Test . . . God won’t let you down.

The Trust Test--Part I

When we first began our series on stewardship two weeks ago we began with a simple question: Can I trust God? And as often happens in life, we discovered that although we may not always understand God, He remains completely and totally trustworthy. He keeps all of His promises.
In the second week in our series—which was last week—we discussed a slightly more difficult question. We talked about whether or not we are currently—right now—being good stewards—good managers—of the possessions, opportunities, talents, and time that God has graciously given us. We discovered that it is God’s intention that we use worldly wealth not to try and repay Him for what He has done for us, but instead use it in deliberate, compassionate endeavors to bring the name of Jesus Christ to those who do not yet know Him.
This week—the third week in the series—we get down to the nitty gritty. This week we dig in, we get our hands dirty . . . and we begin evaluating ourselves in the area of stewardship. I promise you only one thing and ask only one thing in return: I promise you that I will not apologize for God’s Word, for preaching what He says on the subject of stewardship and giving, and I ask that you simply listen to His voice today. That you listen to Him and let His Word soak into your life.
As we progress through our Christian lives, we go through different phases of how we view Christ’s presence in our lives. Often there is a tendency to view Christ as being our helper, someone who is there when we need Him, a sort of Divine back-up that we turn to when things get rough. You’ve seen the bumper sticker, “God is my co-pilot”? That kind of exemplifies this type of thinking. We’re in the driver’s seat, in control of where we’re headed, and Jesus is there to provide occasional directions and various little tasks as we head on down the road. We know what our destination is, the place we want to get to, and we drive the shortest distance we can over well-traveled roads. It is boring, at times . . . but at least it is predictable.
But occasionally we’ll spy some brave soul who understands the Christian life a bit better than we do. I have etched into my memory a mental picture of a semi truck with the “God is my co-pilot” sticker in his window . . . but the truck driver had crossed out the adjective “co.” “God is my pilot” was what the sticker now said. And that is a truer view of life. At some point we’ve turned over the wheel to Jesus Christ, and He now sets the destination. Still, we are there in the passenger seat, poring over the road-map, telling Jesus the best route to take, pointing out the best places to stop, telling Him the way we ought to go.
But Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” At some point in our lives we come to a line that needs to be crossed, a decision that needs to be made. We need to decide whether or not we’ll allow Jesus to drive as He pleases, to go where He wants to go, to drive as fast—or as slow—as He sees fit. The decision is whether or not we’ll fold up the maps, roll the top down on the car, climb into the back seat . . . and take the adventure that comes to us as we hit the road with Jesus at the wheel.
That decision, that line . . . that’s the Trust Test line. And when we come to it, we discover that we have two spiritual choices laid out before us: we can cross it and grow, or we can back away from that line and shrink.
Now, everyone knows what happens when you cut a vine at its base. The vine continues to look good for a little while, the leaves are still green, it still looks like it is thriving . . . but all the while it is dying, bit by bit. Before too long the vine is dead, dry, and lifeless. It is a dry, lifeless husk that just happens to be in the shape of a living thing. Backing away from the Trust Test line is like that for us spiritually.
But crossing the line? That’s like slipping into the back seat of a convertible, it’s like jumping into the rumble seat on a summer afternoon. Jesus hits the gas and heads off into places we couldn’t even guess we were going to end up. He takes us to different places, He introduces us to different people. We might not know where the next stop is, but we know Who’s driving, and we sit back, let the wind whip through our hair, and enjoy the thrill of being on an adventure, not knowing where we’re going but being with someone we love.
That line, that choice; it may not seem like a large decision at the time, but in the end it means the difference between really living life and just simply dying a slow death. It is the difference between being a disciple of Christ and playing church.

