All The Feels | Week 8 | Bill Bush

No. But hey. But this weekend, you know, tomorrow is a special day. It's Memorial Day. And and I think sometimes we get confused on the meaning of all these days, so we just find anyone who has served or is in uniform, we say thank you to all these things. That's actually they don't like that. At least my dad didn't like it. He goes, Memorial Day isn't about me, and it never will be. You see, there's days for the guys that are in currently in uniform.

There's days for for for men and women that served that that I've taken the uniform off. Memorial Day is about those who never got to take the uniform off because they never came home. It's about those who died in serving our country. And so

I just wanna challenge you as you're sitting in your backyard grilling up hot dogs because you couldn't afford to go anywhere that just take a moment and reflect on the the life we live in the places because men and women sacrificed in what the Bible says. There's no greater love than to lay down your life for another.

And so that's kind of a a moment just to challenge us with. So with that being said, yeah, see, someone's hollering about it already. Hey. This is the last week of all the feels.

We've ran out of feels. There's no more feels to feel. We're done. And and and and then this week, the the I was I was I was thinking, you know, my daughter graduated from high school. I talked about that. She was graduate well, we did the ceremony this week. And, you know, you go to a high school graduation,

and and you have a lot of time to reflect because they that takes them, like, thirty minutes to just say names. You get to that last part, and you're like, And we he's outside sitting. I did not realize how old I've gotten sitting on a bleacher. I mean, I I am telling you, I didn't recover for two days. It was like everything. How does sitting on a bleacher make my neck hurt? I don't understand,

but it did. And and and as you're sitting on these names, my daughter, you know, Bush, so she was like one of the know, there's 500 people. She was like in the first 60 gets called, and I'm sitting there, and right where we're sitting, there was this back gate that would go out to where we parked in this overflow. I could see my car, and I'm like,

can't we just go? I mean, is she expecting us to see us afterwards? She'll be distracted. She'll have no idea. I was like, I wanted to go, but my wife, obviously, no. That's not the thing you do. So I sit there, and as I'm thinking,

I reflected back, you know, as my youngest child is now 18. I'm no longer legally responsible for it, and anything she does is her own felony. You know? And and, but you think about how all your kids how when they that you raised them.

And and one thing that popped into my mind was something that all three of them did that was what was always kinda frustrating to me. It wasn't the only thing they did that was frustrating, but all three of them did the same thing. It was when they were old enough to talk and and and do all this stuff, but they still needed help with their bath.

Primarily, they wouldn't actually wash themselves unless you actually help them, especially washing their hair. The washing the hair thing, I don't understand. They'll jump in a pool, but some reason, once it's in bath water, is it holy water or something? It's like, if you get their head wet, like, it burns.

You know, like, they they're just horrible. And the worst thing was with shampoo because they hated you know, you have the no tear shampoo, but that's not that's a lie. It still burns and they don't like it. And they always get shampoo in there, so they don't want you to wash your hair. But the problem is it's is because they wouldn't trust me. Every time you go to wash your go, okay. I say, look up at me. So they look up, you put you make the forehead the the you use your hand to make a visor.

You get also and then you pour the water. And as long as they're looking at you with the hand visor, it kinda goes away and it doesn't get in their eyes. So you would think, but every single time, all three of my kids when they're at this age, you start pouring, and

then they turn away and look away, and then guess what would happen? The very thing they were terrified of. And then they go, see? And I go, see? If you just kept doing what I said and trusted me, you wouldn't have this problem. And then I'm thinking, my wife's smart and so am I. What happened to them?

Why are they so dumb? And then I thought about how God looks at me and us,

and how many times does he's like, hey, look at me. And then the water of life starts to hit our head and we're afraid and we look down and then we get soap in our eyes because we don't trust. That's what I want to talk about today is trust.

We're going do a little bit different. It's not just going to be I'm going to we're going talk about why we should trust God because he's the most trustworthy a 100% of the time. 100% of the time, you can trust him every time.

But I wanna kinda look at a story that also takes how our trust of God, and if we develop relationships around that, it'll actually help us understand how trust between us should work too. But first, let's define trust. Well, there's the dictionary definition first.

And in the dictionary, it says, trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. See, that that kinda describes it more like a noun, like a feel that is like the feeling of trust. It's also a verb too.

And and the biblical definite when you use the biblical words for trust, the Hebrew, the Greek words, it kinda has a little bit it kinda emphasizes the noun and the verb part of trust when it says this, a bold, confident, sure security, or I think the or should be and. And action based on that security.

To really be trust to be trusted. If someone's gonna trust you, if you're trustworthy, you you know, you're you're you're gonna know someone and you're gonna act on the trust that you have. So it's a both end. It's a noun and a verb. And how I like to describe it is if if if if I'm gonna actually trust someone,

if I wanna have the feeling, for me to have the noun, I have got to see the verb.

That's kinda how it works. And so we're gonna look at that scripturally and we're gonna talk about, okay, how does this work? What what where how does trust work out and and and all that. And the big idea what we're gonna see today is if you put this together is simply this. Trust is when our ways match our words.

We will build trust. We are trustworthy. And we like to see this too. When someone's ways, the way they live,

when when what you see is what they what they say is what you see kind of a deal is when our ways, the way I'm living matches my words. Like, think about it. Anyone that you don't trust is they might say lots of stuff, but you just don't believe them because it's just words.

