Trust the Lord - Bible Baptist Church

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Trust the Lord

Text: Proverbs 3:5-10

Ready? I’m about to give you an instruction that has no meaning. Trust the LORD. I’ve heard this instruction time and again from well-meaning people who don’t have enough sense to explain what they’re talking about, much less know what they’re talking about. It’s a good thing to do, but it’s generally a meaningless instruction. Trust the Lord. People say it about almost anything. “Well, I’m just going to trust the LORD.” What does that mean? You say you’re going to trust God, the more important question is HOW are you going to trust him?

Trust the LORD instead of my own heart (vs 5)

My own understanding is unreliable. I don’t want to lean on something that can’t be trusted. What makes our understanding unreliable? Two things.
Your own understanding is based on your limited experiences
- Your understanding comes from your own experiences. And your beliefs come from those experiences; they don’t come from the Bible.
- For example, you may have strong beliefs about music that you couldn’t cite two verses for because you didn’t get that belief from the LORD. That idea came from what you’re familiar with.
- Maybe you grew up in it and that’s why it’s comfortable.
- Maybe it came from your social group and echo chamber as it’s called now.
I’ll tell you what, when you actually start to grow up, you’ll notice that your convictions are less and less about what NOT TO DO and more about what TO DO.
- Someone says, I TAKE A STRONG STAND AGAINST HARRY POTTER MOVIES!!
- Ok King. How about you get back to us when you take that kind of strong stand FOR loving your brother or sister? How about you let us know when you learn to take that kind of strong stand FOR gentleness, meekness, and patience?
Your own understanding is based on your desires
- If you find something you want, you’ll conform your beliefs to that thing.
- You find a romantic love interest and the red flags that you thought were so important go out the window because you “love” them.
- You may think lying is wrong until you get bitter toward someone. Then suddenly lying isn’t wrong if it’s about them.
- You conform your beliefs to what you want out of life. You do it with church “convictions”, you do it with people, you do it with money.
Your experiences and your desires determine your beliefs, so this is why you’re told to stop leaning on your understanding and get your beliefs from what God said. Trust the LORD. That means you have to know what the LORD said.

Acknowledge the LORD in what you’re doing (vs 6)

Trust the LORD by acknowledging him in all your ways.
- Make the God of the Bible your audience for the things you do.
- If someone was suffering a health problem and there was a doctor in the room, you’d probably acknowledge them. The reason is so they can direct the path. What do we need to do here?
This acknowledgment of God is in all thy ways so that the Creator has an opportunity to direct your path. Acknowledging the LORD so that you get direction from Him.
You acknowledge the LORD by yielding your will to his.
You acknowledge his direction by paying the price for it.
- (Buy the truth). If you’re going to learn to be gentle and be led by the Spirit of God, you’ll learn that by choosing gentleness over brutality when the time comes.
- And there’ll be a price to pay for it. You might get hurt along the way.
You acknowledge the LORD by gratitude.

Depart from evil (vss 7-8)

Trusting the LORD looks like departing from evil. I’m going to depart from evil; that’s how I’m going to trust the LORD.
Depart from vengeance.
Depart from pride.
Depart from my own malicious thoughts.
Depart from pornography.
It’s healthy to depart from evil because stepping into evil is like stepping into a pit of snakes. A person I know of, and some of you knew too, went to this church, but got connected to evil running with wicked people, and is now sitting in prison because of a murder.
You know why trouble keeps finding some people? Because they refuse to stay away from the trouble!
Depart from evil; this is what trusting the LORD looks like.

Honor the LORD with your substance

Trusting the LORD looks like substantial generosity.
When you read something like this people think the preacher is getting ready to go after their money. It’s not the preacher who wants your money, it’s the thief who wants your treasure. The LORD and the preacher are after your heart.
This will tell you about your spiritual health. Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.
God as the rewarder is a theme of faithful people.
- But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
- Matthew 6 explains what diligently seeking him looks like. In charity, they are looking to the Lord for reward, not for recognition by men.

When the Bible says Trust the LORD, it means quit leaning on my own understanding, it means in all my ways acknowledge the LORD, it means to get away from evil, and it means to honor the LORD with what I have.