Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Wonderful.
[00:00:02] This morning, I want to look at a topic that I believe is very contemporary in this world that we live today, and that's around the issue of trust.
[00:00:09] We are living in a world where trust is evaporating from our society. It's evaporating from our interpersonal relationships. It's evaporating from our organizations and our institutions. There is such a lack of trust around.
[00:00:26] And in the middle of that, there is an implication upon us as followers of Jesus around the issue of trust.
[00:00:33] And I want to ask a question this morning. Is partial trust really trust?
[00:00:38] Can you partially trust someone 50%, 80%?
[00:00:45] Is it possible to have a measure of skepticism or distrust and a measure of trust at the same time?
[00:00:55] Is it possible that those percentages can play out? And I wonder if I asked you how much you trust an individual, how much you trust God, I wonder what that percentage would be.
[00:01:07] I wonder where you would place yourself, maybe in relation to God. I wonder where you would locate your trust in terms of God.
[00:01:18] Maybe you have won some battles over the last year, and your trust feels really high. Maybe it feels really low and vulnerable.
[00:01:26] Is partial trust significantly motivated by a sense of distrust?
[00:01:31] Well, in this world, I think the words trust me have never sounded less convincing than they are today.
[00:01:41] And how do we navigate our experiences of feeling both failed and disappointed by people, by organizations, by institutions?
[00:01:52] How do we navigate that and still make sure that we are not becoming cynical, distrusting people?
[00:02:01] I think one of the casualties of COVID one of many casualties of COVID was distrust.
[00:02:10] We sat alone.
[00:02:12] We worked from home, away from our colleagues.
[00:02:16] We had more time to give to our thoughts.
[00:02:20] We experienced this significant trauma in our nation and the nations of the world, and it impacted our daily living.
[00:02:28] And in the swarm of that disconnect and that lack of interpersonal engagement, do you remember all of the conspiracy theories that thrived online?
[00:02:42] Do you remember all of those things that were said that seemed to raise suspicions about everything?
[00:02:51] And as a result of that, I believe almost like a layer of trust was peeled off all our hearts and all of society.
[00:03:01] And on top of that, we had leaders that broke the rules that they created. And again, another layer of trust begins to evaporate.
[00:03:11] So today, when a friend or a boss or even a minister says, trust me, it seems that more of us are more likely to respond cautiously than any previous generation.
[00:03:28] There was some research carried out in the states, and it said in the US, only 19% of the millennial generation trust other people.
[00:03:40] Every new generation trusts others less than past generations.
[00:03:47] It appears to me that distrust is out of control, and it's getting out of control faster than we think.
[00:03:58] So what is the result of being in a society where trust so low?
[00:04:05] Well, the results of a low trust based society are very significant.
[00:04:11] It becomes a more fragmented society.
[00:04:15] We become more detached from a sense of social community.
[00:04:20] We become more anxious because we don't engage with help that other people can offer us because we don't trust them. This develops into a more individualistic society where people simply look out for their own interests, and they do so with an ever increasing sense of anxiety.
[00:04:43] Basically, without trust, society falls apart and we all suffer.
[00:04:53] And I'd like to say that the lack of trust is a problem that exists just out there in the world, because we've got it all sorted in here. But the reality is, you and I are products of this world. We live in this world. We get let down by people in this world. But it doesn't just stop there. We get let down by people in the church.
[00:05:15] Failure is not just a feature of this world, it's a feature of the church.
[00:05:23] We have seen across the nations, across this nation, scandals over recent years of people that were once elevated as heroes in our modern church context. And we've seen things come out into the open that have caused us to think, how did we trust them?
[00:05:48] That hurts.
[00:05:50] Scandals, failures, abuses of power in high profile contexts can lead to the question, is there anyone we can trust? If you ask that question, who can I genuinely trust today?
[00:06:09] Now, I think in balance of that, as I mentioned, and I won't mention by name, but some of you will have seen many press clippings or heard stories or been impacted by your own heroes of your faith that have lost the plot or something has come out that there was a dissidence and a duplicitness in their life. What I will say on that is that all of us are products of grace.
[00:06:36] All of us.
