Seeing the Bigger Picture

As you came in, there was a box of puzzle pieces, and I hope everybody got one.

If you did not grab a puzzle piece on your way in, raise your hand.

We have some guys in the back that'll bring one to you.

So if you do not have a puzzle piece, raise your hand high so they can see you, and they will come bring you a puzzle piece this morning.

This is part of our sermon, so I want to make sure everyone has one in hand.

Uh, first of all, welcome.

Uh, we're so glad you're here with us this morning at Chisholm Hills to worship together, to praise the Lord, to study from his word.

Uh, what a blessing that is that we are able to do that together this morning.

We want to welcome our visitors that are here with us as well.

I want to let you know you're our honored guests, and we hope you'll stick around a little bit after service so we can get a chance to talk to you a little more and get you plugged into what's going on here at Chisholm Hills.

Uh so now that everybody has your puzzle piece, I want you to take that puzzle piece and take a look at it.

Um, and uh take a look at the piece and what's on it.

And my first question is as you take a look at your puzzle piece, can you tell me what the entire image is?

If you're looking at the side that has letters on it, go ahead and flip it over.

It's the other side, it's not the white one.

But if you're looking at that piece and you're saying, Well, I have this little piece, and maybe yours is kind of bluish, purplish like mine.

Maybe yours is more of a yellow or an orange color.

Maybe you can maybe even make out some grass or some rocks along the way in the piece that you have, but even that isn't enough.

You take it that take a look at this one little piece of the puzzle, and I ask you, well, what is what kind of image is it forming?

The truth is none of us can tell.

You can even take a look at the person next to you, you can look at their piece and maybe put those together, and you still don't have enough information to put together what the entire puzzle is.

So by itself, it doesn't seem to make much sense.

The piece alone doesn't tell the whole story.

And when I take a look at that and when I think about it, that's kind of how our life feels sometimes, isn't it?

In our life, we often get one small piece of the puzzle.

Sometimes all we can see is one disappointment.

Maybe it's one diagnosis.

Maybe we look around and all we can see is one closed door or one unanswered prayer.

We maybe experience one difficult conversation or one season of waiting.

Maybe it's one loss or one heartbreak.

And because that's the only piece we can see, we start trying to figure out everything that God is doing in this moment.

What's the problem?

We're only seeing one piece of the story.

And so as we look at that small piece, we begin with the whys, right?

Why now?

Why me?

Or maybe it's what?

Like, what are you doing, or where are you in this moment?

And the truth is, all of us have asked similar questions at some point in our lives.

Going through something difficult in one of those seasons, in one of those moments, we look up and say, why is this happening right now?

What are you doing, God, in this moment?

Some of you may be asking those exact same questions this morning when you walk through that door.

And that brings us to one of the most well-known passages in all of Scripture.

The one Ray read for us this morning in Proverbs 3 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

It says, in all of your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

So this morning, I want us to consider one simple truth, and it's this growing in favor with God.

I don't have it on the screen, I thought I did.

Growing in favor with God means trusting him when you can only see one piece of the picture.

Growing in favor with God is our theme this quarter, as we've been making our way through this whole series, this whole year-long focus on growth.

And one of the ways we want to grow here at Chisholm Hills is growing in favor with God.

And so as we experience this, as we think about this, we started talking about the heart.

What is God looking for?

What are our hearts truly desiring?

And now I think the natural progression is to take that a step further because growing in favor with God means that we trust Him when we can only see one piece of the picture.

And that brings us to our first point this morning.

Trust begins where understanding ends.

You can also say trust begins where our sight ends, where what we can see comes to a conclusion.

That is when trust comes into the picture.

Because even though we can't see it, we still trust in what God is doing.

So come back to our puzzle piece for just a minute.

Anybody figured it out yet?

No, right?

You still don't have it figured out.

Why?

Well, because one piece was never intended to tell the whole story.

That one piece of the puzzle doesn't show you what the whole picture is.

So if I ask you to describe the completed puzzle based on your piece, you probably couldn't do it.

And now, here's what I want to point out.

You can't do it not because you're not trying hard enough.

You can't tell the whole story.

You can't describe the whole picture because you're not smart enough, but it's simply because you don't have enough information.

And I think that's exactly where Solomon begins here in the Proverbs.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Do not lean on your own understanding.

I think our natural tendency is exactly the opposite.

We may come to the Lord and say something like, God, if you will just explain this to me, I will trust you.

We come to him and we say, if you just tell me why this happened, then I will follow you.

Or if you'll show me how all of this works, then I'll begin to obey.

