Scripture Reading: Proverbs 3:1-12
OPENING: Prolonged life, favor among men, straight walk in life, good health, food, and happiness … What more can we ask for? … We need to live the way God intended us to … The way is contained in His word … We must completely depend on His word and not try to analyze what He is trying to tell us … It starts with trusting in the Lord … What does the Bible have to say about trust? …
What Is Trust?:
Translated, “trust” in the Bible means a bold, confident, sure security or action based on that security … Trust is not the same as faith … Trusting is what we do because of the faith … Trusting is believing in the promises of God in all circumstances …
Hebrews 11 talks about faith … Faith is accepting and believing the truth that God reveals about Himself … The consequences of faith in God is trust … We prove this by living out our full acceptance of God’s promises day by day … It is by this trust that we are promised peace: Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you”
How Do We Trust?:
This verse sums up the Bible’s teaching on trust …
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
It is the Lord we are to trust, not ourselves or our plans, not the world’s wisdom and devices … We trust in the Lord because He is truly trustworthy …
His Word is trustworthy …
Titus 1:9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
His nature is faithful and true …
Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
Psalm 25:10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.
Psalm 145:13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.
His plans for us are perfect and purposeful …
Isaiah 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Because of His nature, we are to trust Him with all our hearts … We are to commit every aspect of our lives to Him … In complete confidence … We are not to trust in ourselves because our understanding is temporal, finite, and tainted by our sin natures … Trusting in ourselves is like walking confidently across a rotten wooden bridge … Disaster is inevitable …
There are 39 references to trust in the Psalms alone … Either to trust in God and His Word, or to not trust in riches or the things of this world … It is because of this trust that David finds deliverance from all the evil he encounters … Many of David’s psalms describe situations when he was pursued by Saul and his army … The Lord always came to his aid … Biblical trust produces further trust in God …
CLOSING: Children of God should never stop trusting in God … Our faith may be knocked down … We may stumble or we may fall into sin, but Psalm 37:24 tells us: “though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand” … As children of God we know that trials will be in our lives … Our trust should not waiver because that trust is based on faith and on the promises of God … The promise of eternal joy with the Lord, and the promise of an inheritance that can never perish, spoil and fade …
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