Cultivating Trust | Fierce Pathways

I really really, really, really, really, really love fire.

I mean, some of you like fire too.

If you're honest about it, there's just like I don't know.

There's just something about it.

It's just the way that it burns.

It's like eating the paper.

It's like I don't know, I feel the gentle warmth of it.

It's just, fire is amazing and it has always intrigued me.

But Robert Jr, which is my younger self for those who don't know my younger self who was a bit mischievous, who kind of did things you know he was.

Robert Jr was a sketchy dude, I'll be honest.

Yeah, he would do things.

You know he was.

Robert Jr was a sketchy dude, I'll be honest.

Yeah, he would do things.

So I was raised by my grandparents.

My grandparents had this fireplace and every morning my grandfather would prepare the fireplace and he'd get it ready and he'd get it going and I'd just be so amazed about the lighting of this fireplace and it was just one of the greatest things ever.

He had a whoosh, he had a cracking of the wood and at that time we used charcoal, we had coal, so my grandfather would have coal delivered to the house.

But my grandfather was also a carpenter, so he had all kinds of tools and a cabinet in the house.

There were chemicals there, there was glue there.

Well, robert Jr, in his infinite wisdom, discovered there was one of the chemicals, one of the glues, that if you would squeeze it into the fire you get this nice little whoosh.

So that was like whoa.

I mean, who wouldn't want to do that?

When I was in front of the fire, I was squeezing this glue into the fire and I got this whoosh Again.

So excited, except for this time the fire started to come back on the stream.

Now, at that point most kids would probably squeal and run out of the room Not me, I was going to handle it myself.

So the smartest thing I could think of at that time to do was to squeeze the tube even harder.

So what happens after I squeeze the tube?

You guessed it I was squeezing literal fire streams of glue all in the den.

So my grandmother, who realized and any time that Robert Jr was quiet, there was something going on either I was asleep, taking a nap, which never really happened, or I was probably doing something that I had no business doing.

This morning we're going to pause right there for a minute, and this morning we're going to talk about cultivating trust.

So here it is.

I'll just lay it all out.

We really don't trust God like we say that we do, if you're honest with yourself, I mean when it comes to certain situations.

There are just some things that we don't trust God with.

I know I'm guilty of it.

I've done it myself.

I like to handle things because I am a fixer, so if something's broken it is in my nature to fix whatever it is.

It just comes automatic to me just to attempt to fix it.

Sometimes I get it right.

A majority of the time I get it absolutely wrong.

We trust him with the things that we the little stuff you know.

But what happens?

Can we really trust God when we're going through a rough time?

Can we really trust God when we have a really important test?

Can we really trust God when we're financially not where we want to be?

Can we really trust God when it looks like we don't have another option?

It's easy to trust him when the refrigerator is full of food.

It's easy to trust him when you're on top of the mountain.

It's so easy to trust him when everything in your life is going like it should.

It is so easy to trust him when you don't have a care in the world.

But can we really trust him when trouble comes?

Can we really trust that he'll have the best result or even yield the best result for us?

I mean, we talk about it especially on Sundays, and this is what I love about Sundays On Sunday morning, we all trust him.

I mean, you look in here, I look in here now and I just I see so many people that trust him.

But what happens when you walk out the door?

Your car won't start.

Door, your car won't start.

What happens when you walk out the door and the relationship that you're in is not going the way you want it to?

What happens when you walk out the door and you try to go to the Walmart or to the Meijer?

You don't have enough to get everything that you need.

We talk about trusting him, but what does trust really look like?

What does it really mean to trust him?

Today, we're going to talk about cultivating trust, and I'm using psalm 34.

Really, I have been in a love affair with psalm 34 now for, oh my, probably about two years, 18 months, two years.

There's just something about it and it starts off so beautifully, so poetically.

We're not going to put all of the verses up, but it starts out like this.

It says I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall my souls make.

His boast in the Lord, his praise shall continue to be in my mouth.

The humble will hear thereof and be glad.

Then it says oh, magnify the Lord with me.

Let us exalt his name together.

That's so beautiful.

It sounds like the psalmist when he's writing this.

He's really, really really got it going on.

It sounds like everything is wonderful and this person has it all together.

It seems like God has been so wonderful to him that he says all times.

But what does all really mean?

All means all.

All means good.

All means bad.

All means things that are not going so good.

All means when everything is going good.

All means when you're on the mountaintop.

All means when you're in the valley.

All means all.

He says I'll bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

The humble will hear thereof and be glad.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me.

That's how it starts, so beautifully, so poetically.

So together.

But in order to get to that point, would you believe that you actually have to go through some rough stuff?

You actually have to go through some tough times.

You actually have to be in a place where you never thought that you'd be and you'd have to see that the Lord will bring you out every time in order to get to the place where you can bless him at all times, because you know he's going to bring it out.

