Trusting Jesus

Imagine you're standing on a hillside amongst a crowd and the crowd, much like today, is desperately searching for certainty in uncertain times. And Jesus stands up and he begins to teach. Time out right there. Time out right there. Okay. So I said, imagine, and that Jesus is teaching and some of you are like, I'm there. I'm with you, Dave. I've already got it. You just transported me to the set of the chosen. I can see it happening right now. I'm good. But I know there's other ones here that you're just really early on in your journey and you have a lot of questions. You don't even know if what Jesus looks like to you and am I saying I'm Jesus who's going to teach? No, no, no. You have a lot of questions. Well, wherever you're at in your spiritual journey, welcome to the crossing. We're glad you're here. And I hope today that we'll be able to take something from this no matter again where we're at. So you're on a hillside. Jesus begins teaching and he's talking about this new kingdom that is coming. One that actions do matter, but your actions should be a light like a city on a hill that would, when you do something, your works would point people to glorify God in heaven, not glorify yourself. And those are the two kingdoms. There's a kingdom where the road that is wide and narrow and there's a narrow road. And in one of them, you know, people were showing spiritual things.

Their actions were glorifying themselves, even a spiritual way. They were standing on the corner and they were praying out loud so that they would get the glory. It wasn't about praying to God, it was about people seeing me pray. They were giving generously and they were making sure that everybody knew how much they had and how much they gave. Not to glorify their father in heaven, but to glorify themselves. And Jesus said, there's a different way. When you pray and when you give, do it in secret. Do it because you have this personal intimate relationship with God. He said, you're judgy. Don't judge others. You know the rules. You put rule on top of rule and you are judging others for not keeping rules upon rules upon rules and you can't even keep them yourself. You know, it's not right for you to judge others when in your heart, it's not making sense because yes, the rule is don't commit adultery. And you're saying, yes, I've not done that. But in your heart, there's tons of lust. You don't murder other people. I've never murdered anybody. But in your heart, there's revenge and there's anger and there's hate. It's about this personal relationship. He said, you know what? You're greedy. You're storing up treasures here on earth and you're trying to get everything that you can. You're huddling it all up and you're a taker. He says, don't store up treasures on earth, but look to heaven. There's a way forward.

There's more to this life than all that you can get. And he says, don't just love those who love you. You know, you do love and anybody can love somebody who loves them back. And that's good, but you hate your enemies and you don't love them. Your actions externally matter, but what matters more is what's inside your heart. And if you're wondering where we're at in the Scriptures, we're in the book of Matthew. We're in chapters five, six, and seven. It's the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus ends this message, his teaching, with these words, therefore, anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock, was anchored on a rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew, and they beat against the house. Yet it did not fall because again, it was anchored. The foundation was rock. But everyone who hears these words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sound. The rain came, the streams rose, the winds blew, and they beat against the house and it fell with a great crash because it was not anchored. Now notice, both heard the same words. Both experienced the same storm. The difference here. was what they did with the words. Today, we're gonna look at the question, what does it look like to trust Jesus? And Jesus explains it right here. He says, if you hear my words and you put them into practice that's how you trust me. That's how it looks, is when you put my words into practice. I'm gonna spoil alert, trust is action. And here's the punchline for today.

The word is surrender. Let me pray. For Jesus, I know that we all came in this room with different expectations, different understandings, different stories, but we are not here by accident. You have us here to hear something from you. So God, I pray that you get me out of the way and that you would speak directly to the heart of each of us in this room, that we would hear your voice in a way that makes sense, that addresses our situation and that is loving and kind. And that we'd leave here different today because we experienced you. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if we haven't had a chance to meet, my name's Dave and I'm one of the pastors here at The Crossing. And I would just like to take a minute and welcome those who are visiting or watching online and at our campuses and Grants Trail, Fenton and Mid River. So welcome, we are one church, many locations. And we are in a series called Anchored, right? The series is called Anchored and we believe this to be true, that we have this hope as an anchor for our soul that is firm and secure, the writer of Hebrews says. And so last week, Greg asked us, why is it so hard to trust God? And we had some really honest answers and Greg solicited them from the sites and from you and answers were like, we see chaos in the world.