Matter of fact, you can almost drop the words. Trust is really when your ways match your ways. Like, you you know what I mean? Like, you you're consistent. And and what we're gonna see here is, first of all, the best way to start with understanding trust and knowing how to develop it is to look to God.

God is the most trustworthy. Because a matter of fact, it says in the New Testament that in the book of John that the word became flesh. Jesus is the word of God incarnate. In other words, God's words always match his ways because his word is his way. His word, Jesus is the word incarnate.

And so what I wanna do here is we've been in Psalms. We've been in, Psalms for the whole series where we can know, it's the hymn book. They sang this poetry, and and and and it's all the feels are here. Well, what's interesting is there is a Psalm that's all about trusting God in his word, trusting his word.

And and it's Psalm one nineteen. It's the longest psalm in in in in the in in the book of Psalms, 176 verses. And ironically, it's all about how you can trust God's word. Psalms one nineteen is the way the Bible's laid out is almost exactly right in the middle of the Bible.

It's almost like in very center of the word of God is this psalm about how the word of God is 100% reliable and trustworthy and should be at the center of your life.

Matter of fact, it's laid out in eight verse segments. I said it's poetry, and the way it's laid out, it keeps having these eight verse eight verses at a time. And in between each verse, you'll see a little word in your bible listed above, like the section I'm I'm gonna read a few verses out of it. It says, Samik.

And and what those little looks like a word is that's actually the the Hebrew alphabet. And so every eight verses, it changes. Like, so the first one is like their a. What's a? And then the first eight verses, every line, every verse starts with that letter. Then it goes to the next eight, every verse starts with b, c,

all the way to their version of z. And so what it's saying in a very symbolic way, which we can't see in the English because we're not reading it in the Hebrew,

is it's right in the middle of the word of God, is this psalm about the centrality and the trustworthiness of God in his word and applying it to your life and living by it and trusting it, looking to him even when the water hits your head. It's actually saying from a to z, from beginning to end,

from the beginning of time to the end of time, from the beginning of life to end of life, from the beginning and then in the middle and everything in between. You need to trust God's word. It is trustworthy. God is the only 100% of the time you can trust him every time.

And that's what we so so I just wanna read a few verses because this little section I'm gonna read out of starting in verse one thirteen, Ashley because each section kinda takes a different angle on why it's good to trust God's word and and how it's more important. And this one is talking about relationships with other people and how you you wanna really trust God centrally and by extension,

that should be your deepest relationships.

The people you let in the inner circle of your life, you you can have friends, we point people to Jesus, you have people that maybe don't trust God in their life, but that should not be your inner circle. The people that you invite into the depth of trust and you trust them and and you fall in this should be another person that absolutely wants to trust God. Because as we trust God, if we come to know Jesus and we start to grow and we start to get into his word, the power of the holy spirit will enable us, empower us to know that more. And in other words, we will become more and more like Jesus.

And our deepest friendship should be someone else that wants to do the same thing, and we'll see why. So here we go. Verse one thirteen says, I hate those with divided loyalties. It's divide there's a word for double minded is what it says in the New Testament.

And it says in the New Testament in the book of James that people that are double minded are unstable in all their ways. What it's talking about is someone says, okay. I'll believe in God or I'll believe that they say one thing, but they often do another. They say this and then they do that.

And then he goes, but I love your instructions. So he's saying there's people that don't mind me. I'm I wanna stick to your word. I want my life I wanna steer the course of my life by trusting you, God, looking to you. You are my refuge and my shield. Your word is my source of hope.

And then look. He gets even more serious about this relationship, about other people. Get out of my life, you evil minded people. That's another word for these double minded people that say one thing and do the other. It's an evil thing. You're going the wrong way. You're heading towards destruction. He goes, I need to I need to narrow the focus. Those people can't be in my life. Like, I know them. You wanna point, but he when he says get out my life is I don't want them to be the central people in my life

because it's gonna lead me the wrong way. Because he says, for I intend to obey the commands of my god.

He says, lord, sustain me as as you promised that I may live. Do not let my hope be crushed. Sustain me, and I will be rescued. Then I will meditate continually on your decrees. He keeps going back to the word of God and trusting God and knowing God and knowing God's word. You can't trust something you don't know.

And he says, but you have rejected all who stray from your decrees. They are only fooling themselves. This is almost implying there's religious people that like, describing some they come to church. They say the words. They sing the songs, unless it's a closing song, then you leave early.

There's a closing song today, by the way. But, hey, you can't go anywhere this weekend, so what else you gotta do?

But you don't actually trust God.

He says you're fooling yourself. He says you you think I like the throat punch? Look at verse one nineteen. You skim off the wicked of the earth like scum. All you have to do is add rebel scum and it became like a Star Wars quote.

No wonder I love to obey your laws. I tremble in fear of you. That fear of you is like, I respect you. And because of that awe I have for you, I stand in awe of your regulations, your word. I live by your word.

So it's very clear that the number one thing to learn trust and understand trust and develop relations with trust, our deepest relations with trust should be built with someone else that says, I'm working towards being more like Jesus myself. Do you?