He's going to bring you out.

You have proof, he has declared his resume, he has showed his hand.

That's what he's done.

But how do we get there?

How do we cultivate this trust?

How do we make it?

Psalm 34 is a profound expression of trust in God.

It's attributed to David during the time of peril and, believe it or not, when this psalm was written, when this psalm came forth, david was in a cave.

I'll give you some backstory, because I know everybody loves a good backstory.

So here it is, david, the little shepherd boy whom Samuel went to his father, jesse's house and said hey, god sent me here, said the king is going to be right here.

I need to find him.

Jesse goes, gets three of his finest sons, the three finest sons he had.

He said nope, these won't do.

Do you have another son?

He gets David.

David is anointed and David will be king of Israel.

Okay, well, david had already began to line up his resume.

He killed Goliath, so he had already kind of moved on in there and people knew who he was.

He was very popular, but guess what?

The king at that time, saul, did not like that.

David had created so much fuss about himself.

They had a song about him saying that Saul killed his 1,000, but David killed his 10,000.

I mean, he was out there somewhere in the land of celebrity.

Everybody knew who David was.

Saul didn't like that and he wants to now kill David.

David takes off running, so much so that he takes off running and is so bad that he goes to a place that you'd never thought you'd ever end up, and that was the land of the enemy.

He went to go try to make a deal with the king of the country that Goliath had come from.

He ends up there in some more trouble, he plays crazy in a deceitful act and he's now on the run.

Some more run, some more.

This is where we find David, in this cave now, reflecting on his life and how, each and every time, even in the attempt of deceit, god brought him out.

This is David who remembered.

If you recall, in scripture, david says some very poignant lines, especially when it came to fighting Goliath.

He said that the same God that kept me from the claw of the lion and the paw of the bear is the same God that will deliver me from this giant.

This is David.

So David has seen God at work.

This is David.

Psalm 23, david where it says, yea, though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death.

And the valleys are not, in this particular instance, what we think when we think about the nice green valleys with the trees and green grass.

These valleys were actually cracks in the rocks of the mountains where he was a shepherd.

And in those rocks, in those cracks, all manner of evil, all kinds of wild animals could live in there and attempt to ambush you while you had your flock, but he knew that God had kept him.

Through it all.

Through it all, he's reflecting.

How do we cultivate trust in him?

How do we do it?

Well, the first of these things that we have to do is that we have to seek God earnestly, and David begins by emphasizing the importance of seeking God with all sincerity in his heart.

He declares in verse 4, I saw the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all of my fears.

This is a moment of reflection.

This is David reflecting over all the things that he'd been through, over all the things that he'd seen.

He now realizes that the pursuit of God was worth it.

He had tried some self-reliant things that didn't seem to pan out.

And we are really good at.

We get the self-help books and we start talking to the friends.

We'll get on the telephone and we try to get it together.

We'll talk to anybody and everybody, but we have to talk to God.

How do we seek God earnestly?

We seek him by opening up the Bible, reading his word.

We seek him by praying.

We seek him by looking toward spiritual counsel, those who are mature in the faith.

We seek him by running after him.

That every time something is going on we ought to run to him, because he is actually the answer to all of our questions.

He's the solution when the math is not mathing.

You add Jesus to the equation and I promise you he will balance it out.

We don't have the ability to do the math that he can do.

When we're cultivating our trust in him and we're seeking him earnestly, we have to go with reckless abandon toward him.

That means that we have to deprioritize some things.

Now, here it is.

Now, there are certain things that I do love.

I love going to the mall and walking around and seeing the people, but sometimes what I want to do is not as important, nowhere near as important as my relationship with him.

As important, nowhere near as important as my relationship with him, nowhere near as important as seeking him and looking to him and wanting to be with him and wanting to get to know him intimately.

We have to remove some of the clutter from our lives and I know that we have some very busy lives.

We got school, we got work, we got friends.

We have to make time for all of these things, but what about the time that we need to make for him?

We have to seek him earnestly and then, after we seek him earnestly, while we're cultivating trust in him, we have to experience his goodness.

And to truly experience his goodness, to truly trust him, we must see his goodness by the time we get to verse 8 of Psalm 34,.

It says oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man that trusts in him.

And it's interesting because this comes from experience.

This means that the more David tasted him, the more he saw that he was good, and I want to suggest that every time he took a bite of Jesus, he got gooder and gooder.

I know it's not a word, but it sounded really good right there, you should try it.

You should try it.

It's relaxing.

This is from the knowledge of knowing what he can do.

This is from the knowledge of seeing him work.

This is from the knowledge of watching him move on your behalf.

Now, my grandmother was probably a Michelin-rated chef.

I mean, she could cook some stuff.

