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Consider Jesus—this is what the author of Hebrews tells us to do. No one knows for sure who wrote this letter and no one knows for sure who the letter was intended to be written to.

The message, however, is clear. The book is written to a people, a people who have been called by Jesus Christ to follow Him. It is a call to remain faithful—faithful to Jesus and faithful to His teachings. To remain faithful not just because we have been promised eternal life if we do so—it’s a call to remain faithful because of who Jesus is.

The letter to the Hebrews is a call to consider Jesus.

To consider just how far superior Jesus is to Moses or the sacrificial system or the tabernacle priesthood or even angels.

For more than a thousand years, Moses has been the most important figure in Jewish faith and thought. God gave His Law to Moses. God met Moses on the mountain. God talked to Moses “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11).

But the author of Hebrews isn’t trying to diminish the importance of Moses—he or she is rather trying to make the reader understand that while Moses is indeed great, Jesus is greater.

Consider Jesus. In the OT, we find that “the house of God” refers to both the Israelite people and also to the tabernacle and later the Temple in Jerusalem. So God’s house is both a people and a building. And while Moses led the people out of captivity in Egypt, he didn’t create the people. And while Moses received the Law from the Lord God, he didn’t create the Law.

The One who builds the house is greater than the house that He builds. Moses is a part of God’s house—a very important part, but still just a part.

While Jesus is the builder, the creator, of the house. John 1:3 “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Jesus is the agent of God in the building not just of a people, but of all things existing in the universe. We live on a planet that is somehow suspended in space and continues to rotate around the sun; we know that there are other planets that also rotate around this sun. We know that there are stars and distant galaxies—and we know that there is much that we don’t know about this universe.

We also know that no earthly building has ever just appeared without having someone create a design, a plan, for that building. We know that buildings don’t just suddenly appear—we know that even if we gathered all the necessary building materials to build a house and put them all together on a piece of ground that they would never—even if we waited a million years—somehow manage to put themselves together to create a building.

So if every earthly building points to the design and skill of a builder, how much more does this universe in which we live, in all its complexity, point to the Mind and Hand that put it all together? And John 1:3 tells us that the Mind and Hand belong to Jesus. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

And after Jesus created the universe, He created a people, a house.

This is what the author of Hebrews wants us to understand. Hebrews 3:4 says “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” And 3:6 “Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”

Jesus was sent not just to die for us, not just to proclaim truth to us, but He was also sent to form or establish a house, a household, a redeemed community. He didn’t come to save fallen individuals, but to gather a vast company of His followers—to gather them together into a people. Just as with the exodus from Egypt, God’s saving work has always been about community.

The letter to the Hebrews has no time at all for the spiritual individualist, the one who thinks that he or she can worship God just fine by themselves, the one who wants a builder but who doesn’t want to live in the house created by that builder.

Consider Jesus. Luke, in his gospel, is also calling us to consider Jesus. Prior to this morning’s gospel passage, Luke has shown us Jesus teaching; he’s shown us Jesus healing both Jews and Gentiles, Jesus calming a storm at sea. He’s shown us Jesus send out the twelve, showing that He could impart His power to do the miraculous to others. He’s shown us Jesus feeding 5000 people with “no more than five loaves and two fish” (Luke 9:13).

Jesus has done all these things and then, in 9:18-20, He asked His disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

Consider Jesus: who do you say that He is? The crowds—and the disciples—are focused on the things that Jesus is doing in the world, on His miracles.

Then Jesus told them that He was going to suffer and die—and that He’ll rise form the grave.  He wants them to understand that these events will be far greater than any other miracle He has performed. Because healing us or feeding us or protecting us from storms are all only temporary.  The cross and resurrection are eternal—Jesus’ death on the cross brings us the promise of eternal life.

Then He tells His disciples that they, too, will suffer and die “if they wish to come after Him.”

They didn’t understand what He was talking about—and He knew it.  Mark tells us in his gospel that when Jesus told them that he was going to suffer and die, Peter “took him aside and began to rebuke him” (Mark 8:32).

He was telling them things that were totally radical, totally revolutionary, to the Jewish mind. Jesus understood this. Perhaps they’re still revolutionary to many of us.

Consider Jesus. So eight days later, He takes Peter, James and John up the mountain “to pray” (9:28). Jesus prays—they fall asleep. Just like they’ll do later at Gethsemane. What’s He praying for? Surely He’s praying for these men to gain some understanding as to who He really is, some understanding of what’s really important.

