Proverbs 3:5 (NASB95) Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
Trust in the Lord. What does it mean to trust God?
Let’s explore the meaning of trust.
Trust:
- Firm belief in the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing
Belief:
- The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another
Faith:
- To believe
Trust, belief, and faith are all very closely related words and concepts. They are actually synonyms for each other, which means that you can use each of them in place of the other when speaking or writing. This is evidenced by the fact that different translations of the Bible will use each of these words in place of each other in different passages. For example, the King James Bible uses the word believe almost exclusively in place of the word trust - so, for example, it says “believe in the Lord” instead of “trust in the Lord.”
Now, a question.
What caused Adam and Eve to sin?
Wasn’t it that the serpent got Eve not to trust God?
Genesis 3:1-6 (NASB95) Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Adam and Eve didn’t trust God, and ever since then people have had a really hard time trusting in Him.
We have been taught to separate our concept of trust from our concept of belief. You can even see in the definition of belief that it says it’s a mental act. In other words, it’s defined in our time as you relying on your own understanding. If you tell someone today that you believe something, they are likely to ask you for proof to back up your belief. Another common concept of our time is to “Don’t trust, but verify.”
But, when it comes to God, trust and belief are the same thing. The word believe comes from an old Germanic word that meant to “be loving.” When we believe in God we are supposed to not only know that He exists, but to love Him, to trust Him, and to be trustworthy and faithful to Him. Don’t let this world steal your faith, or convince you to lean on your own understanding. In every moment, and in every circumstance, trust in God because He is faithful. Believe in Him. Have faith in Him, just like David did.
Psalm 40:1-5 (NASB95)I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the Lord.
How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.
A great example of trusting God is when Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham trusted God, and God made a nation from him that He called His chosen people.
Genesis 15:1-6 (NASB95)After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,
“Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.”
Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
When we trust God it also makes us trustworthy to God. At it’s core, that’s what righteousness is. It’s being morally upstanding and trustworthy. God knows that when we are relying on Him we won’t be relying on our own understanding. And since He is so much wiser than we could ever be, there’s a good reason that trusting Him makes us more trustworthy. If we didn’t trust Him then we would have to rely on our very limited ability to understand things. And even with good intentions we usually run into our own limitations pretty quickly. It’s not even that we don’t want to be trustworthy - often it’s just that we’re not fully capable of doing what is required of us. Remember that part of the definition of trust includes ability.
You can see how much our trust pleases God in the story of Job. Job trusted God, believed in God, had faith in God. And God pointed him out for it.
Job 1:8 (NASB95) The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.”
Job 2:3 (NASB95) The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”
Job 42:10 (NASB95) The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold.
Things didn’t exactly go well for Job after God pointed him out, but God knew that He could trust Job - even when times got tough. And Job didn’t understand exactly why God was letting so many bad things happen to him, he wasn’t even able to lean on his own understanding, but He never lost his trust in God. It might seem scary for God to let Satan attack you, but when God knows you can handle it He also rewards you with more than you had before - just like it says that God gave Job twice as much as he had before.
But what happens when you don’t trust God?
When God brought Israel out of Egypt they didn’t trust God to give them the promised land, and that made God very angry at them. So angry that He wanted to destroy them, but Moses interceded for them, so they were spared but still had to spend 40 years in the wilderness.
Numbers 14:11-12 (NASB95) The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”
What is the opposite of trust? There’s betrayal, and disbelief, but there’s also the requirement for proof. When you don’t trust someone you will often ask them to “prove it.” What is proof other than us depending on our own understanding. When we ask for proof of something it’s because we want to be sure that we know the truth, and so that we are not being tricked or fooled. When you ask for proof, what you are really saying is that you don’t have trust.
Jeremiah 17:5-8 (NASB95) Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord. “For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord And whose trust is the Lord. “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.
The biggest reason I wanted to talk about trust is because God tells us over and over again not to fear, and not to be anxious - but to trust in Him. Trust in God is the antidote to fear and anxiety, and as the days get more and more evil we are going to need it more and more desperately. Fear is a weapon that is being wielded against us, and it’s being used to manipulate everyone who puts their eyes on a screen. Not only is fear being used against us, but it makes God mad - or at least disappoints Him - when you don’t trust Him.
There’s a story in 2 Kings that really touched my heart when I studied it. To me it is the essence of what it means to trust in the Lord. It’s a couple chapters long, so we’ll just hit the highlights.
It starts out with the king of Assyria invading Judah when Hezekiah was the king of Judah.
2 Kings 18:30-31 (NASB95) nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, “Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his own cistern,
First the king of Assyria attacks the faith of the people of Judah, and tells them not to let Hezekiah convince them that they should trust God. He boasts that he has overthrown many nations and none of their gods could save them.
2 Kings 19:5-7 (NLT) So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”’”
Then, when Hezekiah heard about this he did exactly what he should have done. He prayed and turned his problems over to God. He did not try to take things into his own hands and make a deal with the king of Assyria. Nor did he try to rely on his own understanding and try to outsmart the king of Assyria. Instead he fell straight back into God’s hands. And he also appealed to God to protect His glory from the one who was blaspheming Him.
And what was God’s response? Complete and total annihilation of the enemy. When Hezekiah trusted God, God showed up in an overwhelming way.
2 Kings 19:35-37 (NASB95) Then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.
That’s our God. We can trust Him to do that for us too! And that is why we don’t need to be afraid of the culture or the “experts” of today that tell us that God can’t help us, or that they “know” what’s best for us, and for us to “trust the science.”
I think that the link between trust and belief is significant because our society has come to a point where people are increasingly believing pure nonsense, and largely becoming utterly untrustworthy. We need to believe in God with love and trust and faith. Those are not separate concepts, but together they reflect the richness of what our relationship with God is meant to be.
I want to ask you another question. Where is your ultimate belief, faith, and trust? Do you believe in God? Do you have faith that Jesus paid the full price for your sins? Do you trust the Holy Spirit to guide you, teach you, and comfort you? Are you afraid, or do you trust in the Lord?
When we believe in Jesus for our salvation, we trust our eternal lives to Him - that He paid for our sins and did for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We depend on Him for our salvation. And like Paul said, if Christ did not rise from the dead then Christians are the most pitiable people on earth.
We trust Jesus completely, and we believe in Him completely.
2 Corinthians 1:9-10 (NASB95) indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us,
I just want to end with a Psalm of praise to our Great and Awesome God.
Psalm 111 (NASB95)Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart, In the company of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord; They are studied by all who delight in them. Splendid and majestic is His work, And His righteousness endures forever. He has made His wonders to be remembered; The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He has given food to those who fear Him; He will remember His covenant forever. He has made known to His people the power of His works, In giving them the heritage of the nations.
The works of His hands are truth and justice; All His precepts are sure. They are upheld forever and ever; They are performed in truth and uprightness. He has sent redemption to His people; He has ordained His covenant forever; Holy and awesome is His name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.