You name it, you pick it.

There were some things as a child if you would imagine having children of my own now and understanding there were some things that she did cook that were kind of questionable.

Kind of questionable.

I don't know If I wanted to really eat that, but you said it's good.

But she would say you at least have to try it.

99.9% of the time when I tried it, I actually loved it.

And that's how it is with Jesus.

And what does it mean to taste him?

The interesting use of the word taste is actually metaphorical for an intimate relationship, because taste engages all of the senses.

Taste is so important.

Let me show you.

Let me show you.

Hold on a second, watch this Now.

I love fruit leather, so I have me a piece of pomegranate fruit leather here.

Let me see what's that?

Mmm man, that's good.

Excuse me, I wish I had another piece.

No, I'm fresh out.

So when it comes to tasting Jesus, it engages all of the senses.

Not only do you have taste, but you have smell.

Not only is there smell, but there's touch.

Not only is there touch, but then there's hearing.

You hear that audible mmm, mmm, or something so good to you.

That's how it ought to be with Jesus, that every time we remember what it is that he's done for us, we ought to say mmm, that was good, thank you for all that you've done for me, thank you for all that you've done for me, thank you for the taste.

And when you get a taste of him, I promise you you will want more.

If you don't believe me, if you don't believe that it'll work for you, I dare you this morning to taste him for yourself.

I promise you you will never forget the flavor.

I promise you you will never forget.

You end up wanting more and more and more of him every time you taste of his goodness.

It's intimate.

It's an intimate relationship with him.

It's loving him with your whole heart, with your whole mind, with your whole being, with everything you have, with your substance, with everything that you have.

It's an intimate relationship.

It engages all of the senses.

So, after we seek him earnestly, while we're cultivating trust in him, and after we've experienced his goodness, we have to live righteously.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, I'm sorry, y'all thought y'all would get off the hook.

Y'all got to get off the hook.

It was going good until we got here about the live righteously part.

This is the part right here in these verses verses 13 and 14, it says that we ought to keep our tongues from evil and our lips from speaking deceit.

Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

Uh-oh, you mean after you've sought him earnestly and after you've tasted him.

That means that there ought to be some change about you, that people can see that you have sought him and that you have tasted him.

And now you are.

This new Bible says that if you are in him, you are a new creature.

That behold, all things are new.

Old things have passed away.

So there ought to be something different in your speech, there ought to be something different in your walk and in your talk and how you treat people, and how you treat people that don't necessarily think that you should even treat them any kind of way.

The hard part is loving on people that don't even love on you.

But yes, you have to do that too.

I know, I know, I know, I knew it was going to get quiet.

But what it calls for is a re-inventory of yourself.

You have to look into your own heart.

You have to look into your own heart and then you can discover exactly what it is that you need to do better, that every morning, when you wake up, morning by morning, new mercies.

I see you have those new mercies so that you can be a better version of yourself than the day before.

I know I'll give you an example my wife.

She really gets on me.

Sometimes.

I talk good game up here, but the reality is I don't always get it right.

I'm slick at the mouth and when, whether it's like a doctor's office or somebody that I'm trying to work with, there have been some times when they said some things that didn't sit well with me.

Sit well with my spirit, if you will and then I start to act up.

You know, something happens, it comes over me and I have to try to get it back together, because I know that I'm called to a higher standard of living and I cannot afford to act like everybody else because of who I said I belong to and because of who I said I belong to and because of who I said I've sought and because of who I said I tasted, I have to act differently.

We don't always get it right.

We're fallible.

We're fallible creatures, to include me.

I'm still working on it.

Pray for me, help me, help me.

That's why my wife she always makes sure.

Now, really, I'm like what Is that?

Oh, oh you, this is what preachers do.

The shame, the pain.

Say man, okay, yeah, you're right, it's an admission.

She likes being right by the way.

That's it.

That's it she does.

But we have to take a look at ourselves.

We have to do some introspection, we have to talk to people, and I do not surround myself with anyone that does not hold me accountable when it comes to living righteously.

It's not just a thing that we can do all in our own.

It requires the word and it requires us to surround ourselves with spiritually mature people who can help us At school.

Maybe you have a friend or a prayer partner, somebody that can link up with you, pull your coattail when you're wrong.

When you're at work, you have a coworker that can straighten you out when you're at home well, I know I have a wife to straighten me out.

Oh, I can't speak for everybody else, but she's pretty good at it, she's perfected it.

See, she's pretty good at it, she's perfected it.

There is always the notion of Robert Jr existing still, but when he comes out she's like let me know this Robert Jr, so she helps me with that.

And then, after we've sought him earnestly, and then after we've tasted of his goodness or experienced his goodness, when we learn to live righteously how we learn to live righteously, we can rest in his deliverance.