As we’ve talked for these past few weeks, we’ve talked about trust. John Maxwell has developed a little tool to help us get a handle on what it means to trust; to identify how we trust God in the area of stewardship. John has taken the five letters of the word trust and broken it down into an acrostic. We’ll go through the first three today and talk about the last two next week, but very quickly let me give you the acrostic for trust.
T—it stands for take a personal inventory. Taking inventory is looking at and taking stock of our lives. It is seeing how we are measuring up against what we know we are to be doing. It means we need to look at every facet of our lives and ask, “Am I trusting God?”
The “R” stands for recognize God as our supply. There is nothing good that you or I have been given that has not, in some way, come from God. Everything we have, everything we use is a result of a gift from God. Our possessions, our opportunities, our talents, and our time—they all come from God.
“U”—we must understand God’s principles of stewardship. Until we understand the principles of stewardship that God has for us—these principles that are unlike the world’s—until we understand we will hold back in our trust for God.
“S”—Surrender everything to God. We first understand God’s principles of stewardship and then respond by surrendering all.
And finally, “T”—Test God’s promises. We test the promises from the Word, we test our trustworthy God against what He has promised, and in that testing He proves His trustworthiness and through the Word our faith grows.
These five letters spell trust. Trust is the single most important factor in any relationship.

The first “T”—take a personal inventory. To get an idea of how personal the inventory needs to be, take a look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139 says this, “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in-- behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Three quick observations about this Psalm and taking a personal inventory:
1. Only God knows everything about me. Even I don’t know all that’s within me. If I’m going to take a personal inventory, I need to try and see myself as clearly as God sees me. Which leads us to number 2:
2. Only God can lead me correctly. Even in taking a personal inventory there will be areas in which we will want to gloss over. We need God’s guidance as we take inventory. His guidance comes from His Word.
3. Taking inventory and trusting God begins with God. If I can’t even know myself and I need Him to lead me, this process has to have God in the beginning, at the end, and in the middle. We must take a personal inventory, line that up against the commands and instructions of God, and see if we are indeed measuring up, to see if our actions show what we claim our hearts know: that we have been saved by grace alone.

Recognizing God as your supply is much more than simply acknowledging God as your source. A source is a starting point, a place from which we head forward on our own. But that is not a good description of our life with God. God is far more than just our source.
Rather, God is our supply. He not only gives us His good gifts, His grace at the beginning of the journey, but is there all along the way, as well. There is no time in my life or yours that we are not totally, utterly dependent upon God’s supply. Psalm 54:4 says, “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.” Psalm 3:5 says, “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.”
If God is our constant supply, then there is nothing that we have that is not a gift from God, and we’d do well to remember that. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:17, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Can money bring us enjoyment? Yes. But it is strictly temporary. Unless we recognize God as our supply we will never be able to truly enjoy it, because we’ll always be worried about losing it. But according to Ecclesiastes 5:19, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-- this is a gift of God. Recognizing God as our supply brings long-term contentment, regardless of the presence or absence of any particular material blessing.
A trusting stewardship begins with taking a personal inventory, it continues with recognizing God as our supply, and moves into action with understanding God’s principles for stewardship. Now this last one we’ll need to break down a bit more than the others.
It seems that there are typically three circumstances that lead people to not be trustworthy stewards for God:
1. They don’t believe that they can give and still meet their own needs. They feel that they are choked up by bills, that if they gave more they couldn’t meet their budget, etc. Their financial obligations alarm them, and they don’t feel they’ve got any margin to give to God. This is a faith issue.
2. They don’t plan to give. People don’t plan in their lives, and so they are almost always in an “emergency” state. When one thing after another keeps coming up through lack of planning, it chokes off both the desire and the ability to be a good steward. This is an issue of personal discipline.
3. They don’t know how to give. Because they don’t know God’s principles, they don’t understand the whole process of how to give. Maybe they’ve never been taught what it means to be a steward, maybe they’ve never been taught God’s stewardship principles. This is an issue of knowledge.