Cause I know a lot of us, what we like to do is I've said this a lot of times, we have people that can really give us good advice and then we have allies

and you know which they are. So you like, you know which group to go to. When you've decided you want to do something and maybe it doesn't align with God word, you go seek allies, not advice. You go to all the people you know that will encourage you to do what you already wanted to do.

And then you tell people, I've sought counsel. I've talked to lots of people. You talk to those free friends, you know, that are always telling you to do the knuckleheaded thing. That's who you've talked to.

You avoid the people that you know will give you honest truth. The the New Testament in the in the Old Testament says the wounds of a friend are faithful. What does that mean? That means real friendship. People that you should develop a real trusting relationship on is you can trust them that they're gonna challenge you

when you're straying from God's word. And they are loving you when they do that. But we live in a world now that that tolerance means I accept that your way is right. Every we have to accept everyone's way to be equally right. And if I challenge you,

I'm intolerant. Tolerant used to be, I think you're dead wrong and but you know what? I'm not gonna abuse you. I'm not gonna be prejudiced against you. I'm gonna choose to love. That's what it used to be.

And so we have a hard time having real trusting relationships these days.

So now I wanna go from that point about what trust is and how it should be God's word and develop that. I wanna go to a story that'll, like, take this part and talk about how do we work with trust. How what do we do when we have a person in our life that's continually broken our trust? How do we how do we fix it, or what do we do about it? And then we're gonna go back to to to,

first Samuel chapter eighteen and nineteen. I'm only gonna read a few verses out of each chapter and tell the story. I'm gonna challenge you. Go back and read all about it. It's fascinating. And what this is is this is in the life it's a story that happens in the life of David. Remember, we've done a lot of his Psalms. And if you know, he was anointed to be the new king when he was a teenager because God had rejected King Saul because he was one of those double minded, unstable people. He would make vows to God and then ignore God, and that kept Adam. So he says, hey. You know what? You're not gonna be king forever, and your legacy, you're not having a dynasty. It's not gonna be passed down to your son. You're not gonna be there's gonna be a new king. And and and David turned out to be that guy. So then David starts to get in good. He's his life starts to go towards the path of, wow. It's just opening doors for him to become king. But then all of sudden,

Saul realizes that this is the guy that's gonna be the king. He gets jealous, and he tries to kill him and eventually leads to David running for his life for ten years. We've talked about that a bunch. We're gonna see this is the beginning

of that process of he's risen up and he's about to start getting kicked out. And what we're gonna see is the interaction between these three relationships, David and Saul. David aspires. He doesn't get always perfect, but his focus is on God's word and trusting God. Saul is the double minded, says some things, but is really

not looking to trust God. But in the midst of this, David develops an incredibly deep friendship with Saul's son named Jonathan. And Jonathan has such an incredible trust, and they have a trust of each other. And that's kinda weird because they ought to be enemies because Jonathan is the crown prince.

He's the one by their the the laws of, you know, whoever the king. He's technically supposed to be the next king. And yet, he develops a deep friendship of trust with the guy that's actually gonna take his place. And Jonathan knows the word of God. He would have known what Samuel said. And yet he still

chooses because they both are focused on trusting God.

And as we look at this, you're gonna say three things in this relationship just by nature of every relationship needs these three things. Here's a little bit of relationship series for you. There's three things that you gotta have in any relationship for it to work. Love is always the context. Commitment is the promise,

but trust is the anchor. You can fall in love with someone. You can walk down and say your vows, but if you're not trustworthy, there's not trust. This ain't gonna matter for very long. Trust is the anchor,

and we'll see that right here. It actually processes this. They they develop a relationship of love, not creepy love. They're bromance. They're guys that are they have a bond, and and but they make a commitment, and then they show that by trust. It's anchored in trust.

And and the trust flows from a trust of God is what leads to how they trust one another. So here we go. Chapter 18 verse one. After David finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king's son. There was an immediate bond between them for Jonathan loved David.

From that day on, Saul kept David with him and wouldn't let him return home. You'll see why Saul kept him around. And Jonathan made a solemn pact. So there's the love. Here's the here's the commitment. They made a pact with David because he loved him as he loved himself.

Sounds kinda creepy. And then it says, Jonathan sealed the pact by taking off his robe and giving it to David together with his tunic, sword, bow, and belt. There are people that tried to say, hey. This was kind of a, maybe a homosexual relationship. Not true. You don't understand scripture. You don't understand culture.

They had that bond. They were soldiers. They both trusted God. They're the same age. They had a great friendship. But what it when he takes off the robe and hands them the robe and the tunic and the sword and the bow, that was a symbolic thing.

You see, he was the crown prince. He had the sword. He's the sword of the future king, the robe of the future king. So when they made a pact and they had this friendship and bond, he was basically saying, I trust god more than my own selfishness, more than my own plan,

and he literally was doing something that cost him something. Because at its heart you know what at its heart, what trust, what we really want? Trust really comes down to this. Can I count on you to be there for me when you have nothing to gain? And even sometimes it's gonna cost you to be there for me and vice versa.

Well, because he trusts God first, handing the robe and the sword, the pact he made was, I trust God. I know you're supposed to be the next king, not me. He checked his ego. He checked his desire for pride, power, position,

all these things that that all of us have to deal with in life. He checked his ego with, like, we wanna be God. We wanna we wanna have it all. We wanna we wanna do this. And at that moment, because of his trust for God, he was able to say to David, you can trust me

because I am handing you this symbolically as saying, you're gonna be the next king, not me. Where did he get that from? From him trusting God In God's word. And he did something that cost him something.

