Why Should You Trust God? #1

Don Green on what to do about anxiety.

If we think about our futures and we realize all of the uncertainties that potentially lie in the future, we need to find a place to anchor our hearts where anxiety cannot assail us. We're so glad you've joined us for the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Don teaches God's people God's Word. I'm Bill Wright, and you know, anxiety afflicts far too many people, but Christians should not number among them. Nonetheless, Don has had some personal experience with that, so Don, how about telling us something about that? Many years ago, I was a young Christian, and I was feeling pretty discouraged. I was struggling, to be honest with you. I went to see a pastor, and he told me that my problem was I needed to trust God, and he got kind of upset with me because I didn't seem to get it right off the bat. Well, you know, it's true enough that we need to trust God, but it's not helpful to tell someone that unless you show them the way, unless someone shows you how it is that you go about trusting God. And Don will show you how to do that today here on the Truth Pulpit. It's part of a series called Escaping the Anxiety Trap.

We'll again be studying Matthew chapter 6, so if you would, turn there in your Bible, and let's join Don right now on the Truth Pulpit. Simply to mention the three points. To overcome anxiety, there were three things that you needed to do, and to recognize the root of anxiety. Number one is to examine your priorities.

Examine your priorities. We saw that from verses 19 to 24. Number two, examine Christ's command against anxiety. Understand that Jesus commands you not to be anxious. Tolerating anxiety, nursing your private fears, nursing that nervous feeling in your stomach is absolutely forbidden to the Christian. This is a matter of obedience to Christ that we're discussing here. Obedience that is designed for your good. Wouldn't you like to live without that controlling fear of the future?

The controlling fear of how your trials and circumstances are going to work out? This is all for our upbuilding and all for our good, beloved. Understand that when Jesus commands it, He commands it for your good, but also understand that He commands it. Your anxiety is as much a sin as your lustful thoughts are, and so we have to obey Christ in this area.

And point number three was to examine your thinking. We kind of did an overview of that, and everything that I say today is going to kind of flesh out that third command to examine your thinking. The important thing for you to realize as you struggle with anxiety, as you deal with trials, and they kind of throw you off spiritual balance in your life, understand that Jesus does something wonderful in this passage. He doesn't simply give you the command, don't be anxious, and then walk away and start talking about something else.

That really wouldn't be too helpful. The negative command by itself doesn't give you something to build the foundation of your life on. What Jesus does in this passage in an extended way is He helps you think rightly, and that right thinking will govern your heart so that those anxious feelings are dealt the death blow. When you think the right thoughts about God after what Jesus has set forth before us. Jesus's pattern here in dealing with anxiety is to lay out before you transcendent truth about God and about His sovereignty over His creation. Then, and this is where most people drop the ball, this is where the plug doesn't get into the outlet in your thinking, you take those transcendent truths about God that are kind of out there, that are independent of you, but then you realize that that transcendent truth applies to your specific situation. That these truths about God are connected to your life as a Christian. And then when you realize that, when you've hooked the engine up to the caboose, so to speak, you conclude that your anxiety is completely unnecessary, and you're free to let it go. And in place of those anxious thoughts, those worrisome things that chomp at your heels time and time again, your mind is at peace, your mind is at rest because you are resting in the transcendent truth that Jesus has taught you about the living God. That is what we're going to see in the passage that we're going to look at. This applies to every one of you.

It applies to me. It helps every one of you if you will simply embrace what Jesus has to say here, and think his thoughts after him. Beginning in verse 25 in Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 25, Jesus says, For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?

Now, kind of an introductory overview thing for you to keep in mind. This is a very important point. As you read through this passage, you see Jesus dealing with issues of food and clothing and such, that sound in our prosperous Western society, that sound a little bit superficial perhaps, that seem like maybe this isn't so important because most of us know where our next meal is going to come from. It wasn't like that for Jesus' audience.

At the time, existence was a day-to-day matter. But what I want you to see is, is that the principles that Jesus is teaching here are very broad and comprehensive in their application. Jesus isn't just talking about food and clothing here. He is talking about everything that is necessary to your individual life.

Think about it for a second. Jesus didn't simply forbid you to be anxious about food and clothing, and then leave anxiety open to every other area in your life, right? He's looking for you to be completely free from anxiety, not simply the simple basic necessities of life. This goes to everything that you could possibly be concerned about. Everything is covered by what Jesus says here.

If you'll compare Scripture with Scripture, you can also see that that must be the case. A couple of very familiar verses. Philippians 4, 6 says, be anxious for what?

Nothing. That's pretty comprehensive. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, to cast all your anxieties upon Him because He cares for you. And so, beloved, what I want you to see today is that as we talk about these issues in terms of food and clothing, that everything that you could possibly care about is under the umbrella of Jesus' blessed teaching in this passage. Anything that you came into this room concerned about comes under the authority of what Christ says here today. No matter how profound the problem is, no matter how long-standing it is, it comes under the umbrella of this teaching because the teaching is tied to transcendent truth that covers all of life and all of eternity.

