Build Your Trust In Him

[0:00] Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Ray Sweet from First Christian Church in Greensburg, Indiana.! As always, if you'd like to learn a little more about us, you can go to FCCgreensburg.com or you can check out the FCC Greensburg Facebook page.

[0:16] But hey, today is going to look just a little different as I will not be preaching. We actually have a guest speaker. His name is Josh Grieve. He is a part of a global ministry called ABWE, and he is a part of that ministry that is ministering in Brazil.

[0:34] And he actually gets to teach and equip other pastors by sharing with them theology classes and teaching Bible and those kind of things that equips them to go out and share Jesus with others.

[0:49] So what an awesome ministry this is. Also, if you are one who likes to take notes, he's going to have a page of notes that you can see. If you go to our Church Center app, you can go to Church Center and you can download that app.

[1:05] And under sermons, under take notes, you can actually take that. So thank you so much for being with us today, and I hope you enjoy. Well, hello, FCC family. My name is Josh Grieve, and I serve in Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil, with my family, my wife, Jody Grieve, and our four kids, Micah, Malachi, Melody, and Maggie.

[1:31] It's great to be with you and have this opportunity to share with you on this podcast and YouTube. And I thought I would share with you a little bit about our ministry in Brazil, how God has worked in our lives and called us to Brazil.

[1:47] A little bit about our first term there. We have been in Brazil the last four and a half years. And then I'll transition a little bit into a lesson from Psalm chapter 16, where God has really taught me some lessons through our time there in Brazil.

[2:04] I grew up in a small town in Arcanum, and my early childhood was defined a lot by my parents' ministry in foster care and adoption.

[2:17] And early on, God was working in my heart through my parents' ministry to live a life of mission and caring for the least of these. It wasn't always easy, and God had to really work in my heart.

[2:31] In college, I studied Bible because I loved to learn and teach. And in my internship in seminary, I had the opportunity to go to India and teach in a Bible college for two classes during a time.

[2:47] And it was amazing. And I fell in love with the opportunities to teach overseas, do theological education, training leaders around the world.

[2:58] And so I joined ABWE, Association of Baptists for World Evangelism. And this mission agency has the vision to fulfill the Great Commission by multiplying leaders, churches, and missions movements around the world.

[3:15] And at ABWE, we often talk about the great leadership gap. And what that means is that in the United States, we see that 80 to 90% of all Christian leaders, pastors, have at least a bachelor's degree in some formal training, theological training, and pastoral experience.

[3:34] And it's the exact opposite outside of the United States, where 80 to 90% of Christian leaders around the world are underprepared for pastoral ministry.

[3:46] And God has challenged me to be able to use the opportunities and privileges that I have had to study in seminary and to go overseas and to teach and train pastors who don't have the same opportunities.

[4:02] My family served in Papua New Guinea for 18 months. And when we were transitioning back to the States, we decided God was leading us in a new direction.

[4:13] And we ended up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And so let me share with you a little bit about Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo has 22 million people, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere.

[4:25] And it grows by over 200,000 people yearly. And there's three things that dominate a Paulista, a life of someone who lives in Sao Paulo.

[4:36] One, they're stressed. There's so little margin in life. You get home late. You wake up early. You're working a lot. And you're stressed all the time. Secondly, you are stuck in traffic.

[4:49] A Paulista will spend about a month of their life in time, a month of their life stuck in traffic per year.

[4:59] A whole entire month of time per year is stuck in traffic. An hour commute each way every day is what that equals to. Thirdly, a Paulista is suspicious.

[5:12] And that is a natural consequence of decades of government corruption and a system of bribery in all institutions in all of Brazil. The tide is turning in Brazil where there is more accountability.

[5:25] But more often, an individual in Brazil is always trying to angle the advantage for themselves. Lie, steal, cheat for themselves. And that has created a culture of suspicion.

[5:37] What are you trying to get out of this type of attitude? And God has called us to this grand city. We call it the concrete jungle. It sprawls out all over the place.

[5:50] And Sao Paulo is very strategic. As in Brazil, where there is a great increase in conversion to Christianity from Catholicism and from mystic religions from Africa and native peoples of Brazil, evangelicalism is on the rise in Brazil.

[6:12] And there is a great need to train leaders. Not only is Sao Paulo growing at such a great high rate, there is need for new church plants and training leaders.