How many of us in any friendship or anything when it comes to the moment that that you're admitting that that, okay, I I am trusting God for your success. I believe. I'm gonna check my ego at that. That's difficult for us to do, guys. We have lots of friends that we love until they start having more success than us.

I mean, even on a little way, gotta be honest. I have Pat preach all the time. He's a an amazing speaker and preacher. I love the guy to death. But sometimes I'll look, and I'll be like, he'll preach a sermon. I'm like, wow. He got way more comments on how awesome he was.

And that's not what we're good. It'll be one that'll be like, I never understood this. I've been going to church for forever. This was the greatest thing. It changed my life in a way I would never have understood. And there is a little inkling in me as I'm I'm not being honest. It stays here. Right?

There's a little bit in you that says, wait. You've been in this church for ten years. You're saying you've never heard this before? You've never? It's like, what about me?

Like, what's going on?

It reminded me back when youth pastors always deal with this. You'd you labor with these students over and over telling them these things that are biblical truth, then you take them to one week of camp, and they act like that camp speaker who uses his three best stories he's ever had in his life. That's the greatest thing ever. You're like, I've been telling you this for three years.

But why do you think we go to camp? Because there is something about a different place, a different voice, Pat, a different the Holy Spirit uses us in different ways. We should be celebrating that success. That's why I bring her. But there is this inkling that sometimes if you take your eyes off what God's doing, it's easy to wanna claim

your your pride, my pride.

Jonathan, man, he is one of the most underrated heroes of the faith with this simple little story. He's like, nope, you can trust me. We have this context of love. I'm making the commitment, but trust is the anchor, and I trust God more than myself. So I'm there for you, my friend.

And then it says in verse five, whatever Saul asked David to do now it's time to Saul. Whatever he asked David to do, David did it successfully.

This is why he kept him close to him. Everything that Saul asked David to do, David was really trustworthy. He could count on. His words and his ways were good. And so Saul is like, oh, this is a benefit to me. He's keeping them close because he's like, wow, this guy's making me successful.

And so he he he they he showed great trust because he was benefiting. So Saul made him the commander over the men of war, an appointment that was welcomed by the people.

And Saul's officers like, there you go. Right there. It was welcomed by the people and Saul's officer is like, he's like, this guy's good. He's helping me be successful. I'm gonna keep him close. I'm gonna promote him. Promotes him. His people are like, that's the greatest decision ever. His officer is like, oh, we wanna follow this guy. And he's like, woah. Woah. Wait a minute. It's like the pet thing. It's like,

what about me? You you guys are way too into this decision. Matter of fact, they started the people started writing songs. Saul's killed his thousands. Yeah. But David has tens of thousands. Instead of celebrating the victories you're having, he's comparing who got more of the credit and the victories. He's insecure.

He also knows that he says he believes in God but then doesn't trust God, and God already told him, your your dynasty is not continuing. This other guy's gonna be king. So now he's like, but I don't want him to be king. I wanna be king.

That's the thing that affects our trust with other people, our trustworthiness ourself. We wanna be king.

But his son did the opposite. He was, God's the king of my heart. You're gonna be king, and I will have joy in the success that what God wants for you. That's the kind of relationships we need. That's where where it needs to be about. That's what it needs to be.

And I wanna show you, like like, let me show you how this works, how trusting God can help us really have better relationships, and how why we should get into circles, not just Rose, and how we need to be in real community, where we're not just doing a bible study and talking about our opinions and then kind of acting like there's nothing going on, but we have people we really know and they really know us, and they can speak into us at this level of truth where we're known, but we're accepted, but we're supported, but we're also developed where they'll challenge us. That's why we always say get into a group, you know, go to this thing. Go get deeper because we need that kind of a relationship.

Because here's what happens with our regular relationships. I wanna show this visual here. I used to use this with with with with, like, even for marriage, for any kind of relationship. This happens to be you know, this is David and Jonathan here. And what's happening is when they both their life's goal is to focus on

on God, on on his word, on his commands, that's where they wanna do. And as us as Christians, if we trust Christ and always focusing on God's word is gonna make us more like Jesus.

You see, they had the bond of being warriors, same age, you know, having a they just they got along. They had probably similar personalities. They're saying they they struck up an a they had a bond. That's great. They had all these common interests and all that. That helped them get that original bond. But really what kept them closer together and built a deeper trust is they were both heading in the same direction. And what happens is they both head in the same direction. What happens to the distance, the closeness, the trust, the relationship?

It gets closer. Same if you marry someone. You see, the problem is a lot of people, you fall in love because common interest, common that, and it's great. But as you get older, sometimes your interest change. Sometimes we're actually manipulative.

Two people get married because you love doing all your athletic stuff together. We cross fit together. We and then you get married and you realize one of them, it was just they had to put up with that to get you.

And some of us guys, we're some of the worst at that. See, we think getting married is the goal on the checklist. Got spouse. Conquered that one. Now I don't have to worry about that anymore. I already got it. Trophy.

Hang it up. Trophy wife on the shelf. Now I'm gonna go conquer my career, conquer my hobbies, conquer this. And then your spouse is like, woah. Woah. Woah. What happened to our relationship as we wooed one of we we dated. We were together. When did that stop? He goes, no. That was just the that was just the sales presentation.

