No Other Security

Transcript S2E2

 No Other Security

 [00:00] 

Hi, I'm Tony Kostas, and welcome to the Let Into Love podcast.

 I'd like to begin by talking about trust … about trusting God.

Christians talk a lot about trusting God, just like they talk a lot about believing God.

Now, belief and faith have more of an exciting aspect to them because people think about exploits of faith and people believing God and doing great things for God.

 [00:43] 

Trust is one of those things that everybody knows is good and right, but it kind of has a bit of an unspectacular feel about it. I like to think of trust as a state of being.

To me, faith or belief is something that we give God in response to something that He has said or revealed to us. God shows us something … God speaks something to our hearts. We know it's from God and it requires a response from us. And that response – if what we've received really is from God – it will always require a response of faith. A belief in what God has said, a belief above all in who it is that said it.Because if it's God's word, it's God who spoke it.

 [01:28] 

But to me, trust … when I say it's a state of being, it's that because it's somewhere where we as God's people – I was going to say ought to be living, but actually it's even kind of ‘ought to be living’ almost sounds a bit like ‘it's a good idea to live like that’. I would say it's a place where we must live!

 [01:50] 

Probably the greatest example we have in the Bible (and this wouldn't surprise you) is Job, because you know, very likely know, the story of Job, or a fair bit about Job and the awful things that happened to him because he was a man who really trusted God and obeyed God and benefited a lot from it. And the devil challenged God to allow him to allow the devil to inflict some pretty unpleasant things on Job. And he said, “well, you know, if you do this, if you let me do this to him, let's see how much he really trusts you.” 

And you might recall knowing the story that things got so bad for Job. Finally, his wife said, “Why don't you just curse God and die?” You know … “do the worst thing you can do. Let God strike you down. After all you've lost everything else. You're a mess anyway!” And Job said, “Even if God kills me, I'll still trust Him.”

Now that doesn't just talk about the fact that he was trusting Him then. What it says is that Job was a man who lived in trust. It was his state of being. He trusted God all the time. He didn't trust God so that good things would happen to him. He trusted God because he knew that God was totally to be trusted. And when all these things happened, it didn't erode his trust because his trust was not based in certain things happening to him, or not happening to him. It wasn't based on how well his life went. It was based purely on the fact that he knew who God was and he knew that God could be trusted.

 [03:45] 

Now, you'll hear me say this kind of thing a lot in these podcasts, because what I'm about to say now … because one big gap – a yawning gap – so often in the lives of Christians … in churches … amongst God's people generally, is lots of people like to talk about things like faith and trust and, become, you know, very good at talking about them and quoting Bible verses about them and singing about them and affirming them. But so few live in the reality of those things. I don't know what to call them. They're not ‘things’. But you know what I mean. Faith is believing God. Trust … oh, it doesn't have to … I don't have to use another word. Trust is trusting God.

 [04:36] 

We all like the idea of trust. I want to be trusted. I like to be trusted. I like to be thought of as trustworthy. I like to know people who are trustworthy.There's something very reassuring about faith – very, very securing, about knowing that you are talking to someone, or that your friends are people you can trust. But God is the ultimate. If you want someone to trust, trust God.

Actually, I should turn that around and say: if you're going to trust at all, then learn what real trust is by trusting God!

 [05:19] 

Now, another thing about this is that you don't trust God for something. I've often heard Christians say, “Well, I'm trusting God to do this in my life,” or “I'm trusting God to sort out this situation.” But you do not trust God for things to happen. I want to make that entirely clear. You trust God because God is who He says He is. And if you claim to know Him, if you claim to have committed your life to Him, trust is not an option. Trust is a privilege.

Even more than that, trust is not in any way something that can be rationalized or negotiated. You either trust God or you do not trust God. If you trust Him with all your heart, if you trust Him every moment … 

Now, even as I say those words, I know human nature. I know how we all work. And I know so often people say: “Now, okay, well, I'll do my best. I do want to trust God, and I really try to trust God. And every day I start out wanting to trust God, and I get in situations, and I think: ‘oh boy, what's happening? Or what's going to happen? Or, this is a challenge, or it's difficult, or things went wrong. But I'm trying to trust God.” 

Or the other thing people say: “Well, I guess this has happened and well, at least all I can do is just trust God.” Like trusting God is a last resort! But trusting God is not a last resort. It's not something you try and do; it's something that you settle. Absolutely settle, so that even if, like, the worst things happen and, if for no other reason…

The book of Job, the story of Job, in the Bible is such a graphic real-life example of a guy that had everything – who trusted God and lost everything, but still trusted God, simply because trusting God for him was not an option. Trusting God for him was not because of any of the benefits. Trusting God was what he chose because he wisely knew that God is entirely to be trusted! So, you don't trust God just because of any … in fact, you don't trust him for any benefits.

