You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
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And that was the best introduction I have ever had.
And I think if my mom would have been alive and here to have heard it, she would have believed it.
But, man, it's great to be here.
Gosh, two and a half years ago was the last time I was here, probably standing up here.
And some of you guys know, you need to know that some of you all still sit in the same place.
It's true. I can look at it. It's hysterical.
But it's great to be here.
The text this morning is not like a Palm Sunday text.
But it's out of Proverbs.
But in preparation for this morning, I was reading through the Palm Sunday,
the triumphal entry of Jesus in some of the Gospels.
And something stood out for me in John chapter 12.
And it's the part right after Jesus has come into the city.
And John tells of the story of some Greeks, some Gentiles that come to Philip.
And then Philip goes to Andrew because they want to see Jesus.
And they go and they tell Jesus.
And then Jesus answers them.
And he says to tell them that the hour has come.
The hour where the Son of Man is to be glorified has come.
And then he goes on to tell them this.
He says that,
And then Jesus goes on to talk about how whoever loves his life will lose it.
Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
And so the message he's giving as he's come powerfully into the city,
he's starting to tell what's going to happen to him.
He is going to die.
And then there's going to bear much fruit.
Right?
But then he talks about us.
He says that if we hate our life, in this life, in this world,
we'll gain something greater.
So this idea that he's telling us is that the way up is down.
There's a humility that we're going to be called to.
Because as we go into the world,
it's a kind of world where things don't go the way that we want them to.
The unexpected things happen.
Our expectations are here and the reality is here.
There's a difference.
And he's preparing these Greeks, these Gentiles for this.
And it got me thinking in terms of my life,
how I face things, you know,
things that happen unexpectedly.
My expectations are here, but then reality is here.
What happens?
How do I gap?
How do I bridge that gap?
And usually what I want is a quick fix.
I want something to be fixed quickly.
In this world, things happen unexpectedly.
And I want a quick fix.
And I'm looking for a life hack most of the time.
Do you know what a life hack is?
You've heard of a life hack?
It's sort of just kind of a quick fix for things.
There's even like whole websites dedicated for a life hack.
And one of them that I found,
and it's hysterical because it was so disappointing.
I needed some quick fixes,
and I went to this whole website for a life hack.
And this is how they define a life hack.
A life hack is being,
it's little ways that make our lives easier.
Okay?
So when our expectations are here
and reality's here,
I need a quick fix.
I need my life made easier.
So here's a life hack.
And here's a few of them,
and they're horrible.
They're not going to make your life easier.
But listen,
this is supposed to make your life easier.
You know those binder clips,
those black binder clips?
They got like certain sizes.
If you take those,
you stick them on the back behind your desk,
you can organize all your cables
through the little loop on it.
Easy life.
That's a good one.
There was another one.
There was one that was about
what to do with pancake batter,
how to make your life easier.
They say to put it in a squeeze bottle,
you know,
a ketchup squeeze bottle.
Put your pancake batter in that.
Let's do the pancake batter math here for a second.
First,
first to get a ketchup bottle empty,
I got to get rid of the ketchup.
First,
I got to clean a squeeze bottle of ketchup.
Now that's done.
Then I've got to make my batter.
Then I got to get the batter into that thing.
And my batter will take like ketchup from now on.
So one last little one.
This one is about how to organize your keys.
If you got a lot of keys,
get fingernail polish,
different colors,
and you're supposed to paint the top of them
different colors.
And then you'll know what key is to go to what.
But then I think you need one of those
little quarterback cheat sheets
to tell you, you know,
which key goes to what.
Okay, so I failed with the life hacks.
But I still,
I want to figure out how to make life easy.
And I think this is something that marketers
and advertisers are really,
they've been leveraging for years.
Because we want a quick fix to stop.
And have you seen in the,
like on websites,
they have little advertisements.
And they'll tell you about one weird trick.
There's one weird trick out there.
And one of them was a weird trick
on how to save,
how to add $1,000
to your social security check.
And I love the wording of that
because that plays into exactly how I feel.
Because my expectations are here
and reality is here.
And something has happened
and I need a quick fix in my life.
I need a weird trick.
Because what's so cool is it's weird.
Like no one knows how it works.
It's weird.
And it's a trick.
I don't know how tricks work.
They just work.
And that's what I want.
That's what I want for my life.
I want a weird trick.
I love you when they say things like,
here's a ridiculously easy trick
insurance companies don't want you to know about.
And so here we are.
I need a quick fix.
I need something that bridges the gap
between my expectations and reality.
But who can blame us?
I mean, who can blame us?
I mean, because life takes all kinds of turns
and things happen.
