Matt Hagee - The God You Can Trust In
Today, we begin a new sermon series asking and answering the question: "In God, we trust". It's a phrase that we're all familiar with but it's something that we do not recognize in the current world that we live in. We're familiar with the phrase, "In God, we trust". It's written on our money. It's sung in our songs. But we don't see it in the world we live in. The world that we live in is a Hebrews 12 kind of world where we read the words that everything that can be shaken will be shaken. How many of you see things shaking in our world today? The Bible says that that's going to continue until what remains is unshakable. Do you know what is going to remain that is unshakable? The God who is the foundation of all things. Read with me Proverbs 3:5 and 6. If you're there, say, amen. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths".
Heavenly Father, today, in the authority of Jesus' name, I ask by the power of your Holy Spirit that we would have the courage and the strength not just to hear the word but to do it. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen and amen.
You may be seated. What is the one foundational request, the one constant, that God wants from us each and every day that we live and breathe? He wants us to trust in him. God wants you to trust him because trust determines the quality of your relationship. We read this in 2 Corinthians 5:7. It's in word picture. It's not necessarily the word "Trust," but the picture that's being painted is trust. It says, "We walk by faith and not by" what? "Sight". So, how are you going to walk through this world unless you trust in the God who sees what you cannot? When you walk by faith, what you have to do is follow someone. The question is: who are you following? Some people follow their feelings. Some people follow others' opinions. Some people follow their past experiences. But there are people who are walking through this life following the hand of God.
And when you see them, you wonder: how are they being blessed when other people are being turned down? How is that happening in their life and it's not happening in mine? The reason is they trust in the one they're supposed to follow. This is what Jesus said in Matthew 16. He said, "If anyone desires to come after me". (that means follow), let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Say that with me. You won't know the blessings that he has in store for your life until you stop debating him and start following him. Now, I wouldn't do this on any normal Sunday but this ain't a normal Sunday. This is cowboy Sunday. So, bring me my horse. Don't get excited. I couldn't get the church board to give me a full horse. So, I had to get the Godfather horse: just the head.
Now, every cowboy knows exactly what's hanging on this horse's head and what its purpose is. These are reins for riding. This is sit. This is a head stall. This is a Bosal. It gives signals. But in order for this horse to follow the leader, he's got to pay attention to all of the subtle cues that keep him connected to the one who's taking him where he wants to go. This horse wants feed. This horse wants water. This horse doesn't want to be eaten by a cougar. And so, it's the cowboy's responsibility to lead this horse in the places that he needs to go. And in order for that to happen, they've got to trust one another. Now, the thing about a horse that might not cause him to trust a cowboy is maybe he's dealt with a cowboy that's treated him wrong. Maybe he's dealt with a cowboy that gave him a complex. Maybe he's dealt with a cowboy and their past experience was wrong. But there's not a person in this room that can ever say, "God didn't do me right". God is good all the time. And all the time?
Let me show you what it looks like when a horse doesn't trust the leader. Look what's happening here. The leader's trying to take the horse into the grass so that the grass can feed the horse. And the horse says, "I don't want that grass. Are you serious? You want me to eat grass/ no. Take me back to where we came from". Now, which end of this horse do you think that leader wants to see? The part with sense or the part with attitude? He wants to see the part with sense. That's the head of the horse. You know what he gets to see? A horse's behind. This is what some of God's kids look like whenever he says, "I want to lead you to a blessing". No, Jesus: don't bless me. I want you to obey me. I'm not going to obey you. You don't know where I've been, Jesus. You don't know what I've been through. Don't tell me about those blessings. All I've got are the burdens. I checked Instagram. Everybody's got a perfect life and mine's all messed up.