[00:06:38] We cannot elevate any individual or any organization.
[00:06:42] We are all products of grace. We stand together by the grace of God, don't we? I'm so grateful that God is a God of mercy and a God of forgiveness and a God of restoration.
[00:06:53] But he is also a God who calls us in our various ministries and callings in life to serve him wholeheartedly and to deal with the dissidents, to be honest and have integrity and have a heart that's concerned about fulfilling the vows and the commitments we make on our life.
[00:07:15] I'm so glad for the marriage vow that Nita and I made many over 30 years ago now. And I thank God that God has, by his grace and mercy, enabled us to keep those vows in our life.
[00:07:30] And the words that we utter, particularly the words we utter in the sight of God, matter.
[00:07:37] The words that we declare, the vows that we make, the promises that we give. God cares about the detail and the nuance of these things.
[00:07:45] But actually for the big scandals that there may be in the body of Christ, and they're there, and there'll be more.
[00:07:54] That there are many thousands of churches that are serving God faithfully, loving the Lord with all their heart. Some of them have not got profile on God tv or in printed, printed magazines. But they're people who love the Lord. They give their best to him, they honor him with all of their heart, and they are serving the people of God faithfully. And it's important to remember that we've all been impacted, I'm sure, by the drip, drip stories of failure which have injured and hurt many others. And it must grieve the heart of God significantly, that there are people in churches who have become victims of abusive leadership, victims of sexual exploitation in churches. I can't think of something that will grieve the heart of God more than seeing the people of God suffer at the hands of those that he has raised up to love and to serve them. But there are many people that are loving and serving God and serving his people faithfully.
[00:08:56] And in the middle of this trust crisis, it is a crisis.
[00:09:00] It is a crisis.
[00:09:02] We.
[00:09:04] The rise of the challenges of mental well being in our society is partly because there is no established connection of trust in people's lives. They don't know where to turn. They don't have family members that they can turn to and trust any longer. They don't have institutions they can turn to and trust any longer. And as a result of that, their individualistic approach means that their anxiety grows, and it can lead to significant mental health challenges. And in the middle of this crisis, we find these words in proverbs three, five, six.
[00:09:41] And it says this, trust in the Lord with a hundred percent your heart.
[00:09:53] And lean not on your own understanding.
[00:09:58] In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
[00:10:09] Distrust doesn't just grow in our nation. By one or two incidents, there's a cocktail.
[00:10:16] This cocktail might exist because someone's been let down, particularly if that failure, if that disappointment has happened during your formative years, that can create a pattern in your life of continually feeling let down by people who are around you. It almost lowers the bar of expectation in your life, and therefore you trust no one. Again, that pattern that we get into, if you've had trauma as a child in your life, then it can impact how you respond as an adult, because your life, your emotion, your soul has developed in a way that has found a diversion around something that you should have known in your life. You should have known trust. God designed you to have people who would love you, care for you, protect you, and guard you. And if you didn't experience that, you've had to find your own way around that. And that can leave a vacancy in our hearts.
[00:11:15] Witnessing failure and the broken promises of others can be part of this cocktail of distrust.
[00:11:23] It can make us instinctively distrust other people.
[00:11:29] But I want to suggest today that there may be some experiences that you've had with God that may have actually added to your sense of distrust.
[00:11:44] Let me just unpack what that means. And before I do so, let me say this. God never fails.
[00:11:51] He never breaks a promise, but he doesn't always do what we want him to do when we want him to do it, and he doesn't always do it in the way that we want him to do it.
[00:12:04] And this can cause you and I to actually develop a distrust with God.
[00:12:11] I want to look at three things that you and I may have experienced in our life, in our relationship with God, which may have caused there to be seeds of distrust towards God that I want to help you reframe today.
[00:12:29] The first one, delay.
[00:12:35] Have you ever prayed and longed for an answer and you fasted?
[00:12:44] You've met with others, you've joined together in prayer.
[00:12:48] You've called the christian community to get around you and pray, and it just doesn't feel like the answer has come.
[00:12:57] Have you ever experienced that delay?
[00:13:02] Why does God always seem to leave it to last minute? Is he disorganized?