You know, we see all the things that are going on around the world and it's just uncertain what's happening in world events. And we understand that and especially today as we remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom, you know, maybe you are one of those who knew somebody, a family member or a friend who had laid down their life for us and you see that loss. Maybe you have family or a friend that are even deployed now and you understand there's chaos in the world. Or maybe it's closer to home, maybe it's within your work, you see it at work, maybe you're a teacher and you see the family situations, you're like, oh man, families are just broken. Or maybe you're a medical doctor and you see the brokenness in our human body that it just does not perform up to speed as it should and we're all gonna experience kind of this brokenness in our body at some point. You know, maybe you're a counselor and you see the angst and anxiety and all of those things. A profession that sees brokenness in our city and everywhere is law enforcement and EMS. And I did EMS through college and then for 19 years or so, I was a police chaplain and I walked into situations that officers and law enforcement have walked into every day and they see brokenness. And we need to keep them in our prayers because I attribute to something like this, a construction worker who drives around town, they see, oh, I built that building or I built that house

or I fixed that, you know, you see progress. But as a law enforcement officer, you drive around town and you see, oh, that's where that person did that to that person. Oh, that's where this person had that experience. This is what happened here. And when they drive around, they see brokenness. And so we just need to lift them up, we need to be there, support them. But it just doesn't have to be in our job or a vacation, it's our own personal lives, right? Maybe we have this emotional need that's just not getting met and we feel anxious, we're like, it's just uncertain. We have physical needs that aren't getting met, we're like, what's happening there? We have hurt from even spiritual leaders in our lives, they've had a moral failing and they're like, how can I trust a God that is represented by that person? We have financial pressures, we have all of this uncertainty and we're like, how can we trust God? But then Greg talked about how trustworthy God is. He's entirely trustworthy. He took us back to Genesis 15. Genesis 15. and he was making a covenant with Abraham. And in that covenant, in that promise, he says, I'm gonna bless you and I'm gonna bless everybody, that includes us. I'm gonna bless the world.

But we're gonna make a promise that I'm gonna keep. And when they made a promise in the ancient world, they would tear animals in half and they'd split them and then both parties would walk down, promising to each other, they're gonna uphold this covenant, we're gonna uphold this promise. And if we break the promise, whoever breaks it, may it be done to us as it was done to this animal. And in Genesis 15, we see that God took Abraham and said, go to sleep, let me walk this. And he walked the promise saying, I will be faithful to you. And if this is broken, I will take the penalty for either one of us. And we know that the covenant was broken, not by God, but by us. And that's why God is faithful. And Jesus came and he paid the penalty. His body was given on the cross to pay the penalty, to give us this new life. But even in that, what is inside of us that we still don't trust God? What is it? There's something inside of us. Now that's a lot, right? So let me ask you a question. Actually, I'll ask the question and then I'll answer it first, okay? So if you could make a rule that everybody had to follow, what would that rule be for me?

If I could make a rule that everybody had to follow, I would make sure that everybody, when they got on the freeway, they would use their cruise control, okay? I don't care what speed you choose. I don't care, 35, 75, 80, I don't care. But just don't go flying past me, pull in front of me, slow down, so I have to turn off my cruise control, okay? Anybody like that rule? Anybody on the cruise control kingdom, right? Okay, there was more last service, okay. I surveyed the staff and I asked, kind of what rules would you make? And one was you have to stack the dishwasher exactly the way I stack the dishwasher. Oh, there's more dishwasher stackers in here, right? Everybody on that kingdom, right? How about you have to be early like I am early to everything? Yes, okay, we got two people in that kingdom, okay, right? We got, this may be lesser, no, I don't know. This was everybody should eat gluten-free. Oh, wow, wow, we're anti that kingdom. We are anti that kingdom. All right, here's the deal. You get to make the rules now. What is one rule that you would make that everybody should follow? But go ahead, talk to your neighbor.