Now, I can’t make you believe in God’s promises—that’s the job of the Holy Spirit. I can’t get you to do something that you are refusing to do—that is, after all, your job. But what I have I now give to you: I can give you the knowledge you need to understand God’s principles of stewardship.
Principle number one is the Divine Boomerang principle: A boomerang returns to the person who threw it. In other words, God gives, we respond—we give back. Why do we love? 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” Why do we give? Because He first gave to us. The Apostle Paul tells in 2 Corinthians 8 of the churches in Macedonia that were incredibly poor financially, yet out of their overflowing joy at what they had been given in Jesus Christ, they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. You’ll never be able to out-give God because all blessings first come from Him.
Principle number two is the Give and Grow principle. This is not a “give to get” principle of stewardship, this is not a promise that if you drop 1 dollar in the plate this week you can expect 10 dollars to show up at your door next week. No, this simply means that practicing stewardship produces growth in our lives. The Give and Grow principle tells us that stewardship is a spiritual discipline: and like any discipline, if you commit yourself to it you will see growth. In the same way that a professional athlete spends long hours at the gym honing his body, in the same way that a diet requires self-control but produces long-term health benefits, so the discipline of stewardship reaps spiritual benefits.
Timothy Johnson has this to say about stewardship: “Some say, dedicate the heart and the money will follow; but Our Lord put it the other way around. ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ If your treasure is dedicated, your heart will be dedicated. If it is not, it simply won’t. It is as simple as that.”
We’ll get to the rest of the principles next week, but it is these two that it is absolutely critical to keep together and to keep in order. If we separate these two principles, we miss the point of stewardship—no, not just the point. We miss the whole thing. These two principles tell us stewardship can be summed up this way: God gives—we give. If we reverse them and say, “we give—God gives” then we’re back in the co-pilot’s seat, trying to run the show and telling God where He should be going. If we leave off the first part and say, “We give” then we’re in the driver’s seat and wondering exactly where God is. If we take off the second part and simply leave it at “God gives” then we’re not even hitting the road. Sure, God’s in the driver’s seat but the car is just sitting there, going nowhere and doing nothing.
But if we keep these two principles together and we keep them in order, when we say, “God gives—we give” then we show that we’ve got a firm grasp on what it means to be a trustworthy steward.

Can God Trust me?