And as He prays, Jesus is transfigured: “As He was praying, the appearance of His face was altered, and His clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with Him, Moses and Elijah” (9:29-30).  And Peter, James and John wake up. Now there can be no doubt at all in their minds that Jesus is not Moses or Elijah. And only Jesus is transfigured. They don’t know what to think. Peter starts to babble—“not knowing what he said.”

But what was just as stunning to them as the appearance of Moses and Elijah was the subject of their conversation. They’re not speaking with awe and wonder about about all the miracles Jesus has been performing. All they want to talk about is “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (9:31). Moses and Elijah and all heaven are waiting for the cross, for the resurrection. Because they understand that what Jesus will accomplish when He is nailed to that cross and then rises victorious from the grave will change everything. They understand that what Jesus is about to do will reverse the curse of death that has existed since Adam.

And then, as they’re talking about all this, the Father shows up, too: “A cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” (9:34-35).

God the Father doesn’t say, “Watch what He does.” He doesn’t say, “pay attention to all the miraculous things He’s doing.” But: “Listen to Him.” Don’t just pay attention to what Jesus is doing—listen to what He says.

Peter, James and John come down the mountain with Jesus, back to a world that’s still broken. Immediately they’re greeted by a great crowd who want Jesus to heal a boy, to cast out the demon that’s tormenting him. And Jesus does. “Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astonished at the majesty of God” (9:42).

“But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let these words sink into your ears: the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.’ But they did not understand” (9:43-45).

Consider Jesus: how many of us get so caught up in what we want Jesus to do for us right now that we forget about the most important thing He’s done for us? How many of us are praying for Jesus to fix our physical or emotional health or our relationships or our finances? How many of us are praying for Him to bless us: to make us part of a winning team, to give us a winning lottery ticket?

How often do we praise and thank God for what He has already done for us, for bringing us into His house?

We’ve seen, through Jesus’ life here on earth, that He cares about the problems of this world. We’ve seen that He’s at work in them—we’ve also seen that His plan for solving those problems involves us. You and me—every single person who is a part of His house.

How often do we consider that we share this heavenly calling? Have we considered this enough to even know that we have a heavenly calling? To know that, as a part of His house, we have a heavenly calling just as much as Moses did, just as much as Peter, James and John did?

Your leadership is going to spend time today focusing on these things—pray for them as they do so. They’re going to be considering Jesus: Jesus, in whom the human and divine intersect. Heaven has come to earth in the form of Jesus—the kingdom of God is at hand. And anyone who wants to be a part of it can. When we invite Jesus into our lives, heaven begins to invade earth through us.

We are God’s house—and we’re called to show Him to the world. When we reach out to a child in need of love, when we take the time to listen to and pray for a person in spiritual turmoil, when we seek to forgive someone who has hurt us instead of deciding to carry a grudge; when we take the time to actually look someone in the eye and love them; when we defend the rights of a vulnerable woman; when we treat an overlooked nobody as God’s beloved child; when we reach out to help someone in need …. In all these ways and so many others, we’re making a difference, we’re show Jesus to people.

The women have just finished a study based on a book by John Ortberg called Who Is This Man? At the end of the book, he writes, “We all learn how to live from somebody … try learning how to live from Jesus. Come and see. Whatever your ideas about religion might be, you can try being a student of Jesus. … Try living as if there is a heavenly Father who cares for you and listens to you. Try living without worry one day at a time. You have to go through tomorrow anyway. Try it with Jesus.”

The sun is 93 million miles away. It’s so bright that you and I, despite the fact that we are 93 million miles away, cannot stare directly at it.

We are attached to the One who shines brighter than the sun. Isaiah 6:2 tells us that angels cover themselves with their wings in His presence. And you and I are members of His body. When was the last time that you were simply awestruck by the fact that you are part of the body of Christ? That you have the enormous privilege of gathering together on a regular basis with others in the body—with the rest of your family—to worship our great God who chooses to care for each one of us as He would His own arm?

Consider Jesus. And do it today.

Let us pray.

In the beginning, God created the world and the universe that surrounds it. He filled the world with plants and animals and then He made man—made man in God’s own image. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

Why did God do this? Why did He create human beings, men and women? It wasn’t because He needed us—it wasn’t because He needed the heavens and the earth. Some people think God was lonely—He wasn’t. God had existed forever in community, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Loneliness is something He has never experienced.

When we really think about it, there’s really only one possible explanation: grace. God is so completely and totally filled with love that He wanted to share that love.