Ready, set, go. Hello! All right, so you made the rules. Let me ask you this, how many of you have broken the rule that your neighbor gave you? How many of you have broke, raise your hand. You broke the rule. How many of you have broken your own rule? Exactly. Right. But let me just say this, wasn't it fun making up the rules? Don't we? There's something in us that that likes to make the rules that everybody else should follow, because we think that everybody should live their life the way that we live our lives. And that's the issue. The issue about trusting God is not about God. We believe He exists. In the research that just came out, they would say in the United States, adults in the United States, 83 percent of adults in the United States believe there is a God or a higher power. There is something beyond themselves. Fifty four of those would say, I am certain that. There is a God. It's not that God doesn't exist. It's that we don't believe God is Godding the way God should God, right? We believe that we can do it better. We want to make our own rules. And so we choose, we choose to not trust in God. It is inside of us. But this is not new to this generation. This has been going on even before Abraham, this was going on. It goes back to Genesis one, two, and three. Where we were anchored, we are created.

Adam and Eve were created in the garden. And we had a relationship with God. They were created in a way that was perfect. God was the source of life. And because he's the source, because he's the creator, he breathed life into us. He just didn't make a biological organism live. He got down in the dust and he took his own breath and he breathed into us life. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. And we're created to live this eternal life face to face in an intimate relationship with our God. He was the source of all life, vitality, goodness. He is the source of order. He made the rules. He created the cosmos. He created you, he created me, he created the world. That means he is the one who can create the rules. But his rules weren't punitive, his rules were protective. And in that, he gave us responsibility and he gave us purpose and he gave us meaning. And as long as we stayed within his rules, we actually had freedom. We were free from guilt and we got to experience the freedom and the purpose that God gave us. He was also the provider and we were the receivers. Now let's make no mistake, we were not equal to God. God was God and we were surrendered to him and he provided everything we needed. He provided emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually.

He provided all we need and we just had to receive. There was no hoarding, there was no competition, there was no worry about what was gonna happen tomorrow. Will I have enough for tomorrow? It was always provided, we had security, we had peace. We had everything we needed as a receiver. And God created us for relationship with him, but he also created us for relationship with others. And in that, we had an intimate relationship. He created man and woman. He said, you know what? It's not good to be alone, we need relationships. It's fantastic to live and love each other. It says in the scripture that both Adam and Eve were naked and they felt no shame. They were known fully and fully loved. There was no hiding, there were no masks, there were no manipulations. They could truly be themselves. God was the source of life. He was our provider, he created perfect order. And then came the lie. See, God gave us the ability to make choices. We truly surrendered to him and there was a point when we decided, well, Adam and Eve did, but we would have made the same choice. But because of our agency, because of our ability to say, you know what? I can God better than you. I think that I can become my own God.

I don't need your provisions. I can provide for myself. I don't need your relationship. God, I can do it on my own. And we walked away from God and this has been the situation since. It wasn't about God not existing. They knew God existed. It wasn't a choice about atheism. It was a choice about autonomy. I can live my own life my own way. And we walked away and we said, you know what? I can be the source of my own life. But cut off from the actual source of life, we will have death. And so you know what we do is we try to make up our own way to get eternal life. We create up our own religions. We stand on street corners and act spiritual in front of other people. We give generously to make sure people know that I'm actually trying to be a good person and we try to do everything we can to work our way into this eternity because we do know that there's an eternity. But we think we can do it on our own and we say, you know what? At the end of the end, I've been so spiritual that God's gonna say, hey buddy, you did it. Come on in.

And that's not true. You know what? We say that we can make our own rules. God's order is not the way I wanna live my life. I can make my own rules. But you know what that leads to? That leads to chaos, judgmentalism. It leads to disorder. If I can make my own rules, and we just experienced this right now, you gotta live by my rules. But then you would say, I can make my own rules. And all of a sudden, we're all fighting over what the rules are. And my rules actually aren't gonna be very good for other people. They're only gonna be good for me. And I will live the way I want to live. And it's gonna be very selfish. I'm gonna make sure that all the rules point to how I can get my needs met because now I am self-sustainable. Right? I gotta provide for myself. So I'm gonna sustain myself. I'm gonna take what I need and I'm gonna become a taker. To get everything I need. Emotionally, I'm gonna take it. And if you can't provide for me emotionally, then I'm gonna discard you