Now, here's what I want you to write down. We're going to look at four reasons that Jesus gives you to support His command for you not to be anxious about your life, not to be anxious about the future. We have His negative command, don't be anxious. Here is His positive teaching that shows why that command is perfectly reasonable and should be obeyed by every Christian in every area of their life, every moment that they exist until God takes you into heaven by the righteousness and blood of Christ. Beloved, this has the potential to completely transform your worried, anxious heart. You should be eager to hear what Christ says here today because it can transform you completely and set you on a completely different path of life in your inner man. Point number one. Write this down. The blessedness of God requires your trust.

That's kind of an awkward thing, but I needed a B to alliterate with the rest of the outline. Point number one. The blessedness of God requires your trust. Jesus in this passage is teaching about anxiety, but the most important part of His teaching in this section of Scripture is perhaps the easiest to overlook. The power of persuasion, the persuasive power of what Jesus teaches in this passage rests squarely on the blessed character of God and the fact that God is in the position as a heavenly Father to everyone who has trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That is the power of persuasion in this entire passage, but it's kind of the infrastructure of it. It's not necessarily what dresses the outside of everything that Jesus says.

Follow with me here. This is really important. Seventeen times in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7, 17 times Jesus refers to God as your Father. Twelve of those times occur here in chapter 6, verses 1 to 34. And so Jesus in chapter 6, for all of the things that we've said about practicing your devotion in private, about your priorities, and about anxiety, it's all in the great context of who God is as your heavenly Father. This lays the foundation for trust in your life. The Father's character and His faithfulness to you as one of His children is the anchor that holds all of this together. Now, what I want to do, because Jesus uses this term so frequently in this chapter 6 and even in this passage on anxiety, I want to quickly show you eight attributes of God that are explicit in Jesus' teaching about God as your Father. The character of God, when Jesus says, God is your Father, what does He mean by that?

Or, stated differently, what is this Father like? And so under the main point where I said the blessedness of God requires your trust, we're just going to kind of in bullet point fashion list out eight attributes that Jesus ties to God as your Father. Number one, God is holy.

Look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 48. God is holy. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 48, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. God has an intrinsic perfection of character that makes it absolutely impossible for Him to do wrong in general, and it makes it absolutely impossible for Him to deal wrongly with you as an individual believer.

He is perfect. He is without sin. He cannot sin. He cannot be tempted to sin. And that means that all of His dealings with you are going to flow from His holy and perfect character. Point number two, God is omniscient. Look at Matthew chapter 6, verse 4.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 4, in His teaching on giving, Jesus says to do your giving in secret and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. That is an implicit way of saying that God knows everything. He knows everything about Himself. He knows everything that is done in public, that is done in front of human eyes, and He knows everything that goes on in secret. His knowledge is comprehensive. It is exhaustive. There is nothing that He does not know.

And that includes everything that is going on in your life right now. He knows it because He knows what goes on in secret. Now, along those similar lines, look at Matthew chapter 6. We'll just pick it up and see how Jesus emphasizes this and put a different perspective on it. In Matthew 6, as He's talking about prayer, Jesus says, Go and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Your Father, your Heavenly Father, is omnipresent. He is holy. He is omniscient. He is omnipresent.

David in Psalm 139 said, Where can I go to flee from your presence? If I go to the highest height, you're there. If I go to the deepest part of the sea, you're there. Everywhere that you can possibly go, God is already there. He is present in every location throughout the universe. Stated differently, His presence fills all of creation.

He is omnipresent. Beloved, you are never beyond the watchful eye of the care of your Heavenly Father. Number four, staying in Matthew 6, verse 6. It's amazing the theology about God that is present just in this one chapter.

Look at those words again at the end of verse 6. Jesus says, Your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. He will reward you. He is omnipotent. God is omnipotent. He has the power to reward you according to His will. The Psalms teach that whatever God pleases, He does. There is absolutely no restraint on God carrying out any of the plans that He has for creation or for your individual life. God will accomplish His sovereign will without exception, without diminishment.

He is omnipotent. And Jesus is wrapping what He says here about anxiety around these attributes of God. Now, not only that, point number five. Number one, the attributes was, number one was holy. Number two was omniscience. Number three was omnipresence. Number four was omnipotence.

