Trust and Obey

I want to talk to you about trusting and obeying the Lord Jesus Christ. To trust and obey. There’s a song I had in mind, that I was thinking about this morning as I was getting ready to come to church today, is the song Trust and Obey. That song, Trust and Obey says, to trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus other than to trust and obey.

People always want to be happy, don’t they? Well, the only way to have happiness in your life as a Christian is to trust and obey the Lord. And that’s the only way that it’s going to occur here in Psalm chapter 78 and verse number seven. He says:

And if we’ll do that; if we’ll set our hope in God and believe the promises that God has given unto us. Then you can have real hope in this world, even though the world wants you to think that there’s no hope.

Real Hope is Available

They want you to think that it’s all done and over with and everything else. And the aliens are pretty soon going to come and attack us. That’s what they want, for you to be scared and afraid and feel like there’s no hope or anything.

They’re they’re getting people to mask back up again. And everything. Every place I go, I see people wearing masks. Hey, if wearing a mask is your thing and some of you probably ought to be wearing masks, not because you’re sick, just because; then you know that’s on you. Okay, I’m not going for it. I’m not falling for it. And I don’t think that they really amount to a hill of beans anyhow. But they want you to be scared and afraid and think that there’s really no hope or anything out there.

You Ought To Do As You Say

But there is hope. That hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. But as a Christian, it’s one thing to talk about trusting in the Lord, and it’s a complete and total other thing to actually do it. We’re really good about talking about these things, but not so quick to actually do what we say. Right. When I was growing up, my parents would say all the time, Right, Do as I say, not as I do. But as a Christian, you ought to do as you say. That made sense in my mind. I don’t know if it sounded right or not.

If you don’t trust the Lord, you won’t obey him. It’s just that simple if you don’t trust Him, you’re not going to obey Him. And if you don’t obey Him, you won’t be happy. So it all works together. It’s a system, so to speak.

A Huge Step of Faith

Imagine the Lord asks you to take a huge step of faith.But you refuse to do so, or you hesitate or you procrastinate. Some of us are really good at procrastinating. At procrastinating. If you procrastinate, then you’re not going to be able to experience everything that the Lord has for you. If you don’t take that huge step of faith. That’s why I want you to have Joshua at your fingertips. So look over in Joshua chapter three. I won’t belabor this for a real long time, but we do need to read through a few verses over here in Joshua, and towards the end of the chapter, Of course, you have, The death of Moses and Joshua here is now leading the children of Israel. And the Lord is showing Joshua here how it is that he was with Joshua. And here in chapter three and verse seven:

So the Lord Jesus Christ is going to magnify Joshua. He’s going to show people that God is on Joshua’s side and God is on their side.But in order for them to fully realize that God is on their side, they’re going to have to take a huge step of faith. As you look at this, as we go on down through here, what the Lord says in verse eight:

So he’s telling the priests that are carrying the ark of the Covenant there that they’re going to come up to the banks of the Jordan River and they’re going to have to stand in the river. Now, you may not understand the impact of that or the importance of that, and what that really meant. You might be thinking, well, big deal. So what? They got to go wading in a river. This isn’t a creek. This is the Jordan River. Okay. I want you to keep that in mind as we go on down through here. And he fully explains how much of a step of faith that this had to be.

So when they stand, when they go in there and they stand in the river, the water is going to stop. And there’s going to be like when they cross the Red Sea, But when they cross the Red Sea, right. The Lord had Moses raise his staff and all that, and the Lord stopped the waters before they ever even crossed the Bank of the Red Sea. Right? And they all cross over on dry ground. Now, that took a lot of faith too. Right? You got the big wall of water on either side of you and everything else. And who knows when it’s going to crash back down and everything else. I’m sure that took a lot of faith.

But this here, he says he’s not even going to stop the waters until after they step into it. That’s not insignificant.

This wasn’t a low time of the season where they were easily just going to cross over and wade across the river. This wasn’t a low part of the river. There wasn’t a sandbar that they were walking across, okay? There wasn’t a fallen tree that they were travailing across. And all that kind of stuff. No. This was a time when the water was at the highest that it could be. It was a flood. Basically, the water was overflowing the banks and they had to go in there and they had to step into the water. And it wasn’t stagnant water. It was a flowing water. It was flowing from north to south. It was coming on, going from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead Sea. That’s how that river flowed down mountains. It was moving at a pretty good click and they had to step in the middle of this flood water that was rushing, and that’s what they had to step into.

The blessing that they were going to get by being able to cross over Jordan on dry ground into the Promised Land didn’t come until they put their trust in the Lord.

Against all odds, against all reason.

See, we as Christians, like to say, well, I’m going to trust the Lord. And as soon as he fixes this, then I’ll take the next step as soon as he makes this absolutely, completely, and totally clear to me, then I’ll take the next step.

But sometimes he just wants you to take the step and then he’ll make the path clear. And that’s what he did for them. And that’s what he’ll do for you.

So just trust and obey him today.

Our hope at Irvington Bible Baptist Church is that this podcast provided some encouragement and has helped you to develop a closer relationship with the LORD Jesus Christ.