Trusting God with All Things at All Times

I have as my subject, trusting God.

! Trusting God with all things at all times. It's a pretty good title because it is so important, this truth, trusting God with all things at all times.

And the passage that I have selected just happens to be one of the first verses of Scripture I committed to memory when I was a little boy. I still remember it to this very day, though I memorized it in the King James.

What you have up here is the New King James Version. So this is what I want us to do. I know you have your Bibles and we have various versions, English versions around the room.

But I want us to read this together as it is printed up here on your screen, okay? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. This is one of those life verses, isn't it?

Some of you may have memorized it. Some of you know it quite well. Probably all of you do. And even if it has not been your life verse, it is one of those life verses in the Bible.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.

That's a life verse. A life principle. That is a principle that we are to live by.

Now, as we get into this passage, I see four truths in this passage that I would like to take one at a time. Now, here's the first truth that I want you to get.

And that is the mandate for trusting God. The mandate for trusting God. Trust in the Lord. That's how it begins. And we can just take that first little phrase.

Trust in the Lord. Now, folks, listen. One of the most beloved, most memorized passages in the Old Testament is actually given to us in the form of a command.

Now, I know it's a proverb. It's out of the book of Proverbs. Proverbs. And as a student of homiletics preaching, I know that you're supposed to preach Proverbs a little bit different than you would, say, the Ten Commandments.

So, Proverbs quite often are not commands. They're Proverbs. Proverbs for life. Axioms of life. Proverbs and principles that need to be applied to the life.

And so, you can't always find a command in the Proverbs, but this is in the form of a command. I studied it. I looked it up. This is a command. And it is a command from whom?

Well, the Lord. The passage tells us right on the front end. Trust in the Lord. And you might have noticed, if you did open your Bibles, and you certainly noticed as you were looking at the passage as it was displayed on the screen, that the word Lord is in all capital letters.

Now, I didn't make a mistake when I typed that into my PowerPoint presentation. That's the way it appears in Scripture. It is trust in the Lord, L-O-R-D, in all capital letters.

And I've explained this, I think, a number of times before, and so you're pretty well versed on this. But there's a reason why, in our English versions, that the word Lord is in all capital letters.

And it is to help us understand that the word Lord in this place was translated from a certain name for God. I mean, you have the word Lord a number of times in Scripture, many times.

I haven't even counted them, hundreds and hundreds of times. Sometimes it's capital L-O-R-D, little case O-R-D, but sometimes it's in all caps.

And that tells us something. It tells us that this passage, the word Lord in this passage, is a translation of the most sacred name for God.

In fact, of all the names that we have identified in Scripture for God, really, this is the only one that really is a name. All the others are more descriptions or titles.

And in a sense, even this name is a description of something. Helps us understand who God is. Understand something about His nature.

But this is a translation of the most sacred name for God, and it is the name Yahweh. Some prefer Jehovah, but the correct pronunciation from Scripture, from the Hebrew, is actually it's Hayah.

That's how you would pronounce it, which is really kind of strange. But it is the name Yahweh. Yahweh. And as I have explained, I know in a number of times before, that Yahweh is the name God gave for Himself to Moses at the burning bush.

You remember? This is where it all began, where we first have identified for us this sacred name for God. When Moses approached the burning bush, and he was on holy ground.

And there, God told Moses His name. He said, I am that I am. Moses was concerned. You know, God had given him marching orders to go back to Egypt and to lead His people out of the bondage of Egypt to deliver them.

And Moses is thinking, well, why would they listen to me? And what shall I say to them if they ask me, who sent you? What's your name? And you remember what God said.

He said, I am that I am. Moses, when you go before my people, tell them I am has sent you.

The one who always was. The one who is. The one who always will be. This is a name that means or really identifies the nature of God, that He is the self-existent one.

The great I am. And the name Yahweh was so sacred to the Jews that they would not even speak the name out loud.

Instead, they would speak the name Adonai as a substitute. And the scribes, when they would copy the scriptures, when they would come to the name Yahweh, they would do two things.

First, they would pick up a brand new quill. A quill that had never been used. They didn't have big ballpoint pens back in those days. Okay, they'd pick up a brand new quill.

And they would just write the name Yahweh. And above it, they would put in smaller letters. The letters for the word or the title Adonai.

So that when the Jewish reader and in their synagogues, they would read the scripture out loud. Which is a good thing. That's what we did just a moment ago. So, when they would come to the name Yahweh, just to make sure they didn't make a mistake and go ahead and speak it out loud.

They would have the lowercase or the smaller letters for Adonai just above so that they would say Adonai instead of Yahweh. They thought it to be so sacred.