[00:13:08] Does he have a bad admin department?
[00:13:12] Does he need a better to do list?
[00:13:15] Does he need the help of technology to help him keep track of all the prayers? After all, the billions of people on the earth are all raising their voices? Maybe he's a little confused.
[00:13:27] Maybe it's only when he sees us really sweat over the timing that he then begins to think, oh, I better answer them now.
[00:13:37] God doesn't delay because he has forgotten.
[00:13:44] God delays because his timing is better than yours.
[00:13:51] And there is a purpose and a process in the delay that we can frame as a reason to distrust him or we can understand is a reason to trust him all the more.
[00:14:04] Let's look at some people who experience delay in the Bible.
[00:14:07] In Exodus 32, we read a story about Aaron and Miriam, the brother and sister of Moses.
[00:14:15] Moses was away up on the mountain meeting the Lord.
[00:14:19] He was engulfed in the presence of God. He was away for a prolonged period of time, meeting with the Lord. During that time, the Lord was given the Ten Commandments. It was a very significant moment in Moses life and in the nation of Israel. And at that time, it seemed like Moses wasn't going to return. How many of you have ever been in a situation where it feels like God is not going to show up?
[00:14:50] And Miriam and Aaron, where's Moses gone? Our leader? Where's he gone? We don't know what to do now. It seems that there's an absence of the voice of God. So they did something that maybe you have done.
[00:15:03] They took matters into their own hands.
[00:15:07] And we see that they instructed people to bring their golden and they melted the gold and they built an idol.
[00:15:15] They did something their own way because it seemed like God wasn't going to show up.
[00:15:23] You and I have probably found times in our life when we have been trusting and praying and longing for God to do something, and he just hasn't shown up. And therefore, we've taken matters into our own hands.
[00:15:39] I've seen this happen time and time again. I've seen people step into the wrong career because an opportunity hasn't come up in their timeframe. I've seen people step into wrong relationships because they've waited and they've waited and the right person hasn't seemed to show up. I see time and time again the propensity for us to step in when it feels like God is delaying. Abraham and Sarah, they had a promise. You will have children as numerous as the stars in the sky. Descendants will come from your seed.
[00:16:14] And they were getting on a bit. They were at a stage of life where that wasn't going to be possible now in the natural. And they took matters into their own hands. Abraham slept with the concubine and a child was born. But it wasn't part of God's plan and process and purpose.
[00:16:34] Every time you and I take matters into our own hands, we take it out of God's hands, and the result is usually a mess. Can I hear an amen?
[00:16:46] So, delay. If you've experienced delay and you've stepped in because God has not arrived in your timeline, it's possible that rather than grow more in trust of God, you actually have become less trusting of God.
[00:17:02] Secondly, disappointments.
[00:17:06] There may be disappointments that you've harbored in your life. God always answers prayer. We know that. But there are three answers he gives to prayer.
[00:17:15] The first, and this is the one we all want. Yes.
[00:17:19] Who wants a yes prayer?
[00:17:22] God, give me breakthrough. God, give me healing. God, give me an opportunity to see that miracle come about. We all want a yes, but it's not the only answer God gives. There's a second answer.
[00:17:34] No.
[00:17:36] That's an answered prayer right there.
[00:17:40] God, will you. Will you open this door? No.
[00:17:45] Oh, we don't like that, do we? I don't like that. Come on, God. All right, God, what we'll do, we'll fast a bit. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe we can convince you to change your mind.
[00:17:57] And then I've seen people walk away over the years from following Jesus because they've struggled to understand that God's no is the right answer for their life.
[00:18:13] So there's a yes, there's a no.
[00:18:15] And there's another answer that God gives which relates to the previous point, and that is not yet.
[00:18:22] David, one of Israel's kings and a man after God's own heart, asked God if he could build him a temple.
[00:18:32] God said no.
[00:18:37] Paul, the author of much of the New Testament, begged God three times to remove from him a thorn that was piercing into him. God said no.
[00:18:51] I've met people over the years who have been disappointed with God's no answers.
[00:18:57] None of us like hearing no.
