Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
I’ve been singing those lyrics since childhood. In more recent days of adulthood, I’ve been trying to live them in the very core of my being.
I. Trust
Trust means to have confidence in, rely on, depend on, believe in
A. In God We Trust.
We inscribe those words on our money. Do we embrace these words with our lives?
God has set his people free. He has placed before us all the benefits and delights of belonging to His family. He has made available His love, His care, His provision in generous measure. Do we trust Him?
I think one of the greatest statements of the Bible is John 14:18. Jesus says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Abandonment is an awful feeling. Sometimes parents will abandon children, husbands will abandon wives, families will desert each other in selfish strife, but Jesus says, “I will not abandon you.” You are mine. Mine now, mine forever. Can you trust Him, can you trust Him now?
We don’t need more insights, knowledge, and understanding. What we need is more trust. The Christian life in a single word is trust.
B. Trust your past to God’s Grace.
The reason I like the Methodists is that we are willing to pray about those things which we have done that we ought not to have done, and those things we have not done that we ought to have done.
Are you willing to trust your faults and failures, your blunders and botches to God’s forgiving mercy? Or are you still trying to work it out on your own salvation with self justification? Why not trust Him? Why not trust Him now?
C. Trust the present to God’s Care.
Tuesday’s with Morrie is the moving account of visits between Morrie Schwartz, who is dying with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and his former student, Mitch Albom, who flies from Detroit to Boston each Tuesday to meet with Morrie. One day Mitch asks Morrie, “Do you feel sorry for yourself?” Morrie responds, “Sometimes in the morning, that’s when I mourn. I feel around my body and mourn what I have lost. I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I stop mourning. I concentrate on all the good things still in my life, on the people like you who are coming to see me. I think about the stories I am going to hear. I don’t allow any more self-pity than that.”
D. Trust your future to His Provision.
I have often wondered what kind of trust it took for Abraham to tread up Mt. Moriah on a convoluted order to offer his son, Isaac, believing all along that God would provide. King David said, “When I am most afraid, I put my trust in God” (Psalm 56:3). Job said, “Even though he slay me, yet I will trust in God” (Job 13:15).
Let us live in the sure and certain confidence that as we push toward our tomorrow, God is already there, going ahead of us to prepare the way. There’s never a burden that He will not carry, never a sorrow that He will not share. Our bright hope for tomorrow is built on nothing less than the love of Jesus which surrounds us day by day. Only trust Him. Only trust Him now.
II. Obey
Obey means to follow, to devote, to love, to serve, to sacrifice.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”
Verse 15: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
Verse 21: “Whoever has my command and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.”
Verse 23: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”
Our love for God is demonstrated not by some soft, sentimental emotion, but by obedience to his will, expressed in loving cooperation with his commands. Our obedience is grounded in our love. The command to love is the essential demand of Christian existence. To love means to orient one’s whole being toward others. Love is an action in which our whole being participates in our doing.
The struggle of human existence is to let God be God.
Denzel Washington says, “I walked into the house one day and feeling full of myself, a movie star, said, ‘Mother, did you ever think this was all going to happen?’ She responded, ‘Oh please, go wash the windows for me. You have no idea how many people have been praying for you when you were a knucklehead.’”
C.S. Lewis says, “When I learn to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.” When we put first things first, second things are not suppressed, but increased.
Love the Lord with ALL—what part of all don’t we understand? When we get the all right, everything else will find its place and priority.
Kirby John Caldwell said, “There are two great moments in a person’s life, the moment you were born and the moment you realize why you were born.”
Love your Neighbor as Yourself. What do you want for yourself?
I thought about what I wanted for myself and I think these are things most people want for themselves. I want to love and be loved. I want to be treated with respect and dignity as a human being. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s reminded us that is a basic right of all human beings.
I want a chance, an opportunity. I want to be judged not by the color of my skin, nor by the nature of my sexuality, nor by the part of the country in which I was born. I want to be judged by the productivity of my efforts and the content of my character, and my willingness to apply myself for the common good.
I want freedom to pursue my hopes and dreams with the grace of God to try again. I want to be judged not by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I get up and try again.
I want comfort in my affliction and help in my time of need. I must not fool myself into self-sufficiency. I need other people. I need somebody on my side when the days are rough and friends just can’t be found. We need people who become bridges over troubled waters.
Jimmy Carter, in his book Sources of Strength, tells about interviewing Eloy Cruz, an admirable Cuban pastor, who had tremendous rapport with poor immigrants from Puerto Rico. “What is the secret to your success?” asked Carter. Pastor Cruz replied, “Señor Jimmy, we need to have only two loves for our lives, love for God and love for the person who happens to be in front of us at any time.”
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” That song came into being when a young man stood up at a testimony meeting during a D.L. Moody evangelistic crusade and said, “I’m not sure I understand all the dynamics of Christianity, the meaning of the conversion or the power to live a sanctified life. But even though I don’t understand it all, I’m going to trust and I’m going to obey.”
You may not understand all the ramifications of Christian theology and all the details of Christian ethics. But you can decide today to give as much of yourself as you understand to as much of God as you can comprehend. You can trust and you can obey—and that will be enough.
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