Confident Trust aka In Every Situation...part 5

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Confident Trust aka In Every Situation...part 5

Post by Eye » Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:21 am

Back in August we were looking at verses that someone had compiled about building or having confident trust in God. Then “life” happened and we went on a different track for a time. Tonight we are returning.
One scripture says Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. That is found in Proverbs 3:5-6.
Who doesn’t want straight paths? Which I equate with simple and easy.
But let’s think about that a bit. A straight path in life would be the path God has for us, right? It says he will make our path straight.

Have you ever been to the mountains? Or do you currently live where there are hills? I personally live in a FLAT state. All the roads here are straight. But in the mountains, they circle around the hills and are anything BUT straight. Or are perhaps those twisty turny roads the straightest way to your destination? And the safest? Sometimes, really quite often in the mountains you can not actually see down the road that far. But we trust don’t we? We have confident trust that the designers knew what they were doing.
In the hills, just before the mountains the road is straight but it goes up and down and up and down.
All of these roads were designed to help us get from here to there in the SAFEST and most direct way, even though glancing at them they may not seem so.
I wonder?
If we are to trust in the LORD with ALL our heart….not lean on our own understanding and acknowledge Him in ALL our ways…would that include trusting, making a deliberate choice to trust Him even when we really can’t see around the next curve?
Could we choose to have confident trust?
Could we choose to do things His way?

First passage for tonight… that was just setting the stage for us to consider choosing to trust Him…. is Isaiah 26:1-13. Let’s read it straight through for context. Tonight I am using NLT. You can pull it up in your favorite version if you want to. This is a song of praise to the LORD. They are acting in faith and trust and praising God for a yet unseen deliverance. Which I find interesting. Notice it starts “in that day”, some versions say at that time.

A Song of Praise to the LORD
1In that day, everyone in the land of Judah will sing this song:
Our city is strong!
We are surrounded by the walls of God’s salvation.

2Open the gates to all who are righteous;
allow the faithful to enter.

3You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

4Trust in the LORD always,
for the LORD GOD is the eternal Rock.
5He humbles the proud
and brings down the arrogant city.
He brings it down to the dust.

6The poor and oppressed trample it underfoot,
and the needy walk all over it.
7But for those who are righteous,
the way is not steep and rough.
You are a God who does what is right,
and you smooth out the path ahead of them.

8LORD, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws;
our heart’s desire is to glorify your name.

9All night long I search for you;
in the morning I earnestly seek for God.
For only when you come to judge the earth
will people learn what is right.

10Your kindness to the wicked
does not make them do good.
Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong
and take no notice of the LORD’s majesty.

11O LORD, they pay no attention to your upraised fist.
Show them your eagerness to defend your people.
Then they will be ashamed.
Let your fire consume your enemies.

12LORD, you will grant us peace;
all we have accomplished is really from you.

13O LORD our God, others have ruled us,
but you alone are the one we worship.

Now we are going to think in depth about some of the verses. Some are telling us how to behave when we are in a difficult season and do not clearly see how God is going to take care of us.
Anyone ever feel just like that?
1 In that day, everyone in the land of Judah will sing this song:
Our city is strong!
We are surrounded by the walls of God’s salvation.

Has this become truth for you personally yet? If you know Jesus as LORD and Savior, it actually has. We are covered and surrounded by the walls of God’s Salvation, which is for us, Jesus.
We are eternally safe. Our inheritance is sure. Our sin is forgiven. That is GOOD to remember.

2Open the gates to all who are righteous;
allow the faithful to enter.
Are you righteous?
Does being “right” with God have anything to do with how we feel?
Or is it imputed (given) to us by Jesus at new birth?

In 2 Cor 5:21 we are told, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
So irregardless of how we feel, ARE we seen and righteous by God? It says we are. Is that an invitation to sin and be mean as we feel like? Absolutely not. But it promises us that when we do sin we have…well let’s see what we have.
1 John 2:1+ My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
Note the beginning “advocate”. That means one who is on our side. Sort of like a lawyer. Are we going to “get it perfect”? I don’t think so. But desiring to live for God, in a Godly manner will be a hallmark of our lives. And when we get it wrong, as in sin?
1 John 1: 5-10
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Therefore, yes we mess up (sin). No we do not WANT to do that. But when we do, if we confess (admit/agree with God that we did sin) and repent (intend to stop) we are forgiven, cleansed and set right back inside his righteousness.
It is not our righteousness, we are clothed/covered in/with His.

