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Learning to Trust God

Delivered September 25, 2005
by Pastor Werner De Jong

Text: Exodus 14:10-31

Main Idea: Through a massive display of power and grace, God teaches the people of Israel that they can trust him, even in the face of an invincible enemy.

Purpose: To encourage the listeners that God loves them and has used his tremendous power and grace to make them into a people. To challenge the listeners to trust God, and avoid violence, even in the face of seemingly impossible situations.

Introduction: The most important lesson any of us can learn in life is learning to trust God. Those who trust in God are able to live and enjoy life to the fullest. They know they are loved and cared for, and they know that God will look after their needs. Therefore they are able to rest inwardly while others around them are consumed by worry. They experience a deep inner peace even in times of trouble while others are distressed and filled with anxiety. A perfect picture of this is Jesus asleep in the boat on the stormy sea, while his disciples are in a state of panic. Jesus wasn't worried, he knew he was safe in his Father's hands, but the disciples had not yet learned that their heavenly Father could be fully trusted.

      Trusting God is not an easy lesson to learn because our fallen sinful nature is characterized by a spirit of self-sufficiency. Like Adam and Eve we are tempted by the serpent's words: you don't need to obey God, you can be like God. Those words appeal to our pride. Yes, we say, we can follow our own path and meet our own needs. We can set our own agenda and take care of ourselves. We can be self-sufficient. We can be autonomous. We don't need to depend on our Creator for life. We don't need to trust God to look after us.

      Self-sufficiency sounds wonderful, but the end result is that a rigorous spirit of independence cuts us off from God. We were made to need God, to depend on God, to be in a trusting relationship with God. But when we don't trust God, we lose out on the wonder of experiencing God's constant love and care. And then our lives become characterized by an endless striving. We have to worry about meeting all of our own needs. Our energy is consumed by the struggle to get ahead or even to survive. And far from being at peace with our lives, we find that fear and anxiety whisper to us when our guard is down.

Today's Text: We see a dramatic example of fear when we consider today's text, the story of Israel crossing the Red Sea. Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, had recently released the Israelites from slavery after God had demonstrated his great power by striking down the firstborn throughout the land. God was guiding his people through the wilderness when Pharaoh and his officials suddenly changed their minds saying, "What have we done, letting Israel leave our service?" So a large army was amassed, including six hundred of Egypt's best chariots, along with the rest of the chariots in Egypt. Then Pharaoh and the army chased after the people of Israel who had escaped so defiantly. And they finally caught up with them along the shore of the sea. As Israel saw Pharaoh and his army marching relentlessly toward them they began to panic. They cried to the Lord for help, but rather than trusting God they then turned on Moses saying, "Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren't there enough graves for us in Egypt? Our Egyptian slavery was far better than dying out here!"

Trust or Knowledge?: In their reply we see that there is a significant difference between trusting God and believing certain things about God. The Israelites had come to know certain things about God. They knew God's name–it was Yahweh, as God had revealed it to Moses. They knew that Yahweh was the God of their ancestors. They had witnessed Yahweh's mighty acts of power in the Egyptian plagues. They had experienced his guidance through the wilderness, by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. But in spite of their factual knowledge of God, they weren't yet prepared to trust him with their lives.

      This distinction is relevant for us as well. Because of the Bible we know much more about God than the ancient Hebrews did. There are probably many things about God that we believe. We believe that God created heaven and earth. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We believe that Jesus died and rose again. But none of that necessarily means that we have grown to trust God. Like the disciples in the boat, or like the Israelites by the seashore, it often takes a crisis to reveal how strong our trust truly is. How do we respond when enemies threaten us, or when storms blow in our lives? How do we respond when things seem to be crumbling around us? How do act in the midst of a financial crisis, a relationship crisis, or a health crisis? God wants us to turn to him with childlike trust, and to offer up faith-filled prayers with thanksgiving, with the quiet peace and confidence in our hearts that there is no safer place to be than into the hands of God. To grow to trust God in this way is surely the most important lesson for us as we journey through this life.

A Journey Toward Trust: Israel Becomes a People: The good news is that God is patient with us in this area. God knows that such trust doesn't occur automatically, and God doesn't immediately write us off because of our failure to trust. Nowhere is God's grace toward people who struggle to trust him more evident than when we see Israel trembling in fear at the seashore. God had just finished demonstrating his superiority over Pharaoh, but when Pharaoh came charging with his army the people forgot about God and thought Pharaoh would destroy them. Their lack of trust was betrayed by the fact that their faith crumpled under pressure. They took their eyes off of God, and all they could see was this terrible army bearing down on them. That is a perfect illustration of what it means not to trust God: when we don't trust God the problems we encounter seem bigger to us than God is. When we don't trust God we focus our attention on the problem facing us, rather than on the greatness of God. Learning to trust God is ultimately learning to fix our eyes on God and not on ourselves or the difficulties we face.

