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What is it that keeps you up at night? What is your biggest worry? Maybe it is the political unrest and divide we see right now, and your biggest worry is what will happen to the world if Trump wins the election…. Or if Harris wins the election. Maybe you are worried about your financial situation and how you are going to pay your bills this month, or if you can afford to stay in your home. Maybe you are worried about the stability of your job, or the ability to find a new job. Maybe what keeps you up at night is the doctor’s appointment you have coming up this month, or the appointment for your child or your parents. Maybe this week what keeps you up at night is the safety of your children as you send them off to school, or the one you just sent off to college.
There are so many things we worry about, from our health to our finances to the state of the world. We worry about whether our lives have any real purpose, if we can get everything done, we need to get done, and what our future will look like when things seem to change so fast and so often. If you didn’t have any worries when you came in, you probably have some now. You can thank me later.
Jesus was very clear when he told us that we shouldn’t worry.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? …Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Matthew 6:25, 27
Worrying about things doesn’t help us at all, in fact, it ends up hurting us. Corrie Ten Boom, who spent years in a concentration camp said, Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength. Worry doesn’t help us prepare for tomorrow, it only prevents us from enjoying today and finding the strength we need today to face the challenges of tomorrow. We need to learn how to live without worry.
The key to living without worry isn’t to tell ourselves to just stop worrying; that doesn’t work and is not helpful. What helps us to stop worrying is when we start trusting, when we start trusting God.
Last week we started a series looking at different attributes of God and today we are going to learn how we can stop worrying by placing our trust in God and we can do that because God is trustworthy. The Bible says, My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62:7-8,
We are told to trust in God at all times; not some of the time, not most of the time, but all the time, and we can learn to trust God more by focusing on these 3 things.
1. God has been faithful before.
When we remember that God was faithful yesterday, it helps us trust God today. It might surprise you that one of the most common commands in the Bible isn’t to love or serve others but to remember. The word remember is found 240 times in scripture and most of the time what God wants us to remember is how He has been faithful and provided for His people. Here is an example: Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Exodus 13:3
God wanted the people to remember how He saved them and led them out of slavery in Egypt. Remember I was the one who sent plagues on the Egyptians so they would release you from slavery. Remember I was the one who parted the waters and gave you a way out when you were being chased down by the Egyptian army. Remember I was the one who led you across dry ground and then brought the waters of the Red Sea down on the horses and chariots of Pharaoh. Remember I was the one who led you by a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. Remember I was the one who gave you bread every day and provided you with water when you were thirsty and remember that the water came from a rock. Remember all the ways I rescued you from Egypt and led you into a new land. God wanted the people to remember because if God had done it before, He could do it again. They could trust Him.
This is the same reason God told the people to set up stone memorials when He provided for them or helped them. The idea was that in the future, as the people traveled through the region, they would see stone monuments and remember how God had cared for them. They might not know what that pile of stones was for, but they knew it was a reminder that God had provided for them in the past so they could trust Him.
What are those stone monuments in your life? Can you point to a moment, or moments, when God provided for you in some very specific way. 33 years ago this month I started as a student at MSU. I didn’t know a single person in the state of MI let alone anyone at MSU. My first week, I was completely overwhelmed and ready to go home. I thought I had made a huge mistake and was miserable. I called my parents in the middle of night to ask if I could come home and my mom said, no. I had made the decision to go there and I had to stay through the semester and work things out.
A few days later I got a letter from a friend telling me to check out IVCF. I got her letter immediately after walking by a banner for IVCF but since it was outside the IM building, I thought it was a sports group so didn’t talk to the people at the table. I went back and met some great people who invited me to a meeting that night and IVCF became my home for the next 4 years. God provided for me at just the right moment. That became a monument in my life.
A few years later I found myself in Yellowstone National Park and my first week there I was miserable. Again, I thought I had made a huge mistake and wanted to come home, but I was reminded of how things got better at MSU, and they would get better there. And they did. The same thing happened when I arrived in Altoona at my first church, and I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into as a pastor. I was again reminded of how God had helped me through transitional times in the past and that He would help me again.
All those times of my life are now monuments to God’s faithfulness. I can look back and see how God provided for me in those difficult moments and if God did it then, He can and will do it again. Those monuments tell me that God is trustworthy. God has led me these past 43 years and He will do it again.
God has been faithful in your past. Identify a few of those situations so they can become markers and monuments to help you trust God for today and tomorrow. The first thing that can help us trust God is to remember that God has been faithful in the past. The second is to know…
2. God is faithful today.
As the people of Israel made their way out of Egypt, God led them by a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day. The fire and cloud were there to remind the people that God was with them and that they could trust God to keep leading them.
As the people prepared to enter the Promised Land, God told Moses to send out 12 spies to see just how good the land was. They all returned and told the people how great the land was, but 10 said they shouldn’t move into the land because the people who lived there were huge, and they didn’t stand a chance against them. 2 of the spies who went in, Caleb and Joshua, tried to remind the people that God had not only been faithful in the past but that He was right there with them. The pillar of fire was there. The cloud was there. God was with them, and they could trust Him. They said,
Do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them. Numbers 14:9
Joshua and Caleb remembered how God had been faithful in the past and they knew that God was with them and would fight for them. They trusted God and weren’t afraid. When we trust God, we don’t need to be afraid, and we can grow in our trust when we know that God is with us. Through Jesus, God is with us.