There are three statements we can make about stewardship. The first, “God is totally trustworthy,” we talked a bit about last week. We talked of how God is worthy of our complete confidence, that He is totally dependable. You can trust Him!
The third statement is that we are a trustee of everything God has given us. That’s fairly simple—we are not owner, but managers. The Biblical imagery is a steward, one who keeps, maintains, manages and grows the possessions of another. We are accountable for how we use what He has given. To some extent we’ll talk about that next week.
So we’ve got two statements: the first and the third. What’s missing? Right—the second statement, which is this: God has entrusted us with possessions, opportunities, talents, and time. These possessions—they’re not ours. They ultimately belong to God.
Now think about that for a minute; all the things that you have in your life: your bank account, your health, your talents, the hours in each day . . . those aren’t yours, but God’s. How you and I decide to use those things, whether we view them primarily as our own possessions to be used for our own gain, or whether we view them as God’s possessions to be used for His good purposes . . . that will tell whether or not God is able to view us as a trustworthy servant.
Can God trust you? Can God trust me? Trust is a fairly simple thing, really. It begins with extending trust to a person on blind faith, basically. Trust begins when we place trust in a person for whom we have no real, solid reason to do so. They haven’t proven themselves to us yet. And so we invest a little bit of trust into them. How they respond to that trust—whether they prove themselves trustworthy or not, whether they show themselves to be honest and straightforward, whether they show themselves to be diligent and hard-working—how they respond to that trust determines whether or not we trust them with more. And that is simply the way trust works: a little trust might be given, but a large trust is earned.
In Luke chapter sixteen Jesus tells us a strange, strange story, but He does it in order to illustrate to us the importance of being trustworthy with what we have been given by God. In the parable of the shrewd manager Jesus is giving us instruction on wrong attitudes about wealth.
Now, it’s not very earth-shattering that Jesus would be talking about money. But the use of money, as I’ve said before, is never the main point. It is a symptom, an indicator, a barometer of our spiritual lives. It is such an important physical tool of our spiritual reality that Jesus talks about money in 16 out of 38 of His parables. 1 out of every 10 verses in the Gospels speak about money. The Bible has less than 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but it has OVER 2000 verses on money and possessions. Does God consider how we use our money to be something of importance to Him? You bet He does.
But back to the parable: There are a few different characters in the parable, and it would be helpful for us to know how to relate to them. Verse one introduces us to the two main characters, the rich man and his manager. In the book of Luke I cannot find a single positive example of a rich man. No, I’m not saying it is a sin to be rich, not at all! But in the Gospel of the good doctor Luke the “rich man” is consistently used as a caricature, a bad example of what can happen when wealth and the desire for more consume a person. Apparently, Jesus wants us to consider this man in the same light.
The second character, the manager of the rich man, is the one who has the task of managing the business affairs of the rich man. And charges of some type have been brought to the rich man’s attention that the manager has in some way been wasting his goods. This could be either outright embezzlement or just simply poor management practices, but the end result is that the rich man’s wealth is failing to accumulate in the fashion that he would have liked.
Right away we see one of the principles of stewardship in action: the steward is accountable to the master. The rich man demands that the manager turn in all the records of his dealings and informs him that his services will no longer be needed. And the manager is terrified of what may happen to him if he is thrown out on the streets.
So he hatches a plan that he believes will get him into another job, or at least into the good graces of the rich man’s debtors. What he does is this: He calls in each debtor, one by one, and asks them just how much they owe his master. “How much do you owe?” he asks the first guy. “800 gallons of olive oil” comes the answer. And this crooked manager looks the debtor straight in the eye and says “make it four hundred.” He cuts the debt right in half. He is canceling half of a debt that isn’t even his in order to make some friends for himself, and do it fast.
Jesus only gives two examples, but I get the impression we are to imagine a long line of debtors, and each getting the same treatment. “Cut it in half! . . . Tell you what, knock of 20 percent!” The manager is all too ready to steal from his master to insure his own future, and the debtors are all too eager to cooperate so they can keep some more of their own money. The manager has made himself a long list of friends will that feel indebted to him. He will be well taken care of.
But right here is where the story gets strange. The rich man gets wind of this, but instead of having this old fox of a manager chucked into jail, he praises him! Personally, I thought this seemed a bit odd, until I read Jesus’ reason in for this strange behavior. Verse eight says “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” It might be better understood if we just simply said “One crook knows another.” Because that’s what the rich man is, too. What he probably has been doing is loaning out money and charging some pretty hefty interest on it, which was strictly against the Old Testament Mosaic law. But he got around it by demanding goods, and not money, in return. This was a fairly common practice in the time of Jesus. It was something akin to my loaning you twenty dollars, but in return demanding you fill up the gas tank on my van. Take a 15 passenger van with a 30 gallon tank at two-sixty, two-seventy a gallon, and you see I’ve got all my money back and more, but I never really charged you interest, did I?
And so here is what is going on: Jesus has just told a parable about two greedy and shifty individuals, both of whom are trying to insure their own futures through some dishonest gain. Everyone in the parable is a player, and everyone is in the game strictly for themselves. It sounds, frankly, a lot like you and me.
