When You Don’t Feel Like Trusting
Trusting God in
Difficult Times, Part 3
01-20-13 Sermon
“Trust in God at all times, my people.
Tell him all your troubles, for he is our refuge.”
Psalm 62:8 (TEV)
1. Remember that trust is not ________________________________________
“Do not let your hearts be
troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1 (NIV)
2. Set your heart on ________________________________________
“And I pray that Christ will
be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the sol of God’s
marvelous love. And may you have the
power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high,
and how deep his love really is.” Ephesians
3:17-18 (NLT)
3. Set your mind on ________________________________________
“Since you have been raised to
new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ
sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power.” Colossians 3:1 (NLT)
4. Don’t face it ________________________________________
“Two people can resist an
attack that would defeat one personal one.
A rope made of three cords is hard to break.” Ecclesiastes 4:12 (TEV)
Trusting in the Midst of Emotions
Trust
when you are ________________________________________
“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries
into prayers, letting God know your concerns.
Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming
together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ
displaces worry at the center of your life.”
Philippians
4:6-7 (Msg)
Trust
when you are ________________________________________
What Moses said: “Don’t be afraid. Just stand where you are and watch the LORD
rescue you.” Exodus 14:13 (NLT)
What God said: “Then the LORD said to Moses,
‘Why are you crying out to me? Tell the
people to get moving!’” Exodus 14:15 (NLT)
Trust
when you are ________________________________________
“Naaman’s servants went to him
and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would
you not have done it? How much more,
then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 2 Kings 5:13 (NIV)
“If you hear God’s voice
today, don’t be stubborn!” Heb.
3:7-8 (CEV)
Trust
when you are ________________________________________
“I have given up all hope, and
I feel numb all over.” Psalm
143:4 (CEV)
“Then Jesus said, “Come to me,
all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NLT)
When You Don’t Feel Like Trusting
Trusting God in
Difficult Times, Part 3
01-20-13 Sermon
We’re going to be continuing
to talk as we have been the last couple of weeks about how do you trust God in
difficult times. How do you trust God no
matter what?
That’s really what
the first verse on the outline talks about.
“Trust in God at all times, my
people. Tell him all your troubles for
he is our refuge.” So we’ve been
talking about that. I talked to you about
trusting God when things are changing. I
talked to you about trusting God when there’s troubles we’re facing in our
lives.
This week, we’re going
to look at the fact that sometimes, whatever the problem, whether it’s good
times or bad times, the reason we don’t trust God is we just don’t feel like it. So how do you trust God when you don’t feel
like trusting God?
I can stand here
and talk about trusting God in this circumstance or that circumstance, the good
and the bad. That’s great on a Sunday or
on a Saturday. But what do you do on
Monday or Tuesday when you know you should trust God, but that day you just don’t
feel like it. You feel too tired. You feel too worried or you feel too
overwhelmed. It just feels too
complicated I don’t feel like trusting God.
What does God say
that you and I can do when we don’t feel like trusting? We’re all going to feel this way
sometimes. What can I do?
1. I can
remember that trust is not an emotion.
I don’t have to feel like trusting in order to trust. Because trust is not an emotion. It’s not like I have to get up this feeling
of feeling closer to God, feeling really spiritual, or feeling really
sentimental in order to trust God. It’s
not a feeling. It’s an action. So however you’re feeling you can still trust.
Jesus talked to his
first followers about this the night before he died. He knew the next day he was going to be
hanging on a cross and they would feel like everything had been lost. So the night, before he talked to them about
the difference between trust and feeling, action and feeling. John 14:1 “Do
not let your hearts be troubled. Trust
in God trust also in me.” Jesus said
you’re going to feel this way but
however you feel don’t let that overwhelm
you. Decide to trust whatever the
circumstance is.
So you trust God
first of all by remembering that trust is not an emotion. The second thing you do is this…
2. You set your
heart on God’s love for you.
You realize
whatever the circumstances you’re having, whatever the feelings you’re having, God
loves you.
I love these verses
from the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 3:17-18 “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you
trust in him. May your roots go down
deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.
And may you have the power to understand as all God’s people should how
wide, how long, how high and how deep his love really is.” Don’t miss that.