The name Yahweh. Adonai. And this is the one who Isaiah the prophet said in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 12. The one who scooped up the ocean in his two hands.

Measured the sky between his thumb and his little finger. This is kind of a paraphrased translation. This is what it means. Scooped up the ocean in two hands.

He can hold all the water of all the oceans on this planet. You know, the planet covered by two-thirds water. He could hold it in his hands. The one who measured the sky.

And he could measure the entire sky. Really, the idea is being the entire universe. He could measure it between his thumb and his little finger. And these are just metaphors, of course, because God doesn't have hands like we do.

It really is to tell us that God is the creator. He scooped up the oceans. He measured the sky. He put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets.

All the dirt. He weighed each mountain and hill. That is, he knows the weight of all the mountains. And though this is not in the passage, he even knows the number of the hairs on your head.

This is Yahweh God. And people, listen. He's the one who commands us in this verse. He commands us. Trust in me.

It's not just a proverb for living that if you choose to do so, that would be good, maybe better for you. This is a command. Trust in me.

That's what he said. There's no other option. No other right option. Though many choose other options. Trust anything but him.

But this is command. Trust in me. And what about this word trust? That is here in the passage. Well, this word trust points to some initial starting point, doesn't it?

That is trusting him for your salvation. That's where it all begins. It doesn't end there, of course. But it begins with our salvation. Jesus said in John 14, 1, believe in God.

Believe also in me. By the way, it's the same. The equivalent to the Hebrew word in the New Testament is the word that we have translated often faith.

Sometimes believe. Sometimes trust. And it means all of those things. Trust in the Lord. Lord, trust in me.

This is what God commands us to do. This is the mandate for trusting in him. You see, Jesus in the New Testament is the Yahweh of the Old Testament.

Yahweh of the Old Testament is Jesus in the New Testament. We're to trust in, first of all, for our salvation. The command to trust in the Lord is continuous.

And the very verb suggests a continuous kind of action. We could translate it, keep on trusting in Jesus the Lord. Trusting in the Lord.

Keep on trusting him. That's the mandate. The mandate for trusting God. Second, the measure.

The measure for trusting God. The measure of it. What does it say? With all your heart.

With all your heart. In the first place, the heart is the place where true faith resides. Right? It doesn't reside here. That's why I much prefer the word trusting rather than just simply believing.

Because believing or to believe is so misunderstood, so misapplied by most people. Believing, to many, suggests an intellect.

An intellectual thing. That is, my mind. I believe the facts. But trusting is something quite different. In fact, believing also is something quite different if you're talking about the Bible kind of believing.

Believing. Having faith. Trusting. All that resides not in the head, but in the heart. But Romans chapter 10, verses 9 and 10.

Part of the Roman road that I shared a couple of times this past week. That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. That is literally to confess that Jesus is Lord.

And believe in your, where? Heart. Believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. You will be saved.

And it goes on for with the, what? The heart. With the heart one believes unto righteousness.

That's a word about salvation. Regeneration. With the heart one believes unto righteousness. That is, to the point of being right with God.

And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Now listen, the command here is to trust in the Lord with all your heart.

All your heart. That's pretty, pretty dogmatic. Pretty all inclusive, isn't it? With all your heart.

This is a command for complete and total faith. And not just, of course, again, faith unto salvation.

But faith that is ongoing. It's a complete and total kind of faith. With all of your heart. The word in the Hebrew text is batach.

I'm kind of emphasizing the Hebrew. I can't speak Hebrew. But it's batach. All your heart.

Batach. And it actually carries with it the meaning of boldness. And not just bold as in just being really assertive.

But bold in the sense of even being careless. I mean, actually the word does mean that. It could be translated that way. A careless kind of faith.

And that only works if your faith is in God. Okay. I mean, careless kind of carries with it a negative connotation. That if you'd be careless about anything doesn't seem like it would be the right thing to do.

But when it comes to trusting God, it's a kind of careless kind of faith. With all your heart. All your heart. Careless faith.

It is, in this sense, to fall down before the Lord in utter abandonment before Him. That carries that connotation of careless.

Abandonment. Utter confidence. Complete reliance. All of those words, all of those concepts are wrapped up in that word batach.

1 Peter chapter 5 verse 7. Casting all your cares upon Him. For He cares for you.

Now, part of the problem here in the Western world is, we have so much. You don't really realize that like you should realize that until you go to some other country.

As Christians, we have so much. We have not only all we need, we have more than we need. With many to the point of excessively more.