[6:22] And so we serve at a seminary called Lagos Baptist Seminary, or now Faculdade de Batista Lagos, an accredited evangelical seminary that trains Christian leaders and pastors for the world.

[6:35] We have extension programs throughout all over Brazil, online and in person. And we have some classes in Africa as well. And so it's been a privilege to serve there these last four and a half years.

[6:47] We do local church ministry, evangelism, discipleship in our local church. We teach at Lagos Baptist Seminary. And I am also the coordinator for a special evangelism and discipleship material that our mission publishes called Good Soil, or in Portuguese, Boa Teja.

[7:02] And this material offers a one-day training program for local churches, as well as full-on-length Bible studies of Old Testament and New Testament through a specific type of teaching called Biblical Chronology Storytelling.

[7:17] And it's a great curriculum. And I help coordinate translations in Portuguese, get materials printed, introduce them to pastors and missionaries in Brazil, and present the material and teach seminars.

[7:29] And so this last four and a half years, we were able to teach several seminars, publish new material, and it's been a great opportunity. So that's the ministry side.

[7:40] On the family side, our four kids go to school at an international Christian school. And there's very few Americans that go there. But all the instruction is in English, and it's a privilege to have my kids be able to go there, be grounded.

[7:57] And they've made some friends. They enjoy basketball and ballet and singing in the choir. We also had some challenging times.

[8:09] Learning language is hard enough in itself. It's humbling. And we had some health challenges as well. And I think you guys, many of you know the story of Malachi. If you don't, I'll be able to share a little bit more in the devotional I have for our time together.

[8:27] But Malachi fell ill with an E. coli bacteria infection and nearly lost his life. It was life and death for three or four weeks in the hospital.

[8:38] He spent 32 days in ICU. And the doctors tell us today, look, if anybody looks at his medical records, there's no way that they believe he's alive. He is a miracle, a walking miracle.

[8:49] And that's not necessarily the end of the story. It's a daily grind every day. He has some kidney difficulties even today, and he follows a very specific diet.

[9:01] And that daily grind we live each day as a reminder of what God has done in his life and how he touched his life and ours as well. And he is a living testimony to God's love for us and his mercy.

[9:12] And he has taught us a lot. And so I want to share with you a little bit of how we can build our trust in him from Psalm 16.

[9:28] So in Psalm 16, if you want to turn there in the scriptures or follow along as I will be able to read some of the verses with you, I will give you this devotional here.

[9:39] Most of my life, I did not face death in a real and personal sense. As a young boy and into my teenage years, death felt distant. I had never attended a funeral until I was 19 years old when my friend's mother passed away.

[9:56] And I remember sitting there, unsure of how to process it all. I saw the grief, but even then, death still was somewhat outside of me. The first funeral of a close family member was my grandfather.

[10:10] In 2009. I was 25 years old, newly married. And my grandfather was able to come to my wedding, a very special moment. But that was the first time death felt real personal.

[10:22] I'll give you a little small story. My very first memory, probably, of FCC is when I was in tow with my grandfather coming to FCC when he was on mowing the lawn duty.

[10:36] He had the lawnmower in the back of his car. Or maybe there was a lawnmower here. But I just remember him coming over here to FCC and mowing the lawn that day. And I played in the parking lot, which was before the Life Center here.

[10:49] But that's my first memory of FCC. When my grandfather passed away, those were difficult times. But nothing compared to the moment when my own son was gravely ill, which I had just shared with you.

[11:02] When Malachi was in the hospital and the doctors were talking about organ failure and critical, I was confronted with something I had never experienced before.

[11:13] The potential grief of losing a child. Three years ago it's been. God had mercy upon us and spared us grief upon grief when he miraculously healed Malachi after 32 days in ICU.

[11:27] But that whole event brought something to me very clearly. Of all the things we face in life, death challenges our hope for the future most.

[11:42] There was one moment during Malachi's illness where there was a moment of peace in the room. Malachi was calm. The machines keeping him alive were humming in the background.

[11:52] And I decided to go home and spend some time with our three other kids. Just 15 minutes after leaving the hospital, Jody called me and said four words I will never forget. We are losing Malachi.

[12:06] As I turned around to drive back to the hospital, I imagined all the things that would happen the rest of our lives without Malachi. By our side. And the only things I saw were sadness and despair.

[12:20] I was grasping for hope. Maybe you are experiencing a crisis in your life right now. When you look into the future and there's not much hope.