But in light of this parable Jesus lets go with a simple command that is exciting and liberating and if we let it, it offers to turn our whole view of money right around! If you’ll permit my own translation, Jesus says to His disciples in verse nine, “And I myself say to you, make for yourselves friends by means of worldly wealth, in order that when it fails they may receive you into eternal dwellings.”
The Greek word for “dwellings” is more typically translated as “tent.” When this word is used to speak of worldly things, it emphasizes the temporary, the transitory nature of this existence—Paul speaking of “the tent of the body” is one example. But when the word is used to speak of eternal, heavenly things, as it is now, it is better translated as “tabernacle,” that special type of tent that is God’s own dwelling place, the place where He chooses to live among His people. In the Old Testament, it was the tabernacle tent and then later the Temple. In the New Testament, it speaks about the eternal dwelling place of God, it speaks of Heaven.
Now, there’s only one way to gain access to Heaven, and money isn’t it. Worldly wealth has not ever and cannot now buy your way into Heaven, no matter how much you give! But note that the focus in verse nine isn’t upon your getting into Heaven, but upon who is greeting you once you get there. Jesus says that the friends that are made using worldly wealth are the ones who are welcoming you upon your arrival, a grand welcoming party. Jesus says that worldly wealth is not just to be thrown around helter skelter in an effort to make a good life for yourself here and certainly NOT to try and buy your way into Heaven, but to be used in deliberate and compassionate endeavors to spread the Kingdom of God, giving people everywhere the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
No matter how much we act like it’s true, money is never the end. The best money can ever be is the means to reach an end. Because worldly wealth will fail, make no mistake. And the only thing that will reach into eternity is the echoes of how you used what God has given you. According to Jesus, the person who uses his or her worldly wealth to further God’s kingdom and make people into friends of God is the one who will be greeted at the gates of Heaven with a host of people whose lives have been touched in the name of Jesus Christ.
This is what we are entrusted with! Our Heavenly Father has given us these good gifts in order to further the family business—God has given us possessions, opportunities, talents, and time in order that we may use them in service of His Kingdom . . . He’s given us these things so that we can make the name of Jesus Christ known. He has given us an initial investment of trust. Trust can be measured . . . and further, deeper trust has to be earned.
In verses nine through eleven Jesus says this: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”
Did you catch that? There was something really, really important in there. Let me repeat it: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” You know what this means? It means trust can be measured, and the measuring tool is what we are doing with that trust right now. Are you faithfully using what you have right now? Or are you waiting for some big opportunity to come along? If we cannot use the things we have right now—if our entrusted possessions that we have right now are not being used in God’s service . . . then how in the world do we ever think that we would use them later? John Maxwell tells a story about an old country preacher and a farmer, and the preacher asked the farmer, “If you had 100 head of cattle, would you give the Lord fifty?” And the farmer said, “Why, sure I would, preacher!” And the preacher asked the farmer, “If you had a flock of 20 sheep, would you give the Lord 10?” And the farmer said, “You know I would, preacher!” And the preacher asked the farmer, “If you had two hogs . . . would you give the Lord one?” And the farmer said, “That’s not fair, preacher . . . you know I have two hogs.”
You can’t serve both God and money. Who are you and I a slave to today, right now? Look inside yourself. How much does Jesus own, and how much is ruled by worldly wealth? Open your checkbook . . . look at your credit card statement. Do the friends of God have a prominent place there, or has the throne of Christ been crowded and cramped and crushed to the mere fringes of your financial picture? How long has it been since you have been a cheerful giver? A month? . . . A year?
When Jesus Christ became man, He left behind all the treasures of Heaven, taking on our extreme poverty so that we might know His glorious wealth. Does my giving reflect that? When Jesus Christ died in shame and pain on the cross, He gladly endured it so that we might know true life. Does my giving reflect that? And when Jesus Christ rose victorious from the grave, He ascended into Heaven and continually and eternally intercedes for us, so that we might one day have a place next to Him. Does my giving reflect that?
The answer in every single way has got to be a resounding “NO!” Because when He left the treasures of Heaven, when He died on the cross, when He rose again in power and victory, He did it all saying “I know you can never repay me, I know that there’s no way you can ever earn what I’m doing for you. But I’m doing it anyway. I’m giving you all I’ve got, the whole enchilada . . . because I love you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
So, in an odd sort of way, I’m glad to say that my personal giving doesn’t reflect the awesome gifts God has given me, because I could never even begin to hope to measure up or repay what the Lord has done for me in my life, and neither can you. But the great and grand thing about our Lord and Savior is that He never demands or even asks us for repayment. Salvation is a gift, free and pure and fully paid for by the blood of Christ, and to think of our tithes and offerings as repayment is an insult to the gift.
Do not try to repay Christ’s gift in your giving, but instead remember it! Let us remember all that He has done for us, let us remember that all that we have is ultimately His. If we truly grasp the full reality of Christ, then we will be trustworthy stewards, faithfully and consistently using the possessions, opportunities, talents, and time that God has given us in order to bring His Kingdom into the lives of others. And then in the end, still trusting in only the grace of Jesus Christ, when that worldly wealth has failed and our temporary time here on earth has come to an end, we may be received into Heaven by those countless souls, each of which has been reached in some part due to the gifts God enabled us to give. And there to see the Lord, showing us these souls—the rich harvest He has reaped, the fruits of those gifts that He had first given—and to hear Him say to us, “Well done, thou good and trustworthy servant. Enter into thy rest.”



