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Minister: Marv Vose

Just by Trust
Galatians 3: 1-14

            As some of you know, my extended family lives in the Midwest, but Caroline's family lives mostly on the East Coast.  Being dutiful family, we would occasionally make trips back there to visit family.
            Going to New York City for the first time was a trying experience for me.  We were having a mini-family reunion there.  I had been through the airport, but I had never really spent any time in the City itself.  I didn't mind visiting the in-laws.  It was the outlaws I was really concerned about.  I had heard all of the stories.  I had heard about the muggings and the purse snatchings and I was just waiting.  Everyone who walked down the street was a potential criminal in my view.  After all, why else would they be out walking around in New York City unless they were on the lookout for some unsuspecting Midwesterner?
            My daughter, on the other hand, loved New York.  She was probably eight or ten years old at the time and it was her first trip to the Big Apple as well.  She thought it was just fantastic!  She loved the Big City!  It became very obvious that we had very different attitudes one day as we were walking down the sidewalk, hand in hand.  Dad was doing his part to protect his daughter.  We were walking along and I noticed that someone had broken a beer bottle on the sidewalk.  There was broken glass everywhere and I was thinking to myself, "What a bunch of bums!  They break their beer bottles on the sidewalk and make everyone else walk through the broken glass.  These people obviously have no class whatsoever." 
            My daughter saw exactly the same scene.  Saw the same sidewalk.  Saw the same glass.  You know what her comment was?  She said, "Oh, daddy, look at that!  In New York City even the sidewalks sparkle!"  Attitude does make a difference.       
            As we were in the City, my attitude started to change.  No one hit me over the head. (Not even my in-laws!)  No one stole my wallet.  N o one even ran off with Caroline's purse.  After a while, I began to relax, and then I started to enjoy myself.  After a while I even began to marvel at the City.  It actually did work-maybe not very well and maybe not all of the time-but it did work and with all of the potential for chaos and tragedy, it worked remarkably well.
            When I went to New York, I didn't trust anyone.  When I left, I had gotten to the point where I trusted most of them.  Oh, sure, there were still the muggers and the robbers, but they were a small part of the whole
            I tell you that story, because trust is one of those essential ingredients in our world.  Without it the world simply doesn't work.  Without it people can't be happy.  Without it, we cannot have a real relationship with God.  Trust is of the utmost importance!
            Developing trust is one of the first tasks for children.  Newborns must learn to trust.  Psychologists tell us that newborn babies are a great big bundle of wants and needs.  (And anyone who has ever gotten up for the 2 a.m. feeding knows that.)  They have all of these needs and they cannot possibly begin to meet those needs, but as people, usually parents, begin to meet those needs, the child begins to trust and that sets the whole tone for their lives.  If something interrupts that process, then serious problems may result.
            But usually, kids trust pretty well. Have you noticed?  Most get that early training and they trust.  One day a little boy came home from Kindergarten and announced, "Mom, I have a new girlfriend.  Here name is Patty and I am in love."  Mom was a little surprised by this.  He had never said he was in love before and he did seem a little young, so she asked, "Just how do you know you are in love."  But without even pausing he said, "Oh, that's easy.  Patty told me."  Kids usually trust pretty well. 
            Trust is important as we begin our relationship with God.  It is so important that is really is the key to our salvation.  That's what I said.  It is the key to our salvation.  This is the beginning of the second movement of God's care for us.  When we begin to trust what Jesus has done for us, then we open ourselves up to an authentic relationship with
God.  We begin to open ourselves up to God's goodness and love.
            Let me try another fancy phrase on you.  You did so well with prevenient grace, let me try one more.  Justification by faith.  That sounds pretty fancy, doesn't it?  Justification by faith.  This is the second movement of God's grace.  What is means is simply this:  we are saved by faith and not by works.  We are put into a right relationship with God by trusting in what Jesus has done for us, not by trusting in what we do.  Does that make sense?  We are made righteous and clean and pure in the eyes of God, by trusting in what Jesus has already done for us.  We don't save ourselves, but trust does.  That's why I entitled this message Just by Trust, because we are made to look just in the eyes of God by our trust.
            Remember my trip to New York City?  My daughter and I looked at the same situation in very different ways.  Well, when we are willing to trust Jesus, it changes God' way of looking at us.  All of a sudden we look justified, righteous, clean, and pure!  Our lives may be a terrible mess.  There may be broken relationships.  There may be addictions.  There may be all kinds of unhealthy things happening morally and spiritually. We may be awful!  But when God looks at us, we sparkle!  When we trust, we have been put right with God.  We ARE righteous in the eyes of God.  And our lives begin to change to become more and more what God sees.  Pretty amazing isn't it?
            It is so amazing, it is hard to believe.  It seems like it is too easy.  After all, we are only trusting to God the junk of our lives.  That's all that we have to do at the beginning.  We don't need to trust God with any of the good stuff.  Only the junk.  Just the brokenness of our lives.  And that seems like it should be easy.  But it really isn't easy at all.
