Sermon for July 10th (Trust in God with all your Heart)

Each day, you make hundreds of decisions. You make decisions to do certain things and you decide not to do other things. You may not realize how many decisions you make in a day because many decisions are made more out of habit than from anything else. In fact, if we had to think through every decision we made we’d probably feel overwhelmed by all the variables to consider. But sometimes I don’t think we realize how important these little decisions we make are in the scheme of things.

The topic of this message today is taken from the book of Proverbs which reads, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” In today’s story, Saint Peter paraphrased this verse with these words, “We must obey God rather than men!” You’d probably say that you feel similarly, but how do you put that belief into practice? It seems obvious to us that, yeah, we’d want to trust God with our decisions but what happens in reality is that we often do just the opposite.

Take today’s story from Acts for example. First, the apostles were put in jail, but an angel of the Lord brought them out. So, what were they to do next? What would you have told them? Imagine that this isn’t saint Peter the apostle but your son. He’d just gotten put in jail for talking about Jesus in some foreign country. Maybe he has a job there and a family, maybe he’s working in the military or is just on a vacation. But one day he was in jail and the next day, by some miracle, he was set free. What would you tell him to do? “That was a close call . . . don’t do that again!” “Be more careful next time?” Just keep quiet until you get home and then you can talk all you want about what you believe! Well, here is what God told Saint Peter to do: “Go stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.” What if your son told you that God wanted him to go right back to preaching, but this time, in an even more public manner? How would you feel then? Because when it’s in a story in the Bible it seems so easy to obey, but in this world of ours, we often feel like we have better ideas.

Think about the story of Noah. We look at Noah and say, “I couldn’t have done that!” Built that huge boat just because I thought I heard God talking to me. Noah couldn’t have done it either if God hadn’t really been with him. The story that is written in the Bible about Noah and his ark—that story wasn’t about what Noah did, but what God did. Do you know why we talk about Noah so much today? Because he made one little decision—he obeyed God. He didn’t follow the advice he was no doubt getting from his own head, or from his wife and family or from his neighbors. He obeyed God and the rest, you might say, is history.

And it’s not just a story, this type of thing still happens today. Here’s the write up for one of the keynote speakers at one of the LCMC conventions I went to a few years ago. “Assigned to a tiny Lutheran congregation in Glendale, Arizona in 1978, Walt Kallestad quickly learned humility and value of strong communications: Within the first few months, the congregation he was assigned to had dropped by 50 percent, and the young idealist was faced with the challenge of rebuilding constituency or finding a new profession. The challenge has obviously been met. Today, under Walt's direction, Community Church of Joy supports 8,000 participants.”

When pastor Kallestad came to that church in Arizona I’d like to bet that everyone had the same dream: that church was going to grow, more kids in church, more ministries, more excitement! And then, all their dreams were shattered when they lost members and lost ministries. I bet that they lost excitement too. You ask any pastor at that point and they’d tell you that it was time to move on. I could give you many reasons why that was the right thing to do. But it appears that Pastor Kallestad was told something different. He wasn’t told to: build a big boat. Instead, he was called by God to do something that no doubt seemed even more impossible and unlikely for him at that time in that place: build a big church! I’d also bet that no one in that tiny Lutheran church could imagine that God was going to use them to reach 8,000 people in their community. But that’s what God did. I’m sure that there were many decisions made between a church losing members and a church with 8,000 people, but it all began with one decision Walt made—to obey. He had to trust in God and not lean on his own understanding.

In the story from Acts, when the authorities found Peter and the apostles out preaching again, notice that they weren’t questioned about how they escaped even though the jail was securely locked with the guards standing at the doors. Instead, they were asked why they were still preaching in the temple after being given strict orders not to! You’ll find that when you are following God’s agenda for your life, when you are being led by God’s plans, the miracles that you see won’t always be seen by others and will be unnoticed by the naysayers around you. According to reason, Peter should have stopped and obeyed the authorities, right? But instead they replied, “We must obey God rather than men!”

Most of you have probably never been in jail and never had the opportunity to take such a bold step. Or maybe that is completely wrong. Maybe we’ve just convinced ourselves that God doesn’t work that way anymore. What I mean by that is that we have lied to ourselves, deluded ourselves into thinking that our little decisions each day don’t really matter like they did in those storis—that in order to obey God we would have to make big decisions with big results. The truth is that most of us make many little decisions with big consequences. It’s just that it’s easier to imagine that what we do doesn’t make a difference. The truth is that one little decision to obey God can create some God-sized results.