But Solomon says, trust in the Lord, not in your own understanding.

God says, Trust me, do not lean on your own understanding.

Why?

Because our understanding is limited.

Because we're trying to tell the whole story from one little piece of the puzzle.

The problem is that isn't, the problem is not that God doesn't have a plan.

The problem is that we're trying to evaluate the entire plan based on one chapter, based on one piece of our lives.

Maybe it's one circumstance or one unanswered prayer.

The problem, as we look at it, is something we need to evaluate.

Think about the people we read about in scripture.

Think about Job.

Job didn't understand all that was going on in his life.

He suffered hardship, but he trusted God.

Think about Habakkuk.

He had major questions for God.

Why is this happening?

Why are you using these people to discipline your people?

But he trusted God.

We take a look at David.

He didn't understand everything.

All of these men ask questions.

We take a look at the Psalms.

David asked many questions.

So, what I want you to see, there's nothing wrong with asking honest questions of God.

Faith doesn't pretend that pain doesn't hurt.

Faith doesn't pretend that confusion is not real.

Faith isn't the absence of questions.

Faith is refusing to let unanswered questions keep you from trusting God's character.

And in those moments where we began asking God why, we don't allow our present circumstances to define the character of God.

It's Him who is always good.

And even in those moments, we must realize we're only holding a small piece of the picture.

And here's what I love about this puzzle.

None of you at this moment can tell me what the finished picture is.

But notice something.

You all hold a piece of the story.

So what do you know?

It does belong to a finished picture.

You don't know what it is, but you know there is one.

And so you trust there's more to it than just one your small piece.

And I think that's where trust begins.

Not when everything makes sense, not when every question has been answered, but trust begins where our understanding often ends.

That is how we trust Him.

So the next question naturally becomes well, what does trust look like?

How does that play out in our lives?

Because trust isn't just something we believe, trust is something we do.

It's one of those action words.

It's one thing for us to say, I trust God, but it's another thing to actually follow Him when we don't understand everything He's doing in this moment.

And I think the greatest examples of faith aren't from people who had all the answers, but there are those people that just naturally took that next step.

And here's point number two trust is proven through obedience.

I think one of the greatest examples we have of this is Abraham.

We see in Genesis 12, now the Lord said to Abraham, Go for yourself to the land which I will show you.

Notice he just says go.

He doesn't give him all the answers.

He doesn't give him a roadmap, he doesn't even tell him where he's gonna end up.

But God simply says, go.

And what does Abraham do?

Goes.

In obedience, he follows God.

Can you imagine that conversation that he had with his family?

He said, Okay, Abraham, great.

Which way are you going?

I don't know.

God said, Go.

He says, Okay, well, where are you where are you gonna land?

Where are you gonna end up?

I don't know.

Well, how are you gonna get there?

I don't know.

Well, this doesn't make sense, Abraham.

And he says, I know, but God told me to go.

I think we reach those moments in our lives often where if we just continue focusing on him, it all makes sense because it's not about having all the answers, it's about following God.

And Abraham believed it in this moment, and it led to another moment in his life where God called him to sacrifice his firstborn.

And Abraham responded in obedience.

He didn't have the all all the answers, he didn't know the why.

It didn't make sense in that moment, but Abraham continued to trust God.

Before that, he's remembered as a man of faith.

Abraham's trust wasn't proven by what he said.

Think about it.

In those moments, Abraham proved his trust in God by what he did, how he went when God said go, how he followed him even when he didn't have the conclusion written out for him.

Trust always moves before our understanding.

And as I was going through this sermon, it reminded me something that I experienced nearly every single day.

Last week I told you about taking my dog Mag for a walk.

And so when we go out for a walk, uh, we talked about last week how she she generally knows how to follow until a squirrel comes across the path, or when she sees a bird or another person and she begins pulling on the leash.

But what I want to share with you this morning is oftentimes when we go for a walk, we go to the nearby park, which is Dybert Park.

We live close enough where we can just walk.

So I'll put the leash on.

She gets so excited to get that leash on, we head out the door, and now we're headed to the park.

She knows exactly where we're going.

We walk right down Esteline.

And if you know what it looks like next to the park, there's this busy road, Cloyd Boulevard, that crosses.

So each time we go to the park, we have to cross Cloyd Boulevard.

And so as we're approaching, Mag knows where she's going.

She's excited to get to the park.

She wants to get there.

And it doesn't fail.

Every time we get to Cloyd Boulevard, I have to stop and pull on that leash.

She's beginning, she's pulling as hard as she can to get there.

