This first sermon in the “Love Does” series highlights the action of trust. Dan Kent explores the way that God trusts, the call to be trustworthy in our relationship with God and how to grow in our trust of one another. This challenge to the worldly pattern of distrust invites us to manifest love in concrete and practical ways.
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Love Trusts
• Dan Kent
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Dan Kent introduces us to a new series entitled “Love Does.” In it, he highlights Paul’s claim that love trusts, and he demonstrates how trust is crucial to walking in love as Christ loved us. Dan covers three points about this trust.
First, because God is love (1 John 4:16) and love trusts, we can say that God trusts. To many, this conclusion might be surprising because we don’t often think of God trusting us. However, if we think about it, the grand story of the Bible is about how God trusted some people some of the time. For instance, God trusted that the biblical writers would faithfully record his message to his people. Or consider the fact that God entered into covenant with his people (Deuteronomy 5:2). To make a covenant with another is to trust the other to faithfully respond to that covenant. Covenantal love means that God engages the beloved in relationship and thus lets some degree of power go. God does not control or manipulate to get his way. He trusts that we can walk with him in covenant and participate in love alongside him.
The second point builds upon the first, claiming that we can become trustworthy. Since God trusts others, logically we can conclude that those others are able to be trustworthy. At first glance, our actions do not often seem to merit this kind of trust, but God knows that we are mere children, and thus he trusts us in what we can handle. God simply invites us to meet the minimal expectation of sincerity. We don’t have to get it completely correct—we just need to learn to be honest with God about where we are.
The third point is that we are called to trust one another. John 15:12 reads, “Love each other as I have loved you.” We could replace the word “love” with “trust” and say, “Trust each other as I have trusted you.” We are not individuals who follow Jesus alone. Each of us is one of many parts who form a whole body called the church (see 1 Corinthians 12). We can only be what we are designed to be as we trust each other. Of course, this does not mean that we trust without discernment. It is crucial that we learn to trust with wisdom.
Trusting in this way is a skill that is developed through practice. It is not something that we will merely pick up as we traverse the world in our daily activities. In fact, the world is built upon distrust. We will experience ups and downs in the pursuit of trust, but we must keep going, keep trusting and keep learning to love together.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Faithfulness, Love, Relationships
Sermon Series: Wholehearted, Love Does
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The MuseCast: December 30
Focus Scripture:
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1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
"Thank you all the way from Oregon. I deeply appreciate being shepherded by Pastor Greg and everyone else on the panels. You are a rare find in the church nowadays. Tackling tough questions with humility and a kingdom perspective. It has been life changing for me in such tumultuous times."
– Heather, from Oregon