Trust Completely

Scripture Passage

Mark 6:7-15

Reflection

Let us pray: “Lord, help me to dedicate myself in Your hands. Lead my life in Your hands. My life does not belong to me; it belongs to You. Help me, oh Lord, to trust in You and leave my life in Your hands.”

Sermon Text

Scripture Passage

Mark 6:7-15

He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some weresaying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.”

The Crowd

You know when I look at Jesus’ life, I realized that Jesus was not much interested in the crowd. Jesus was much more interested in the individuals, some are minorities, disciples. Jesus knew about mob psychology very well. He didn’t take psych 101, but he knew all about a mob psychology, human psychology. He knew what the crowd is like. The crowd, they’re there one day and the next day they’re gone. They’re crazy about you on the day and the next day they don’t even look at. You know, they are very selfish and self-centered. If they like it, they swallow it. If they don’t like it they spit it out. That’s what the crowd is and Jesus knew this crowd so well that he was not fooled by the crowd. He did not do things to entertain the crowd.

By doing that to be popular, he didn’t do any of that. And we looked at the narcissism in modern days. Jesus was not at all narcissistic. He didn’t do all these things to attract attention from the people. Look at me. I’m the savior. I’m great. I can do this. I can do that. You know, I can do this miracle and I can do this teaching Jesus was not interested in doing those things. Jesus just did whatever he had to do. So Jesus was not really interested in the crowd and gathering the crowd, but rather Jesus was interested in small people, a small number of people who truly follow Jesus. Jesus said, “don’t take anything that is so against our culture, against the grain of our culture” Our culture, the more is better, bigger is better. Faster is better. That’s our culture.

Simplicity

But Jesus said, “don’t take even two pieces of clothes. Don’t take money. Oh, don’t take sandal, but don’t take back. Just go out and do it”. When you look at Jesus’ life in the Bible, he was only interested in those who are sincerely desiring to follow Jesus. Not all of those people who are just mesmerized by the power that Jesus displayed. Jesus was not interested in power. Jesus was into truth and Jesus wanted to teach these disciples to exercise the same thing. So today’s story is after Jesus called 12 disciples, Jesus sent them out to do the work and these people went out and did wonderful things. Just all kinds of miracles they could perform. They never tried that before. They never experienced them before. They simply followed Jesus and what Jesus is trying to say is “what I’m doing, you can do also if you believe in me”. Today’s story, Jesus said, “don’t take any of that” Jesus is not asking you to be poor, to live a humble living. That’s not the main point. The main point of today’s stories is that you don’t take anything, don’t depend on those things. Can’t you just depend on me? Can you just trust me? Can you just follow what I’m telling you to do? Then you can experience an amazing thing in your life. And they actually followed Jesus and then did amazing things that they never are expected to do. We have so much, so many clothes, so many shoes, so many bags and car. How do we have so many things, but somehow don’t feel powerful?. You’re not empowered. We cannot do a lot of things, we always worry about tomorrow when we have so much. For people who have nothing to eat, they worry about tomorrow, but we have so much. There’s so much food in the refrigerator, but still, we worry about tomorrow.

I don’t know why when have so much, why do we worry? Look at the birds of the air. They do not fall because God takes care of them. Look at the lilies in the field they are beautiful. Not because they are beautiful, but because God made them beautiful. How much more God will take care of us, we are the children of God. We are not just flowers or birds, we are the children of God, and how much more God will take care of us, why do we worry? When we have so many things, why do we worry? I think Jesus is teaching us a very simple lifestyle. Restore the simplicity in your life. When you make your life so complicated, then you won’t experience the power of life. But when you simplify your life, take and give away all the unnecessary things and learn how to depend on me, trust me, then everything will be all right. That’s what God teaches us.

God’s Hands

Faith is an abstract concept. We don’t know what faith is. We don’t know what it looks like. Faith is an abstract, so it’s easy to say that, “Oh I have faith” because nobody knows what that means. “Oh yeah I have faith”, what do you mean by that? We don’t know because it’s an abstract concept, but faith when you have real concrete faith, you give everything in God’s hands. You leave everything in God’s hands. That’s what faith is. When you trust God, you can leave everything in God’s hands and then that’s what faith looks like. If you have genuine faith, true faith, when problems occur, instead of trying to solve it on your own, you’d leave them in God’s hands. When you have challenges in front of you, instead of worrying about it, you’d leave them in God’s hands. You have a big project that is coming up and are worrying about whether I can do a good job or not? you leave them in God’s hands. Let say you failed or didn’t do very well, you will get frustrated and disappointed. But, when you leave things to God’s hands when you fail you think, “next time I try, I’ll rise again.” That is the attitude you will develop.