      In spite of their total collapse of morale, God didn't abandon the Israelites. How did God respond to his wavering people? By leading them to safety through the Red Sea. First of all, God moved to station himself between Israel and her enemy. The angel of God and the pillar of cloud, which had been in front of Israel leading them, now moved around behind them, and created a barrier in front of the Egyptian army. Then God told Moses to hold his staff out over the water, and a strong east wind blew all night, turning the seabed into dry land. A path opened up through the sea, and the people walked through on dry ground, with a wall of water on either side. But when Pharaoh's army tried to cross, the chariots became clogged. Then God told Moses to hold out his staff again, and the waters returned to their normal level, drowning the army of Pharaoh. The good news is that God did not abandon his faithless people.

      But just like last week, when we considered the death of all the firstborn in Egypt, we may find ourselves very disturbed by God's action here. Why did God destroy the Egyptian army? In reply we can give the same answer we did last week, and talk about God's holiness and God's right to deal however he wants with his creation. And we can also mention that we need to balance this picture with other biblical ones, especially the picture of God laying down his own life for his enemies on the cross. That is the greatest picture of God in the Bible. But we can also complement it with another thought, which is this: nowhere in the Bible does God ever compromise with evil. The victory over evil which God accomplished at the sea is parallelled in the New Testament by Jesus' unyielding opposition to Satan's demonic realm and victory over it.

Israel's Response: Faith: But we shouldn't allow this question to detract us from the main emphasis in this text. The story is much more about rescue than decimation. It is a celebration of God's salvation of Israel. For our purposes the important thing is to see how Israel responded. The text reads like this: "When the people of Israel saw the mighty power that the Lord had displayed against the Egyptians, they feared the Lord, and put their faith in him and in his servant Moses" (14:31). And so we see that God hadn't given up on the people: rather, through a massive display of power and grace God taught the people that they could trust him. And did you hear how their trust came about? Their trust came about when they saw the work of God, when their eyes were no longer on themselves or Pharaoh.

      This is the first time in the Bible where we hear that the people of Israel as a whole put their faith in God. The entire narrative is written to describe a journey toward faith. It is a journey which centres on a change in perspective. This miraculous rescue was ever after remembered as the event by which God brought his people into being. Israel left Egypt fleeing as slaves, but emerged from the sea as a people. On one side of the sea Israel was weak and without hope; on the other side Israel had received a new identity as the people of God. The bondage of Egypt lay behind, and the wilderness and freedom lay ahead.

Basis for Trust: From this story it becomes clear that the basis of Israel's trust was God's demonstration of power and grace on her behalf. If the people did not know it before, they were now learning that God was utterly committed to them. In a very dramatic way it became quite obvious that God was bigger than their problems. God was bigger than Pharaoh, bigger than the entire army of Egypt, and bigger even than the sea. The end result of the confrontation is that the people had new vision: no longer did they view the situation through Pharaoh's might, now their vision was corrected, and they viewed the situation through God's greater power.

      That is the perfect illustration of what it means to trust God: it is to realize that our great God cares for us and is bigger than any of our problems. We don't have to panic when trouble strikes, for God is bigger than any trouble. The struggle between Israel and Egypt was not decided on the ratio of Israel's military power to Pharaoh's, but by the ratio of Pharaoh's power to God's power. In the same way when we are faced with problems that are beyond our ability to control, the outcome doesn't depend on the measure of our strength compared to that of the problem. Rather, it depends upon the difference in strength between the problem and God. That difference is infinite.

      And just like Israel, God loves us and God has used his tremendous power and grace to make us into a people. The only difference is that we have received a much greater demonstration of power and grace to consider than Israel did. The basis for our trust is not merely what God accomplished at the seashore, as impressive as that was. Nor is it so merely based on Jesus' power to calm the raging sea. Rather, the basis for our trust is what God accomplished at the cross and the empty tomb. At the cross God demonstrated his great love for us when Jesus offered up his life in order to save ours. If we ever need a sign that God is committed to us, that is it, we already have one. And the almighty power of God was demonstrated when Jesus was raised from the dead, sealing his victory over sin and Satan, and signalling the defeat of death itself. By the grace and power of God we have become a people–a people whose enemies have all been defeated. Our sins have been forgiven, the power of darkness no longer has the power to enslave us, and we no longer need to fear death because we have eternal life. In this sense the victory by the sea was merely a foreshadowing of the far greater victory to come. The exodus from the bondage in Egypt serves as a small foretaste of the joys of life we now have in the presence of God. The Israelites experienced the blessing of physical freedom, but the blessings we have in Jesus extend far beyond that. As Paul writes to the Ephesians, "God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." And he goes on to list those blessings: we are adopted as God's children; we are holy and blameless before God in love; we have redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses; we also have an eternal inheritance; and the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, is the pledge that we truly have been redeemed to be God's own people. Given all that God has done for us, can we not trust him? Are we not wise to fix our eyes upon God with childlike trust?