God’s grace is so great that He not only created man and woman in His own image, but then He gave them a beautiful world in which to live. A world which He entrusted to their care.

God told Adam and Eve to “fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:29).

Then God came and walked with man in the garden—walked with him and talked with him. God was in relationship with His creatures. The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what this looked like, but perhaps it was something like the way we find Him later appearing to man in the Bible in human or angelic form.

Did you know this? Did you know that you were created not primarily to make money or build an earthly kingdom—or even just to be happy? You were created primarily for the purpose of being in relationship with God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, many, if not most, of the problems we experience in our daily lives and in our world today are the result of our failure to understand the real reason we exist.

The only thing God did not allow Adam and Eve dominion over was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because, God told them, that if they were to eat from that tree they would die.

God was protecting them. But when the serpent came and told them that if they ate the forbidden fruit, their “eyes would be opened, and they would be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), all they heard was that they would be like God.

Being God’s beloved creatures, being abundantly provided for wasn’t enough. And when they ate the fruit, God had to put them out of the garden. The relationship was broken—and God had to put them out of the garden. Still, He didn’t totally abandon them—they still knew Him. The Bible says that they were now east of Eden—away from God. There was still some level of relationship there. And clearly they wanted that relationship. They just didn’t want to have to obey God

When Cain was born, Eve said, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Genesis 4:1). She recognized God’s presence. Eve has another son, Abel, and the two brothers grew up. Abel becomes a shepherd and Cain a farmer. And “in the course of time,” they bring an offering before God.

Abel brings “the firstborn of his flock,” while Cain simply brings “an offering of the fruit of the ground.” We’re not sure exactly what the problem was with Cain’s offering, but nowhere does it indicate that he brought something that he’d actually been involved in producing. It seems that perhaps he thought just bringing something would be good enough. There was some kind of a problem with Cain’s offering and God was not pleased.

God was, however, pleased with Abel’s offering—and this made Cain so angry that he murdered his brother. Jealousy, murder, the idea that God should be happy with whatever we decide to give Him … sin is growing in the world.

And God told Cain that he must be punished—but not killed. And Cain moves to the land of Nod, “east of Eden” (4:16). Further east, further from God’s presence. And in chapter 11, the plain of Shinar where the people have decided to build the tower of Babel up to heaven is still further to the east—even further from God. Despite the fact that they’re descendants of Noah, despite the fact that they surely know about the flood, the problem of sin has continued to increase.  The people no longer want to have any kind of relationship with God—they want to be in charge. And so they’ve decided to just ignore the Lord.

They were a long way from walking with God in the garden.

Thousands of years later, when Peter asks Jesus, “’Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times’” (Matthew 18:21).

God knows a lot about forgiveness.

So what does He do with these people who have decided they have no need of Him in their lives? In chapter 12, He begins the process of restoring the broken relationship of Eden. He called Abram to follow Him and by the time we get to the book of Exodus, the single man Abraham has become a great nation as God promised. But—and this is important. They’re not just being redeemed from slavery, they’re being redeemed to something. They’re rescued for the purpose of knowing and worshiping the Lord God. The Promised Land is to be the place where God will once again live with His people.

It’s still all about relationship.

We find the promise, “I will be your God and you shall be my people” running throughout the story from Exodus through the prophets. This is the foundation for the Bible’s understanding of prayer.

God has called a people to Himself, but it is not the relationship of the Garden. God is both present and distant, as we see in the building of the tabernacle and later the temple in Jerusalem. His presence is a mediated presence—mediated by symbols. There are the pillars of cloud and fire, the ark of the covenant and the tent of meeting. Later in the temple, there will be curtains and walls and various courtyards to keep the people from the all-consuming presence of God.

And the people are fine with this. They want God to be with them. They want to know He’s there. But they don’t want too much of Him—they want Moses to be their go-between, their mediator.

They want God to be there to take care of them, to provide good things for them—but they want to be able to decide what they’ll offer in return. They don’t want to have to serve God—they want God to serve them.

By the time God sent His only Son Jesus into the world, the Israelite people had convinced themselves that they really were in charge—and that God really did exist to serve them. They made rules—lots of rules, they decided who was included and who wasn’t.  

But God has not given up on them. He sent His only Beloved Son to share the truth—and they hung Him on a cross. Because Jesus was interfering with their authority. Because when Jesus was there, they recognized an authority far beyond anything within their power. And they didn’t like it. They thought that if they could get rid of Him, things go could back to the way they were. They could once again be in charge.