Now, how much progress is being made because this horse will not follow the leader? None. The problem in this situation is simply physics. That horse weighs 1.200 pounds and the leader weighs whatever she weighs. Let me tell you something. When God's got you on his lead rope, he outweighs you. He can lead you. He can drag you. But you're not going to pull back hard enough to make him change his mind about you. God doesn't want you to fight him. God wants you to follow him. Let me show you what it looks like when a horse follows the leader. See how calm this is? She even got her hair done. There's no tension. There's no stress. There's no arguing. This horse is going to go wherever that woman wants to lead him. And you can get anything done that you want to get done. That horse right there is saying, "I trust you. Wherever we're going is fine with me".
That horse has the ability to pull back just like the other horse did. But because there's a level of trust and commitment there, you have something that's working instead of something that's just going around in circles. God wants you to trust him. God wants you to follow his cues. When God takes the lead, he doesn't want you pulling back and going your own way. He wants you to follow him in the path of righteousness that he has for you. You won't experience his miracle power that he'll prove himself faithful to you until you stop ignoring him and start following him.
People ask me, "Pastor, when? When am I going to get my breakthrough? When am I going to see those mountains move? When am I going to have the houses I didn't build and the wells I didn't dig and the vineyards I didn't plant"? And the answer is, when you stop fighting God and start following the leader. Some people trust God for certain things but they don't trust him for others. Some people say, "Yes, Lord, I'll receive the gift of salvation". And he says, "Okay, let me lead you into a financial path". And you say, "No"! So, he can redeem your soul from hell, but he can't have your tithe and offering?
So, he can have you for eternity, but you're not going to trust him with your temporary resources? Okay, Lord, I trust you for my provision. But the doctor just gave me a diagnosis. He's got to promise in his words that says, "By your stripes, I am healed". But I'm not going to put my trust in you there. I'm going to let experience, and I'm going to let tradition, and I'm going to let all this stuff happen. And guess what? Pretty soon, instead of following God into the direction you're supposed to go, you look like that horse, just going around in circles, getting whipped on the rear end until you'd get in line. It didn't say, "Trust in God for the big things and not the small things". It said, "Trust in God with all your heart".
How many of you have ever argued with God? How well did it work? Some argue with their experiences. God says, "I want to lead you in a path of restoration with your family". And we run this way. No, God, you don't know how they treated me. I want you to follow me as I show you what it means to live in perfect peace. God, you don't have any clue. That's not a path of perfect peace. And we run the opposite direction. We're letting our experiences, we're letting our offenses, we're letting our traditions, we're letting our situations lean on our understandings instead of following the God who does all things well.
"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and" do what? "Lean not to your own understandings". "Oh, God, you don't know what they said about me. Oh, God, you don't know what they did to me. Oh, God, you don't know how they abused me". He's not asking you to follow them. He's asking you to follow him. You ever been on a long vacation with a questioning child? What's their number-one question? Are we there yet? I used to think that that question was well merited until I put four of them in the back seat. And sometimes we argue with God when he's leading us. Are we there yet? Believe me, if you get this far from God, you're not right where you should be. You're arguing.
Here's what I know from the time that I've walked with the Lord: we're not there until we see him face to face. So, until we see him face to face, you just keep going wherever he leads. You keep walking wherever he takes you. You just continue to take the next step, because the promise of his word is that he is going to take you from victory to victory, from glory to glory. But you've got to trust him if you're going to go. God is asking you to trust him. If you're willing to trust him, he'll restore the relationship. If you're willing to trust him, he'll restore the finances. If you're willing to trust him, he'll take everything that the enemy did in your life and he'll turn it around to where what they meant for evil, he'll turn for good!
You need to understand that if God's going to lead you, it's not going to be comfortable. Because that's where trust is going to be learned. But God leads us through one source from several directions. What's the one source from which God leads us? The word, the Word of God. It comes in three directions. It comes from the written word that you read. It comes from the spoken word that you hear. And it comes from the Holy Spirit that the Bible says will lead you into all truth. But here's the problem: a lot of God's kids, they want the spoken word. Especially here in the United States, we take for granted the fact that we've got a church on every corner. And we hope that we can find a place that will illuminate us for just a little while on Sunday morning. The Bible says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path".