I've already got the commission. You're you're you're owing it on because you know that's what happens. So that's the problem is is is to have a common interest that transcends our personality, that transcends our interest, that brings us to a greater cause, it will always pull us closer together.

Now don't hear what I'm not saying. So if just both focus on Jesus, all of our problems will go away. No. You still have personality issues to work out. You still have sin issues to work out. You still have moments where you're gonna gonna fail.

I mean, I've been married twenty nine years. I've had three times that I had to fix something I did wrong.

The biggest one is not wanting to admit that I'm wrong. But what happens with with with with Saul? What we're gonna see even in the next passage we're gonna read, it gets me more exaggerated. We just saw the the planting of the seed of that, is I wanna show you this this next. See, here's David. Here's Saul.

You see, when David was trusting God, he was doing things that Saul's like, hey, that's beneficial to me. That's helping me.

That's that that's good for me. But then when he started to see, oh, wait. People are talking about him more than me. This is a threat now, and it's because he wouldn't trust God. So as he started to look the other way and not trust God, now David didn't change his path. He didn't change where he's going. But now because he looked the other way, now this is a threat to him.

And so that's kinda what's going on here. So let's look into chapter 19. We'll jump ahead because what starts to happen is out of this after the song is sung and after this, Saul starts to get jealous. He starts to struggle. He starts to says he's attacked like a kind of like he's he's having kind of some mental

issues going on because he refuses to trust God. He knows what God said. He wants to be king. He doesn't want to to to to it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. God said, you're not gonna be king anymore because you won't trust me. And so then he chooses to not trust God because he wants to stop the plan.

So he figures, I killed David. I stopped God's plan. So he starts more subtle. He throws a spear at his head. You

in this day and age, what he that was the most subtle thing he did because he would throw it and they go, I'm sorry. Alright. And it starts to happen. But then by chapter 19, now he's full on decided, this guy, I don't trust him at all. He's a threat to me because I won't trust God.

Chapter 19 verse one. Saul now urged his servants and his son Jonathan to assassinate David. So now he's like to the point of, alright guys, I I I'm not good at throwing spears. I keep missing the guy's head. I need help. You should kill him.

And you know what? What's funny is in one verse, you know that conversation wasn't just Saul said, you should assassinate David. Good talk. Could you imagine that? He was probably mad. You you there's other times when he is mad. He's like, you're betraying me. You're trying to it's like, he's confused

because he doesn't trust god. He doesn't look towards god as the answer. The god's word is not his values. So he's like, why are you this guy's friend? You realize he's gonna take your your legacy from you. He's gonna take your inheritance. He's gonna take your position.

As a man, you're gonna let him do that? He should be your enemy. You should be killing him. You should be out to kill him more than me because and that happens a lot in our relationships. People are gonna give you advice. Like, why would you do that?

That's stupid. You that should they're they're gonna it it twists it.

But Jonathan, another one of those big butts in the bible, But Jonathan, because of his strong affection for David, told him what his father was planning. So handing him the sword was kind of a a a a ego, like a a kind of a trusting moment, but more of a commitment moment. By him going and warning David,

by law now, he's actually is is is almost doing treason against the crown. He is now putting his own life on the line for his friend because he believes in God's plan more than his own personal desire to be king of the world. And so he warns them.

But that get down. Now David has some trust because look what he tells him to do. Tomorrow morning, he warned him, you must find a hiding place out in the fields.

I'll ask my father to go out there with me, and I'll talk with him about you. Then I'll come and tell you everything I can find out or whatever you didn't hear, basically, is what he's saying. So now think about on David's plan. It's like, well, wait. He's telling me that he wants to kill me. I know he gave me his sword and his robe, but he is supposed to be the next king.

How do I know that this isn't as as the, the esteemed theologian Admiral Akbar would say, it's a trap. Star Wars fans are laughing. That's good. That would sound like a trap. If he really is my he was like, trick me out in the field all alone, just him and his dad. They're gonna kill me.

But because he trusts God and he has this developed this trusting relationship,

he he trusts him. The next morning, Jonathan spoke with his father about David, saying many good things about him. So he gets to overhear this. The king must not sin against his servant David, Jonathan said. He's never done anything to harm you. He has always helped you in any way he could. And there's a part where I think I I can imagine this happening. We read this, and you're like, this is a father son relationship. He's a little bit disappointed.

I think he's gonna really sell his case and almost give it, like, rib like, punch his his

his dad in the rib cage because look what he brings up. Have you forgotten about the time he risked his life to kill the Philistine giant and how the Lord brought a great victory to all Israel as a result? You were certainly happy about it then.

You know why? I told you about that story. Basically, it was this idea that one champion comes out and says, rather than us all kill each other and get infections and die, you send a champion out. We'll let that determine. Well, if one of your warriors doesn't rise up to be the champion,

by their code, the king is supposed to go be the champion. So when David goes, you were sure happy about when this guy came up and you were peeing yourself in your armor and then he would agree so you gave him his army because I can't use it. It smells like pee. And then that's actually not in the bible. That's not what happened. But but he he really didn't wanna go out there and fight. He was afraid. And David so he's like, remember the time that he actually already you're worried about him being king and you wanna kill him, but remember the time he actually already did your job and did it better than you?