[00:19:01] And in fact, if you've had a repetition of no's in your life, you find that you're likely to stop asking future questions or pray in future prayers or having future hope, because we don't want to hear another no.
[00:19:20] And then we begin to live in a realm of disappointment and disengagement, and our trust lowers, and that percentage bar becomes less and less trusting towards God and more and more distrusting.
[00:19:37] Moses pleaded with the Lord to ease his disappointment and let him enter into the promised land. But God refused, and instead gave him the consolation of seeing it from a distance.
[00:19:51] Can you imagine Moses disappointment after all that he had been through?
[00:19:57] But when God says no, he says no for a reason.
[00:20:02] Who is it that respects no these days?
[00:20:05] We're a pretty molly coddled society, aren't we?
[00:20:09] With strong levels of entitlement and knowing our rights, but we have low levels of responsibility.
[00:20:16] How dare someone say no to you?
[00:20:21] How dare they?
[00:20:25] Don't they know you're a child of God?
[00:20:28] Like, how can they ever say no?
[00:20:35] How can God love you and say no?
[00:20:42] That might cause you to scratch your head a little bit, but whenever God says no, he always says it for a reason.
[00:20:50] Now, other people might say no for unhelpful reasons.
[00:20:56] They may not like you.
[00:20:58] Some of those people exist, don't they? They don't like you. And so if they know you want something, they are going to do their utmost to block it. Just to be spiteful.
[00:21:10] That's not what God does.
[00:21:12] Other people might feel threatened by you. Your boss at work may feel threatened by you. And so you put in an application for a promotion, and they say no.
[00:21:26] Not necessarily because it's the best answer for you. But because they don't want you to threaten them.
[00:21:34] But God never says no because he's threatened by us.
[00:21:38] He always says no because it is the best answer that we can hear.
[00:21:45] God knows better than me.
[00:21:49] Why don't you say that with me? God knows better than me. I'm so glad you did that. I thought you were going to say, God knows better than Mark. So thank you for taking the words literally, God knows better than Mark, than Nita, than Brian.
[00:22:15] He knows better than all of us.
[00:22:20] And if he says no, you want to live in a place of peace.
[00:22:26] And it's meant to cause our trust in him to grow, not to diminish.
[00:22:33] And then there's a third cocktail in our walk with God. That can cause us to be less trusty in. And that is discouragement.
[00:22:45] Discouragement can be very tricky to navigate. We all love the feelings of being encouraged.
[00:22:50] But none of us like the feelings of being discouraged.
[00:22:55] We all love people saying nice things to us. We don't like people saying not so nice things to us.
[00:23:02] And we see a story in one Kings chapter 1819.
[00:23:07] About a prophet Elijah, who goes from this literal, mountaintop experience of seeing God answer by fire. And seeing all the false prophets exposed for the fakes that they are.
[00:23:25] And then he hides. He runs and he hides. And he is discouraged. We read that he was so discouraged that he even wanted to die.
[00:23:37] And from this story, we can see that, like Elijah, we can sometimes feel alone and discouraged even after a victorious battle. In fact, in my journey, I often find that some of the most vulnerable moments in our life. Are the times after a victory. In a battle, we seem to be at our most vulnerable. I think there's a few dynamics that take place in these moments. First of all, we have spent our energy on the victory. We have given our best. Our engagement has been full on to see the breakthrough happen. And then we find that our energy levels drop.
[00:24:27] And at that point, the enemy knows how we're framed and he takes advantage of a low moment in our life.
[00:24:37] Be very careful after your victory.
[00:24:41] In fact, I've noticed over the years the elation that people can experience at the point of baptism in water.
[00:24:49] And they have gone on this journey of like, wow, God is amazing. Jesus, you're wonderful. And they stopped. Stand in front of the church, and they celebrate their new life in Christ. They get baptized in water, and then it can feel like all hell breaks loose.
[00:25:06] And I've seen people go from a place of being fully engaged in the Lord and then suddenly, like, where are they?
[00:25:16] Because the enemy wants to come in like a flood.
[00:25:21] But the scripture says the Lord will raise up a standard at that time if we will trust him.
[00:25:30] Discouragement. If Elijah can get discouraged, you and I can get discouraged as well. And when we get discouraged, we withdraw and we instinctively distrust others.
