February 24, 2008 Message

February 24, 2008
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
“Trust”

Why couldn't Jonah trust the ocean?
Because he knew there was something fishy about it

The preacher was giving a children's lesson about ‘right and wrong’ and told a story of a robber who broke into a jewelry store at night after everybody was gone.
The robber went to the safe where the jewels and the cash were kept, and on the door of the safe he finds a sign that reads, "Please do not use explosives. The safe is not locked. Just turn the handle."
So, the thief turns the handle and immediately the alarm goes off! He panics and doesn’t know what to do. By the time he figures out he’d better leave, it’s too late. The police are arrive, and he is arrested.
"So, children," asks the preacher, "What’s the moral of the story?"
One little boy replied, "You can't trust anybody."

The theme for today’s scripture readings and message is trust. It’s a trust that begins with a promise (God’s promise to Abraham), includes a decision (concerning how to live), and ends with complete joy (of a promise having been kept).

Concerning the promise, the apostle Paul says, “But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." (Romans 4:3) When Abraham was slow to grasp how huge God’s promise was, God moved forward anyway. When Abraham was impatient and couldn’t wait, God continued to plug away. When Abraham didn’t quite get it, God said it one more time so that he would understand. When Abraham finally let go and left it up to God to do what he couldn’t, God came through and delivered on the promise.

Concerning trust, Paul goes on to say, “When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do.” (Romans 4:18) Isn’t that what trusting God is really all about? Reaching the point in our lives when we finally accept there is nothing more we can do, and leaving it all up to God. Keep in mind, Abraham didn’t get it right and probably neither will we. All of us trust that God can do whatever it is that God promises, but are we all willing to leave it up to God – or do we find ourselves trying to help out now and then. At what point do we realize we can’t do it on our own? What do we do then? Give up or trust God to do what is promised?

Concerning a promise kept, John relates Jesus’ confirmation of Nicodemus’ observation. He tells Nicodemus, “You’re right – all that has been done through me has been God’s doing, because here are things that only God can do.” And then later, in verses 16-18, he shares with Nicodemus, “God’s promise has indeed been fulfilled” – the world is set right - not because things had gotten so bad, but because God loved the world so much. “He gave his Son, his one and only Son… so that no one – not one person - need be destroyed.” All that is necessary for “whole and lasting life” – for this great joy - is our trusting it is so – our believing what God has done (in him).”

Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus, “Trust me and there is hope or don’t trust me and there is nothing.” Anyone who trusts what Jesus says about God, what Jesus shows us about God, what Jesus reveals to us about God is acquitted (and released); and anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? - because they can’t trust God to love them that much.

I first understood ‘trust’ – in a religious sense – from a song we sang in church. That song was “Trust and Obey.” I thought trust was something a Christian had to do – just like “obeying” and “walking with the Lord” and “doing His good will.” If I would do those things – with the emphasis on “do” - God would be with me and I would be in Jesus.

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.
Refrain: Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

I thought as long as I trusted, and obeyed all the rules, and was doing ‘good things,’ Jesus would be happy and would be there for me. I guess I must have thought that during the times I wavered or doubted some, he was off somewhere ‘walking’ with someone else. The burden was on me.

But you know what, I had it all wrong. It’s never been a matter of if A happens then B happens. Rather it’s always been when A happens then B happens. B is a given. B is a promise kept. There’s a difference, a huge difference. When trust happens, darkness and doubt and all the things that might overwhelm us become bearable.

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies, But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh or a tear, Can abide while we trust and obey.

The whole song takes on a different meaning when I read Paul’s explanation of what it means to really trust God. By Paul’s own account, his is a new way of looking at things when he says: “when it comes to ‘setting us right’ (with God), it isn’t our doing, but God’s.” For Paul, it isn’t a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when.’

"So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things." – Romans 4:1, CEV

Paul is speaking to the Romans about a “new way of looking at things.” We have to look at what he had been talking about earlier to understand what he means here. In chapter three of Romans, Paul talks about how God is faithful, even to those without faith, and how no one is righteous (good) because of what they do. We are righteous only because of what God has done. Our goodness comes from God. It’s important that we believe this; that we trust it is true – because, it is. God has a gift for all of us.

Paul says the promise to “make us right with God” is not a payment or reward, something to be earned. It’s simply a gift. He says, “it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—(because) you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked…”— Romans 4:4-5, CEV

That turns our thinking upside down! You work hard, there’s a reward, right? It doesn’t seem fair otherwise. So our thinking is if we’re going to get something, we’re going to have to do something. But that’s not it at all. It’s not about what we, or any human being, could ever do.

"That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth —was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed." – Romans 4:13, CEV

All that was necessary for Abraham was to trust that God would do what God’s promised. Paul mentions that with trust there is also embracing God and what God does. Embracing God is sort of like what the refrain of “Trust and Obey” says: “While we do His good will, He abides with us still.” Or maybe its like what Vince Antonucci, pastor of Forefrount Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia refers to as “living in the presence of God.” He says, “abiding looks like a dance with God… in which everything becomes very natural…. So natural that it’s hard to tell where one partner ends and the other begins.”

Everyone who trusts, everyone who embraces God, is included. Everyone receives the gift. Everyone gets to dance. When it’s a gift - which it is – it doesn’t matter if a person has kept certain religious traditions or not. We are all included. Because God can do that sort of thing - for those who trust. Abraham was the first to trust, the first to embrace God to do what only God can do. Abraham was the first to dance with God.

And Abraham got to be the first because God chose him to be. He got God's attention not by living like a saint, but because God made something out of him when he was a nobody. God set him up, God made him “father of many peoples.” Then he became what God made him to be by daring to trust God to do what only God could do. Paul said, “When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do.”

Abraham accepted the invitation to dance with God – to trust God in everything. Jesus invited Nicodemus and all those he met to the dance. And today we are invited as well. That is the good news. May the dance go on!