And finally, trusting God involves resting in the promises that he made in verse 17 and verse 18, when he says when the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears them and delivers them out of all of their trouble.

The Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

This is a great assurance that we have, because that means that in all of life's challenges that we could face, god is still there for us.

That means that in all of life's challenges, god will pull us out, even in those that we seemingly get ourselves into by embracing these principles.

What we are now doing or developing is a trust in God that can actually anchor our souls, that we have to really, really, really know who he is and to rest.

I'll give you an example of what resting in his deliverance looks like.

Biblically, there was a very popular king, jehoshaphat.

Jehoshaphat got word that some people were coming to attack.

He tells the people Lord, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

He sought the Lord.

The Lord heard and answered Jehoshaphat, and this is what happened.

So the Lord came back with a very specific plan for them, and he says to them that you will not need to fight this fight, for this battle is not yours, but it is the Lord's.

Now guess what?

God gave him a very specific plan.

He says this is what I want you to do, Jehoshaphat.

And I paraphrase for sake of time.

He said I want you to go down to the battlefield, I want you to surround them.

You won't need to use your weapons, I simply want you to make some noise.

And don't you know, by making this noise, this sound, they were able to see God's deliverance of them Because they no longer had enemies that were coming to attack them.

When they started making this noise, the enemies that were coming for them started to attack each other.

Now that is resting in God's deliverance, that you believe his word, and because he said it, you can simply just say thank you, lord.

I know that you have it.

His glory shines upon you.

And then there's the part about the anchor.

So I'm gonna give you nautical knowledge.

I was a sailor and I loved it.

I still talk about the Navy to this day.

I drive my wife crazy because I tell the same Navy stories over and over again.

But there was no greater joy for the sailor than hearing the alarm to drop the anchor, to drop the anchor.

The sound of the anchor dropping is the most dangerously joyful, horrendously wonderful sounds that you could ever hear in the Navy.

But the anchor, as it crashes into the water, goes down, down, down until it hits the seafloor.

The ship is slowing down and as the anchor is on the seafloor, the anchor digs deeper and deeper, and deeper and deeper until the ship comes to a complete stop.

That's how we have to be when it comes to our relationship, that our souls are so deep in him that there's no wind, there's no anything that could shake our faith or our trust in him, that we have to be anchored in the Lord, knowing that he is the rock.

And then I'm almost out of your hair, but I want to finish my fire story.

So here it is the fire is going.

My grandmother rushes in in my silence.

She sees that there's a fire.

What does she do?

She runs, alarms my grandfather.

They get water and they put the fire out.

But she only came because I was silent.

My brothers and sisters, I want to share with you that when you are silent, even in your silent cries, god hears you and he comes to wherever you are.

And even when it seems like there's a breath of time, and I have been praying and I have been reading and I have been going to small groups and I have been doing all of these things, but it just seems like.

But it just seems like, where are you, lord?

Why have you not delivered me?

But I want you to know that your deliverance is coming From whatever it may be, from that relationship, from that trial and tribulation at school, from that trouble that you have on the job.

Deliverance is coming, but you can't fix it yourself.

You have to trust in his timing and you have to trust that he's really in control.

There's another fire that I want to talk about, and then I'm going to get out of the way.

There's the fire of sin in our lives that burns, and even though we are quiet about it, and when we're quiet about it, jesus knows and he hears.

God sent Jesus down here, in our silence, to put the fire out and deliver us.

Now, here it is.

My parents thought I deserved a whooping, like I should have got tore up for setting the living room on fire, but my grandmother provided me with some grace.

She covered me and she protected me from what should have been the best whooping I could have ever told y'all about.

That's what God does for us Every day of our lives.

When we wake up in the morning, when we lay down at night, it's because of his grace that he's covered us and that he's kept us.

So what am I saying to you?

Don't worry about tomorrow, don't even worry about the remainder of the day, don't even worry about the remainder of the day.

Make sure that you are looking at him, even in life situations.

Lord, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

Trust in God and never doubt.

Let us pray, gracious God, our Father.

Lord, we thank you.

We thank you, god, that we can trust you in all systems, in all circumstances, in all places and all spaces.

God, we thank you that you are everything that we need.

We thank you that you give us the ability to seek you.

And, god, we thank you that you're so good to us, even though we're so undeserving.

God, we ask you now that you allow us to align ourselves with you, allow us to live according to your will, and thank you, father, that, when it's all said and done, we give you glory, that we can rest in you, knowing that it's you that brought us out of every situation in our lives.

Bless those who are here today, bless those who are heavy hearted, bless those who are broken in spirit.

Let them know that you are the solution to their problems, that we ought to look toward you and we'll be careful to give you thanks and praise In your son Jesus' name.

We do pray.

Let us all say together amen.

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