Whatever you’re going
through, however you might feel, you might feel far from God, feel far from his
love. The truth is he loves you no
matter what.
Some people
honestly feel ashamed to trust God. They
feel like they’ve gotten themselves into
a mess and they’ve got to get themselves out
of the mess before they can trust God again. No! You
need God’s love now more than ever. So
you recognize he loves me even through this.
God is not out to
blame you. He’s out to love you. That’s his heart. That’s his desire for you. You recognize whatever I’m going through,
whatever the circumstance, however I feel.
Whether I feel like trusting or don’t feel like trusting he loves me.
Oftentimes I’ve found
it takes recognizing that he loves me to understand the circumstances of life. Because sometimes it seems like the
circumstances God throws at me are exactly the opposite of what I would want. It may even seem scary sometimes.
So if right now it
feels like the circumstances that God is allowing and brought in your life is
like a big broom pushing you exactly in the opposite way you need to be – it’s
because he knows where the open door is.
You realize that even in these circumstances that I don’t understand, God
loves me. God has a heart of love for me. Set your heart of love on God. That’s what you do when you don’t feel like
trusting.
Then there’s third
thing that you and I can do.
3. Set your
mind on things that which will last.
You can set your
mind on the immediate circumstance. You
can set your mind on the immediate relationship and that might be good. That might be bad. But when we don’t feel like trusting you set
your mind on that which you know will last.
God’s love for you, the eternity of heaven, the reality of what he has,
the character he’s building in you, the plan he has that stretches all the way
into eternity. You set your mind on what
Colossians 3:1 talks about “Since you’ve
been raised to a new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of
heaven where Christ sits at the right hand of God in the place of honor and
power.” And by the way he sets there
praying for you.
So you set your
mind on what’s really real. And what seems
real to us is the present circumstance. But
what is really real is the eternity that God has planned for us.
The truth of the
matter is what you feel isn’t always real. I might feel this but its just not real at all.
It’s embarrassing to me how often what I feel has nothing to do with
reality.
You might feel like everybody in your
office is talking about you. When the
truth is they haven’t thought about you for months. But you feel
this way.
You might feel like the person in the
car next to you intentionally cut you off when the truth of the matter is
they’re messing around with their cell phone and they don’t even know you’re
there or anybody else on the highway – which is a whole different problem. What you’re feeling doesn’t always match
reality. This happens all the time. What you feel isn’t always real.
So in order to
trust when you don’t feel like trusting you don’t focus on your feelings. You focus on what’s real. And what’s real is what’s going to last. The character that God’s building in you, the
plan that he has for you. What’s real is
what God’s doing. You have to ask yourself
am I going to trust what I feel or am I going to trust in what’s real.
Then there’s a final
thing you do when you don’t feel like trusting….
4. You don’t
face it alone.
Don’t face it alone. You’re not meant to face it alone. None of us are meant to face it alone. We go into a situation and we focus on
ourselves and we try to make it through all by ourselves and we fall flat on our
face and we wonder what’s wrong with me?
It’s not what’s wrong
with you. It’s the direction you’re going. We’re meant to not focus on ourselves, we’re
meant to focus on God and others. We’re
meant to not just rely on ourselves alone.
We’re meant to rely on others. So
of course we fall flat on our face when we miss out on all of that. God means for us to not face life alone. He means for us to find strength from each
other.
Ecclesiastes 4:12
says “Two people can resist an attack
that would defeat one person alone. A rope
made of three cords is hard to break.” You look at that and say, “Of course three is
better than one.” But this is true in
relationships too.
Here’s the point. Maybe all you have left is a thread of faith. And you wonder how am I going to make it? If you’ll take your thread of faith and you
add it to somebody else’s thread of faith and maybe just one more, you’ll be amazed
at the strength that God can give you. Stop
trying to make your thread of faith thicker all by yourself. Recognize that when we work together God
strengthens us. It’s amazing what God
can do with what little you give him when you try to not do it alone.
Don’t face it alone. That’s one of the keys. You don’t face it alone. You set your mind on what will last. You set your heart on God’s love for you. Remember that trust is not an emotion.
Trusting in the midst of emotions.
The truth of the
matter is there’s a lot of reasons we don’t feel like trusting. I may not feel like trusting because I’m just
tired. I may not feel like trusting
because I’m anxious. I may not feel like
trusting because I’m afraid.