We have so much. I say that's a problem because we don't really have to trust God for all that much. I mean, let's just get down to it. You don't have to trust Him for your next meal.

Most of us have enough food in our pantries to last us for a long time. Most Americans have enough fat on them to last. You know, I'm one of them.

We don't really have to trust God. We're not worried. Not having to trust Him for shelter. Not having to trust Him for even air conditioning.

When it's hot outside. Heat when it's cold outside. We're not really having to trust Him this morning. That the authorities won't barge in those doors and arrest your pastor.

And take maybe all of us to jail for questioning and shut down our church. We're not really having to trust. We don't even think about that. And that's pretty much the case for most in the Western world.

I say, you know, particularly our country. So the mandate for trusting God. It's a command.

Trust in the Lord. The measure for trusting God with all your heart. Third, the method.

There's a method here. God gives us a method, actually, in this proverb. The way we're to do this. And really, we could say that there's a negative and a positive here.

He says, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him. That's kind of, in some ways, a parallel thought. But it's the negative and the positive.

In fact, lean not on your own understanding is just the first of a two-part method for trusting God. It's a two-fold method. So, first of all, don't lean on your own understanding.

And, again, literally, considering the verb of the text, it means to keep on. Don't keep on leaning. Don't allow this to be the pattern of your life.

You can't obey the command to trust God. Trusting God. If the habit of your life, the pattern of your life, is to lean on your own understanding. It's the complete opposite.

Now, first of all, don't misunderstand the word understand. Don't take that so far, too far. God has given us a brain.

Given every one of us a brain. He's given us a brain to think with. And God expects us to use it. So, it's not that somehow, you know, understanding things, using our mental processes, is somehow a contradiction to the command of God or somehow the opposite of faith.

Because faith is never a just simply let go and let God kind of thing. God wants us to use our brains. God wants us to understand as much as we can about life, the things of life.

And, folks, listen, there is nothing wrong with evaluating information that we collect, that we gain through seeing and thinking.

There's nothing wrong with doing that and then making life decisions. The important word here is not the word understanding. The key word in the text is the word lean, okay?

Lean, or, again, keep on leaning. And he says, don't keep on leaning on your own understanding. Lean not on your own understanding. And the word here, the Hebrew word here, means to support oneself.

That you rely upon your own thinking, your own rationality, your own resources to support yourself. Again, the idea being to find your support.

Here's the idea. Here's the idea. To keep on finding your support in life in nothing else but yourself. Your own abilities.

Your own understanding. Again, in this case, your own understanding. No, keep on leaning on that. Supporting yourself with that. Your own ability to reason. Keep on leaning.

Don't keep on leaning and relying upon your own conclusions about life. Without any outside authority. This very American.

You know, to be self-thinkers. Free thinkers. I don't need anybody else. Don't need any other authority.

I can do this on my own. That's very American to be that way. But it's not biblical. We are to trust in God.

And again, this is, this part of it is also a command. He's saying, don't do that. Don't keep on leaning on your own understanding.

Proverbs chapter 14 verse 12. There is a way that seems right to a man. But its end is the way of death.

Way of death. There are a lot of things that seem right to us. That is, if we're relying totally upon our own rationale. Our own ability to think.

Our own understanding. There will be ways that seem right to us. But God says those ways lead to death. Because we have totally separated ourselves from the wisdom of God.

The leadership of God. The word of God. The method for trusting God. Do not lean on your own understanding.

But there is a second part to this. The second part of it is, in all your ways, acknowledge Him. In all your ways, acknowledge Him.

And what is this? Well, this really is the principle of prayer, isn't it? Prayer, I mean acknowledging Him in all your ways, all the directions of life, everywhere you go.

In every decision you make, acknowledge Him. This is prayer. Acknowledge God. And yet, this is something a little bit more than just acts of formal prayer.

Which we're involved in and should be involved in. I'm talking about personal prayer. I'm talking about formal prayer. Those times when you're on your knees in your prayer closet. Praying, if that's your custom, the way you do it.

Or specified times of the day. Maybe early in the morning, late at night, whenever it is. That you spend time with God praying. Or even random times when you just kind of stop everything.

And pray. All those are good things and we should be involved in those things and do those things. But this goes way beyond this. He's talking about a constant open line of communication with God.

This is talking about a kind of constant awareness that God is present. Every Christian should have this.

Because God is always present. And can you imagine spending hours day in and day out with a friend of yours?

He goes everywhere you go. Can you imagine not ever talking to Him? Or having a constant conversation? And any time you wanted to speak to Him, you could just speak to Him. God is very present.

More present than any other earthly person that you might be with and spend time with. God is there all the time. God is there all the time.