until somebody else can provide for me emotionally. And if you can't provide for me physically, then I need. And I'm gonna start storing up treasures for myself because I'm self-sufficient. And you know what we say? We don't need relationships. We can be independent. I can live my life and you know what? My independence is gonna lead down a road where actually I'll end up being alone. Because remember, I need to use you. I look at you to meet my needs. And that's where anger and revenge and hate and lust and lies, they all come into that. Because if I can't get what I need, I need you to be that thing. And so I'm gonna use you, which eventually pushes people away, which eventually you're alone. Because selfishness does not draw people close. Now you're saying, Dave, I do not have a relationship with God. You know what? I get it. I do not wanna surrender my life to God. And my life isn't that bad. It really isn't. But it's going pretty good. You know, I mean, I haven't, again,

I've been keeping the major rules and I'm very generous and I'm not committing adultery. And okay, yeah, there may be some lust in my life. You know, I'm never murdering anybody, but oh yeah, there's that anger thing, you know? I'm not a liar. I mean, I will tell the story a little bit different to make sure I look good in the story and you don't. And so there's that. And see, it's not about where you're at now, it's where you're going, step by step. C.S. Lewis says it starts with grumbling, right? He says this, C.S. Lewis says, "'The thing may begin with a grumble, "'a grumble about the weather, a grumble about the food, "'a grumble about other people, "'a grumble about one's own cleverness. "'It's the person who grumbles, you see, at first, "'perhaps inside of him, "'and he may even strongly dislike what he's doing, "'and he can separate himself from it at that time. "'He can look at it and say, "'I'm just in a bad mood today, I'm just grumbling, "'and I must stop grumbling. "'But here's what happens, "'but there may come a day when he can't stop.'" Then there is no person left, nothing but the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. That's what it is, a bad mood that won't stop.

If we say, it's not that bad yet, you play out selfishness and separation from God for eternity, and it turns into what the Bible calls hell. Because everybody's fighting for themselves, and it gets ugly. But God is gracious, God is faithful. God has already paid the penalty for our willingness, our choice to separate ourselves from him. Jesus says that I've paid the penalty. This brings us back to where we started, the end of the message that Jesus taught. He said, if you're gonna be a wise person, put my words into practice. That's the wise choice. You do have a choice, but there is a foolish choice that you would not put my words into practice. We have the choice. Jesus' words said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. You can come back to the father through me. You can come back to life, to order, to provision, to intimate relationships, you can do that. But you have to put my word into practice. And what does that look like? It looks like this. It's humble surrender. I am not God, you are. I need your provision, I need a relationship with you. I know there's eternity, and it starts with surrender. And maybe today, this is the first step for you. Maybe you're in this room and you're like, I get it,

I see what Jesus did because of his penalty of death on the cross, he paid that price. And we can go into an intimate relationship with our heavenly father. And then scripture says that we can come into his throne room with confidence because we've been forgiven for all of our sin. And we can walk in this relationship. And we can demonstrate that. One of the first things that Jesus says after that is believe and be baptized, and you're gonna see that. Where people are walking into the waters, again, it's not the self-righteousness of ourselves walking into the water saying, hey, look at me, look, I can live my own life, it's not that. And that's why our pastors have conversations with everybody who's going to get baptized, to make sure that we understand the difference of why we're going into the waters. But what you're gonna see is people saying, I'm surrendered. And man, you gotta come out to baptism. You gotta look and see, it's an intimate moment. There's a crowd, but it's an intimate moment. And what they're saying is I surrender to God's plan for my life. And so, when we're talking about that, then what does it look like? Jesus has lots of words, but what do the words from this one message in Matthew tell us about what surrender looks like?