They thought they could control God.

Are we really so different?

Before Jesus returned to sit at the right hand of His Father in heaven, He commissioned a group of  disciples to go and make disciples of the whole world. This was their mission. He called them His Body—He said that they were to be an extension of Jesus Himself. And that every single one of His followers, His disciples, in all the years to come would also be a part of His Body—quite literally, extensions of Jesus. And that as part of His body, He would continue to nourish and strengthen them.

It’s still all about relationship. It’s going back to that Garden where God was present with His people. No more curtains or walls. That’s why the massive curtain in the temple was ripped in two at the moment Jesus died on that wooden cross. He had destroyed the barriers that stood between us and God. We no longer needed anyone to mediate.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s why we gather together each week. We don’t gather to be entertained or to be fed or to have our expectations met. We don’t gather so that we can go away feeling better about ourselves. We gather to worship the God who created us, the God who refuses ever to abandon us, the God who loves us so much that He gave His only Son to die a horrible death so that we wouldn’t have to. So that through His Son we could be saved. So that relationship could be restored between God and His people.

So often we assume that God is pleased just by the fact that we show up to worship. The Bible tells a different story. Since the beginning of time, there has been worship God loves and worship He rejects. In Amos 5:21-24, God says, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your … offerings, I will not accept them. … Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

And in Revelation, when Jesus talks to the churches, He says to the church at Laodicea: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. … So, because you are lukewarm, and neither not nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).

What about us? Are we hot? Are we on fire for Jesus? Are we unable to even imagine what it might be like not to be able to gather to worship Him here on Sunday mornings?

Or are we lukewarm? Come when we can, come when there’s nothing else that we’d rather be doing?

Are we taking God’s presence and work in our lives for granted? Perhaps even with the idea that somehow He owes us something? Are we so different from those ancient Israelite people who thought that as long as they continued to do something—anything—for God, that He’ll be happy with us?

Our gospel reading tells a very different story. Jesus is talking to thousands of people, so many people, we’re told in 12:1 that “they were trampling one another.” He tells them that they need to “be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast.” Now weddings in Jesus’ day could last for as long as a week, so when the master goes off to a wedding, his servants aren’t sure when he’ll return. But they know that while the master’s gone, they’re still expected to continue their work. And their work is specific—they’re not just there to do whatever they think they should do.

Peter than asks Jesus, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” Is this just for those of us that you’re training for leadership? Or are all these thousands of people included in what you’re saying?   And the Lord said, ”Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (12:41-43).

Jesus is saying that we’re here to serve Him until He returns. And the serving is primarily about caring for one another. He’s saying that until He returns again, every single one of us is tasked with the job of caring for one another.

This is the purpose of His Body, the Church.

So here we are—a part of the Church in 21^st century America, in a country that’s falling apart all around us. A country where we hear continual talk about what’s moral and what’s immoral, about values. We hear this talk even in the church.

And could it be that a large part of the problem is that we’ve forgotten where we come from? That we’ve forgotten our history? Not just our history as Americans, but our history going all the way back to creation?

Could it be that we’ve moved so far east of Eden that we’ve completely forgotten who God is? And that even in the church, when we think of God, we’re thinking of the god of our own creation? A god who loves us not matter what we do, a god who would never really send any of us to hell, a god who just wants us all to be happy?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not the God of Scripture. It may be the god of much of what we think of as the American church, but it’s not the Almighty God of Creation, the Triune God that we are here this morning to worship.

And while God will not ever force us to turn back to Him, Scripture is very clear that there will be consequences for continuing to think that we’re here to do whatever we want to do. Even when we, like those Pharisees in ancient Israel, continue to pretend that we’re faithful to God because we come to church on Sunday mornings.

Churches all over this nation who have become lukewarm, or even cold, are ignoring God’s Word, are calling for it to be rewritten or even for the removal of portions that don’t say what we want it to say.

Because we want to be in charge.

But “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” John 1:1. The written Word of God, the Bible, is God’s voice speaking to us. Speaking truth. Every single word—even the ones we don’t like or don’t want to hear.

And it’s because the church has not been willing to stand up and show the world the God of the Bible that our nation is floundering.

Morality is defined in the dictionary as “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or between good and bad behavior.” Who decides? There are three options available to us: God, a sovereign dictator, or the will of the people.

When our political leaders call an action immoral, they’re basing their definition on what they believe is the will of the people. If the people don’t want it—or at least if they think it might be unpopular—it becomes immoral.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, does this sound familiar to you?