At that point, the very event that we have been longing for all of our lives as redeemed saints of God, how could we do anything other than to give Him the glory and honor for that which is rightfully His? He Who has given, He Who has redeemed, He Who gives to us so that we might give Him to others.
We give thee but thine own, whatever the gift may be. All that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee.
Amen.

Trust--The Key to Succesful Living

In Proverbs 3:1-6 we read, “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, 2 for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. 3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Over the course of the next four weeks it will seem like we’re talking about money, about tithing . . . about stewardship. But that’s a bit disingenuous . . . money is never truly the issue. Money is only an indicator, a symptom of something greater. So while it will seem like we’re talking about money, what we’ll really be talking about is trust.
John Maxwell, an author on Christian leadership and the inspiration behind this sermon series, says this: “Trust is the basis for knowing God and His will for my life and in growing His kingdom and myself as His steward.” That is to say, we must believe in God’s promises, we must put our faith in His ability to fulfill His own Word in order to know Him. And in like manner, He must be able to trust us with what we have been given to manage for Him.
And so the first question we must ask is, “Can I trust God? Where do I place my faith, my confidence? Is God my source—not just my source, but my everything? Do I trust Him in small things, do I trust Him in big things? . . . Do I truly trust God?”
This is not an easy question to answer! Martin Luther used to say that whatever you put your trust in—that is your God. And in a self-reliant society we have many, many things to put our trust in. It is not easy for me to say that I put my total trust in God.
But that’s my problem, not God’s. In spite of my inability to put my total trust in Him, God remains totally trustworthy. He does what He says He will, He follows through on His word. His care is constant . . . His gifts are generous.
Do you believe that? I don’t. Well . . . at least not in the same way that I used to. Let me explain.
You’ve all heard about the most basic of trust tests, right? The one where you stand, blindfolded, arms crossed, back to a friend. And if you truly, truly trust that friend you’ll fall straight back, they’ll catch you, and your trust will be rewarded, right? But is that always the way life works? More importantly . . . is that always the way our life in Christ works? Does trust always equal safety? Does trust always keep you from being hurt?
In this astounding little book The Barbarian Way author Erwin McManus tells a fantastic story about the trust his son put in him. He tells how he and his wife had a two-story house that the rented in Los Angeles for several years. The unique thing about this house was that a small window on the second-story bathroom opened on to a path to the roof. You know kids and their curiosity, so it was no big surprise to Erwin when one evening, as he and his wife were in the front yard, a small voice called out to them from the roof.
“As soon as Kim saw him, her nurturing instinct kicked in, and she started commanding him to get back inside. I have to admit I was kind of proud of him right then, but what he did next totally surprised me.
“Looking past his mom, he asked me if he could jump. When Aaron shouted, “Dad, can I jump?” Kim answered on my behalf, “No, you can’t jump. Get back inside.”
“As if he hadn’t heard anything at all, he asked me again, “Dad, can I jump?”
“Now, I know what I was supposed to do. A dad is never supposed to override the mom (I’m working on it). I’m just telling you what really happened. After all, he did ask me. I answered, “Yeah, go ahead.”
“He said, “Really?”
“I said, “Yeah, sure. Go ahead and jump.”
“Kim looked at me as if I was out of my mind and asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“In a sort of explanation I asked Aaron, “Aaron, are you going to jump sometime?”
“He said, “Yeah, I think so.”
“I said, “Okay. I’d rather have you jump now so if you jump and break your legs, we can take you to the hospital.” It made perfect sense to me.
“He responded, “Dad, do you think I’ll make it?”
“I said, Oh, yeah . . . you’ll make it.” If I knew one thing for certain, it was that he would reach the ground. I just wasn’t sure in what condition.
“He said, “Okay. I’m going to jump.”
“I had one suggestion before he took off. I said, “Hey, buddy, try to clear the concrete and land on the grass. It’s softer.”
“He thought that was a good idea, stepped back as far as he could on the roof, and began running to jump. Just before his first step he yelled, “Dad, catch me!” and I said, “I’ll try.”
“And he jumped.”