You were happy then. You're happy because you knew Goliath would kill you. See? You wanted to trust God. You wanna be king. You wanna lead the people. But when it cost you something, nope. You loved having David around. You trusted him. But when you felt like it was costing your pride, nope.

Says, why should you murder an innocent man like David? There's no reason at all for it. Verse six, so Saul listened to Jonathan, vowed, here he is, saying the words again, as surely as the lord lives, he's vowing before the lord, David will not be killed. Afterward, Jonathan called David and told him what had happened.

Then he brought David to Saul, and David served in the court as before. So he brought him back. So they had this moment that they helped kinda, okay. We're gonna go back in, and you're gonna try to trust again. My dad said he's not gonna try to kill you anymore,

and it seems okay. Well, if you read the rest of the story, it goes on, Saul is not trustworthy. His ways don't match his words.

And in no time, he's back to trying to kill him, and that leads to David on the run. David had to finally establish a boundary. No more serving the king. No more he actually had to say, I'm out of here and pull away from that relationship. But him and Jonathan stayed friends. They have other interactions

and other moments where they help one another. See, that's the the the idea that we need to trust God. But I wanna talk for just a minute here. Give us a practical. Okay. How does that apply to us? Especially when it comes to that Saul and David relationship, how they're

acting like they're trust. They're supposed to have this relationship. He's actually his son-in-law, and yet Saul keeps breaking trust. What are we supposed to do in scenarios where there's broken trust? Or as this story is, what are we supposed to do when we get assaulted?

There you go. Now I understand why some of you think Pat is much more life transforming. What

are we supposed to do? Well, I think if you look at script, I'm not gonna is is there's there's there's four things that need to happen.

If if someone's broken trust, how do you rebuild trust? There there there's four things that need to happen. I'm gonna put them up here. There needs to be sacrifice and boundaries. There needs to be consistency, and there needs to be faith. So what do I mean by that? Well, okay. First of all, if you are the one that's had

trust broken

several times, like, you you've already done the thing. Alright. You had a talk. Someone helped you. Alright. Alright. I'm not gonna do that anymore. Fine. And you go back in, and then they continue to try to kill you in the relationship, basically. They they they they are not there for you. You can't trust. And you keep having your trust broken.

You need to establish some boundaries. And in those boundaries, the person that wants to rebuild the trust is gonna have to make some sacrifices.

In other words, they're gonna have to to to to do some hard things like like in in in a scenario, you're in most of those sacrifices are gonna be honoring a boundary. And that boundary is usually gonna make you have to like check your ego and your pride.

And you're gonna have to do some stuff that you don't wanna do because it seems silly because especially if you're a Christian, we've got this demented idea that that forgiveness equals reconciliation

and forgiveness equals trust. When personal relationships, it doesn't. I can forgive you and still not trust you any further than I can throw you. If you're untrustworthy, I could say, you know what? You're sorry. I do believe you. I am gonna forgive you.

But I'm not gonna let you back into the inner circle of trust and close and go back to the same way the relationship was to give you another chance to do that until we have some boundaries set up and you need to honor that. And that boundary is gonna cost you a sacrifice.

So let me put it this way. If you're the person that that is breaking trust all the time, I wanna talk to you for a sec. Let's use marriage for example, and you keep breaking a trust and you want back in, you can't manipulate and say, but you said you forgave me. It takes one to forgive. It takes two to reconcile.

And it takes time for trust. Trust takes a long time to build. It takes a second to destroy. And so you're gonna have to set up a boundary, and you can't say, well, you said you forgave me. That is manipulative. It's wrong, and it's borderline abusive if you keep doing that.

And you have had the trust broken. You need to listen to me that because you know what you wanna do? You just want it to be normal again. So you're so quick to like, okay, they looked at me nice. That's all the boundary I needed.

And then you're just gonna recreate the same problem and build more and more issues because someone who breaks trust in a relationship, especially if you're married, there is something going on that's got ahold of them, that's made them very unstable. And them just saying, I won't do that anymore is not gonna work.

Let me use one of the most common examples. One of the spouses you discover has a pornography problem, And what we always do is say, oh, I'm so sorry. I'll never do that again. You're like, okay. And then you trust. No boundary, no sacrifice. But the problem is pornography is so easy to access.

And if you look at pornography, it changes your brain chemistry, it changes the way you view a sex, and it distorts you in a way that you're not even realizing. They they say it gives a high kinda like having a heroin addiction. Would you take a heroin addict and say, you know what? You caught me.

I just won't do heroin anymore. Okay. Well, go back to your office where there's still heroin sitting in there, and I trust that you won't. Kinda like this. Like like like like, I used to love eating late at night, and I love ice cream. But ice cream doesn't love me.

And and and the problem was, you know, I'm pretty good. My wife's awake. Like, don't eat the ice cream. Don't eat the the problem is I could say, I'm not gonna eat ice cream anymore, but there's still ice cream in the freezer. How long is that gonna last? Until finally, I'm so hungry at midnight, everyone's asleep.

Who's gonna know? Everyone's gonna know when they find the entire container that was full the night before ripped open because not only did I empty it, I licked the sides of it. There eventually, you get caught when someone goes, there's no more ice cream. You see,

pornography is so easy to get to that you could say you're not gonna do it anymore, but pornography is like ice cream in the freezer. It's always there. You need to make some sacrifices. You need to get some help. But see, that's kinda shameful to admit it. It's kinda prideful to admit. Well, I'll help you out.