I love cowboy Sunday because I get all these cool props. You have to stay in constant contact with the word if you're going to navigate the dark paths in the world that we live in. This is why God told Joshua to keep this word in front of you, day and night. Meditate upon it. Keep your eyes upon it. Do not turn from the right or the left. Because he was telling Joshua, I'm taking you someplace that as long as you follow the light of my word, you're going to get right where I want you to go. But if you turn away from my word and start walking off in a dark path, you're going to find yourself off the edge of the cliff or you're going to find yourself someplace you never intended to be. You need to walk in the path that I have chosen for you. And the only way you can do it is by following the light of my word.
Now, God leads us through his written word. It's the lamp unto our feet and it's the light unto our path. And God leads us through the spoken word. But God also leads us through the Holy Spirit that the Bible says will lead you into all truth. God leads us through the Holy Spirit. Have you ever had the statement, "I've got to get that through my head"? Anybody ever said that? You know there's a very natural reason why you say that? I want to show you a diagram of the human brain. This is your brain. It's bigger than you thought. And before the neuroscientists send me their corrections to this simple diagram, here is the way that the brain works. The spinal cord is the message center. Everything that you see, everything that you feel, everything that you hear, every experience, comes into the brain through the spinal cord. That's why if this breaks, you are neurologically in trouble.
Now, the second that it enters the mind, it all comes through the back of this. That's why people go, "I've got this in the back of my mind". You don't know it but you're right: it's all there. It enters the mind. It comes through what is called "The limbic system". And the limbic system is where we feel everything. And then once it gets through our feelings, then we think about it, and we start to rationalize whether or not it was good or bad or we'd like to try it again. Let me give you an example. I light the lantern. I choose to put the lantern out. I reach in there and put the lantern out with my hand. Guess what? That's hot. My brain says, "I felt that. It burned". The logical side says, "Don't do that again".
So, we take a picture of the lantern and we stick it over in a file that says. "The last time I did that, I got burned". Now, what you need to know, parents of teenagers, is that neuroscientists say, "The longest thing that takes time to develop is the rational side of the frontal lobe," which is why you can look at a 15-year-old and ask him a question, and they go, "I don't know". Because the reasonable side said nothing to them. It was shut off. Now, in order for you to have the mind of Christ, the Bible says that the carnal mind is at enmity with God. So, understand your natural mind will never follow Christ. He'll never make sense to you. He'll always be an uncomfortable thing for you. But your mind has to be renewed by the Word of God. That's what the New Testament says. It says, "Renew your mind by reading the Word of God". Faith cometh by what? Hearing. And hearing by what? The Word of God.
You know that you can be led without eyesight? It happens every day. People who have lost their natural ability to see are led in multiple ways. But if you do not have sight and hearing, you can't be led. You can be taken, but you can't be led. And one of the reasons why the body of Christ, and the church, and many people in church are being taken in so many directions is because they don't read the word, they don't hear it, and they cannot be led by the spirit when the spirit says, "This is me". Read the words of the prophet. "You shall hear a still small voice behind you saying". What's he saying? "This is the way. Walk in it". But if you don't read the word, you don't know what that voice sounds like.
This is what you have to develop with God. And the only way you develop it is by reading his word. Because when you, through the eyes of faith, start to read the word, "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God," you start to understand what his voice sounds like in your ears. And that keeps you from getting out in front of him. Because believe me, if you're ever out in front of him, you're going the wrong way. God not only uses the written word: he uses the spoken word, but he uses the spirit. And that's what you've got to develop. In order for us to be led, you have to balance the struggle between what you feel and your facts.