God will fight for you: Our Exodus text doesn't only demonstrate that God can be trusted. It demonstrates that we can trust God even in impossible situations. The people of Israel couldn't have been in a worse spot: with an army intent on swallowing them up within visual range, and closing quickly, and with no place to escape. When faced with such danger, the instinctual human response is either flight or fight. Flight was impossible. Would the people then try to fight back against the Egyptians?

      They might have, but Moses spoke a clear word of God to them saying: "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still" (Ex. 14:13-14). In his commentary Waldemar Janzen writes that if he had to choose one verse as central to the whole book of Exodus, he would choose this one (Exodus, Herald Press). "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still." As Israel discovered, if God is fighting for you, what is there to be afraid of? Even insurmountable odds can be overcome. With God fighting for us, what do we have to fear? There is no reason to panic or worry or give in to anxiety with God by our side. As Paul put it in his letter to the Romans: "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?" (Rom. 8:31-32).

      The whole matter boils down to this: there is no problem in life greater than God. There is no difficulty too big for God to handle. As Jesus said: "Nothing is impossible for God." There can be no greater reassurance when we are faced by a seemingly impossible situation that God is on our side, and that God will fight for us.

      This teaching encourages us that we don't need to worry or try to take matters into our own hands when we feel threatened. As God said to Israel through Moses, "let me deal with your enemies. You don't have to fight them." In our situation we have been applying that teaching to the problems we face in our lives, but we can also apply it to real flesh and blood enemies. Christians don't need to resort to violence to protect themselves, for God is with us, and God says to us, "keep still, the battle is mine."

      Some people have used the story of the exodus to encourage armed revolt against any political oppressors. But they fail to note that Israel never raised a hand against her enemy. She only had to keep still and to watch as God fought for her. As Waldemar Janzen writes, if this text teaches us anything about human warfare, it is to let God deal with our enemies: "While every nation at war," he writes, "ancient and modern, claims God or its gods to be on its side, Israel is challenged to trust its God enough to hold back in its own military efforts."

      An airtight case for pacifism certainly cannot be made based on the Old Testament alone, for there are other stories where God directly asks Israel to take up arms against other people. But we need to note that already, early on, there is this other strand of biblical material, this strand which says, "you do not need to fight, I will fight for you." This is not only an isolated teaching. In the book of Isaiah, for example, the prophet urges the kings of his time to trust in God's leading and not to take up military alliances with other political powers. As Isaiah said: "in quietness and in trust shall be your strength" (30:15). King Hezekiah's obedience to this call resulted in a miraculous victory over the vastly superior Assyrian army besieging his capital city. After Hezekiah consulted with Isaiah he prayed to God and left the matter in God's hands. Then the angel of the Lord fought on behalf of Israel, and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrians, and the rest of the army withdrew (Is. 36-37).

      If the Old Testament gives a mixed message, the message of the New Testament does not: "Love your enemies," taught Jesus, "bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute you." Jesus called this a new law, the law of love. Christianity is a new and better way of life, a way of life hinted at in the Old Testament but which awaited Jesus for its fulfilment. It is a way of life that rejects violence and the taking of life as a means of protecting ourselves and advancing the kingdom of God. Ultimately it is a way of life based entirely on trust. So even when we are faced by physical enemies, the teaching is still the same: trust in God, for God is on your side. That doesn't mean we will never be hurt or even killed when we assume a non-violent posture, but it does mean that even then we trust enough in the promise of God that whoever lays down his life in this world will take it up again in the life to come.

Conclusion: The conclusion of the matter is this: we can trust God, in any and all circumstances, because God loves us, and God's power is invincible, and God is on our side. There is no greater lesson to learn in life than this. Therefore when we go to bed tonight, we can lay our heads on our pillows with perfect peace. I leave you with the words of King David from Psalm 27: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?...Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will know no fear. Even if they attack me, I remain confident....Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" (vv.1,3,14).

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