 [07:53] 

Now, God will speak to you and that will require a response, and that response is one of faith. But if God says nothing to you, if nothing happens in your life, it's nothing spectacular, nothing that you can even put your finger on. Or alternately, if things are going along in your life and then things go awfully, horribly wrong. Trust is the even keel on which you can and should and must live your life.

 If you think of Jesus when He was in the boat with His disciples, that time crossing the lake, and the storm came and He was asleep on the deck, and all the other disciples were panicking. Things got worse and worse, and it looked like the storm was going to swamp the boat and they were going to drown. And in panic they woke Jesus. And they were annoyed at Jesus – because the very fact that He dared to be sleeping while their lives were in danger meant that He didn't care. And they said, “Don't you care?” And He was not annoyed at the fact that they woke Him up. But He was annoyed at the fact of why they woke Him up. They woke Him up to rebuke Him. And yet He was the one in the boat who was at rest and trusting God, while they were panicking, because everything was fine until the storm came.

 [09:23] 

Now, when trust is your state of being, you won't be thrown by things like that. Again … like, even as I say this, I have that feeling … like I always feel, like, you know, there's … I feel like I start to move into territory where you think, like ‘you're talking about the ideal again,’ you know, ‘you're expecting me to do something, that … I'll try my best but ,you know, when things go wrong … What can I say to you?

All I can say to you is the fact that, in my life, I've walked with Jesus for many, many years – as you know, if you listen to these podcasts – and in my life I've lived through so many situations. I mean, everybody lives through lots of different situations when they've lived as long as I have, but those situations, like, we can talk about other people's situations and experiences, but the only ones that are real, really real, are the ones that we experience. I'm talking of mine. 

In my own life, in all kinds of situations, I … you know … when things are – whether big things, small things, or nothing's happening – I have learned … I have discovered the reality that God is entirely to be trusted.

And the trust is the baseline at which I must live. Everything that I do, every decision I make, even when I'm going through the day and nothing particular is obviously affecting my life in a way that I think ‘I just need to trust God right now’. That sureness, that security of trusting God. God cannot make me trust Him. God cannot give me a gift called trust, which enables me to trust him. God simply makes Himself known to me, as He makes himself known to you – as the God who can be trusted. Which is why that famous verse is written, in Proverbs chapter 3: “Trust in God with all your heart.

Do not lean on your own understanding.” Trust God with all your heart now. With all your heart. Your heart. It's the very core of your being. It's where your spirit resides. It's where God has given you His life and where God makes Himself known within you. 

And that's the place from which you love. That's the place from which you act in faith. That's the way from which you … the place from which you express yourself to God.

 And when you trust God from the inside out, it will be expressed like that. No one can prove whether I'm living in trust or not unless they see me in a particular situation where it's obvious that I'm not trusting God. Otherwise, who knows? But God knows and I know!

 [12:17] 

Security, as this world talks about it, is non-existent. Security in any human sense – any worldly sense – is a superstition. 

If you're anxious for your life, and you want to secure your life in any way … Like, you can turn yourself inside out, as so many people do. And unfortunately, Christians do! They're so security conscious so often. You know, when Jesus talked in the Sermon on the Mount about why do you seek… why do you worry about, ‘What will we eat, what will we drink, what will we put on?’ And He said: ‘Don't you realize that's what the heathen always worry about?’ 

That's what they go after every day. They … they're anxious about, like, their needs being met. They're anxious about all the things in their lives that they have to make sure they have. And they can say, but, you know, you could say, ‘oh, but these are the necessities of life.’

There's an old saying (and I don't hear it that much these days, but I used to hear it). People used to say, ‘Well, God helps those who help themselves.’ 

Well, actually He doesn't. God helps those who trust in Him! And either you are going to be your own provider – you are going to find the means of having your own security – or you will have God as your security.

 [13:40] 

When the Israelites … whenever in their history over so many centuries … whenever they started to diminish God's place in their lives … they were always drawn to the idols of the heathen who lived around them.

Why did anybody have an idol? Why does anybody have a God in that sense? Like, all … even today in our world … there are many religions and there's much idolatry and so on. That's obviously religious. But there's an awful lot that isn't obviously religious. I will tell you this: that anything that you make your security – whether you're worshiping an idol in your house or in your temple, or you're just going after the things that you figure you need in your life to make you feel secure, to make you financially secure, to make you feel emotionally secure, it doesn't matter what it is. That is not God, that is not from God and of God. Then you have an idol or a number of idols whom you worship, whom you look to. 