I ask again… ARE you part of the “all who are righteous for whom the gates to God are open?

The next verse is one of my very favorite ones:
3 You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

I prefer this translation: You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.

I like the word steadfast. In fact I like it so much we once spent weeks on that term.

Who will keep us in whose perfect peace?

Right God will keep us in HIS peace.

What is our part?
To trust him and to spend our time thinking about him…
.
Remember that verse in Phil 4:8? the one that tells us what to think about? Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Goodness it is so easy to get caught up in the horrible news and dire predictions isn’t it?
So/if when we see all that BAD news, and we want to be kept in perfect peace (shalom/heart-peace) what does verse 3 tell us to do?
Right!
Trust God and fix our thoughts on God.

Next verse: 4 4Trust in the LORD always,
for the LORD GOD is the eternal Rock.

Again we are told to TRUST in the LORD at all times. Which includes all circumstances doesn’t it?
And we are given the reason…the LORD GOD is THE Eternal ROCK.
Remember that kids song about the wise man and the silly man?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu5bBDRpzPM

The story is in…Matthew 7:24-27 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

We do have a part don’t we? We trust. We base our life on THE ROCK Jesus. And then we can be secure, even if…even when… we don’t feel so secure. Even when it is a difficult season.
Right?

Verses 5- speak of “others” not “us”. 5He humbles the proud
and brings down the arrogant city.
He brings it down to the dust.
6The poor and oppressed trample it underfoot,
and the needy walk all over it.

I do NOT want to get puffed up and prideful and live life my own way because I do not want to smushed down.
We always have a choice. It is trust and when necessary repentance. We already covered that.

Verse 7But for those who are righteous,
the way is not steep and rough.
You are a God who does what is right,
and you smooth out the path ahead of them.

Who again are the righteous ones?
How do we get that way?
By accepting Jesus and His atoning redemptive work on the cross.

Then what happens? He, God does what is RIGHT and even smooths out the path ahead of us. Which means, he goes before to prepare the way. Yes, even in those most difficult seasons or circumstances.

Then in verse 8 we are AGAIN reminded… as we discussed earlier in 1 John.
8LORD, we show our trust in you by obeying your laws;
our heart’s desire is to glorify your name.

We SHOW our trust, by obeying. Our heart’s desire changes and becomes to give glory to God.
It is sort of like a story I once heard. A little boy wanted to be just like his daddy. He wanted to do everything just like his daddy. Even shave (although he had no beard). And the REASON? Not fear. LOVE. Because the little boy LOVED his Daddy. The more we get to know our Abba Daddy (Father God), the more we will desire to be like him and to imitate him and to please him.

Verse 9:9All night long I search for you;
in the morning I earnestly seek for God.
For only when you come to judge the earth
will people learn what is right.
I think from this we see that we will, like the author, desire to seek after God and his ways. We will not want to wait until judgement day to learn what is right.
We are so blessed to have the Bible to read for ourselves.
We can discover how to live God’s way in the Word.

We really really really do not want to be like those in v 10-11 10Your kindness to the wicked
does not make them do good.
Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong
and take no notice of the LORD’s majesty.
11O LORD, they pay no attention to your upraised fist.
Show them your eagerness to defend your people.
Then they will be ashamed.
Let your fire consume your enemies.

God’s desire is to bless us. God wants to position us for blessing. If/when we stray he will correct us. We do not want to be foolish or stubborn do we?

Verse 12-13
12LORD, you will grant us peace;
all we have accomplished is really from you.
13O LORD our God, others have ruled us,
but you alone are the one we worship.

Is this the desire of your heart tonight? If so please join me in prayer. You can fill in your own blanks…no need to type them in the room.

Dear God,
We thank you for your Word. We thank you for Jesus and that cleansing redeeming love. Father sometimes we can be so stubborn. We choose to build our lives (houses) on the sands of poor choices, sometimes willfully ungodly ones. Lord specifically I ask you to forgive me for xxxxxxxxxxx and help me to turn to you. God some things are just too hard for me. Thank you for always being there to lead us and guide us in THE way we are to go.
Father God bless each one here and those we love.
Help us to be steadfast in trust and love and obedience .
In Jesus name amen

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