[12:31] Maybe you're not in crisis right now. I can tell you at some point you will be in crisis. And so it would be important to pay attention. I want to encourage you today that the future is indeed hopeful.

[12:49] In Psalm 16, David teaches us the kind of trust in God that has a hope in the future. Even beyond death. We will see three things.

[13:00] First, how David builds his trust in God. Secondly, how God responds to our trust in him. And thirdly, where does that trust lead us?

[13:13] So first, let's unpack how David built his trust in God. Verses 1 through 6. I will go through one at a time here.

[13:24] David begins with a prayer. Keep me safe, O God. For in you I take refuge. David starts with a prayer.

[13:36] David starts with a prayer to God to preserve his life. Security. What we don't really know is whether David is in danger of losing his life from illness or from enemies.

[13:49] Or if he's living in a moment of peace and simply asking God to preserve his life into the future. We know many things that David experienced in his life. He had a spear thrown at his head from Saul.

[14:01] Saul pursued him all across the nation of Israel trying to find him, to kill him. Even his own family and kin later on betrayed him. And he had to run from Jerusalem in fear for his life.

[14:14] The psalm does not explain this situation. And that actually helps us because these words can apply to many situations in life. They don't have to be an illness.

[14:25] Anytime we pray for safety and preservation of our lives. In all of these moments, we begin the same way David does. Or we should.

[14:36] With prayer. A prayer is both a declaration of trust in God. That's who we're praying to. And a request for God to act on our behalf.

[14:48] Help us. Save us. First, pray. Before we do anything. Pray. Now we know this phrase.

[14:59] We have it in our workplace. And we teach our kids this. Safety first. Safety first. I think all Christians should know and live by the phrase, Pray first.

[15:13] First in the day. First before you eat. First before you play. First before you work. The first thing you should do and all that you do is pray. After praying, we see how David builds his trust in his relationship with God.

[15:31] Continuing on to verse 2. David submits to God's authority. Verse 2 reads, I say to the Lord, You are my Lord, Adonai, my authority.

[15:45] David recognizes God rules over his life. Trust begins when we acknowledge that God is our Lord. Second, David recognizes that God himself is the source of all good in this life.

[16:02] The second half of verse 2 says, Apart from you, I have no good thing. David is not denying that there are good things in life, but he recognizes that every good thing ultimately comes from God.

[16:17] Apart from God, there is no lasting good. Third, David finds joy in the people of God. Don't miss this. Verse 3 says, I say of the holy people who are in the land, They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.

[16:37] David delights in the godly people around him. These are the people who trust the Lord, obey his commands, and pursue righteousness. They are the ones David admires and surrounds himself with.

[16:50] Why? Because the people you surround yourself with will shape what you trust. Godly people fuel our joy in the Lord. They remind us who God is.

[17:01] They encourage us to keep trusting him. When life becomes difficult and we are grasping for hope, it's the fellowship of God's people that strengthens our faith and keeps us focused on what truly matters.

[17:15] Pay attention. Here, David will immediately give contrast in verse 4. Read verse 4. Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.

[17:27] Instead of delighting in God, these people chase idols. They make offerings to false idols and beg false idols to give them what they want. David says, I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names in my lips.

[17:41] Verse 5. David refuses to join them. Why? Because he understands where this path leads. Idolatry does not bring joy. It multiplies sorrow.

[17:53] When you follow false idols or go after false idols, it's not just a dead end. It's not just a neutral thing. It's not just empty. No. Your grief and your grasping for hope will actually become more desperate.

[18:07] The sorrow will increase and your grief is more and more and more. So, David makes a clear choice. He delights in the godly and refuses the path of idol worship.

[18:20] And this matters for us as we build a life of trust in God. If you surround yourself with people who pursue God, they will strengthen your trust in Him and fuel your joy in the midst of crisis.

[18:32] So, David builds his trust by valuing people who value God. All of this leads us to our first point today. Building a life of trust leads to valuing God alone above all earthly blessings.

[18:50] Friends, this is not easy to do. We often hold on to earthly blessings as if they matter more than God Himself. And I know this struggle. Sometimes we treat our relationship with God as if it depends on whether He gives us what we want.

[19:04] We may think, God, if you give me good health, then I will trust you. Or, God, if you give me a better job, then I will serve you. But when we value earthly things more than God, we slowly lose our trust in Him.