And who can blame us
that we would want a quick trick,
a weird trick to fix it.
Because we live in a broken world.
Genesis tells us the story of how that happened.
And then the repercussions of the fall
of our parents, Adam and Eve.
And the repercussions were that work
is going to be hard.
What we do is going to be difficult.
Right?
I mean, the economy turns
and we lose our jobs.
It's just difficult.
It's hard.
And making money and buying things is hard.
And then relationships are affected.
All of our relationships are hard.
When you're married, it's difficult.
And you're getting along with your neighbor
and the people at work.
And it's just so hard.
And I need a weird trick.
I need something to fix this.
I need a life hack.
But here's the thing.
The Bible is not a collection of life hacks.
It's not a collection of weird tricks
on how to avoid pain and struggle in life.
In fact, it's the opposite.
Jesus, when he was saying
after his triumphal entry,
you know, unless you die,
unless you die,
unless, see, the way up is down.
And so the Bible is not a collection
of weird tricks,
you know, life hacks.
Although,
it's full of resources.
I mean, that bring life
as we go through this broken world.
Brings perspective.
It brings life.
Resources.
Gospel resources.
That's kind of even a strange
sort of terminology there.
But here's the thing.
We're going to look at
one thing this morning.
It's in our passage.
It's one thing.
Just one,
I don't know,
life hack.
It's trust.
Because when
your expectations are here,
reality's here
and that gap in between.
And you,
you know,
Jesus said
as he rode in on the donkey,
I am king.
That's what he was saying.
I'm king.
Yet a week later,
a year later,
Caesar was still king, right?
But we know
Jesus is king
because when my expectations
are here
and reality is here,
I have to believe
he's king
even when it doesn't feel
like he's king.
And that's where trust
comes in.
Let's read the passage
this morning
and then we'll pray.
Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.
Trust in the Lord
with all your heart
and lean not
on your own understanding.
In all your ways
acknowledge him
and he will make your,
and he will make straight
your paths.
Let's pray.
Father,
we need to see Jesus
this morning
just as the Greeks asked.
Lord, show us Jesus.
Take us to the cross.
Blaze a trail
that so that we end up
before the face of Jesus
to look into his face.
And Father,
know that he's king
even when it doesn't feel like it.
Teach us to trust.
Show us that truth
this morning.
We pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
All right.
So, very quickly again,
we're on a journey
through a broken world.
It's hard.
Things are hard now.
Very difficult.
And we're on that journey
through it.
And it goes all the way back
to our parents.
So, we're born
with a bent away from God.
We're born in sin.
We're sinners.
That's how we're born.
And we need to be rescued.
And so, everything about us
wants everything except God.
And then, even as we're transformed
and given new hearts,
that battle still rages in us.
We want things our way.
And it's difficult
in a broken world.
And so,
we have to go back
and to think on,
well, why were we created?
What picture do we have in Genesis?
And that picture in Genesis
is that God wants to be with us.
He wants a relationship with us.
And so, we read and see
the picture that's painted there.
And in fact,
we have the imagery
of God walking with us
in the cool of the day.
Right?
That He wants to be
in relationship with us.
And so, in places
like Deuteronomy,
we have this passage
in Deuteronomy 10,
verse 12.
And now, Israel,
what does the Lord,
your God,
require of you
but to fear the Lord,
your God,
to walk in all His ways,
to love Him,
to serve the Lord,
your God,
with all your heart
and with all your soul?
Another familiar passage
is Micah 6.8.
He has told you,
O man,
what is good.
And what does the Lord
require of you
but to do justice
and to love kindness
and to walk,
to walk humbly
with your God.
And then Jesus sums up
all the commandments.
He gives the greatest commandment
that we love God
with all of our hearts
and all of our soul
and mind and strength.
So the goal in our life
is to know God,
to walk with Him.
Roy Hessian,
in that great book
on We Would See Jesus,
he even says,
to see God
means to know
and to love
and to walk with Him.
And so that's what
we want to do.
We want to see God.
We want to walk with Him.
We want to walk with Jesus.
In this world
where our expectations
are here,
reality here,
we need to see Jesus.
We need to walk with Him.
We need to have
a relationship with Him.
We need to trust Him.
And we're to trust Him
with all of our heart.
Now, the heart,
imagine God is trying
to describe
how we made us.
And He says that,
you know,
there's all kinds
of parts to us.
And one of the ways
He describes the heart
and then we have emotions.
But our heart
and emotions
are different.
Our heart is the place
where our greatest
commitments and hopes reside.
That's the place
where all of our commitments
and hopes reside.