[00:25:44] And this scripture, trust in the Lord with 100% of your heart.
[00:25:52] In our prayer meeting on Friday morning, Chilvila, I'm not quite sure where she is this morning. She had a wonderful picture.
[00:26:00] It was a picture of, like, a Tarzan esque type of man swinging through the trees in the jungle.
[00:26:07] And as this Tarzan s man was going from one vine or one rope to the next that there's a moment where he's got to let go of what was in order to swing unto what is.
[00:26:24] And she had this picture of people that were grabbing a hold of the new but struggling to let go of the old.
[00:26:32] And you just get stuck.
[00:26:35] You have to let go of the old in order to embrace the new. And that involves trust, because that last vine held your weight. Will the new vine hold your weight?
[00:26:46] And there's a picture of trust that the Lord is inviting us into. If you've been failed by others, if you've been failed by society, if you've been failed by friends, God calls you to find hope and trust in him.
[00:27:04] If you've tried to trust God and experience delay, disappointment or discouragement, then this is an opportunity for you and I to reset a new level of trust in him.
[00:27:21] Will you trust his timing?
[00:27:24] Will you trust his ways? And will you trust his abiding presence to lead you?
[00:27:32] Everything we experience is an invitation to grow deeper in intimacy with him.
[00:27:41] God is faithful, and there are some things that you and I can do to rebuild that sense of trust in our life. And I want you to be aware that the toxins of this world, of the distrust of the spirit, of the age that we are in, want its impact to be less about your distrust of institutions and it's trying to feed into the soul of the church to say, you can't even trust God.
[00:28:11] And that is the worst impact. That when you and I lose our trust of God, it doesn't matter what buildings we have. It doesn't matter how great singing times we have together. It doesn't matter what great facilities the Lord blesses us with. If we haven't got trust in our heart, then we don't follow him as disciples.
[00:28:28] We just get involved in some religious group.
[00:28:32] It's about relationship.
[00:28:34] If my trust and if Nita's trust in one another evaporates, we don't have much of a relationship. Trust is an important, significant ingredient in all of our lives. It's important in the community of God's people. But it's particularly important in regards to God.
[00:28:55] And as we try to find our trust, our 100% trust in the Lord, I want to invite you to remind yourself of a few things. God is faithful, and you can recognize his faithfulness throughout history, and you can recognize his faithfulness throughout your own life.
[00:29:15] Reflect on the countless times that God has proven himself faithful, keeping his promises and providing for you.
[00:29:26] The Bible is full of examples of his faithfulness. Abraham, Moses, David. Some names have already mentioned and their experiences, because there's an end of the story that we see. We see the timing of God on full display, and we see that God is reminding us that if they could trust him and if they could see the answer come, then you and I can see the faithfulness of God at work in our own life.
[00:29:51] To God is faithful. Secondly, surrender.
[00:29:54] Trusting God requires surrendering control and relinquishing our desire to be in control.
[00:30:01] Do we have any control freaks in the room? Don't put your hands up.
[00:30:07] So it's so hard. It's one of the products of the age that we're in, that we. We have to be in control because we're the only ones we trust now.
[00:30:18] And when you come to Jesus, God wants to help you deal with that, because you can't fulfill the fullness of what God's got for your life. If you insist on being in control, you have to get out of the driver's seat.
[00:30:36] You have to let go of that rope that you were swinging on once.
[00:30:40] You have to trust in the Lord with all your heart.
[00:30:47] And that's so challenging. It requires humility.
[00:30:52] It requires a willingness to submit to the sovereignty of God.
[00:30:58] And you have probably got desires in your heart and wants and things you'd love to have happen, and it's challenging to surrender those.
[00:31:07] But the Lord invites us to surrender.
[00:31:10] Trusting God involves yielding to his wisdom and his guidance, even when it goes our own wants and our own reasoning.
[00:31:20] Also to cultivate intimacy through prayer and scripture. Cultivate intimacy with God through prayer.
[00:31:26] I just know that Nita and I, we wouldn't be able to be growing in our relationship together if we weren't cultivating connection and we weren't still in proximity understanding each other.