At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, we are told that Jesus was not only going to be the long-awaited savior, but that He was going to be God in the flesh, God with the people. Matthew said, The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”). Matthew 1:23
At the beginning of the story of Jesus, we are told that Jesus is God with us, and at the end of the story of Jesus we are told that Jesus will be with us always. Jesus said, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20
The story of Jesus is the story of God with us. God loved us so much that He came to be with us and through Jesus, God opened the way for us to be with Him forever. Now this doesn’t mean God pulls us out of every bad situation, but it does mean that God is with us in them.
For those of you who have had children, this might sound familiar. You tuck your kids in at night and in about 30 seconds they are standing at the door saying, I need a drink of water. You give them water and tuck them in again only to find them back in the doorway saying, I’m not tired. You send them back and in another 30 seconds they are back saying, I heard a scary noise. You know they are trying to wear you down so they can stay up later, but you don’t give in. Instead, you go and lay down with them and they fall asleep.
Now you didn’t do anything to change their situation, what changed was they could be at peace because there was someone trustworthy with them. That’s God with us. We may not get lifted out of a difficult or scary situation, we might still have to go through hard times, but we don’t go through it alone. God is with us. We can trust God to be with us and that trust can take away our fear and worry and anxiety.
The last thing that can help us trust God is knowing…
3. God will be faithful tomorrow.
Let’s go back to the example of Israel going into the promised land. They are at the very edge of the Promised Land. They know God has been faithful in the past and helped them all along the way, and they know God is still with them because they can see the pillar of fire and cloud. This alone should have given them the ability to trust God for the future, but God gave them one more assurance that He would be faithful tomorrow, He told them the end of the story. This is what God said when He told Moses to send out the spies.
Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. Num. 13:2
God was telling them what was going to happen. He was going to give them the land. This is the end of the story. But after all the people had seen God do and knowing that God was still with them and that He had already written the end of their story, they still chose not to go into the promised land. How could they not trust God? After all they had seen and heard from God, how could they not trust Him.
After all the ways God has been faithful in our past and all the ways God is showing us today that He is with us, how can we not trust him for our future. God has already written the ending for us.
Here is part of the ending of our story.
God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:3-4
Through Jesus, we are God’s people and God Himself is with us. Here and now God is with us. Tomorrow, God will be with us and because God is trustworthy, we do not need to be afraid. God said,
Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10
We can trust God but letting go of our fear isn’t easy. What I want to encourage you to do is not to try and just let go of fear but instead take hold of something stronger.
Several years ago I agreed to go over the edge and rappel down one of the buildings in State College. We were raising money for the Faith Centre and while it seemed like a good idea when I registered, when I was standing on the edge of the building, I wasn’t so sure. I was one of the final people to go over and I stood there for a long time holding on to the frame that held all the ropes. I really didn’t want to let go. I was in a harness that was secure. I had seen everyone else go over the edge with no problem, but to trust that I would not fall to my death in that moment wasn’t easy.
Craig was helping me get ready to step off the edge and he was very patient, but the idea of leaning back and letting go wasn’t going to happen so Craig told me to let go of the safety bars and take hold of the rope. That I could do. With one hand I let go of the frame and held onto the rope, then both hands. Then slowly, very slowly, I made my way down the building.
You see, the answer isn’t to just let go of fear and worry, it’s to let go of what we are holding on to so we can take hold of something better, something stronger, Someone we can trust. Sometimes we have to let go of what we think we can trust in this world so we can take hold of the one who is always trustworthy, Jesus. Jesus is trustworthy. He has been faithful in the past, He is with us today, and He has already written the end of our story - He is with us.
So, let me go back and ask, what keeps you up at night? What are you afraid of? Can you let go of that fear and take hold of the one who has proven Himself trustworthy.
Next Steps
God is Trustworthy
What are the things that keep you up at night?
If someone were to ask you if God was trustworthy, what would you say?
Three things that can help us trust God more:
Remember God has been faithful before
● Read Exodus 13:3. Identify all the ways God had been faithful to His people as He led them out of slavery and into the Promised Land.
● Read Genesis 35:14-15. What monuments and markers can you identify in your life that can help you remember God’s faithfulness in your past?
● Make a list of all the situations when God showed you His faithfulness.
Know God is faithful today.
● Read Exodus 13:2. How did God show the people He was with them on their journey?
● Read Matthew 1:23 and Matthew 28:20. What does this tell us about Jesus?
● Where do you see, hear or experience God in your life today?
God will be faithful tomorrow.
● Read Romans 8:31-39 and Revelation 21:1-7.
● What does God tell us about the ultimate end of our story?
How have you experienced God to be trustworthy and true?
What fears can you let go of as you take hold of Jesus?