[19:19] In these moments, we need to start where David starts, with prayer. God, preserve me. Hold me. Protect me. Secondly, submit to His authority. Then seek the fellowship of God's people and recognize that apart from Him, there is no true good.

[19:36] Look with me at verse 5 and 6 now and see how David expresses this. Verse 5, David is saying that the Lord Himself is His inheritance.

[19:59] Think about what that means. For the Israelites, land was the greatest physical blessing you could receive from God. It meant security, provision, and a future for your family.

[20:12] But David is making a powerful comparison here. Even that great blessing is only a shadow of the greater blessing, God Himself.

[20:24] Land is nothing without God. It can be stolen. It can be destroyed. There could be drought. You could do a poor job managing it. Land is nothing without God.

[20:35] In fact, the priests of Israel did not receive land at all. In the inheritance, we learn this in Numbers. God told the Levites, He Himself would be their inheritance.

[20:46] And that is what David understands here. It is the Lord Himself who is the security. It is the Lord Himself who is His delight. And so this is the conclusion David reaches as he builds his trust in God.

[20:59] When we truly trust the Lord, we begin to see that the greatest blessing we could ever receive is not what God gives, but God Himself to us.

[21:10] So David builds his trust in God by valuing God above all earthly blessings. But Psalm 16 doesn't stop there. David tells us how he trusts in God, and now he will show us how God responds to us when we put our trust in Him.

[21:29] Look at verse 7. I will praise the Lord who counsels me. Even at night my heart instructs me. David praises God for answering his prayers.

[21:40] God has guided him. God has instructed him through the dark times. There isn't a removal of the dark times. There isn't a, okay, I'm going to take you away from there and it's going to be all good roses from here.

[21:54] No. God instructs him through the dark times. And at night, when we put our heads to the pillow and we're anxious and we're worrying and we're thinking about all of those things and we try to escape and just doom scroll, at night where there is darkness, David says, God has counseled him.

[22:14] God answered his prayer for protection with guidance in his life. The instruction that David receives, the counsel he can now ponder and draw strength from, is part of God's answer to his prayer in verse 1.

[22:29] Protect me, O God. And God responds, I will guide you. In the journey of faith and in our moments of struggle, we need that kind of counsel. When we are left to our own thoughts and our own struggles, we can quickly lead ourselves down the wrong path.

[22:46] And there is wrong counsel out there. Counsel that is misleading and does not come from the respectable saints of God's people, but from ungodly and who make vows to the false gods.

[22:58] So I encourage you to seek counsel from God's Word and from faithful Christian leaders. I also encourage you to help one another through difficult moments.

[23:09] We cannot do it alone. Our family could not have gotten through our time in the hospital without others helping us carry our burdens. Many gave financially.

[23:20] We had six different family members fly down to Brazil week after week to help us. We had friends from the school pick up our kids and take us to school and back from school every single day for 32 days straight and we didn't have to worry about it.

[23:37] We leaned on each other. When God gives us this kind of guidance, David makes a powerful declaration in verse 8. I keep my eyes always on the Lord.

[23:50] With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. When we trust in God and He gives Himself to us, we will not be shaken. With God at our right hand, there is no situation we cannot walk through.

[24:05] God will guide us, counsel us, and sustain us with His presence and love. So we have seen the kind of trust that God builds.

[24:16] We have seen the kind of trust that David builds in God and now we have seen how God answers that trust by giving Himself to guide us and sustain us. In Psalm 16 now, will show us the source of David's confident hope.

[24:36] As we unpack this, we need to take a step back for a moment and face a question. David began this psalm with a prayer that God would preserve his life.

[24:47] And that raises a natural question for us, for all of us. What are the benefits of living a life with God when death seems inevitable for everyone? Where is our hope when sickness comes, when suffering comes, when death stands before us?

[25:03] These are not theoretical questions. These are the exact kind of prayers we've prayed many times in the hospital. And they are the kinds of prayers we pray for one another whenever we face difficult moments.

[25:14] So we might ask, does God give us spiritual blessings while we still suffer physically and then eventually die? Is there any hope beyond the pain and death that all of us will face?

[25:28] The most difficult moment in that hospital room happened after Malachi had been intubated and the machines were hooked up and he could still communicate with us. He couldn't feel anything and he doesn't remember it now, but he was still there.