Number five is love. God is a God of love. If it was simply a matter of God having this raw, unrestrained power, we might fear Him, we should fear Him, but it could be the kind of craven fear that is afraid of what someone will do to you. With your Heavenly Father, that is never the case because God is a God of love. Look at this again in Matthew chapter 6. When Jesus says, When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Listen, what could be more magnificent than that kind of love that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Creator of the universe, when you go into your private closet and you kneel down to pray, would be there to listen, to listen attentively, and to receive what you have to say. That is an expression of the unconquerable love of God that is just laid out here in this passage. When you add to that, that the Bible says that in this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, when you understand that God's love is what motivated Him to send Christ into the world and accomplish the plan for your redemption, that your sins were taken into the body of Christ because motivated out of God's loving plan for those that He calls to Himself. When you think about that, listen, you never, ever have a legitimate reason to question the love of God. If He would love you in your sin and send Christ to redeem you and purchase your salvation through the blood of His own Son, all at His own initiative, all in the hands of Jesus Christ, who says, no one has taken my life away from me, I voluntarily lay it down. Beloved, we are in the presence of a width and a breadth and a depth and a height of the love of God that words simply cannot do justice to. God is a God of love. He sent Christ to save you from your sins. And now, as a believer, He welcomes your prayers and He is favorably disposed to you. Wow, this is your Heavenly Father. Number six in the attributes of God. He is wise.

He is wise. Look at Matthew chapter 6 verse 8. This is wonderful.

This is absolutely wonderful. Jesus says, your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. It has been a great advance in my spiritual life to stop trying to tell God what to do and try to figure out what I want Him to do so that I can pray and ask Him to do it. I have no idea what the best thing for my life is.

And neither do you. Your confidence in prayer is not that you can figure it out and then ask God to do it. Your confidence in prayer, your confidence in life is that God is wise. He knows what you need. The purpose of prayer is for you to go before Him and express your dependence on His wisdom and care for you, not to help Him figure out the solution to your dilemma. That takes a world of weight off of your shoulders and lets you rest in His sovereign love and care, knowing that He is perfectly wise and whatever He does in your life is not going to be a mistake.

He not only knows your need, He knows what is best to meet it, and in His power He can deliver when His time deems it best. And not only that, this blessed character of your Heavenly Father, not only of those prior six things, but point number seven, He is merciful. He is forgiving toward your sins. Look at chapter 6, verse 14.

And notice how all of these things are tied up into Jesus describing God as your Heavenly Father. Jesus says in verse 14, if you forgive others for their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. Your sins paid for at the cross, and as you grow in your sanctification and continue to deal with sin issues in your life, Jesus says your Heavenly Father will forgive you. He forgives your sin as you go through life with a forgiving spirit. If you're holding grudges, you're going to feel a divine spanking on your life at some point. But the overall disposition of your Heavenly Father toward you is one of forgiveness. Beloved, I invite you to look at this passage and see the mercy and grace of your Heavenly Father.

You have it on the authority of His own Son. Your Heavenly Father will forgive you. That's a blessed thing. That is a blessed aspect of this great character of your Heavenly Father. He's merciful. How wonderful is that?

How tender is that? As your conscience throws fiery darts against your soul to realize that your Heavenly Father is forgiving. And in the highest court of heaven, the not guilty verdict is declared. That's all a matter of grace, beloved. That's all a matter of your Heavenly Father that Jesus is calling you to trust in His teaching about anxiety. You can trust Him so much that you can trust Him to forgive you when you have deliberately violated His commands if you approach Him on the merits and the blood and the righteousness of Christ. This is wonderful teaching that Jesus gives us. Finally, eighth attribute that I want to call out to you, just from the Sermon on the Mount.

Notice, I haven't gone anywhere else in the Bible except here in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew chapter 7 verse 11, perhaps this kind of sums a lot of it up. Matthew chapter 7 verse 11, Jesus says, If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him? Your Father is good. He gives what is good to His children. On an earthly level, a father does his best and his desire, if he's got his head on straight at all, is to be good to his children. Jesus says, look at that imperfect example of an earthly father and realize that in perfection your heavenly Father is even better. He is good, and He gives what is good to His children.

Now, beloved, follow with me here. The character of God is high and exalted and blessed. That same God, this high and lofty God over all of the universe is your heavenly Father.

If you have put your faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, He's your heavenly Father. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, teaching a message in Matthew titled, Why Should You Trust God? Don will have more of this message next time, so be sure to join us then here on The Truth Pulpit. But right now, Don, you have some closing words for our listeners today. Well, if you're struggling with anxiety, I hope that this message today has helped you to take heart. It doesn't have to be that way forever.

You don't always have to struggle with anxiety. Christ taught us these things to bring blessing to us. That shows us that He's a good God.

Ask Christ for grace to help you, and you keep seeking Him. God bless you as you respond to His Word in the days to come. And friend, if you've been blessed by today's message, we invite you to visit us online to request a free download at thetruthpulpit.com. Look for the title, Why Should You Trust God? That's all at thetruthpulpit.com. There's more from our study in Matthew coming your way next time. Until then, for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright. God bless you, and tune in again next time for more from The Truth Pulpit, where Don teaches God's people God's Word.