He is there all the time. And so He's talking about a constant awareness and acknowledgement that God is present. But more than that, an awareness and acknowledgement that He has the right to be in control.

That He is the Lord over every decision we make. That He cares about every step we make in life.

It's acknowledgment of his presence in this sense so that we can speak to him at any time. Not out loud necessarily. I mean, you're walking through Walmart and you're looking for a certain item to buy.

And you say, God, help me to find this. You don't speak that out loud necessarily. I mean, you can if you want to. People think you're crazy or you've got a cell phone, a little microphone in your ear.

I remember when that first started happening and people had those little microphones. And so they're walking around Walmart talking, not just silently, but out loud and loud. And my first thought was, crazy.

Who are they talking to? But I'm talking about just a constant awareness that God is there. You don't have to get on your knees every time you have a request.

You just have to talk to him. Talk to him in your thinking, in your mind, always knowing that he's there. Every way you go and where you go and every time you need some answer from him or some direction.

See, that is the method for trusting God. In all your ways, acknowledge, constantly acknowledge him. All your ways. The big things as well as the little things.

See, it's not, Lord, you take care of what I can't take care of and I'll take care of everything else. That's not what this passage is teaching us.

In all your ways, acknowledge him. All your ways. So, the mandate for trusting God. Trust in the Lord.

It's a command. The measure of it. With all your heart. The method for trusting God. Two-fold.

Lean not. Don't keep on leaning. Relying upon your own understanding in life. But in all your ways, constantly acknowledge God.

His presence with you. And then one more finally. The motive for trusting God. There's a motive given here. I mean, we ought to trust God because he is God.

All right? Whether there's any practical benefit promised to us or not. But we are given a motive here.

And what is it? He shall direct your paths. He shall direct your paths. Now, listen. Why should we trust in the Lord?

Because he will guide us. He will direct our paths in life. I mean, that's the motive. To have God direct our paths in life.

And he is the one that we should always want to be directing our paths. He's the one. And he's really the only one who will do it perfectly. Every single time.

Whether we understand his direction or not. Or understand each movement of it. Whether or not we do. We know that his leadership is perfect. So, to lead us.

To make open the way for us. According to his purposes. But now, actually the phrase direct your paths is more literally translated and some of the versions bring this out.

Make straight your paths. A straight path. But don't misunderstand that. Because geometrically speaking what's the shortest distance between two points?

Straight line. But biblically speaking the shortest distance the right distance between two points is usually anything but a straight line.

And so, is this passage not correct? Is it that God's not going to give us a straight path? The shortest distance? The easiest route? From point A to point B?

It's not promising that. That's why some versions translate directing your paths. Because it may not be a straight line. I'll just take two examples from the life of God's people.

Israel. Two examples in close proximity to their history. You remember when God delivered them out of Egypt and they trusted Him. They followed Him.

And God brought them to a dead end. Do you remember? Brought them to the Sea of Galilee between two mountains. And so suddenly there they are hemmed in by two mountains at the Sea not Galilee the Red Sea.

and suddenly behind them what? Pharaoh's armies. Man, that's a royal dead end. Now God had plans, didn't He?

In fact, the Bible tells us in Exodus chapter 14 first few verses of that chapter we don't have time to go read it but it said that God told them to camp there for a reason because He was going to judge Pharaoh.

He's going to deceive Pharaoh hard in his heart to think that He's got them where He wants them and He's going to conquer them and then God is going to deliver God's people of course on dry land across the Red Sea.

But He led them to a dead end. They didn't understand it at the time and sometimes God leads us to what seems to be a dead end only to open the way for us.

He has a purpose in that. That's part of His directing our paths. After that God brought them through the Red Sea of course and they trusted Him and then God took them on a detour.

He was leading them to the promised land the land of Canaan the land flowing with milk and honey but He didn't lead them on the direct path He led them the long way around to get there.

You can read about that in Exodus chapter 13 verses 17 to 18 and I don't have time to go read it but it says that He led them not through the land of the Philistines because they were a warring people and they were ready for that.

They led them around the long way around part of God's grace and so sometimes you know He'll lead us to a dead end or lead us on a detour and because with God the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line and so He'll lead us to a dead end or a detour and what do we do?

We gripe and complain. But Romans chapter 8 verse 28 says and we know or we should know that all things work together for good ultimate good to those who love God to those who are the called according to what?

His purpose. His purpose. So the mandate for trusting God trusting God it's a command. The measure of that the measure for trusting God with all your heart the method for trusting God what?

Lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him and the motive He shall direct your paths.