[00:31:43] Nina's got little signals she gives with her eyes sometimes, or eyebrows. And I know what she means. She doesn't have to say a word.
[00:31:52] There's a nuance sometimes.
[00:31:56] She doesn't realize that everyone else can see those eyes as well and that, you know, it's a public thing. You're on the stage, everyone can see your eyes. You know, we have instinctive little communication points that we have with each other. And we would not be growing as a relationship if it wasn't for those things and with the Lord. There's an invitation for intimacy. It's not, it's not like a routine of just read your Bible and pray every day if you want to grow. It's like you need to hear the voice of the Lord. We need to be in engagement with him. It's an adventure. It's an invitation to spend time with the Lord and we get to know him. See, reading the Bible, it gives us an insight into his character, his principles, his values, his ways, his mission, his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations. That's what the scriptures do. And when we spend time in his presence, our hearts get softened, our life gets washed. We come alive with an understanding of the goodness of God, and it can't happen unless we're spending time with him. You know, the church is not meant to be our bridge to intimacy with Jesus. It's meant to be an encouragement to it. But you and I can spend time alone with Jesus, and that needs to be cultivated regular. Approaching God's word enables us to discover his character. Regular time in prayer allows us to get to know his heart.
[00:33:35] And as we come towards the end, seeing Christ and our trials and our challenges, this is another response to growing in trust to the Lord that you and I, we go through difficult times.
[00:33:47] We go through things that we wouldn't have wanted to go through. This world is cruel and this world is painful. There's darkness around in this world, in this fallen world.
[00:33:56] But I find that trust is often forged in the biggest of challenges and the crucible of trials that I experience.
[00:34:05] Difficult seasons will test our faith, but they will also provide us opportunities to lean into God and experience his faithfulness in new ways.
[00:34:15] James chapter one says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, he is faithful, and when we obey him, love him and trust him, we will encounter the wisdom and the sovereignty of God in our lives, and it will get you to a place of growing in him.
[00:34:57] I pray, Lord Jesus, that in my heart and in your heart that we will reject the distrust narrative of this world.
[00:35:10] I don't mean we put our hope blindly in failing organizations, no. But we resist our souls from being corrupted with the toxins of distrust that are being sown in our society. And we say, I'm not having that in my soul and I am going to trust the Lord 100%. Would you stand with me a moment? The band are going to come back and join me on the stage.
[00:35:43] I don't know if there's been one or two things that have touched on your journey and your experience today.
[00:35:49] Maybe you've been hurt at a formative stage of your life. Someone that should have protected you, has harmed you.
[00:35:55] Maybe you have been in a situation where your trust of God, you feel has been let down and you've been delayed, disappointed or discouraged.
[00:36:06] I don't know what the cocktail that's formed your sense of distrust is, but I wonder if you will tip that cocktail out right now down the drain and say, I'm not going to drink from that any longer.
[00:36:20] I am going to trust in the Lord.
[00:36:23] Would you join me in a declaration would you join me in a declaration of this verse we can have back on the screen it says, trust in the Lord. Would you read this out loud? Would you speak it as a declaration of your life?
[00:36:40] Trust in the Lord. Come on, let's read this together. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding standing in all your ways. Submit to him and he will make your path straight. Come on, say it again. And as you say it now, use a machine gun in the spirit to battle away all those toxins of this world and say, I'm not allowing them to settle in my spirit. Come on, say it again. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your path straight one more time. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your path straight. Would you close your eyes, holy spirit, your word which is sharper than any two edged sword.
[00:37:50] Would it come now and divide the things of this world and the things of your spirit?
[00:37:58] And I pray the things of this world that have been nailed to the cross would be removed.
[00:38:07] They would no longer have the toxicity in our spirit that we would be a people that trust you completely.
[00:38:20] Come and bring your peace over our disappointments.
[00:38:26] Bring your mercy upon those occasions where we have, because of delay, taken things into our own hands.
[00:38:36] Bring your mercy, O God, on our seasons of isolation and discouragement.
[00:38:44] Help us to be people that trust.
[00:38:48] And help us be people who are trustworthy.