Have you ever looked God right in the eye, trusting Him to protect you . . . and jumped? Taken a big, sailing leap of faith, right out into midair?
I have. And it hurt.
I’m very thankful for the training I received in seminary. My theological education gave me the knowledge of the right words to say about God and His love. I’m thankful for that because when I arrived here I needed that . . . because I needed to preach it, and I didn’t feel it.
When I arrived here it was on the heels of a dreadful first attempt at ministry. I had taken a leap of faith, going right from the seminary into an attempt at church planting, and partly through my failures and partly through the failures of others the church plant died a messy, tangled death. This is not the time nor is it the place to go into all the details, but let me simply tell you that in going through that process I felt abandoned, that I was left to defend myself before more than one person who wanted to lay all the blame on me. I lost the trust others had put in me and I lost the trust I had put in other people. I now view even the seminary administration—the same people whom I had previously held up as my champions and defenders—I now to this day view them with a sense of guarded distrust.
But the worst part was that I had lost my trust in God . . . I no longer wanted to jump, nor expected Him to catch me. See, I had thought that a “leap of faith” meant that God would always catch me on the other side, that everything would always turn out right, that nothing could hurt me. But I was wrong. I didn’t understand, I didn’t count on the fact that sometimes it is in God’s plan NOT to catch you, but to encourage you to jump anyway! See, deep down God is not ultimately concerned about our comfort, but our confidence in Him! He does not see a few bumps and bruises along the way as being shameful indicators of a failure of faith, but in fact they are badges of honor, scars that demonstrate a life given over to Christ. He does not call us to safety, but to salvation!
Erwin McManus finishes his story this way, “For Aaron, the jump was fraught with danger. I could see, though the jump was terrifying, he would find himself triumphant. It was important that he jumped and perhaps even more important that he knew me as the kind of father who would always call him to greater endeavors than to send him back to the safe place.” It is often the same with God. He desires to call us to greater endeavors, to encourage us to jump.
When I jumped, it hurt. A lot. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about the question, “Knowing what I know now, knowing the price I might have to pay . . . would I do it again?” And the answer is yes. I would do it again. Because it is more important for my kids to see a dad who is serious, who is committed to the cause of Christ, who is willing to take the risk and continue to trust God and continue to jump—that is more important than my comfort! It is more important for me to face God and to say with Job, “Though he slay me . . . yet will I trust Him.”