There's two kinds of Christians. There's fact-filled Christians, and there's touchy-feely Christians. You know both kinds. Maybe you've tried both types. Fact-filled Christians, they can quote scripture all day long and argue all night long. Fact-filled Christians, they've got this thing memorized but they ain't won nobody to Christ in a while. Because the only thing they do is they debate the facts, and they argue. But they have very little passion or feeling for the things of God. And the thing that you need to understand is that there are true facts about our faith but you're not saved by facts. You're saved by something that God felt for you. The Bible didn't say that God so loved the world he died for us because he had to. It says, "God so loved the world that he gave". He loved you.
That's why he gave it to you. He felt something for you. God didn't have to die to save us. If God wanted to start over without us, he could do it tomorrow. But he said, "I love you. I don't want anyone else. I want you. And I'm willing to put up with all of the messed-up facts about your life in order for us to learn how to feel one another". God wants you. Then you've got feely Christians. Feely Christians don't ever open this book. Because if they open this book, it'll change them forever. They don't ever say, "The Bible says". They simply say, "I feel led. And I believe Jesus is telling me". Let me help you real quick. Jesus is never going to tell you what he hasn't already told us. Feely Christians, they want to talk about relevance.
How relevant are we in the world? How relevant is the worship? How relevant are these thing? They want to talk about all the feelings. But if you talk about devotion, or you talk about discipleship, or you talk about discipline, they hit the back door. So, who's right and who's wrong? Both of them are. Because you can't just live on the facts. You'll reason your way out of what God is leading you to. The fact is, it's a hard day today. The fact is, "Weeping may endure for the night. But joy cometh in the morning," if you'll just keep following me.
Now, the feely Christians, they're not any better off, because the second it's uncomfortable, they take off the other direction. You've got to be spirit led. You've got to learn how to balance the facts with the feelings and let the spirit lead you. I'll tell you some Bible facts. The Bible fact is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The Bible fact is you and I were born with a condition that was going to damn our soul to hell. The fact is, is that without Jesus Christ, the wages of our sin is death. Without him, we're lost. Without him, we are dead. Without him, we are slaves to sin. The fact is that while we were yet sinners, God loved us. He felt something for us, "And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us".
So, the fact is his death paid for my redemption. And whom the son sets free is free indeed. I know in whom I have believed, and I want to tell you how it makes me feel to believe in a God who has changed the facts of my situation and made all things new. I feel like shouting "Hallelujah". Whom the son sets free is free. I feel like the shackles of yesterday are broken and my chains are gone. I feel like telling the world who Jesus Christ is and what God Almighty has done. I feel like rejoicing in the joy of my salvation and singing high praises to the king. I feel like crying tears of thanksgiving because I know what he has done for me. I know in whom I have believed, and I believe that he is able! Give the Lord a shout of praise in this house today!
Can we stand in the presence of the Lord? If you live by the facts, sooner or later, they'll overwhelm you. If you live by the feelings, sooner or later, they're going to lie to you. But if you let the spirit lead you, if you let the spirit lead you, God will show you great and mighty things that you know not. That's why he's the God you can trust in. When everything else is falling apart, he is the foundation that is stable from generation to generation, and he will not fail you.
You've listened to the Word of God today. You've heard the Holy Spirit say: "You're not trusting me. You're acting like that horse running around in circles instead of following me. You're arguing with me instead of listening to that still small voice trying to take you in the direction you need to go". Today, if that's you, and you say, "Lord, I need to leave here putting my complete trust in you," I want you to raise your hand high in the air. I want you to raise another hand, this hand of submission, because that's what we're going to do now. Say, "God, I need to trust you. And wherever you lead me, I'm going to follow". So pray this prayer with me:
Lord Jesus Christ, today, I ask you to forgive me for not placing my complete trust in you. You've never failed me and you never will. So today, by the power of your Holy Spirit and his help in my life, by the power of your word, and it's truth that does not return void, I'm going to follow you, no matter where you lead, I'll go. No matter what you ask, I'll do, because you are the God that I put my trust in today, in Jesus name. Amen.