And so what the passage
in Proverbs says
is we're to love God
with all of our hearts.
With every ounce
of our being,
we're to love God.
We're to place
all of our hope
and trust in Him
because our emotions
come out of that.
So God is to be
the very center
of all of our commitment
and hope.
That's what we're called
to do.
Derek Kidner
in one of the commentaries
painted a picture
of what that word
trust in Hebrew
and there's a lot
of facets to the word
trust and we'll talk
about a different
facet later.
But he gave this idea
of trust as lying
face downward,
helpless,
helplessly face downward.
And I gotta tell you
and I've brought up
an illustration using
our oldest son many times
because Billy,
as a lot of you know,
is autistic.
He's an adult now.
I think I'll get
his age right.
He'll be 23 this year.
And many of you know
when he was 17
he turned violent.
And oh boy,
I know many of you here
know that day well.
And we had to place him
outside the home.
And he's in a group home
for a while
and he's still in a group home.
But in that first group home
and organization,
one of the ways
they were helping him
deal with his violence
and his lashing out
was they had this thing
called a blue mat.
And a blue mat was,
just imagine you're
in elementary school
and you're at gym
and the blue mat
would be the mats
you put on the ground.
It's that sort of foam mat.
And it had a little handle on it
and it could fold in two
and they would carry that
around with them
because when Billy
would begin to act out
they would have to put
the blue mat on the ground
and I watched them do this
a number of times.
They would gently put him
down on the blue mat
face down
and then two workers
would get on either side
of him and hold him down,
helplessly hold him down
until he stopped
wanting his way.
And thanks to my wife Sherry,
she brought that illustration up
and said that that is how
we are to trust
because typically
what we want is our way.
We want our way.
We want things our way.
Our expectations are here
and the reality is usually
down here
and we want our way
and God teaches us to trust
to stop wanting our way
and wanting his way.
So that's what we're called to do.
To trust in the Lord
with all your hearts,
not wanting your way,
but we're to lean on
and we're to put all of our weight,
not on our understanding,
but on the understanding of God.
In Proverbs,
any understanding,
any wisdom
is not true understanding
apart from God.
And so our challenge is
we always want to lean on
our little thimble full
of understanding
when we stand before
a vast ocean
of God's understanding
because our expectations are here
and what God wants
is usually right here
and there's a huge difference.
and if I lean on my understanding,
I can get bitter.
If I lean on my understanding,
I can get angry.
I can start to find
other ways out,
looking for a quick fix,
a weird trick,
a life hack
to get out of whatever mess I'm in.
But I have to lean on
how God sees it
and his understanding.
Here's a great quote.
If God were small enough
to be understood,
he wouldn't be big enough
to be worshipped.
Amen on that.
If he was small enough
to be understood,
he wouldn't be big enough
to be worshipped.
So we need to fall on our face
on a blue mat
before the vast ocean
of God's understanding.
Let me ask you this then.
What's next?
What do we do then after that?
How do we get up
off the blue mat?
Well, it says in the passage
we're to acknowledge him.
That simply means to know him,
to have a deep relationship
with God,
to know him.
It's a personal knowledge.
We're aware of the other person.
And it's just like
your relationships,
just like our relationships.
Oh man,
I wish I could go back
in time now
because I was able to do
as a pastor
a lot of marriage counseling.
And those poor people
that I counseled early on,
I just want to go back
and like,
can they do a do-over?
Because I would think
I could help
a little better now
with marriage issues.
And here's what I would say
about that.
Here's what I would do differently.
And I'll put it this way.
If you're maybe
going to go into
marriage counseling,
maybe with one of the pastors here
or with a therapist,
here's what you need to do.
Promise me you'll do.
If you walk into
this initial meeting
and the first thing
out of that counselor
or pastor's mouth is,
and they say,
who wants to begin?
Just get up and leave.
Because what they're saying is,
who wants to start
complaining first?
That's not what you want to hear.
Here's what I would recommend
that you would try
to listen for.
And here's what I will do
as well if you come to me.
Is I will ask you,
before we find out
what's concerning you,
I'll ask you
to start talking about
what was it like
when you first met.
Tell me what it was like
when you first saw her.
How did you feel?
And then that person
could say,
well, wow.
First time I saw her,
oh, I just thought,
it's beautiful.
Then we started to talk.
She was so smart,
funny,
and her laugh was cute.
And then the wife could say,
oh, I remember
when I first saw him.
And yes, handsome
and rugged.
And Sherry says,
you know,
I was wearing
these little tight red shorts.
And she reminds me.
This is the day
when gym shorts were tight,
like that.
And because then
after that happens,
then the counselor can go,
okay, now tell me,
what concern has brought
you here today?