What I want to do
is spend just a few minutes sort of like we go in and we set down with God and
he’s the doctor and he says I want to give you a prescription. You’re feeling this way, Here’s the prescription.
Here’s what you do in order to trust in
that situation. Just practical,
encouraging, strengthening words from God.
Trust when you are anxious.
For instance, how do
you trust when you’re anxious? God has a
prescription. This one is in Philippians
4:6-7 “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying pray. [You pray.
That’s his prescription. You might circle that phrase.] You let
petition and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your
concerns. Before you know it a sense of God’s
wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ
displaces worry at the center of our lives.” You pray.
What do you pray
about? You pray about what you’re
worried about. I don’t know why it is, but
we beat around the bush with God a lot of times. We come saying, I’ve got this worry but first I’m going to pray for all the missionaries
in every country of the world. Then
finally we get to what we’re worried about.
No. Talk about what you’re anxious
about first. God here it is. I’m worried about
it. I have a right to be worried about
it. Here are seventeen reasons why this
is a good worry to have. In fact you
might even want to tell God off about your worry. After you tell him off he might have some things
to tell you. He’s got some encouraging
words, some graceful words to tell you, to help you, to strengthen you when you’re
anxious.
The answer when you’re
worried is to turn your worries into prayers.
The minute you do that you’ve decided I’m not just going to worry. I’m going to trust. I’m going to trust God even with this worry
by turning it into a prayer. That’s what
God says to do. When you’re anxious,
when you’re worried, you decide to pray.
Trust when you are afraid.
How about trusting
when you’re afraid? And when I say
afraid I’m talking about an actual circumstance. Worries, anxieties… studies show that ninety,
ninety five percent of what you and I worry about is never going to happen. We worry about things because we are made to
worry, I guess.
But what about
genuine circumstances? Maybe you’re
worried about losing your job. And you
may or you may not lose your job. Or you
are afraid you may lose your health. Or
you are afraid something bad will happen to your kids or grandkids. It’s a fear that you have.
Fear comes when
circumstances cause us to feel trapped. And
it feels to us like there’s no way out. It’s
what in the Bible we call the Red Sea experience. You remember what happened. Moses was leading the people of Israel out of
Egypt out of slavery and they come to the Red Sea and they can’t cross. They look behind them and they see the
Egyptian army coming their way. They
can’t go that way either without being killed.
They’re trapped. There’s no way out. As long as you can see a way out you don’t
feel afraid. But once we get into a situation
we feel like there’s no way out of this.
We’re trapped. We find it hard to
breathe. We face fear.
How do you trust
when you feel afraid? There’s an amazing
interchange that happens between the people and Moses and God there on the
shores of the Red Sea. I want to walk
you through it. It shows us what God
says about how to trust when we feel afraid.
First, the people. They were afraid. They come to Moses and say, “Moses, what did you do to us? We would have rather been slaves in Egypt
than been brought out here in the desert to die. Thanks very much Moses. You thought you were our savior. You’ve ruined everything.”
Moses to his credit
could have blamed them back. “You followed me. It’s your fault.” But he didn’t do that. Instead he says in Exodus 14:13 “Don’t be afraid. Just stand where you are and watch the Lord
rescue you.”
To Moses’ credit he
had the humility to point them to God. That
was the good thing. But it’s interesting
that God had a little bit different answer.
Moses comes up with this very spiritual answer: stand where you are and
see what God’s going to do. That sounds
very spiritual until a couple verses later.
“Then the Lord said to Moses ‘Why
are you crying out to me? Tell the
people to get moving.’” Moses is
saying stay where you are. God is saying get moving. Circle those two words: get moving. That’s the answer when you’re afraid. Fear paralyzes us. So you get moving. You take a step in God’s direction.
Some of us see get moving and say, “That means it’s all up to me. If
it’s to be it’s up to me. This is all about
my strength and my power. I’m going to
do it now. God, you put it all on my
shoulders.” Absolutely not. God told them to get moving in the direction
of the Red Sea where they would drown unless he acted.
What this is saying
is you take a step in the direction of what only God can do. You’ve got a choice when you feel trapped. You can sit still and stew about what you
can’t do. You can try your hardest to do
something that you in your own power can do.