When Adam and Eve had the opportunity to either affirm their belief and their trust in God, in the Garden of Eden – when the devil tempted them to doubt what He had said because He was their provider in every way. He was their creator. And as soon as they started to believe the lie of the devil, that God was keeping something from them, they immediately discovered that they had a lack that they didn't even know they had!

The lack was a lie. But they discovered that … and to them it looked awfully real because they believed the devil. 

Now, when you believe the wisdom of this world and even the advice and the wisdom of many Christians who will say, ‘Yep, sure. Trust God and believe in God – but look, you’ve got to look after yourself!

 [15:47] 

It might sound radical to you, but I'm telling you this: that you cannot go wrong if you truly trust God – the Living God. 

Now, this has to be the God that I talk about a lot. The God that I talked about in my very first episode. The God that you know … that you know Him … that you have abandoned your life to Him. 

And anyone, not only … I was going to say, anyone can do it. You were made for this.

Love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Don't even see that as some ideal. That's what we were built for. Love Him like that. Trust Him for who He is. See God as your absolute security.

I mean it. I mean it. I mean it! I just wish that everybody would respond to God like this.

 [16:42] 

Jesus died for the whole world – not just to forgive us for our sins. Of course He had to do that. Someone had to pay the price for our sins. We couldn't be in relationship with God without that, but Jesus died for that. That's the beginning point. 

When you embrace Jesus and what he did and make Him your God and receive the benefit of everything He did in dying for you, you become a child of God.

But God wants to bring you up into sonship, into maturity. He wants to give you a whole life that begins here and goes right on into eternity. And that life is a life – as I spoke about in my previous podcast – in which you walk with Him step-by-step, moment-by-moment. That's not just a notional thing. It's not just some sort of dreamy kind of experience that you go through. This is reality. This is feet on the ground … grounded … living in this world now.

But God is everything to you. Jesus came to live His life, so that we would live His life exactly as He lived it. We would walk as he walked, that we would be the expression of God in this world, that he was.

That's why He came. That's why He died. That's why He rose. That's why He ascended to His Father and sent His spirit on His church.

[18:04] 

If your desire is to fulfill the very purpose for which you were created, don't only come to Jesus. Don't only get the benefit of what He's done for you. But embrace the thrill of living for Him every day, and make Him your security.

Even when Jesus said to his disciples, “In this world, you'll have tribulation”. But he didn't stop there, because that could have felt like a real downer. He said: “But don't worry. I've overcome the world.”

So he said, ‘Yeah, this world will give you a hard time,’ because this world is not about Him. But my relationship with Him means that my life is about him … and conversely, His life is about me! And the same for you.

 If you allow Him to be that to you … if you choose to place your trust in anybody or anything else in place of Him … you have created an idol. And that apparent security that you get from that idol is not security. It's false. It's like a superstition. It's a lie. And it actually separates you from God.

 [19:20] 

When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses to give to his people Israel, He said: “You shall have no other gods before me.” Nobody. Now, that doesn't mean., like: “…gods before me. I'll be number one, and some … they can be number two, three, four, and five”. He meant, “…no other gods that stand between you and me. Nothing.”

 Your life – if your life is a God-facing life – then it's because you stand before Him in your life. You look in His face. You see Jesus. And by looking at Him and trusting in Him, and letting Him be your everything, you are transformed into the image of Jesus Himself. Now, no one can bring that about but God. But it happens … dare I say … organically. Because you are looking to Him. 

Don't be deceived. Don't be misled. There is no security anywhere else. And when that security is in your life – and when you trust God with all your heart, and you go through life trusting Him – not only is everything secure, but you actually discover what real peace is. Because it doesn't depend on your efforts. It doesn't depend on your wits. It doesn't depend on your knowledge, your abilities, your achievements, your contacts … anything. It depends on what exists between you and God.

 [20:51] 

When I say these things – having been a Christian for so many years – I realize that even to my own ears … I know for many people it sounds radical. I hear myself say these things. I believe them. And I'm blessed to have people that are so close to me. I love them. My family, my church, the people that I've known for so much of my life … that if I was looking at them now, we're saying, ‘yeah, we know that that's true.’

But, you know, for so many Christians, I know these things sound radical, extreme, simplistic, almost like they haven't got substance. But this is where the real substance is!

 Your security. Your strength. Your hope. Your future. Your peace. Everything depends on what exists between you and God. 

You have the privilege of making trust your state of being. 

Trust God with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. Do not trust your ability to figure things out, calculate things, plan things. Do not trust those. 

God never says: ‘trust yourself’. He says: ‘trust me’.