When you are able to deliver yourself in God’s hands, you will be able to have the power to do it again and that’s what Jesus is teaching us. When you’re in a bad relationship with somebody or whatever, and then you did something wrong, of course, you have to go and apologize, “I’m sorry, I really did a bad thing”, but that person doesn’t forgive you?. That person doesn’t open up, what do you do? Do you try to manipulate? No, you do as much as you can, ask for forgiveness, and only after that, you live in God’s hands so that person may change in the future. You don’t manipulate people, you don’t manipulate the situation. When you trust God, you don’t use your own manipulative skills to correct the situation, you just simply leave everything in God’s hand and that’s what the power of faith is all about. Your life journey, journey to fullness. It’s like this, as you live you may face challenges and difficulties and hardships and all that. Then instead of using your brain, how can I solve this problem? How can I deal with this problem? You worry about how you can come up with all these strategies and solutions and all that. Instead of doing that, you’re going to the cellar. You pray, instead of trying to come up with all the best solutions with your brain. Just leave them. You go into the cellar, you pray, and when you do that, you’ll be able to see the way you will be able to see how God is moving and you see the movement of God and when you see the way you follow that way, that’s what a journey’s all about. Every time you do that, every time you face challenges, you face problems instead of trying to solve it with your brain, you go into prayer and then God will use your brain. Use every skill. God will use every situation that you have and then God will show you the way, and then once you see the way, you follow the way. That is what journey is all about. Let me give you an example. Jesus Christ, when he preached the Gospel, a lot of people loved this message. They were mesmerized by his message so that they follow Jesus, but Jesus knew that these people will reject me. Now they follow me, but soon they will reject me. If they don’t get what I want, then they don’t deserve me. I’m in deaths. What they actually did, but Jesus already knew, so he did miracles and all that. Not to get popular but to help them out because he had compassion. He helped out a lot. After that, when they persecuted him, they said all kinds of false rumors in the center and then accused him that Jesus did not manipulate the situation. Jesus just lets them be because Jesus trusted the Sensationalism, God’s work will never be done. He just led them all the way to the cross. He was misunderstood. And yet he did not try to correct their misunderstandings. He just let them be. He left all that in God’s hands and took up the cross. And ultimately that cross brought the victory.

Trust God

Jesus did not use manipulation. He trusted God in everything he did in our lives. When we are able to trust God in everything we do, your life will be empowered. You will experience new power. Right now we have too many things and we depend on that and we think we have power, no, rather, we lost the power to live a powerful life. But if you learn to trust in God, then you will experience the power. Everything will work out in life and I thank God. But in the process, are you going to perish because you don’t believe?. I hope that you believe in God. God will work everything for Good in the end. Don’t give up. Trust God and believe in God and let God take control of your life. Many times we try to take control of our lives and we lose confidence. We worry until we give up. We run away. We can never face challenges with that kind of attitude, but when you trust God, you can face the challenges because you believe that God will empower you. God gives you the wisdom. God will give you the strength and God will give you the solution. Life secret is very simple, give away, give away, and just simply trust in God. Give away your life in God’s hands.

Many young people, don’t fall into narcissism. God can never use you if you are in narcissism. If you’re self-centered, if you had been living in your own power, God can never use you. Trust God and trust in God’s power. Then you will rise with God’s power. So whatever you do in your life do not worry, don’t be scared, go, but with faith, you have to trust in God and go when you don’t have anything. Don’t worry. God will provide what you need. What is important is what is my dream? What is my desire? What do I want to do with my life? That’s what’s important. When you have that, God will give you the strength. God will give you the resources and God will give you the wisdom to be able to achieve what God wants you to achieve in your life.

In life, we don’t need great sophisticated strategies and model in doing ministry. That’s not what we need in life. What we need is simple faith, simple faith in God. That’s what we need. That’s what Jesus taught them. The first thing Jesus taught the disciples was to simply have faith. Just give away everything else, but hold onto simple faith. Then you’ll be able to perform all kinds of powerful things that you never experienced before and that’s what we need and I hope that you hold on to the power of love in your life.