But I see something that she doesn't see.

She's so focused on the park, she doesn't see the truck barreling down Cloyd Boulevard at 45, 50 miles an hour.

She has to get to that park.

It's what she set her mind on.

But I simply pull back on that leash because what happens if I just let her have what she wants in that moment?

She's going to get blown away by that truck.

And I think the same thing happens in our lives.

We get so focused on things.

And then when God tries to give us an instruction, when God tells us something, when he tries to pull back or close that door, we're saying, why are you keeping this from me, God?

But what we don't see is the truck that's barreling down Cloyd Boulevard.

And my guess is there may be some people in this room that have been hit by that truck before.

Because God's plan, God's rules for us, what he's plan for us in the Bible.

If we're obedient to him, he's given us the best way to live life.

And my guess is some of us in this room, maybe all of us at some point, have stepped outside of God's will.

We've chosen things that go against what God wants from us.

And then next thing you know, our whole lives have been hit by a truck.

And we look back and say, How did I get here?

What happened?

And I look back into those decisions that I made that stepped outside of what God wanted for me in this life.

And so I think sometimes we look at the Bible and we look at the things God asks of us.

We look at the things that He explains of how we should walk, how we should follow Him.

We say, Why?

Like, why this restriction?

I want more freedom.

Why are you putting these rules on me?

You're making my life miserable.

God says, you don't see the truck.

You don't see that if you continue down this path that you're headed on, you're gonna be destroyed.

If you've ever landed in one of those moments where it feels like your entire life has fallen apart, and you look back and you say, you know, one of the reasons I'm here is because of some of the choices that I made.

One of the reasons why I'm here is because I lost my focus.

I was so focused on what I wanted that I missed the consequences of these poor choices.

And I think that's why our obedience to him is so important.

It's not only about showing him how much we love him, but it's about trusting him.

There's an old saying that I grew up with, I've shared it with you before, but my dad used to say, and it kind of stuck in my head, you can walk the walk, or you can talk the talk.

But your talk will never walk as loud as your walk and talk.

If you slow that down, it simply says, Actions speak louder than words.

We can say, I believe in God all we want, but if our life is not in step with his will, do you really trust him?

And I think that's the point of this.

Our trust begins with obedience.

And as we follow him, our trust begins to show in our lives.

I think that's what God is doing with us.

We pray, God, why won't you let me have this?

We may say, Why did you close this door?

Why are you making me wait?

Why won't you let me go?

And from your perspective, it feels like God is holding you back.

But perhaps He sees the str the truck that's barreling down the road.

Maybe what feels like God's restriction is actually God's protection in your life.

What feels like a closed door, maybe God's grace raining down upon you.

There's an old country song that says, I thank God for those unanswered prayers.

And you look back at some of those prayers, you may have prayed, and you say, Man, I'm so glad that God didn't give me what I wanted in that moment.

Because here's the truth God's plan is greater than yours.

God knows more than you do.

And that's why it says in Proverbs, we don't trust in our own understanding, but in all our ways we acknowledge Him, and He will make our path straight.

Because He can see the entire picture, not just a small piece.

Trust becomes visible when it becomes obedient.

I think that's what Abraham teaches us because he didn't have all the answers.

He simply trusted the God who did.

Is that evident in your life?

Are you walking that way each and every day?

Are you trusting God even when you don't have all the pieces?

And finally, this morning, our last point God is always worth trusting.

I think it says it a little different in your outline on your bulletin.

God is writing a bigger story than you can see.

I've kind of changed the wording of this several times this week.

God is always worth trusting.

So we've learned that trust begins where understanding ends.

We've learned that trust becomes visible through obedience.

But here's the question all of us will eventually ask at some point.

Will this ever make sense?

Will I ever understand why this happened in my life?

Will I ever get the full picture?

And I think the answer, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think the answer is this.

Sometimes yes, and sometimes no.

Guess what?

We trust God anyway.

One thing scripture teaches us over and over again is that God is always writing a bigger story than anything we can see.

Go back to Joseph, right?

Think about the pieces of Joseph's puzzle.

I think I have a few more pieces put out here.

But there's one piece that says, hey, your brothers are gonna betray you.

Man, that's a crazy piece of the story.

There's another piece that says, you're gonna be thrown into a pit and sold into slavery.

Man, what a crazy piece of that story.

The next one says, you're gonna be falsely accused and thrown into prison.

Man, and then you're gonna have, you're gonna interpret some dreams and maybe think you're gonna get a chance to get out, but you're not.

They're gonna forget about you and they're gonna leave you in prison.