            I was teaching an Adult Sunday school class one time and we were talking about justification by faith.  One of the students in the class had not been raised in the church.  He had started coming with his wife and had gotten hooked by the community.  So he didn't have much background in the faith.  Finally it got through what we were talking about.  I was our trust, our faith that put us right with God and not what we did.  And when he understood, he got really mad!  Normally he was the nicest, quietest, most pleasant guy you would imagine, but this really got him going.  He insisted that he was a nice guy and he really had to work hard to be a nice guy and that was what was going to get him to heaven!
            Sometimes we Christians are really more Jewish than Christian!  That's what got Paul so aggravated.  Remember our scripture for today?  Paul had tried to live according to the law and failed miserably.  He saw the Christians at Galatia trying to do the same thing and he wrote to remind them of the source of their salvation. 
            But it is still tough to trust, even if it is only with the junk of our lives.
            I went to a seminar once in Fort Lauderdale, where we visited Calvary Chapel. It was a large church, but the pastor, Bob Coy, probably wasn't 40 years old yet.  He had never gone to seminary and he had started the church.
            He told us his background.  When he got out of high school, he started promoting rock and roll events.  Eventually he went to Las Vegas and continued to do that there.  He described his life as "drug, sex and rock and roll!"  That was the scene he was into.  And since he was working at one of the casinos and supervising lots of attractive young women, he had lots of opportunities for "drugs, sex and rock and roll."
            One New Years Even had been and especially wild time and he was even more hung over than usual, when he went to his brother's home on New Year's Day.  It was a kind of quiet family time and it got late, so he just decided to stay over.  Now you need to know that Bob's life had become increasingly difficult, unpleasant and meaningless.  He had not been brought up in a Christian home, so he had never heard about Jesus and knew nothing about the church.  But his brother had become a Christian and guess who had been praying for Bob?  Right!  His brother!  So Bob slept on the sofa that night.  But about 2:00 in the morning, God woke him up.  And just about that time his brother woke up too. He came out and started talking with Bob.  Bob told him how empty and desperate his life was.  His brother's response was that the only way to find life and meaning and joy was to become a Christian.  But Bob resisted, saying, "I can't give up all of the stuff I know I would have to give up!"  You see how we like to hang onto the junk of our lives?  He didn't think he could give it up, but he did!  And he found what he was really looking for!  Joy, meaning, purpose-life!  But first he had to trust Jesus with the junk of his life. 
            When he did, how do you suppose he looked to God?  What do you think?  I think he sparkled!  Just like that broken beer bottle on the sidewalk.  His life was shattered, but what God saw sparkled!
            It is so difficult to trust Jesus that most of us will do everything else, before we are willing to trust Jesus.  That's the way I did it.  I tried everything else!  I had been raised in the church, but lost my faith in college and guess what.  My life fell a part!  What a surprise.  But I had to spend years trying everything else, before I was willing to trust again.  And when I did, what do you suppose my life looked like to God.  I was a mess, but I think God saw the sparkles!
            And over the years, God invited me to trust more and more of my life to him.  While I was still in seminary, I was serving a couple of little country churches.  Caroline and I were both paying for school and I was just working part-time and getting a very part-time salary, but one of the wise old patriarchs of the church said, "Don't you worry about that.  We've never had a pastor go hungry yet."  Then he thought for a minute and said, "We've had a few that got kinda skinny, but they never went hungry."
            That's the way it works, isn't it?  We begin by trusting God with our brokenness and junk.  And then God gives us a bigger challenge that we can't do alone and we have to rely on God. 
            Corrine Ten Boom was one of those remarkable people who had walked with God long and well.  If you don't recognize the name, she was the author of The Hiding Place and a number of other books.  She was interred in a Nazi prison camp during World War II, because she and he family helped the Jews escape imprisonment and death.  She learned to trust God for guidance and for her daily needs and with her ministry.
            In one of her books, she tells of going to Russia with a suitcase full of Bibles.  Now in those days, the Russians did not like that.  In fact, it was illegal.  So when she saw the customs agent searching the luggage thoroughly, she was afraid.  The agent was searching every suitcase.  And she said to herself, "What will he do when he finds my Bibles?  Send me back to Holland?  Put me in prison.
            In her fear, she closed her eyes and prayed a silent prayer.  As she opened her eyes, she saw just a glimpse of something strange about her suitcase.  It was almost as if for a split second the suitcase had been ringed by luminous beings-like angels.  And Corrie's fear was gone.
            Slowly she slid her suitcase along the stainless steel table to the customs agent who was doing such a good job.  Finally she was standing right before him. 
            "Is this your suitcase?" he asked.
            "Yes, sir," she answered.
            "It seems to be very heavy," as he picked it up.
            "It is very heavy," Corrie agreed.
            The customs agent smiled.  He said, "Since you are the last one to come through the line I now have time to help you.  If you will follow me, I shall carry it for you out to your taxi."  And so away she went, singing silent hallelujahs all the way! 
            So where are you?  Maybe God has been quietly working on you for a long time, but you were kind of hoping that you could get by with just being a nice person.  Maybe you have never been quite able to let go of the junk of your life.  Or maybe there is something else that has such a hold on you, that you just can't quite entrust that to God.  Or maybe ...
            Today is the day.  Now is the time to allow God to take control of all of that.  Today!