There Are Only Two Choices for the Object of Your Trust!

6th Sunday after Epiphany, 2/17/19
Jeremiah 17:5-8


There Are Only Two Choices for the Object of Your Trust!
I. Yourself
II. Your Lord Jesus


If there’s one thing you can expect in our modern world, it’s a dizzying amount of options, especially in our modern world.

I can recall going to McDonald’s when your only options for a meal were a hamburger or a cheeseburger. And when I got home from McDonald’s and turned on the family TV, there were only three options for channels: CBS, NBC and ABC. And as far as phone service, you had one option—Bell Telephone.

It’s probably hard for some of you to imagine a world like that—such a limited number of options—because, as I just stated, we live in a world with a dizzying number of options.

A majority of people in our world would say that’s also true about your spiritual life. The prevailing spiritual wind today is that your spirituality is your own to decide and whatever you decide is valid and proper. In other words, the potential is for there to be as many spiritual options as there are people living on this earth at any particular moment.

Can there really be that many valid options?!

Obviously not. God’s word through his prophet Jeremiah helps us narrow those options down considerably, even drastically. He presents only two and he describes the outcomes. That’s not a very popular stance to take in a modern world which loves its options. Can Jeremiah be serious?

Indeed he is! Because this isn’t simply Jeremiah’s opinion; this is God’s truth. There are only two choices for the object of your trust. I invite you to join with me as we listen to the Lord present those options and ponder their results.

Part I.

I’ve heard more than one person declare, “You’ve got to believe in yourself.” In post-competition interviews, athletes are often heard making that comment or one similar to it. They just accomplished something spectacular and when asked how they did it, they explain that they had confidence in themselves.

And we can understand that correctly. We enter those situations routinely, almost daily. You’re faced with a task or a challenge. You size up what it will take to reach your goal and you then you begin believing that you have what it takes to succeed. And we admire that, because what’s the alternative? Believing that you’re going to fail? What kind of approach is that? It’s far more productive to believe in yourself.

We’d call that a healthy self-confidence. It allows you to accomplish not only what you need to do every day, but also things that others might think you can’t do.

But far too many people take that approach with themselves as the only variable in the equation. In other words, they only believe in themselves and intentionally cut the Lord out. The Lord used Jeremiah to describe that person this way, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.” What’s so bad about trusting in your own strength?

A number of things. One of them is that it denies the very purpose for human life. We’re not here on this earth to build a name for ourselves and to glory in our earthly accomplishments. God created us to love and serve him, and to glorify him in all we say and do. Contrary to the impression a person might give you, the world does not revolve around them. We’re not even the master of our own destiny.

But those truths fly in the face of the most popular “religion” today which is humanism. When you take the Lord out of the equation for your life, then you end up being your own little god. You decide what’s right and wrong for yourself. You’re answerable to no one and nothing. This life is all there is and you better take advantage of every second of every minute for yourself. Because if you don’t, someone else will take it from you.

But listen to the result of that spiritual worldview, “He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.” Isn’t the Lord overstating the fallout of leaving the Lord out of the equation of your life? After all, I’m sure you know plenty of people who think Christianity is a joke. They intentionally push the Lord out of their lives and they feel good about it. In fact, they seem to be succeeding in life, not losing. They’re happy, wealthy and wise. They’re enjoying the finer things in life, not wasting away in a desert like the Lord says they are.

Maybe not now. But ultimately they will. You see, they’re living a lie, the greatest lie Satan has ever used. That lie is that this life is all there is, so go for all the gusto you can. But nothing could be further from the truth. The 80 to 90 years on this earth are but a blip on the screen of the eternity beyond this one. And if you’re only trusting in yourself and your own strength, you’re going to wish that God’s description of life without him in the next life were true. An arid wasteland doesn’t begin to describe hell’s anguish.

But the fact remains. There are only two choices for the object of your trust. And one is yourself.

I’m going to assume you know that this first choice isn’t one you want to make. In fact, you’re here this morning inside God’s house because you know that a trust in yourself alone is only going to lead to an eternity of trouble and pain. You’re here because you’ve taken to heart the very first of God’s commandments, “You shall have no other gods,” which includes yourself. But do you recognize that worshipping yourself is our natural, sinful default mode? Why is it that we struggle so much with selfishness and self-centeredness? Why is it that we think we deserve something better than we’re getting? Why do we react so strongly, even violently, when we think we’re getting the raw end of the deal or we’re being cheated out of what we deserve? Why can’t we feel more compassion for others? Because we’re prone to making an idol of ourselves. Is it any wonder, then, why we look to our own strength first, rather than fleeing for refuge to our God? News flash! We’re not so special! In fact, we’re wretched rebels against our God. We can’t even let him occupy first place in our hearts and lives. And the God who is love knows that. That’s why he came to this earth—to be the One who always put his Father first in his life in our place. And then he showed how much we mean to him by dying for us as the punishment for our sins. Now there’s someone you can trust!

Part II.

And that’s where our text leads us next.

By anyone’s estimate, Ohio has been devastated by the opioid epidemic. If Ohio isn’t ground zero of this drug’s disaster, then it isn’t far from here. The fallout for families, healthcare and productivity is beyond comprehension.

And yet a few weeks ago, when a local organization was hosting an event to offer help, I was amazed at the few who attended, as reported by a local TV news outlet. When help is so desperately needed, why did so few show up?

Why are you here this morning? I suppose there are many answers to that question, and one of them is that you know you need help. Your own sins and the sins of those around you have brought all sorts of problems into your life. The fallout is all around us. Worse yet, we can’t do a single thing about removing the guilt for a single sin.

That’s where the Lord comes in. His highest will for you is to overcome the devastation that sin has caused in your life. Listen to him describe the person who makes him the object of his trust. “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

That’s a paraphrase of Psalm 1, which we sang earlier. Jeremiah was certainly familiar with that psalm. The Lord wasn’t telling his people anything new through Jeremiah. There is only one way to be truly blessed in this life and the next, and that’s by trusting in the Lord. These words describe such a person as a tree that isn’t phased when the heat of life begins to burn. He or she has their spiritual roots sunk deeply into the word of God which offers God’s living water. Not only that, even under such duress, its leaves are green and it bears fruit. In other words, in situations where others might begin falling apart, the person who trusts in the Lord continues to bear the fruits of the Christian faith, giving glory to God and providing help to others to do the same. Amazing!

That’s a pretty rosy picture, isn’t it? But is it accurate? Does it describe you when life gets tough? Do others see your faith flourishing under the stress of life?

They will when your choice for the object of your trust is in the Lord, in Christ alone.

In every Sunday service, we confess that we believe in God the Father who created us and preserves us, in God the Son who redeemed us, and in God the Holy Spirit who brought us to faith in Jesus and keeps us in that faith. If that is the object of your trust, then you are what the Lord describes here through his prophet Jeremiah. The problem is that our faith ebbs and flows, it increases and decreases. So my encouragement to you today is to sink your faith’s roots deeply into the word of God. Find your forgiveness and your salvation in Christ, who died and rose again for you. Of all the things you do in the next seven days, only that will be something that has blessings for you forever. There are only two choices for the object of your trust. Make the right choice! Put your confidence in your Lord and Savior, in Christ alone! Amen.