This week we are wrapping up our short series, When I Am Afraid. For the last three weeks we have been talking about how to deal with times of fear and anxiety in our lives. Ultimately, the way we are going to get through that particular storm is through our willingness to trust in God. But what if we don’t trust in God? What if someone we know who is struggling under the weight of life doesn’t trust in God? What then? Well, we have to learn how and why trusting Him is the best decision we’ll ever make. In this last part of our journey, unpacking that truth is what we are talking about with the help of something Jesus said that reveals a great deal about His character. Let’s dive right in.

Learning to Trust

I want you to think for a second about someone you just don’t trust. My guess is that you have at least one person in your life who fits that particular bill. I’m not as concerned with the precise reason for the mistrust right now as I am with the presence of the mistrust itself. Do you have that person in mind? Now, imagine that you are struggling with something fairly significant and this person comes and offers you help. Are you going to accept it? Probably not, right? Maybe if you are sufficiently desperate you’ll give it some consideration, but absent that, you’ll keep on struggling on your own rather than take help from this person. Why? Because you don’t trust them. You don’t trust they are really going to be there when you need them. You don’t trust they aren’t offering with insincere or ulterior motives. You don’t trust they aren’t going to let you down in the end. You don’t trust them. And when you don’t trust someone, it’s hard to receive much of anything from them. 

On the contrary, when there is a strong foundation of trust, you’ll let the other person do just about anything for you. Even if their offer of help seems strange, you’ll still take it because you know beyond a shadow of doubt that they will come through for you in the end. They always do. That’s why you trust them. Without that foundation of trust in place, even if you need help, you are going to try to manage on your own because you trust yourself more than the people who may be offering. 

So, last week we talked about the help God provides us when we are in a season of fear or anxiety. That kind of a season can become intensely isolating if we lean into it and try to navigate through it on our one. The help God provides is always there, even when we can’t see it, but unless we are willing to accept that help, it won’t do us any good. Unless we are willing to step out on faith and let His Spirit have His way in us, His help for us is meaningless to us. If we have such a potent source of help at the ready when we need it, though, why wouldn’t we use it? Why wouldn’t anyone receive something like that with joy and gladness? The answer is simple: Trust, or rather a lack thereof. If we don’t trust God, just like when we don’t trust another person, we aren’t nearly as likely to receive the help He offers. 

Okay, but why would someone not trust God? I mean, He’s God. Well, how long have you got? There are all sorts of reasons why someone might not really trust God very much if at all. For starters, we can’t actually see Him, and as physically rooted as we are, we struggle quite a lot to trust someone or something we can’t see. Beyond that, it could be that they feel like God didn’t come through for them the way they wanted Him to at some critical juncture. Maybe they prayed a prayer they didn’t feel was answered the way they wanted. Perhaps they saw someone else struggling and praying and not apparently receiving any help from God, so why would they trust Him to help them? Maybe they lost someone close after praying for them to get better. And while a solid theological argument can be made that our reasons for not trusting God are always illegitimate and irrational, it doesn’t feel that way to the person experiencing them. And, if we were in their shoes, experiencing what they are, we’d feel the same way. 

For the last three weeks now, we have been talking about how to handle seasons of fear and anxiety in our lives. All of us face times like these on occasion. They are more frequent and harder to grapple with for some than others, but pretty much no one is exempt from them at least every once in a while. And if we aren’t prepared for dealing with them, they can quickly spiral out of our control. They can take the reins of our lives, dictating how we respond not only to our present situation, but all of the people around us whether they are a part of that situation or not. In the end, we are left in a far worse state than we’d like to be. Fortunately, the Scriptures have a ton to say about these times. We’ve only really begun to scratch the surface over the course of this series, but we have laid out some pretty foundational ideas along the way. 

Two weeks ago we established that trust is the key to overcoming fear and anxiety. Just like David declared in Psalm 56, when we are afraid, we can trust in God. This trust is not something that comes from us, of course. It is a gift of God given to all those willing to receive it. It comes through an active and healthy engagement with His word, and is sustained by prayer and our connection to a church community. This trust is also not a magic wand that will make all of our hard times suddenly become easier. What it will do is to give us the strength of hope, the grounding of joy, and the unshakeable confidence of peace, all fueled by the unending and perfect love of God that drives out fear. In other words, trust in God won’t necessarily change our circumstances, but it will change us, and that’s really what we need most. 