Or you can take a step in the direction of what only God can do. That’s what you ought to do. The third one.
As you head towards
what only God can do in your life, that breaks the power of fear. That breaks the paralysis of fear. And it’s just the first step. God’s not going to show you the next twenty
years, the next hundred years. He’s not
going to show you the next hundred steps.
He’ll show you the next, the first step.
I don’t know what
that is for you. It might be a step of
integrity in your work. It might be a
step of letting go of unforgiveness. It
might be a step of service. It might be
a step of loving somebody that you’ve had a hard time loving. It could be a thousand things.
You take one step
in the direction of doing that. Then you
ask God for the strength to take the next step.
That’s what breaks you out of fear.
That’s what breaks you out of the paralysis. Instead of getting stuck on what the
Israelites couldn’t do, they moved in the direction of what God could do.
So here we are
sitting with God and he’s given us the diagnosis and prescription. He says when you’re anxious pray, talk to me about what you’re
worried about. I’ll help you trust. Even that is trusting. When you’re afraid, take the next step in the
direction of what only I can do.
What do you do when
you have the third feeling?
Trust when you are stubborn.
How do you trust
when you’re stubborn? I tried to come up
with a nicer word. In the Bible it’s
“stiff necked.” That’s the word they use
today we use “hard headed.” Stubborn!
I’ll admit it. I’m stubborn sometimes. I don’t want to trust because I’m stubborn. God said do it this way and I wanted to go my
own way and I don’t want to admit that he was right. Even worse than that; my wife agreed with God. I don’t want to admit she was right. That would be really bad. So you just don’t trust because you get
stubborn.
We all face this in
our lives. It’s easy for some of us to
admit. For others of us it’s very
difficult to admit. But there is a stubbornness
in us that keeps us from doing what we know is right for us, what is best for
us. We see that all through our lives in
the way that we diet, the way that we eat, the way we do all kinds of things. It also comes in the way that we trust. How do you deal with this one?
There’s a great
story in the Bible about a guy by the name of Naaman. You may have heard this story. This is a guy who was a high government
official in Syria in Old Testament times.
He had leprosy. So here’s a rich
powerful man with an incurable disease. He
couldn’t connect with people, people wouldn’t connect with him. He had to deal with it every day.
He had a servant
girl who worked in his household who had grown up in Israel. She said to him one day, “My master there is a prophet by the name of Elisha in Israel. If you went and talked with him I believe he
would pray for you and I believe you might be healed.” And Naaman listened to her.
He gets all of his
people together, his entourage and this government official goes all the way to
Israel and eventually he makes his way to Elisha’s door. He knocks on the door. The door opens and it’s one of Elisha’s
servants. Naaman says here I am.
Great government official Naaman to be healed. To have Elisha pray for me. The servant says Elisha’s busy right now. Sorry. He doesn’t have time for you. And Naaman says, What should I do? And the servant
says, He says go down and wash in the
Jordan river, dip yourself seven times, come up and you’ll be healed. Thank you very much. And he closes the door.
Naaman is furious. He says, I
came all this way and he couldn’t give me the time of day. He sent a servant out to talk to me. He starts to stomp off heading back home.
He had some friends
– I wish we all had friends like this – who had this honest moment with him. They said, “Naaman’s servants went to him and said, ‘My father, if a prophet had
told you to do some great thing would you not have done it? How much more then when he tells you wash and
be cleansed?’”
We want to trust God
in ways that appeal to our pride. That
seems complicated. That would impress
other people how trusting we really are.
We don’t want to do the simple things.
Naaman faced that. Stubbornly he was walking home. But that day he listened to his servants. He went down to the Jordan River. He dipped himself seven times in the river. He came up the seventh time and he was healed.
How do you break through
this one? How do you break through our
stubbornness? It doesn’t work to have
even me talk to you about this. When
another person talks to you about your stubbornness it makes you more stubborn,
doesn’t it? So how do we break through
this one?