Jesus says it starts with seeking first the kingdom of God and all that righteousness. Seeking God's kingdom, his eternal kingdom. You know, it's a perspective. All of a sudden, it shifts from the momentary, temporary world that we live in and all the chaos that we see, to looking up and saying, we live forever. I was a youth pastor. Once a youth pastor, I was a youth pastor. But I was called to the hospital to see Natalie. And in that, Natalie was 16 years old. She was at Disneyland, and she started getting cross-eyed. And she started feeling dizzy, and she started feeling sick. And so, they took her to the hospital. She had a bunch of scans run, and they discovered that Natalie had a brain tumor right in the middle of her head. And they did the biopsy, and they found out it was malignant, and she didn't have a lot of time to live, is what they told her. That's when I was called to visit her in the hospital. And she had been coming to our youth group for a couple years now. She was invited by a friend, Angela. And she came, and she didn't know Jesus. And as she started to learn that we have a choice and that we can surrender our lives to this God, she chose that, and she believed in Jesus. And when I walked into her room, I see her laying on the bed, she has tubes and bandages and because of how they do the biopsy, her eyes were black and blue and she was swollen.

I can remember vividly, I open up the door of Valley Children's Hospital into her room, I pull up a chair, I can even see the color of the chair, I sit down next to her. And she turns and looks at me, I said, Natalie, I am so sorry. And she really doesn't skip a beat, she kind of has a grin come across her face, she said, Dave, it's okay, I'm already living forever. I don't know about you, but I've carried that with me, like this eternal perspective, like when I think of the uncertainty of this world, we have a God that is sovereign and this is temporary and it will get better, there is justice, there is this heaven that is back to the order where we have everything that we need. You know, trusting Jesus says, you know what, I'm going to trust Him forever and I'm going to live now looking at circumstances differently. I told that story at camp and some of you all were at camp when I told that story and I forgot to tell you the end, because all the way through camp, kids were coming up to me and saying, oh, I'm sorry about Natalie, and what happened? And I didn't tell them that, that was 22 years ago, but there was a brain surgeon in Arkansas that said, I know everybody in the United States says you can't get that tumor out, but you know what, I think I can get that tumor out. So her family and I flew out to Arkansas, she had brain surgery 22 years ago, and she is now cancer free. And here's a picture of Natalie. She has triplets, right, talk about certainty and uncertainty, right? Augie, Dom, and Chloe are her triplets, and then JJ is also her son as well. And just so you know, I mean, I know that's not everybody's story, and her life over the last 22 years has not been perfect, it has not been exactly the way that she would want it to go. There have been storms in her life. Even this last year, she told me that she struggled with meningitis and almost died this last year as well. And I know that's not the story that maybe you're walking through. Maybe you're struggling with a diagnosis or somebody close to you, and it doesn't look

good. The good news is that we're living forever, and that God's going to walk with you no matter the storm. What does it look like? It looks like that we understand God's order. And so now we align our hearts and our actions with His orders. As Jesus says in Matthew, we stop judging others because we're not the judge. We aren't the creator of the rules. We submit ourselves to the order that God had created. And so now we live this life submitted and surrendered to His order, and we look at other people and say, you know what? I understand why you live that way, because I would do it too, and I have done it. But there is a better way. Let's go, because ultimately there is a judge. Man, I want you to understand that that judge is loving and kind and will offer you forgiveness as he's offered me forgiveness. I was casting for a game show in Los Angeles, and that's a different story. But the casting producers, they always want to know if you're telling the truth about who you are. And I told them I'm a pastor, and why would anybody lie about being a pastor, you know, honestly? Who would choose that for a profession going on a game show, right? So they said, in order to test you, they're like, okay, you say you're a pastor. Can you pray? Pray right now. I'm like, okay. I can pray. I can pray. Let's pray. And then they said, yeah, but you have to live by a lot of rules.

I'm like, huh, that's interesting. Okay, so you might think, and this is what I told the producer, right, like you might think that not lying is a rule. I mean, I just think it's a great way to live life, right? Because lying is a self-protectionism because I have to hide from something that I've done. and it breaks relationship. But I don't want, one, I don't want a casting producer who lies to me. You know, I don't want a plumber who lies to me. I don't want my doctor to lie to me, right? I don't want my friends to lie to me. I don't want my wife to lie to me. I don't want to be a liar. You can say I live by a lot of rules, but man, that is just great for life. And the psalmist says that all of God's laws are perfect and they revive our soul. So when we think about God's laws and we're like, God, I wouldn't do it that way, he knows best. It looks like submitting to his rules. It also looks like this, storing up treasures in heaven. Right? We're going to not store up treasures for ourselves. We're not going to be takers anymore, but Jesus says, store up treasures in heaven. And if you've ever been part of our financial foundations class, you know on the first night we talk about this, that we are given everything from God. It says in James that every good and perfect gift