Last time, as we just said, we talked about the fact that when we trust in God, His help will be there for us. It will be there even when we can’t see it. His help isn’t dependent on our ability to see it. In fact, it’s not dependent on anything since He Himself is not dependent on anyone or anything. The key factor here is whether or not we are willing to receive it. But this just brings us back around to where we were a second ago. For all of the help that is available in our God, and for all that our trust in Him is the secret to our receiving that help, if we don’t actually trust Him, all the affirmations in the world to do otherwise aren’t going to make much of a difference. If we are going to talk about trusting Him, then, what we really need to establish is that He is someone who is worthy of our trust. As we wrap up this short journey this morning, that’s exactly what I’d like to explore with you. 

In order to do this, I want to take you to a pretty powerful little passage. Some verses are really powerful all by themselves. The truth they convey is life altering without connecting it to anything else. As we talk about the character of our God and why He is worthy of our trust this morning, I want to explore something Jesus said that fits in this category. Check this out with me in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

That’s good, right? It’s good enough that we really don’t need to add anything to it. We could just pick that apart, piece by piece, and that could occupy all of our time this morning. But no verse exists without a context. If you are reading a verse without its context, you are setting yourself up for misunderstanding, confusion, and incorrect interpretation and application. Don’t do that. Context matters. In fact, after Jesus, context is King when it comes to our understanding the Scriptures. And in this case, the context of what Jesus says here makes it even better, especially with our current conversation in mind. 

What Jesus says here comes at the tail end of Matthew 11. And, as we talked about at some length a few months ago when we were there in our journey through Matthew’s Gospel in Bible study on Wednesday nights (and, if you’re thinking that I’m going to say something you won’t understand because you weren’t there, number one, I wouldn’t do that to you, but number two, that’s yet another reason you shouldn’t miss the Gathering Place on Wednesday nights), Matthew 11 is one big reflection on doubt and God’s response to it. 

The chapter opens with this shocking story about John the Baptist, the guy who was the herald of the Messiah, whose birth was foretold just like Jesus’ was, and who knew from birth that he was put on earth to get people ready for Jesus, sending a messenger to Jesus to ask if He was really the guy his life was supposed to be about promoting. Look at this back at the beginning of the chapter: “When Jesus had finished giving instructions to his twelve disciples, he moved on from there to teach and preach in their towns. Now when John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples and asked him ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’” 

For somebody like John the Baptist to express this level of doubt about who Jesus is should be at one and the same time incredibly encouraging to us, but also incredibly challenging. It is encouraging because if someone like John the Baptist could experience this level of doubt and not be written off by God, we’re probably safe from that outcome in our own seasons of doubt and fear. It’s challenging, though, for precisely the same reason. If someone like John the Baptist could experience this level of doubt, the idea that we are going to go through our own lives without ever experiencing at least some amount of doubt suddenly seems pretty far-fetched. That may be something you need to wrap your mind around if the idea of challenges to your faith foundation gives you pause at all. Anybody can experience doubts, but they don’t mean God will be done with us. 

Indeed, Jesus’ response to John’s doubt was to declare him to be the greatest person to ever live in front of the crowd there listening as his disciples posed his question to Jesus. When somebody off the street calls you the greatest person who ever lived, you just ignore them because they don’t know what they’re talking about. When someone gives themself that kind of a title, we lock them up because they’re crazy. But for Jesus to say something like this is a pretty big deal. And it was John’s expression of doubt and fear and anxiety that prompted the accolade. 

In the next section of chapter 11, Jesus addresses the fact that like John, there were a lot of people who doubted His identity in the regions where He had been doing most of His miracles. Unlike John, though, the people of these places weren’t actively seeking Him out to have their doubts affirmed and their faith strengthened. They were content to enjoy the show of His miracles, but to otherwise ignore Him and live like He didn’t matter. To this group Jesus had…well…let’s say “harder” things to say. He basically tells them that they were even worse than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and therefore shouldn’t expect any better from God than those two cities received. Yikes! 

After all of this, Jesus turns His attention to His Father in prayer and praises Him for revealing the truth about His identity not just to the best and brightest, the “haves” of the land, but to those who actually want to learn it. Jump down to v. 25: “At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.’” 

Now, that sounds pretty hard and exclusive of Jesus until you remember that He soon sacrificed His life on the cross so that everyone could come to know the Father, and commanded His followers to go out and share the Gospel—the good news of the Father—with everyone willing to hear it. The issue here is not Jesus’ willingness to reveal God the Father to enough people, but rather our willingness to accept the revelation He has made widely available for what it is and worship the Father as He deserves. 