Though it’s difficult to say I trust in Him . . . and even more difficult to do, God’s trustworthiness far exceeds my ability to understand His methods. The writer of Hebrews, quoting Deuteronomy says, this in Hebrews 13:5-6, “5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” That sounds so nice and safe, doesn’t it?
Yet he also says this in Hebrews 11:32-40, “32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others—Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
If you are going to trust in God, I can’t promise you a safe life, I can’t promise that you’ll be incredibly wealthy or that you’re going to be well-liked or that your health will always be top-notch. But I can promise you this: God will remain trustworthy through it all. You can lean on Him, you can put the full weight of your burdens on Him . . . you can trust Him . . . you can jump.
You can jump and know that even if you get hurt He is still trustworthy. He will keep His promise to you that He will never leave you nor forsake you . . . even if you doesn’t seem that you can see Him.
How can I tell you this? To have faith—to trust in God’s promises—even when you can’t see how it will turn out? Simply this: because of Christ.
Dr. S.M. Lockridge pastored Calvary Baptist Church of San Diego for forty years. He was called to glory in the year 2000, but he left us with one of the fieriest sermons on trusting God that I’ve ever heard. As we finish up today with the words of Pastor Lockridge, I also want you to remember the words of Saint Paul, who said in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.” We can’t put our trust in money, we can’t put our trust in our job, we can’t put our trust in our own comfort, but we can put our trust in Christ because in Jesus Christ God fulfills every single promise He has ever made. He truly is our Savior.
All the promises of God that Pastor Lockridge speaks of—they are “Yes” in Christ. And as Paul says to do, for each of those promises, let us give an “Amen” for the glory of God.

He's the one who made you; it is He who made us and not we ourselves. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. No means or measure can define His limitless love and no farseeing telescope can bring into visibility the
coastline of His shoreless supply . . . I’m telling you today you can trust Him!

No barrier can hinder Him from pouring out His blessing. He's enduringly strong and He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast and He's immortally graceful. He's imperially powerful and He's impartially merciful. He's the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world. He's God's Son, He's the sinner's Savior, He's the centerpiece of civilization . . . I’m trying to tell you, church, you can trust Him!

He does not have to call for help and you can't confuse Him. He doesn't need you and He doesn't need me. He stands alone in the solitude of Himself. He's august and He's unique. He's unparalleled, He's unprecedented, He's supreme, He's preeminent, He's the loftiest idea in literature, He's the highest personality in philosophy, He's the supreme problem of higher criticism, He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology, He's the cardinal necessity of spiritual religion, He's the miracle of the age, He's the superlative of everything good you can call Him . . . I’m trying to tell you, church, you can trust Him!

He can satisfy all your needs, and He can do it simultaneously. He supplies strength for the weak and He's available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and He sees. He guards and He guides, He heals the sick, He cleansed the Leper, He forgives sinners, He discharges debtors, He delivers the captives, He defends the feeble, He blesses the young, He regards the aged, He rewards the diligent, He beautifies the meek. . . I’m trying to tell you, church, you can trust Him!

He's the key to knowledge, He's the well spring of wisdom, He's the doorway of deliverance, He's the pathway of peace, He's the roadway of righteousness, He's the highway of holiness, He's the gateway to glory . . . you can trust Him!
He's the master of the mighty, He's the captain of the conquerors, He's the head of heroes, He's the leader of legislators, He's the overseer of the overcomers, He's the governor of the governors, He's the prince of princes, He's the king of kings, He's the Lord of lords . . . you . . . can . . . trust . . . Him!
His office is manifold, His promise is sure, His life is matchless, His goodness is limitless, His mercy is everlasting, His love never changes, His word is enough, His grace is sufficient, His reign is righteous, His yoke is easy, His burden is light, I wish I could describe Him too you, He's indescribable because He's incomprehensible, He's irresistible because He's invincible. You can't get Him off your hands, you can't get Him off your mind, you can't outlive Him and you can't live without Him. The Pharisees couldn't stand it when they found they couldn't stop Him, and Pilate couldn't find any fault in Him. And the witnesses couldn't get their testimonies to agree and Herod couldn't kill Him, and death couldn't handle Him and thank God the grave couldn't hold Him.
There was nobody before Him and there will be nobody after Him. He has no predecessor, He'll have no successor, you can't impeach Him and He's not going to resign. YOU CAN TRUST HIM!!!