comes from the father and everything that you have, even the ability to make what you make, do what you do, that gift is a gift from God. And it's no longer about ownership. This is mine and I got to keep it. It's about stewardship. It's about how can I use my resources to benefit this kingdom that God has for eternity for others? How do I steward it well? Because it's not mine. It's not about success. It moves into significance. How can I use my time, my talent, just not my finances, but how can I use my whole life to be generous, to point people to Jesus? Because that's one of the treasures in heaven that one, I'm looking forward to. It's not because of me, but because of my passion for this. I don't know if I'd ever choose to be a pastor, a youth pastor or anything, really. But man, I want people to know Jesus. And some of the treasures, I've got to sit with people and say, you know what? You want to walk across this line and they've surrendered their life to Jesus. And many of you have done that with friends and family as well. Those treasures in heaven are precious when it's an eternal soul.

So we don't store up treasures on earth. We store up treasures in heaven. And now this one. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Right? Come on. I'm going to be generous. God, I'm going to live forever. Do I got to love the people who don't like me? Yes. That's putting his words into practice. And just because God has a sense of humor, you know what he did to me this last week? I get this email from LinkedIn that says, hey, your profile is getting noticed. I'm like, sounds good. So I click on LinkedIn because I don't subscribe to it. I rarely go to it until I'm getting noticed. So I go on there because I'm noticed. And so I pull it up and there is, you know, because I don't subscribe, they put like three people up that have looked at it and then they blur out all the other 20, right? And so I'm like, okay, greater St. Louis area, healthcare worker, huh? I wonder who that could be. I try to figure, you know, I'm doing some, but one of the ones that popped up that was revealed to me was a guy that years ago lied about me, spread rumors about my family,

was very, very, very unkind to us. And in that moment, I'm preparing for this message. I'm like, Jesus, why would you do this? He's like, because you can't stand up on that stage and be all self-righteous and say, you got to figure it out yet. And I had to go and say, okay, and this is what I've done since that day is I pray forgiveness over him. I pray that God would continue to walk with him, that he would be blessed, that his family would be blessed, that God would walk with him in a way that he experiences life and life to the full. That's because of the spirit inside of me. That's because I know God's word and it's not easy, but I'm submitting to his words and I want to put them into practice. practice, because it is a process. I've been walking with Jesus for decades, and I know the truth. And maybe you're in the same boat, but even in that, I know the truth. There are times when I go, hmm, yeah, you know what, no, hold me back. I surrender, God. Oh, but you know what? I think I didn't get what God wanted, God did it the wrong way. Oh, I don't understand why I'm going through this. God must not be God, or at least He's not being God the way I want Him to be. Our friends in recovery call this a million surrenders. Every day is a million surrenders. You wake up in the morning, and you surrender to the power of God, that you're living eternally, that He created order, that He is your provider, and He created us for healthy relationships

and an intimate relationship with Him. Now, it doesn't mean that we're going to be safe. It's not a bubble-wrapped life, the storm hit everybody. It doesn't mean that we're going to have clarity. God's not going to reveal everything to you all at once. You live day by day, dependent upon Him. It doesn't mean you're not going to have questions, but the truth is that truth accepts questions. You can ask God any question you want, because He's truth, it won't change. That's why we try to be a church that really just welcomes all the questions, because we believe this is completely true. This is what trusting Jesus looks like. And you don't do it alone, you do it in community, but you also have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of you. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to pray a prayer out of Romans over you as we leave today. So would you please stand as I pray? Father God, I pray right now that You would be the source of hope and You would fill us completely with joy and peace, because we trust in You. And that we will overflow with the confident hope that You have given us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Walk with us this week, may we trust You and not just be hearers of Your Word, but doers of Your Word. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Have a great week.