So then, now that we have established that the context here is that Jesus is speaking into the hearts of those who are inclined toward doubt for one reason or another, we can see that this is all the more significant of an invitation from Jesus here at the end of the chapter than it first appeared. He’s not simply making a general declaration that people who are having a hard time in some way can come to Him and find relief (although He’s not not doing that). He is speaking right to the hearts of those who are least inclined to trust Him. He’s saying to them—maybe to you—come and give me a try. 

Think about that for a second. What other God is as patient with our doubt and mistrust as this one is? In Buddhism, there isn’t really a god to believe in and trust in the first place. There’s just some general practices that may or may not help you have a more peaceful life, and if they don’t work, it’s really all your fault for not getting them right in the first place. Hinduism has plenty of gods to believe in, but they don’t really care if you have any faith in them as long as you keep them adequately supplied with offerings. New Age or Wiccan gods and goddesses aren’t worth worshiping, let alone trusting, for their character at all. And the god of Islam, Allah, looks at those who might be doubting and disobedient as little more than enemies in need of being punished. But the God of the Bible, the eternal Father who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus the Son, and who together sent the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity, to continue to help us understand Him better and to live in light of who He is, says “come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” 

He invites us to experience His love and gentleness. He invites us to draw near and experience His goodness so that we can see for ourselves that He is worthy of our trust. When you are struggling the most with doubt and the fear and anxiety that so often both cause and come from it, Jesus leans in the hardest and says, “Hey, you really can trust me.” He says, “I will give you rest.” It doesn’t matter how big your burden is. If you are weary, you can go to Him. 

But come on, that sounds too easy, right? We’re just supposed to forget all that mistrust we have, throw it to the side, and go to Him? Well, yes, but Jesus understands that’s not easy for a lot of folks. He understands that it may not be easy for you. So, He’s willing to help. Look at that next part again in v. 29: “Take up my yoke and learn from me.” 

Now, you know what a yoke is, right? It’s the thing you put over the neck of a working animal like a cow or an ox or a horse so that it can pull a load. Well, getting a young animal without much experience pulling a plow or wagon used to the work takes some effort. You have to train them. But if you just put a single yoke over their neck and try to go, it’s going to be a long and frustrating process. What is better—and what farmers used to do—is to hitch up a double yoke over the necks of two animals; one bigger and stronger and more experienced, and the other smaller, weaker, and green. By doing this, the younger one didn’t have to pull as heavy of a load—perhaps more of a load than it could handle—by itself right out of the gate. Instead, the bigger, stronger, more experienced animal took the brunt of the load, and the younger, weaker one, learned along the way. 

When Jesus offers for us to take up His yoke, He’s not offering to simply take our burden away from us. Without any kind of a load at all, we’ll never learn and grow from bearing it. What Jesus offers instead is to come alongside us to help us with our load. He does the work and we learn from Him. This is a good thing because He’s not a harsh teacher. He doesn’t expect us to be able to do what we haven’t learned to do, or bear what we don’t have the strength to bear. He doesn’t get frustrated with us when we come up short and fail. He’s patient and compassionate. He describes Himself here as lowly, or gentle, and humble in heart. “Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

Gentleness is one of the qualities that makes Him so good. Gentleness is not weakness as our culture often imagines it to be. Rather, gentleness is a kind of strength. In fact, it is a particularly powerful kind of strength. Someone who has mastered gentleness has great strength, but also the wisdom for how to manage it well. The gentle person always uses the right amount of strength for the situation he is facing. He has way more strength than is required for the situation, but using all of it wouldn’t be helpful. He uses just the right amount. It’s like when you hold a baby. You have more than enough strength to do great harm to a baby if you’re not careful. But you are careful. You are gentle. Too much strength, and you’ll crush her. Too little strength, and you’ll drop her. You dial your strength to just the right amount. Someone who is gentle is worthy of our trust because we know they will always respond to every situation in just the right way. 

As for humility, we have defined humility in the past as fundamentally about honesty. The humble person is honest about who God is, who she is, and how she should live in light of who God is. Okay, so how does that definition apply to Jesus? Well, Jesus knows exactly who He is. He has no doubts or reservations about His being fully God. Jesus also knows exactly who we are. He knows about all of our weaknesses and faults and failings. He knows what we can handle and what is beyond our ability. He knows all of that, and because He also knows that He is God—a God who specializes in loving and serving those who are weaker than He is—He responds to our weakness with love and compassion. He responds to our doubts with gentle reassurance. He responds to our anxiety with peace. He responds to our fear with courage and confidence. 

