Can God Trust Us? (Mike Glenn)

By Mike Glenn

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

One of the best things about not having to come up with a sermon every Sunday is I can take my time reading the Scriptures. If I want to stay in a passage for three or four days, I can. Since stepping down from full time preaching, I'm under no pressure "to come up with something to say." I can read as slowly and as deeply as I want.  It's one of the best things about my life right now.

As you can imagine, I have pages and pages of ideas, thoughts, insights for sermons that will never be preached. For instance, every pastor knows Malachi. It's the book that has the "money" sermon in it. You know the passage, "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse so there may be food in my house. 'Test me in this way,' says the Lord of Armies." (Malachi 3:10). Of course, I know this passage -- or at least I thought I did. This passage is about tithing. True, but the book of Malachi is about much more. Malachi is writing about broken promises. Even though God has remained faithful to His people, Israel has not kept their promises to God. These acts of faithlessness are shown in two ways: first, people are failing to tithe and second, they're getting divorced. Broken marriages is the way the broken relationship with God is realized among the people. Which brings us to an interesting question. When a young man asks a young woman for her hand in marriage, does she ask him if he tithes? After all, if he won't keep his promise to God, what are the chances he'll keep his promises to her?

That would be an interesting sermon to preach. Another interesting sermon to consider would be the the passage in John I'm currently reading. After the triumphal entry in John 12, Jesus predicts his crucifixion. In verses 27 and 28, Jesus said, "Now my soul is troubled. What should I say -- Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I've come to this hour. Father glorify your name." After all of the confrontations with the religious leaders, after all of the discussions of laying down His life, now, in Jerusalem, Jesus comes face to face with what the salvation of humanity will cost and His soul is troubled. 

This is moment the Father has been leading Him to. The cross is the reason Jesus has come. Jesus has been faithful with the other challenges in His life and now, its time to continue to be faithful -- even to the cross. Now, the Father trusts His Son in this moment. Trust has to be earned and Jesus has earned it. His reward for His faithfulness is the suffering of the cross. The Father trusts Him in this moment.

In popular apologetics, the question always seems to be , "How do we know we can trust God?" Can we be sure God is telling the truth about how we should live our lives? Is God holding back from us any of the good stuff we want in our lives? In what ways has God "earned" the trust He demands from us? Questions such as suffering in the world leaves us with the classic dilemma of questioning either God's goodness or God's power. If God is good, He's not powerful and if He's powerful, He's not good. We spend a lot time questioning whether or not God can be trusted.

What if that's the wrong question? As I read the passage and I think about how deeply troubled Jesus is as He faces the reality of the cross, I try to think back to a time when my own life was troubled to these depths. Have I ever known a moment like this? Have I ever had a prayer moment when my life was a stake?

No, I haven't. I've never been trusted with such a moment. Trust must be earned and I'm not sure I've earned this level of trust from God.  Earned the trust of God?

Throughout my life, God has asked me to do certain things, say certain things and I have been pretty successful in my obedience. I've done pretty well most of the time, but not all the time. I've obeyed some of the time, but not all the time. And it's "not all the time" that makes it hard for God to trust me. Rightly so. Jesus obeyed His Father all the time. What the Father asked is what Jesus did. Not so with me. When God asks me to do something there's 50/50 chance I'll do it. 50/50 isn't being faithful.

So, when it came the moment of redemption, Jesus had earned His Father's trust. Think about that. The Father trusted Jesus with the cross.

How much can God trust us? For whatever reason, God has chosen to work through us and our churches. As most people will know is this isn't a very efficient or effective way to reach the world with the gospel. The church is inconsistent, occasionally obedient and honestly, more times than not, openly disobedient. Maybe God wants to do more, but He just can't trust us with more. What would happen if God could trust us the same way He trusted Jesus?

Like I said, maybe the question isn't can we trust God, but can God trust us? I've been pondering this question since reading that passage a few days ago...

And I can't help wondering what God could do if He could trust us the way He trusted Jesus? Maybe the whole problem with our world isn't that we can't trust God, but that God can't trust us.