In the OT, we read over and over again that “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” And every single time we read this, we know that very bad things are about to happen.

Our forefathers in this country put their trust in God and used His Word as their guide in creating the founding documents of this nation. Today, however, much of our leadership has abandoned God—many of our history books have been rewritten to try to remove God’s guidance and providence. We have become like the people at Babel who think that we’ve risen to a place where we no longer need God. Oh, it’s all right to believe in Him—if you must—but don’t expect to bring Him into policy decisions.

We’re headed for disaster—and there’s only one solution. God is the answer, the only answer. Mankind has been searching for some way to live successfully without God for all of human history—with absolutely no success.

And the church is the only place where the knowledge of God can be found.

Earlier in Luke 12, Jesus calls the man who has accumulated much wealth and thinks that now he can just enjoy life and not worry about anything or anyone a fool. In Luke 13, Jesus says that we must repent or perish. Turn back to God. Cry out to Him in repentance, listen to Him—obey Him. In everything.

I Peter 4:17  “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” Peter is saying that we must look first to ourselves, to the church—are we serving God as we should? Are we showing the rest of the world what a difference it makes to rely on God? To be in relationship with our God?

Thousands of years ago, Moses on Mt. Sinai saw the Lord descend in a cloud and pass by him, saying, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7).

This is the same God who is with us today. The same God desiring to be in relationship with His people. With the Body of Christ, the Church.

Is that what we desire? Is that why we come here? What are our expectations for the church? As we approach the annual meeting next week, I think that this might be a good time to consider this question? What do you expect of this church?

I’ve had people complain to me that the bulletin boards should be more attractive, that the sermon should be shorter, that the sermon should be longer; I’ve had people tell me that the service should be shorter—or longer—yes, there really are some of you who would like it be longer. I’ve had people tell me that they’d like different music. I’ve heard that we should have screens or we shouldn’t have screens. I’ve heard that we shouldn’t be spending church money on a daycare. Some of you are very concerned about worship interfering with Sunday School. I’ve heard that if someone is threatening to leave, we should find out why and do whatever we need to do to keep them happy.

Then I look at Scripture and I see, in John 15:12, that Jesus commanded His followers to “love one another as I have loved you.” In Matthew 28, He tells His Body, the Church, to “make disciples of all nations.”  In Galatians 6:2, Paul tells us to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  James, the brother of Jesus, writes in his letter that we are to “visit orphans and widows in their affliction” (1:27).

And I wonder: what is it that we find more upsetting? Is it when the church doesn’t give us just the right length of worship service with just the right music, or when we fail to love one another and reach out to help bear one another’s burdens?

Are we more concerned about being obedient to God’s commands or about falling short of expectations that we ourselves have created? Is our purpose to please people or to please God?

In our gospel reading, Jesus, in His parable, says the master leaves his servants with specific tasks. He doesn’t say, “Just do something.” He tells them what they need to do and when He returns, he says that he will expect to see the assigned tasks accomplished. When his commands are neglected, he says the servants will be punished harshly.

Perhaps the mess that this country we’re living in is a part of our punishment for neglecting to do the things God calls us to do.

In the OT, God gave clear commands to the Israelite people (613 rules, to be exact). As time went on, the people added additional things that God never actually told them to do, but that they thought were good ideas. Eventually they got to a point where the things they added were more important to them than God’s original commands.

Haven’t we done the same thing?

And isn’t our nation suffering as a result of our making what we think will be appealing to people more important than God’s Word?

I’m not saying these things to condemn. I’m guilty of this, too. As I look at my own life, I see how often I failed to put God first, how often I’ve embraced the cultural message that my life belongs to me and that I’m entitled to do with it as I wish. My intentions weren’t evil; it wasn’t that I didn’t love Christ. I think it had more to do with the fact that I just wasn’t really thinking.

I didn’t stop to consult the Lord God. And sometimes I was more interested in knowing what God would tolerate than I was in knowing what He desired for me. Because we’ve long been taught a kind of minimum standard Christianity—what’s the least I have to do to get into heaven when I die?

This is not what Christ intended for His church.

The first church was focused on doing the things that were most pleasing to God—and this was what made them so attractive. They were a community that people wanted to be part of. They loved Jesus and they loved one another. They focused on fellowship with one another, on reading God’s Word and listening to the apostles’ teaching about that Word. They prayed together and they helped one another when they were in need. They celebrated communion together.

Why did they do these things? Because this is how we experience God—it’s how we grow our relationship with God.