You see what's going on?
I mean, there's part of it
on a practical level.
You can't stay mad
at somebody
when you're remembering
things about them.
But we're to remember.
The way,
your relationship
will grow with each other
as you remember
how you met,
what you've been through,
all those things
you've got to remember.
That's how you develop
a relationship
just among people.
And one other little thing, too,
I would tell couples
you need rituals.
You need things
you do on a regular basis.
It could be like
a Tuesday night
pastry and coffee.
Something that you do
on a regular basis.
That's how we know God, too.
If you look at a lot
of the Psalms,
they begin with
the psalmist
remembering things
about God,
remembering how
and what he brought
you through.
Remember what he's done.
And so as we have
a relationship with God,
we open his word
and we remember
what he's done
from start to finish,
you know,
from Genesis to Revelation,
what he's done
for us,
how he came after,
how much he loved us,
how much his heart
is after us,
what he's done
to come after us.
That's how we develop
a relationship with God.
We remember
what he's done
and we think on it
and we delight in it,
in his word.
And then you have rituals
where, you know,
regular time with God,
doing that remembering,
regular time
with God and his word
and with his people.
Right?
Spending time with him,
spending time with others,
with people.
That's how he grows us.
That's how we get
into relationship with him.
So trust in the Lord
with all your heart.
Lean not on your understanding,
but in all your ways,
know him.
Know him.
All right,
so there you go.
What's the next thing
we're supposed to do?
Well,
if we are to trust him,
not ourselves,
we do it by knowing him.
The next thing that we're called
to do in this passage
is relax.
I don't know if you saw it in there,
but it's relax.
Because the next part of this
is it says,
he will make straight your paths.
There's a lot of work
that leads up to the relaxing.
You know,
you spend time in the Word,
spend time with others,
you think about him,
you remember,
you remember all these things,
but he causes us to relax.
Why?
Because he's got it.
There's an old Portuguese proverb
that says that
God writes straight
with a crooked line.
You know what that crooked line is?
It's the hardship,
it's the world,
the broken world we live in.
We're called to walk
that crooked path
that God has written for us.
We're to believe
and to trust him
in that time,
whatever he's called us to.
Your expectations are here,
reality's down here.
Trust him.
Relax.
It's hard to do,
but it's what he calls us to do.
Relax.
Okay.
Why is trust
a life hack
or a weird trick?
Why is trust?
Why do we need it?
Very often,
the broken creation,
especially with fallen people like us,
we get to that place
where we wonder
where God is.
Listen, y'all,
since leaving here,
the past two and a half years
has been hard.
It's been one of the hardest things
that Sherry and I
have ever walked through.
I never thought
I would not,
I'm going to do a double negative.
I always thought
I'd be in ministry
from always from on,
from the time
I went off the seminary
until I wasn't,
until I went on to glory.
I always thought
I'd be in ministry.
And boom,
all of a sudden I wasn't.
And I can tell you
I needed a quick fix.
I needed a life hack.
I needed a weird trick.
I needed some button
I could push
to fix it.
But what God gave me
was Him.
Every day,
trusting Him.
Every day,
believing that He is
writing straight lines,
even though it looks crooked
from my vantage point.
I'm telling you,
there's life there.
And if any of you
are going through
whatever it is,
you just wonder,
is God king?
Is Jesus king?
Doesn't feel like He is,
but He is.
Trust is a call
on our lives
to believe Him,
to be face down
and not won our way
on the blue map.
There's life there,
I can tell you.
There's life there.
That's what we need.
And so our response
is always to be
to trust Him.
Jesus is king.
May not feel like He's king.
He's king.
He's bringing,
making all things new.
And we can believe that.
We can trust it.
And so we're to work
on our relationship with God.
That's what we're called to do.
That's what this passage says.
Trust in the Lord
with all your heart.
Everything about you.
Work on it.
Really know Him.
And then we're called to relax,
to trust the Lord.
But here's the problem,
and I'm going to close with this.
There's a problem here.
And the problem is this.
We can't trust Him like that.
Now the type A's in the room,
you can go a lot longer than I can.
If I were just to tell you,
now go trust Jesus.
Now we're going to give you
a rah-rah speech,
and we run out of here.
The type A's are going to be able
to trust Him way longer
than the type F's like me
or whatever the worst type there is.
Because the challenge really is
there was only one who did trust,
like Proverbs calls it to.
There was only one who trusted like this.
Because here's the challenge.
Even in a church
where you can feel like
we're all shiny, happy people,
everything's good,
everything's going great.
It's just not the truth.