We sometimes imagine that God somehow grows frustrated with our weakness. He gets tired of our always drifting toward doubt. Our constantly opting for anxiety wears Him out. We imagine all of this because we struggle to imagine God as much more than a being in our image who just happens to be really powerful. This is how people have always imagined their gods to be. They are just like us with all of our faults and failings, they just happen to have super powers. But that’s not the God revealed here in the pages of the Scriptures at all. God isn’t worn down by our weaknesses in the various forms they take. Rather, He is energized by them because it gives Him more opportunity to love us. 

We serve a God who delights in meeting our needs. He rejoices when He can calm our fears with the assurance of His presence. When He affirms our doubt with a subtle reminder of His goodness, He throws a party. And when He does it for the 1,000th time just today, He throws just as big of a party. We serve the God who was called a friend of sinners, not their enemy. To borrow a line from a great book the deacons have been studying through called Gentle and Lowly, “Your gentlest treatment of yourself is less gentle than the way your heavenly Father handles you. His tenderness toward you outstrips what you are even capable of toward yourself.”

What all of this means is that we can trust Him. You can trust Him. You can trust Him enough to receive His help. You can trust Him enough to offload your fears and anxieties onto His broad, sturdy shoulders, and let Him soothe your concerns with His Spirit. You can love freely and without fear because His love will never end. Even when everyone else fails and passes away, He will still be there as the same God who loves you just as much as He did the day you first entered into His mind as a creation worth creating. No matter what is going on, go to Jesus. He will be enough for you. 

Your circumstances might be a mess right now. In fact, they may be such a big mess you don’t really know what you are going to do about them or how you will ever get out from under them. Go to Jesus. No matter what is going on, go to Jesus. You may feel like you are just too broken or your sin is just too great. There’s no way God is going to want to have anything to do with you after you’ve fallen back into the same sin pattern yet again this week…and it’s only Sunday. Yet Paul declared at the Spirit’s prompting that there is nothing that is capable of separating you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. He didn’t say there is nothing capable of doing that except for the circumstances you just happen to be facing right now. He said there is nothing. No matter what is going on, go to Jesus. Let Him show you He can be enough. No matter what is going on, go to Jesus. 

Can I add one more thing here at the end? Just this and then we’re out of here. If you are someone who has struggled in the past to trust in God, think for a second about how you build trust with another person with whom that trust has been fractured or broken. How does that happen? You show them love over time. The same is true with God. Your trust in God grew to the point it is today because He showed you consistent love over time. Jesus grows our trust in Him by showing us consistent love over time such that no matter what is going on, we can go to Him. 

That’s good to know, but how does He do it? How does He show us love over time like this? Well, a number of different ways, but perhaps His most frequent approach is the church. If you want to grow in your trust in God by experiencing His reassuring love, you need to be in the church. You need to be actively and regularly engaged in the church community. Just being here like this won’t be enough to get the full experience. Yes, it’ll probably be enough to keep you from spiritually starving to death, but not starving to death isn’t really a good standard to aim for. Being fully and healthily nourished is better. If you want that, then you’ve got to get engaged beyond Sunday morning. No matter what is going on, go to Jesus, and do it through His church. After all, where better to experience Jesus than in the context of His body? 

The other side of this matters a lot, though. If you are a fully engaged member of this church, then you are someone through whom Jesus is going to show His love to someone whose trust is flagging and needs to be built up and encouraged. This means you need to be obedient to His call and follow His lead as He directs you to show love to the people around you, and especially those folks who are still connecting and need their trust strengthened and grown. When He prompts you to do something, do it. When He calls you to serve in some way, do it. When it calls you to make that call or send that text or stop by that person’s house, do it. When He calls you to get more involved in building the trust our youngest members have in Him by investing more intentionally in our kids’ and youth ministries, do it. Do all of this here, within these four walls. Do it even more out there in the community. Our love as a church for our community—your love as a member of this church toward the folks in this community who are within your circle of influence and who struggle with trusting God can be the means by which Jesus pours out His love on them so they grow to trust Him more. It will be the means by which they learn that no matter what is going on, they can go to Jesus because He is worthy of their trust. This is how God’s kingdom is grown. Let’s commit to growing it together.