And there's another piece that it's like think about Joseph walking through these parts of his story.

If you had walked into that prison cell while Joseph was trapped, and you said, Joseph, what do you think God is doing in this moment?

I don't think Joseph would have had the right answer.

But because from where he was sitting, most of the pieces didn't seem to fit together.

Like, what is this?

What is this jail?

What is this imprisonment?

What is this slavery?

Why didn't my brothers betray me?

He has all these questions.

If Joseph had judged God by one piece of the story, he would have concluded that God had abandoned him.

Here's the amazing thing.

Years later, Joseph stood before the very brothers who sold him into slavery, and he made one of the greatest statements of faith in the entire Bible.

And I think we've heard this enough where it loses its power.

But man, really listen to what this says because it gives you chill bumps if you really think about it.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish.

You intended it to harm me, but God used it for good.

Think about the power in that statement.

We can take these random pieces and God can redeem them.

We can take these little pieces, these parts of the story, and make this beautiful picture in the end.

Because God is at work.

Notice that it what Joseph doesn't say here.

Joseph doesn't look and say, man, that pit was good.

Joseph doesn't say slavery was a great thing.

He doesn't say that prison was good.

They were painful.

The truth is they were unfair.

Joseph never calls evil good.

Instead, he says something much deeper.

He says that God is so powerful that he can take what people intended for evil and bring good out of it.

Same is true for you today.

Let me tell you that.

Even the worst parts of our lives, God can redeem.

I think those are two very different things because our hope isn't that everything happens to us is good.

Our hope is that God is so good that He can redeem even the worst things that come into our lives.

And here's what I think Joseph finally realized as he walked this path.

Just worried about him.

The story was never ultimately about Joseph.

Joseph thought God was trying to save Joseph.

But God was preserving an entire family.

The family would become a nation.

And that nation would eventually bring the Messiah into the world.

So even in this moment, Joseph thought his story was about surviving prison.

But God's story was about saving generations.

And I think sometimes we struggle because we assume that we're at the center of our own story.

But what if God is doing something bigger than us?

What if he's working in a way that your faith is influencing your children?

And that's handed down to the next generation.

And the way you walk in obedience to him has an impact on generations to come.

Even when you face that storm.

Perhaps because you face that storm.

Maybe it's the way you walked through it.

Maybe it's the faith that you held on to when it just didn't make sense.

And in those moments, in those parts of your story, God is painting a larger narrative, one that runs from the very beginning of time.

And the beautiful thing about it is this is your story.

It begins in the garden.

And it continues today because we're part of this greater arc when we put our faith and trust in Jesus.

This is your story.

Sometimes we struggle because we're the we believe we're the sinner.

We simply don't know because we only have one piece.

And she came up to me and she said, I just read your book, Build to Hold.

She thanked me for writing it, and then she said something I'll never forget.

It went something like this.

She said, You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for everything that happened in your life.

She said, and selfishly, I'm glad your story has the conclusion it does, because we're so glad you're here.

Man, how powerful that was for me.

I thought about that sentence a lot since she shared it with me.

And thank you for that, Sandra.

A few years ago, I never would have chosen for my story to be written out the way it was.

If someone would have handed me these puzzle pieces and says, Hey, do you want these?

I would have said, No way.

I don't want that chapter.

I don't want that pain.

I don't want to walk through all of that.

I wouldn't have chosen these puzzle pieces, not in a million years.

And there are still things about my story that I don't quite understand.

There's still questions that I have for God.

But I can also stand before you today and tell you this.

I've seen enough to know that God wastes nothing when you place it in his hands.

I've watched him redeem things that I thought were beyond redeeming.

I've watched him use painful chapters to encourage other people.

I've watched him take broken pieces, not because the pain was good, but because God is good.

Are you with me?

Maybe one day you're gonna look back at your story and say, now I see.

Maybe you won't.

But either way, I want you to hear this.

God is still faithful.

He is still walking beside you.

Maybe you'll understand that this side of heaven, and maybe you won't.

But your ability to understand the picture has never been the foundation of your faith.

The foundation of your faith is the character of the God who's holding on to every piece.

Think about it.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean God's not at work.

We trust that he's at work, even when our understanding runs out.

And we trust in a way that responds to him in obedience as we follow him.

I'll ask you one more time this morning to take out your piece of the puzzle.

Go ahead and take it out one more time.

Take a look at it.

Let me ask you again.

Anyone got it figured out?

You got the picture all laid out in your head from your little piece.

No?

You can't see it yet?

And again, I'll say my point again because one piece was never meant to reveal the whole picture.