And you can hear from somebody
to say, well, remember what Bill said,
just trust the Lord,
and it can sound trite.
Unless, unless,
we also say,
but remember that Jesus
is the one who trusted,
who truly trusted.
You're called to trust.
You and I are called to trust.
No doubt.
But we have to remember
Jesus is the one who trusted
like we were supposed to have.
There is a one facet
of the word trust in Hebrew.
The root word has all these derivatives
that are the opposite of trust.
It means that you're sort of,
the root,
some of the words that are derived from it
have this idea that
the person that you're trusting
is deceitful.
And I love that imagery
because there's only one place
we should put all of our trust.
Our heart should only have,
be putting our trust in one place,
not anywhere else.
Not in our jobs,
not in ministry positions,
not in anything else.
But it's only in Jesus.
And that's what we,
we're like the Greeks.
Let us see Jesus.
Show us Jesus.
Let's do that.
Because the question we want to ask
when our expectations are here
and reality's here
and we're scared
and we don't know
what's going to happen next.
We don't know if we're going to,
if marriage is going to make it.
We don't know if,
man, my job's going to last any longer.
We're scared.
We're afraid.
Because life is hard
and our relationships are affected
and we don't know
how we're going to fix those.
And the weird tricks
are all been worked through.
Right?
What do we do?
Can we believe that God's there?
Can we believe Him?
Yes.
Because we see Jesus trusting.
Later on this week, right?
On Thursday night,
I got my nights right.
He's in the garden.
He's praying.
We see Jesus trusting there
because here's the deal.
Jesus lived the perfect life of trust
that you and I could never live
given a million opportunities.
He lived that perfect life.
He died the death
that you and I deserved.
And as He,
on the night before,
He was betrayed
and knowing what was before Him.
It says this.
And Jesus knew
He was going to drink the cup
of His Father's wrath.
The wrath that was deserved,
you and me.
Jesus knew He was going to drink this.
And He knew that it meant
that He was going to be sent
from the Father's presence
and experience pain,
the depths of pain,
you and I can only barely imagine.
And this is what it says
in Matthew 26.
And going a little further,
He fell on His face
and prayed,
saying,
Father,
if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless,
there it is.
I don't know.
Is this heretical?
But I picture Jesus
on the blue mat
saying,
I don't want my way.
I can trust you, Father.
I will walk this horrible path
because of the joy set before me.
I'll do it.
And here's the deal.
He had your life
and my life in mind.
And He still did it.
That's crazy.
He did that for me
and He knew what a mess
I would make of my life.
He still did it.
He's trusting the Father.
He's trusting the Father
to raise Him.
He's trusting the Father
that this will be enough.
It'll be finished.
There is the trust.
And He did it for you and me.
He can be trusted.
The life that God
is scribbling for you,
it looks like crooked lines.
And He asks you to walk it.
And it's painful
and it hurts
and you wonder,
are you king or not?
And He asks you to walk it.
We just need to remember
and look at Jesus
how He trusted
and know
it's worth it.
It's going to be okay.
He's got it.
We can trust
because Jesus knew the Father.
He knew the Father.
With a love
so great as this
that Jesus had for the Father
and the Father had for Jesus,
we see it.
We see what Jesus did for us.
We remember.
We lean on that.
We trust in that.
We don't want our way.
We want Jesus' way.
We want the Father's way.
With love so great as this,
that Jesus would lay down
His life for us.
With such great love
between the Father
and the Son,
that trust flowed so deep
from the heart of Jesus.
How can we not trust
the Father
to make
your crooked path straight?
the pain
that you're walking through,
the hardship
that you're in,
the difficulty.
He can make it straight
and He's making it straight.
He can be trusted.
And so we can get up
off the blue mat
and start walking
with Him
on that crooked path
with hope.
Absolute hope.
He will direct your paths.
Relax.
He will make them
straight and smooth.
So trust,
remember,
relax.
Trust,
it's not a weird trick.
It's not a life hack.
Trust is a person.
It's the gospel.
It's Jesus.
Amen?
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father,
my expectations
in reality,
they hardly ever match up.
And so,
Father,
thank You for that.
I thank You
for the past
two and a half years.
Lord,
thank You.
The straight path
that You're working out.
It looks crooked to me,
but Father,
I look to Jesus
and I see
the glory.
I see Your glory
in His face.
Father,
take me
no further than the cross
and no higher than His feet ever.
Continue to teach me,
teach us,
to trust You,
to place our hope
only in You,
the author and finisher
of our faith.
Lord,
we thank You
for this message.
Lord,
we thank You
for the message
of the gospel of grace.
In Christ's name,
Amen.
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Thank you.