There’s a great
verse in the book of Hebrews that I think is the answer. The Bible says in Hebrews 3:7-8 “If you hear God’s voice today don’t be
stubborn.” Circle “hear God’s voice.” That’s the answer. Not hearing what some person’s opinion is. I want to hear God’s voice. What does God say in his word? What does God say to his people? What does God say through my small group? What does God say through my circumstances? What does God say through his Spirit in my
mind and in my heart? If you hear God’s voice
don’t be stubborn.
You hear God’s voice
and you hear your name. It’s personal. And it’s a gentle voice. Like the voice of a Father from above. He says, “Let it go.” He says, “Forgive.” And he say, “Come to me.” And he says, “Trust me with this one.” And he says, “I am with you.” And you know that it’s God’s voice.
God’s voice is not
condemning. It is inviting. That condemning voice, that’s somebody else’s
voice. God’s voice is an inviting,
loving, drawing voice. If you hear God’s
voice don’t be stubborn. Because he is
drawing you towards the best. The best
life you can have here and all the way into eternity. The best heart that you can have here, the
best character that you can have here. Because
he loves you like no one else loves you.
If you hear God’s voice today, if you’re hearing it right now, don’t be
stubborn. Let it go. Come to him.
Trust when you are tired.
How do you trust
when you’re tired? When you just feel
like I’d like to trust but I don’t have it in me. I’m just worn out by the circumstances of
life. I’m worn down by what’s been
happening to me. I don’t have it in me to
trust one more ounce. I’ve done it so
many times and it hasn’t worked out like I wanted it to work out. I don’t think I can do it. I want to.
I just don’t have it in me.
What do you do then? What do you do when you feel like Psalm 143:4
“I have given up all hope and I feel numb
all over.” The guy who wrote that
was a guy by the name of David, one of the most famous guys of faith of all the
Old Testament. He wrote most of the book
of psalms. David says I don’t have any
hope. I feel numb all over.
You might be
feeling that exact way right now because of something that happened last week. We’ve all felt this way some times in our lives. What do you do when you feel that way? David turned to God. If you’re feeling numb all over, if you’re
feeling without hope, Psalms 143 is a great psalm to read again and again this
next week especially the first part of it.
Listen to what David
said after he wrote that psalm “I
remembered to think about the many things that you did in years gone by. Then I lift my hands in prayer because my
soul is a desert and thirsty for water from you. Please hurry Lord and answer my prayer. I feel hopeless. Each morning let me learn more about your love
because I trust you. I come to you in
prayer asking for your guidance. You are
my God. Show me what you want me to do
and let your gentle Spirit lead me in the right path.”
These are the things
we just talked about. David prayed that
day he felt no hope. How do you trust
when you don’t feel like trusting and you’re just too tired? Jesus talked about. He said in Matthew 11:28 “Come to me [circle “come to me.” That’s what you do. Come to me, Jesus said] all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”
That’s what you do.
When you feel
tired, what do you want to do? Usually
you want to get away. I want to get away
from the tiredness I have. I want to escape
this thing. The problem with that is it
never works. One of two things happens. Either I get away from it but then I come
back to it and it’s just as bad or worse than it was. Or I get away and when I get away I find out
the problem is me. And I took the problem with me and I don’t
get away at all. One of those two things
happens.
Jesus said when you
feel worn out, when you feel like you don’t have it in you to trust, don’t get
away. He said come to me, trust in me. What does that mean? That means you realize he’s with you right
now. That means you talk to him about
what you’re going through. You tell him I don’t have the strength to trust. I’m too tired. You tell him you’re tired. You come to him. You realize he’s in it with you. You are not alone.
As we close I want you
to talk to him about whatever difficulty, whatever relationship, whatever
feeling you’re needing to trust him with right now. You may have been thinking about it the whole
time or maybe it popped in your mind right now.
I want to give us just a moment to talk to God about it.
Prayer:
Just say to him, “God here it is. This is the feeling. This is the circumstance. This is the relationship. This is where I need to trust you. This is the decision. This is the habit I’m struggling with. This is the financial decision I need to make.
Here it is. God, help me to trust you.” I invite you to pray this prayer of trust
with me today. Say “Lord, I want to trust
in you and not my feelings. When I’m anxious,
give me faith to pray. When I’m afraid,
give me faith to take the next step. When
I’m stubborn, give me faith to hear your voice.
When I’m tired, give me faith to come to you. I want to trust in you and not my feelings.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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