I had this problem twenty five, thirty years ago. And I'm telling you, I only got it on accident. And I only started to have the problem for a few months. And it changed the way I talked to my my little kid, my only and and it changed the way I acted in in no time. It instantly already changed me.

And I, on my own, said, you know what? This is dumb. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I was good for a while. Did not. Well, then I started to make some changes on my own,

and and and and and I ended up my wife found the book I was reading on every man's battle, and I was reaching out. Was just trying to and she started reading. So this is fascinating. This is how guys really think? This is I go, yeah. And she goes, well, you don't do this, do you? You don't have this problem.

And I'm like, I've been good for, like, a month or two. I said, it's been good. I'm like, I've I could've, in that moment, said answered her technically correctly. At this moment, no. I do not have this problem. But what she meant was, you haven't ever struggled with this, have you?

I chose to say yes.

Put a little boundary up, but she was loving towards me and encouraged me, and I chose to get a I ended up getting the the the the filtering software. It's embarrassing. And it goes on me and put this on, and then I had to choose who it gets sent to that's gonna hold me accountable.

And back then, the filtering software, you had to use their thing. It slowed down the Internet. It made it doing everything slower.

It seems a little bit shameful. You realize all these years later, I still have filtering software on. You know why? Because even though I got over this thing and it and it's good and I feel like I've got on the right path, the ice cream is always in the freezer. And you have to have the courage to do that.

You need to seek help. It might be go to a recovery program. We have CR here. Might need to get a counselor. You gotta at least get stuff like the the the filtering software and give people access to it that you trust. You might even need to give that access to your spouse where she sees exactly what what you see.

There's been examples. There is a program of counseling

that they do for people that have had multiple affairs, but yet they're the the spouse is still willing to say, alright. They're coming back. They're promising me. They they wanna make this right, and they're willing to make this level of sacrifice to rebuild the trust is you get the normal counseling,

but you also go in every at first, it's like once a month, then it's every three months, and you get hooked up to a polygraph test, and your spouse can ask you any question they want. That seems like a hit on your ego, but that's the sacrifice it takes to rebuild trust.

So what you need is you need and you work out the boundaries. Talk to a counselor. Pray about it. It's whatever. I can't tell you every little boundary. I'm just gonna tell you that there's gonna need to be some boundaries, and whoever's wanting to rebuild the trust is gonna have to sacrifice some things. Usually, it's your pride.

And and the other thing, needs to be consistency. The trust breaker can't be the one that says, alright. I've done it long enough. You need it. It's it's gotta be the trust builder, the one that wants to see it. Has to happen for some consistency. It can't be, okay, this has been happening for three days. We're fine.

It's hard. It's hard. It's really hard for the one that said the trust trust broken, especially if you're Christian and you choose to love your spouse to maintain a healthy boundary. But then on the flip side, ultimately, you have to have faith. So for those of you, if you have someone in your life that is sacrificing,

they have done these move consistency consistently. At some point, you have to know this. You are never gonna be 100% convinced that you can trust them, But you have to get to the point where you've seen it consistently enough, you've seen their attitude, you've seen the choices they've made, that you are gonna eventually

have to step out in faith and choose to show trust again. The other mistake I've seen in counseling is is is you've developed such a trust issue that as this person does it consistently,

you just start putting another hoop and another hoop and another hoop. And the reality is because you need to be a thousand percent without faith convinced,

and you're almost turning the tables. You can get to the way where you're almost being cruel, like, I'm gonna get you back. I'm gonna make you suffer for it. I'm gonna do this. I can't tell you when that time is, but there's gonna come a point where they have been consistent enough

that if you are gonna choose to try to rebuild trust, you're gonna have to then step back into the trust ring and give it a shot. I hope that helps and makes sense. But that's kinda what we need to do if we want to rebuild these trusting relationships. And in the end, I think it still goes back to what we read in Psalm 119

about how if we're gonna do that,

the best way to learn to build trust and have the model for trusting relationships that can be consistent is to trust God.

Always trust him first. Because in Psalms one nineteen, wanna read one more verse, one forty three, it says this, as pressure and stress bear down on me, I find joy in your commands. Catch that?

When pressure and stress, when life gets hard, when it's really running, what the psalmist is saying, if you learn to trust God, he goes, when the pressure is greatest, when life is the hardest, when life is the scariest, when life wants to tear me apart the most, that's when he finds even more joy in God's word.

Can you say that about yourself? How many of us that are here that you've known Jesus a long time, you come here all the time, you're you're in church. But when stress and pressure is the most, it's because of God's word. It's because you don't want to trust it or you don't like God's plan for your life.

And that stress and pressure is really coming. You're like Saul. It actually caused him to have emotional breakdowns because he had the stress. He knew who God was. He had seen God work. He really did believe in God, but he also wanted this. And so God's word just increased the pressure and stress

when God's word should be the joy you find in the pressure and stress. But the only way you find the joy through God's word in the pressure and stress is you've learned to actually trust it

during pressure and stress. It means you've learned to let your words, I trust you, God, actually be followed up by your ways. I'm gonna do what you say to do in these moments.