In the story of Esther, a young Jewish woman was chosen to be the Queen of Persia based on her beauty. But during her reign, her uncle Mordecai uncovered a conspiracy taking place: One of the king’s chief advisors, a man named Haman, hated the Jews and wanted them all destroyed so he tricked the king to sign an edict to kill them all. Haman went to Esther and told her what was about to take place—she needed to warn the King that he had been tricked. The only problem was that if she spoke to the king without being summoned the king had but one law—to put her to death. It seemed like a hopeless situation. And really, what difference was one little decision by Esther going to make in the scheme of things? Her only options were death (from the king’s edict) or death (by going against the king’s rules). But Mordecai toldd her, “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this!”

Esther’s choice according to God’s ways was obvious: she had to try and save her people even though, according to the world’s viewpoint, her choice was questionable. But the king listened to her and the Jewish people were saved. What difference did Esther’s choice to obey God’s will make?

And it’s not just a story, we must make these kinds of decisions every day and they have very real consequences even though we may not know how they end. Kristy and I are experiencing this kind of decision right now in our lives and, even though we haven’t told either of our families about this, it just seemed appropriate to talk about it today to help you see that these decisions, first of all, aren’t easy and aren’t just stories from long ago. (I do have Kristy’s permission to talk about this by the way.)

Several months ago, Kristy started talking about adopting a child. But not just any child, it would be an international adoption. Of course, that seemed nice. Something we might do sometime in the future. It certainly didn’t make sense to do it right now. I mean, the cost for international adoptions are about as much as I make in a year salary-wise. We already have three beautiful children who keep us quite busy already. How would we do the traveling? How would our families deal with it? What would the church think? I explained to myself over and over again that it would never work . . . at least right now.

But then God got to work on me. First, during the mission trip, hearing about all these kids in Mexico living in a trash dump as orphans, I told Kristy that I would be open to the idea. But, once again, I thought this would be sometime in the future—right now just didn’t make sense. But as I was working through my Experiencing God Bible study a couple months later, I was reading about watching where God is working and joining him there. The book asked the question: where do you see God working in your life? And my mind went right to Kristy’s desire for international adoption. I mean, what stay-at-home mom with three kids whose husband is a pastor in small town Iowa just comes up with the idea to adopt a child from a foreign country? At that moment, I had a decision to make. It was a little decision really, but the consequences I could foretell would be huge. God didn’t want me to decide where to adopt from, or how to raise the money, or which adoption agency to choose, or how to tell our parents. He was telling me to follow my wife, because God was leading her in her desire to adopt. My choice wasn’t to figure out how, but I needed to either obey him or not. He’d take care of the details.

I went and told Kristy that I believed that God was calling us to adopt and it was our job to obey Him. A few nights later, as we were talking, I told her that I believed we were being called to adopt from Ethiopia. She told me that this was also where God has led her to. Coincidence? I think not! Why am I telling you this now before we’ve even told our families? Because I want you to see that what happens over the next several months and years as we obey God in this will not be because Kristy and I did anything amazing. We won’t somehow make the money magically appear. We will be scared and doubtful and worried throughout this process at times. We’ve come up with a hundred reasons why this isn’t the greatest idea and not the right time. God will have to do his work to make this happen—we only need to obey. A little decision perhaps, but I believe that for some child in Ethiopia, God has some big plans.

What is God calling you to do and will you obey him? In the book of Hosea, God’s prophet was called to marry a prostitute. Then, even though he had children with her, she’d keep leaving him to have affairs with other men. Every time God told Hosea to take her back even though divorce, or even the death penalty, would have been the world’s way of dealing with her. That’s not just an old story. How many spouses have the make these same decisions today? I heard a story about missionary who had worked in the mission field for twenty years. When he was asked if he felt successful in his work he said, “Oh yes, definitely.” When he was asked how many people had become Christians since he arrived he thought for a moment and then answered, “One person.” No doubt, this had not been his plan upon arrival. No doubt, most of us would consider him and his ministry to be a failure. But if the story that Jesus told about the shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep to find one that was lost is any indication, it appears that this missionary was following trusting God’s plans and not his own understanding. Maybe God’s calling you to just one person as well. Will you obey that call?

Back one last time to the story from Acts. According to the law, Peter and the apostles should have been killed for going against the religious authorities. However, one of these leaders named, Gamaliel argued differently. “Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Wow, looks like everything turned out great for the apostles right? Were they vindicated by God for doing the right thing? Were they kept safe from all harm for obeying God and not man? No. They were called in and flogged, whipped, and then ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus again before they were let go. And what did they do? “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”

Trusting in God won’t always get you the best results as far as your friends and family see it, but God works by a different standard. You have a hundred different decisions every day to make. You can read your Bible or leave it on the shelf, you can go on a mission trip or stay home, you could cheat on your spouse or fight the temptation, you could follow God’s leading or talk yourself out of it, you can invite your friends to church or stay silent. That little decision to obey God, might make a big difference in the kingdom of God. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” When you obey God what story will God write with your life?