Here it is.

Now, some of you may be looking at the picture and saying, Man, where does my piece fit?

I see some people like looking at it and say, Mine goes up there, mine goes down there.

You are holding a piece of that picture.

You can probably find your section.

Maybe it's the rocks or the clouds.

Maybe you have a part of the sky.

But did you notice something?

You probably didn't because you don't know what everybody else's pieces look like.

Maybe the guys that handed out the pieces may have recognized this.

But nobody in the room has the center of the picture.

I took that out on purpose because I want to make a point this morning.

I intentionally left these pieces out, the ones that make the cross.

I kept these because I wanted you to experience something.

For the last 30 or 40 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, I don't know, you've been trying to understand what this picture was without knowing what was at the center.

And I think that's exactly what happens when we try to understand life without seeing the cross.

When we try to put together all of these pieces of our puzzle without knowing about the cross.

None of these pieces make complete sense until you see what God is doing at Calvary.

Think about the people we've talked about this morning.

Abraham never knew exactly how God's promises would be fulfilled.

Joseph couldn't possibly have imagined where his story was leading.

David only saw glimpses.

Even the prophets looked forward to something they couldn't completely understand.

Think about the disciples.

They didn't have it figured out.

When Jesus was arrested, when he was beaten, when he was nailed to that cross, they thought the story was over.

They retreated.

If all you had was Friday, what conclusion would you reach?

The Messiah is dead, hope is gone, evil is won.

God's plan has failed.

On Friday, it looked like death had the final word.

On Friday, it looked like God had failed.

But Friday wasn't the whole picture.

Hear that?

That's not the end of the story because Sunday revealed what God had been doing all along.

What felt like and what looked like the greatest defeat has become the greatest victory.

What looked like the darkest moment in history has become a moment God was reconciling himself for the whole world to bring them back to him.

The very thing that seemed to prove God had abandoned his people became the greatest proof that he ever had.

Paul says it this way.

What shall we say then in response to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.

How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all of these things?

Do you hear Paul's argument?

He says, How do we know that God can be trusted?

Look at the cross.

Look at the center of our story.

The cross is God's declaration that his love for you never changes, that he's willing to give it all up, lay it all on the line for you because he loves you that much.

The cross is proof that even when we cannot understand his hand, we can still trust his heart.

So when it says we do not trust in our own understanding, but we acknowledge him in all our ways, it's ultimately pointing to the cross of Jesus.

And this is the conclusion of it all.

Maybe today you're holding the piece of the puzzle that's called grief.

Maybe your piece is disappointment or divorce.

Maybe the piece of your puzzle today is cancer or uncertainty.

Maybe your peace is waiting.

What I want to tell you this morning is whatever piece you're holding today, don't decide that the whole picture looks like your one piece.

You have to trust the one who sees every piece and never forget the center of God's story has always been the cross.

And if the cross has always been at the center of God's story, then maybe we shouldn't be surprised.

We don't fully understand until we look at the cross.

If God could take the darkest day the world has ever known and then turn it into the greatest act of redemption the world has ever seen, then you can trust him with the unfinished parts of your story.

You hear that?

I want you to take hope in that.

I want you to cling to that truth.

But what I also want you to see is at the center of that story is the cross of Jesus Christ.

And the cross has the ability to change your life.

The cross has the ability to take those broken pieces and turn it into something beautiful.

And again, if we take our little pieces, we can all take our pieces in this room and find a way to put them together.

The story is incomplete because the cross is missing.

It's only the cross that makes us whole again.

Do you see that?

Do you feel that?

The only way for us to experience that cross is to trust in Jesus Christ, to trust in his death, burial, and resurrection, and know that he's the only way for us to have access to God.

So we come to him in faith.

We declare him as the Son of God, the Savior of the universe.

We repent of our sins.

We're baptized for the forgiveness of our sins, and we're raised up to walk a new life where the whole picture begins to take form.

Never made that choice in your life.

I am begging you to do that this morning.

To trust him, trust his way, trust the cross, and know that living in obedience to his will brings us to him.

And one of the ways we respond in obedience is to give our lives to him.

If you've ever made that choice before, we want you to do that.

Maybe you've wandered away from the center of your story.

Maybe you've wandered away from the cross.

Maybe these little pieces have become most of your focus.

Is it time to come back to him?

Is it time to reset your focus this morning?

Is it time to step back and trust God with your completed story?

There's anything we can do for you if you need to be reconciled to him, if you just need the prayers of the church, or if you need to be baptized, please come.

As together we stand and stand.