It's why so many people struggle financially. The best time to trust God with your money is when you don't have any, is when you're broke because you will see God take care of you. But no, you don't want to because you wanna be king of your life. And in our culture, king of your life means king of the wallet.

And you wanna go. And guess what? You can come to church all you want. That pressure and stress will never go away. You think you just gotta get more money. I've met in the world some of the poorest people I've ever seen that the most joy because they have the they love the lord and they trust him anyways. You can be broke

and still have joy if you trust God with what he says to do with your resources. See, that's the tough part. That's where trust becomes real. And I think a lot of us are pressured and stressed because you're fighting God's word

instead of finding joy in God's word. And you know why we should trust God's word? Why he proves himself the most trustworthy? Is the word became flesh? Let me read one more verse.

One more verse. It's the most popular verse, well known verse in the Bible. Matter of fact, there's always someone holding up a sign at football games.

Truthfully, when they were doing football games and they're putting cardboard cutouts of people, I think they should have put one with holding the this verse up. It's John three sixteen.

You probably know it. And it says this, for this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. This is how God loved. He gave. Love gives. God loved us,

and his words then were matched by his ways. He loved us even though we are untrustworthy. Every one of us ascend. Every one of us walks away from it. Every one of us has had moments where we know what God's word is, but the pressure and stress from trying to trust God is we went the other way. All of us.

And none of us can earn God's love. None of us, not one of us. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God as the Bible says. And yet here he says, God loved us anyways. And he loved us so much he gave his son. He cost him everything and we gave him nothing. Talk about trust.

Looking to the cross should be why wouldn't you trust God with your money, your time, your relationships, your how you're gonna what you're gonna do on the computer, what you why wouldn't you trust what God says to do when he knows that we were absolutely untrustworthy

ending to ending to an eternity without him to sit under his judgment and he says, but you know what? I'm gonna give my son. I'm Jesus says, will die. I'm gonna pour out my life for you. And there is nothing in it for me other than the fact that I am love, I created you, and I love you.

And that's why I believe the number one thing that God he the number one thing to remember Jesus

is the night before he died, he broke some bread, he poured some wine, he said, this is my body broken for you. This is my blood spilled for forgiveness of sins. And then what does he say? Do this in remembrance of me. Of all the things he asked the church body when we gather to frequently take this moment we call communion,

where what we're doing is we're looking at the cross. We're looking at when Jesus got on the cross. Why? Of all the things we're supposed to remember, why does he always wanna bring us back to this moment? You know why?

How did Satan plunge us into the mess we're in? How was he smart enough to know, here's how I'm gonna destroy the relationship between God and his creation? He tricked Adam and Eve into not trusting God. Every sin comes from us choosing to not trust God, every one. And so when we are afraid and we're having stress

and we're stressing on whether we should trust God or not, he says look to the cross. God gave all for those who couldn't give anything. Why wouldn't you trust him? In other words, he said, look at me like my kids in the bathtub. I was saying, look at me.

And then I put my hand upon him. When Jesus came into this world, he put his hand upon us and he says, look up at me. Look at what I'm gonna do. And what he poured over us was his blood, his love, his grace, his death. He poured out his life, and

that washed away the dirt, that washed away the sin, that washed away the shame, that washed away the brokenness, that allowed us to have the holy spirit, that allows us to truly trust him and experience the life he meant it to be. But some of us are so full. You're in here every week and you're still full

because you won't look at him. Stop looking down and getting soap in your eyes. Look up to the cross and let his love wash you clean every single time. And that's why we take communion. So I wanna pray. I'm gonna take communion and sing a song.

But who I wanna pray with is if you already know the Lord, the Holy Spirit's already talking to you. What do you need to talk to him about in your life where your words are not matching your ways? Just start praying.

But there's some of us in this room and online that you've never put your faith in Jesus. You're not a Christian. You have to choose to say you return to him and away from yourself. Go, I'm not going to be king of my life. You are. And I'm going to put my faith in what you did to save me. Not what I do.

So if that's you, I wanna pray with you so we can take this for real for the first time. So we pray. So if that's you in this room and or online, you've never put your faith in Jesus, just pray something like this, but make it your own words. Go, Jesus, thank you.

Thank you that when when when when I had nothing to offer, you gave everything you had to rescue me. And so, Lord, now thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for dying on the cross for me and coming back to life to defeat death, to prove that you can be trusted. So right now, in the best way I know how, I turn for myself

and I turn to you. I look to you, and I know that it's only you that can rescue you and save me. Only your ways are the ways that should be my ways because you made me and you love me. So thank you.

Help me to go from this moment and learn and trust your spirit and learn your word and trust your word. So each and every day, can learn to trust and walk in my ways and let them be your ways. Thank you for loving me. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus.

He then took the bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat.

He took the cup. This is my blood spilled for the forgiveness of your sins. Take and drink.

In other words, God is so so good to you and me.

He deserves to be the king of our hearts.

Our God is good. Amen. He is so faithful. And we can go into this week and remember that He is on our side, and He is good regardless of the decisions we make, that he is good based off of his his goodness and his glory. Church, we love our time together in worship.

If you made the decision to follow Jesus today, please let us know so we can walk alongside you in this incredible journey. Thank you for joining us online today. If you need prayer, connect with us at rockpoint.io

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