[25:41] He could mouth words and squeeze our hands in response to questions. In one moment, he looked up at me and said, Dad, am I going to die? I knew enough theology to know that I cannot falsely declare to him, hey, it's going to be okay.

[25:57] You're not going to die. You're going to make it. Because all of us are going to die someday. But what hope could I give him? What hope is there for you in that crisis that you are facing when God is distant and you're grasping for hope?

[26:15] I said to my boy, son, God loves you and he will take care of you. In that moment, I faced that question.

[26:26] Where is our hope when death is right there? David answers in verses 9 through 10. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices.

[26:38] My body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.

[26:50] David began this psalm asking God to preserve his life. Now he makes a confident declaration. God will keep his life secure. And that confidence comes from his relationship with God.

[27:04] It comes from God himself who has given himself to David to guide and to counsel. David sees that the life he has with God does not end in death.

[27:17] Verse 11 says, You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

[27:29] David describes life with God as a path. The path of life. Throughout Scripture this path describes the way of righteousness that leads to eternal life in the presence of God.

[27:41] So David is seeing something bigger than just surviving danger in this life. He sees that life with God continues into eternity after death, past death, and beyond.

[27:53] When we broaden our perspective from eternity past to eternity future, physical death is no longer an end like it is for the ungodly.

[28:04] It is simply a doorway into the presence of God. For the righteous, death does not separate us from God. It leads us into eternal joy with Him.

[28:16] What joy it would be in this life to continually have that perspective about death that is just a blip on the timeline of eternity. we are passing into the presence of God.

[28:28] If we kept that perspective, God is more real to us now than He would ever be in comparison to any earthly blessing or any moment or crisis here today.

[28:42] Ultimately, we know that Jesus Christ fulfills this promise completely. He conquered death and opened the way into eternal life with God. And this is the hope David sees as he reflects on the life he has with the Lord.

[29:00] When we build our trust in God alone and He blesses us with Himself, we are confident that our lives will be preserved to experience joy with Him forever.

[29:14] In Acts 13, Paul will use Psalm chapter 16 to talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ because we know David died, David was buried and his body saw decay.

[29:28] But when Jesus died and He was buried, Jesus' body did not decay, He rose from the dead, the first for all of us. And because Jesus conquered death, He now offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life to everyone who trusts in Him.

[29:46] This is the hope David was looking toward. This is the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ. and it is the hope we hold on to in moments of crisis. It is the hope we cling to when death stands in front of us.

[30:00] It is the hope that sustained us in that hospital room with Malachi. It is the hope we preach in Brazil. We are not there in Brazil to proclaim a better future in this world, some type of prosperity gospel.

[30:14] Oh, if you have enough faith, God will give you money. If you have enough faith, you will be healed. If you have enough faith, God will spare you. That kind of teaching is rampant in Brazil.

[30:25] Why? We are there to train leaders. No, we proclaim that Jesus Christ conquered death and that through Him there is forgiveness of sins and eternal life greater than anything here on this earth.

[30:42] So the question for all of us this morning is simple. Where is your trust? Is it in earthly blessings that will disappear?

[30:53] Is it in health that will eventually fail? Is it in some type of any security that will collapse? Or is your trust in the Lord?

[31:05] Today, build your trust in Him daily. Look to Him. Submit to His authority. Surround yourself with those who can counsel you and guide you.

[31:17] God will give Himself to you. Because when you trust in Christ and walk the path of life, in His presence there is fullness of joy forever.

[31:31] Amen. Father, I thank You for the words that You have given us in Psalm 16. And I pray for those who are listening now, who will listen sometime in the future, that Your Word will speak to them in the crisis that they are having in their life.

[31:46] When they are grasping for hope, I pray that they will turn and trust You, that You would give of Yourself to them and they would see, through faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal joys with You forever.

[31:58] Amen. Well, thank you, Josh, for sharing God's Word with us today. Also sharing a little about your ministry. And we're just so excited for what God is doing in you and through your family as well.

[32:12] So keep up the good work. But hey, if today's message just spoke to your heart and you would like to connect with us as a church, maybe you would like to talk about giving your life to Jesus or maybe you have faith questions, maybe you just want to know more about First Christian Church of Greensburg.

[32:30] Well, here's a way that you can connect with us and we can start that conversation. So you can do that by calling us at 812-663-8488 or you can go ahead and email me at ray at fccgreensburg.com.

[32:47] Hey, thank you so much for tuning in today. God bless you and have a great week.