And relationship with God is our purpose. It is to love God and to love one another. Even those broken, messed up people out there who don’t know Him yet. Our job with them is to go and tell them what they’re missing by not knowing God.

This is the reason we were created—to boldly make disciples. Not to be comfortable. So as we prepare to meet next week, let’s pray about this. Let’s ask God to show us specifically what He has planned for us in the coming year. And let’s pray that He’ll help us to let go of any plans that are not His idea.

Let’s stop complaining about how bad things are and let’s let God start to do something about it. Through us. Through His hands and feet and mouth in this world.

Let us pray.

The prophet Jeremiah lived during a very difficult time in Jewish history. He began his ministry during the time when Josiah was king—Josiah, who was the last king to follow God. Following Josiah’s death in battle, his son Jehoahaz was anointed king in his father’s place, but unlike his father, Jehoahaz “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 23:32). From there it was all downhill, as each successive king moved further and further away from the Lord, right up until the Babylonians came in and destroyed Jerusalem and led most of the people into captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah was one of those exiled.

It’s prior to the Babylonian invasion that Jeremiah speaks the words we heard this morning. God is warning the people, He’s calling them to turn back to Him. He’s making it clear that we have only two choices in this lifetime—we can put our trust in Him or we can put it in something else.

It doesn’t really matter what the “something else” is because whatever it is, it’s not going to be able to save us.

Psalm 1, which we read earlier, puts it this way: when we trust in man, in ourselves and our own abilities, we’re cursed. When we trust in the Lord, we’re blessed.

This is just as true today as it was three thousand years ago. We, like all those Old Testament kings, have a big, big problem.

Jeremiah tells us, in verse 9, that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

The heart is deceitful and desperately sick—your heart and my heart. And we don’t want to believe that. Some of you right now are thinking, “well, that might be true for a lot of other people, but not me. I know my heart. I know that my heart is in the right place.”

Genesis 6:5 says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That was before God sent the flood—it seems to be the reason God sent the flood. Except that immediately after Noah and his family emerged from the ark after the flood, God said, “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). And Noah was a man that God called “righteous, blameless in his generation” (Genesis 6:9).

Nothing has changed—because man has not changed.

Doing what seems right or good to us is a recipe for disaster—because not a single one of us is willing to recognize the depths of evil residing in our heart. We’re experts at convincing ourselves that what we want is what is right. We’re experts at convincing ourselves that we’re the one in the right in just about every situation we encounter.

Proverbs 28:26 says, “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool.”

Ecclesiastes 9:3 says, “The hearts of the children of man are full of evil.”

And then we come to the book of Psalms, often referred to as the prayer book of the Bible. And the very first thing we read is that each one of us has to make a choice—we have to choose how we will walk through this life.

Not just today or tomorrow, but every day.

And the choice we make will determine whether we are blessed or cursed.

Now this blessing or cursing isn’t about how easy or how hard our life in this world will be. The blessing or cursing has to do with our eternal lives.

Psalm 1 lays the foundation for the entire book. To be blessed, our lives must begin with God, a God who has already taken the initiative. We must walk with God, we must listen to God, we must place our trust in Him in every situation.

As we go through the 150 psalms included in this book, we find the writers expressing joy, awe, doubt, confidence, pain, anger, praise—the entire range of human emotion. But behind all of these emotions is a definite theology—because in the very beginning, in Psalm 1, a relationship has been established with the Lord, a decision has been made to trust in Him. Trust Him in every situation.

We might think that the first thing we need to do is to be righteous, or to be obedient or more loving. But our hearts are deceitful—the Lord says the first thing is to decide in whom we will trust.

Because a life that trusts God in all things—trust God even more than we trust ourselves—is the only way we will be blessed. There is no other way.

When we trust God, when we allow Him to be Lord of our lives—all of our lives, not just Lord of our Sunday morning or even Lord of those really difficult times in our lives, but Lord of Monday through Saturday, as well. When we make a decision to hand over the keys to our lives and say, “I’m handing over control of me to you, God”—then, and only then, will we experience the kind of blessing that we read about in Psalm 1 and in Jeremiah and in the Gospels. When we allow our roots to sink deeply into the living water that flows from Jesus Christ, we “are like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8).

The world in which we live is always man-centered rather than God-centered—and all too often God’s church becomes man-centered as well. When that happens, Jeremiah tells us in verse 6, “We are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. We will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land.”

“A tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” or “like worthless chaff, scattered in the wind.”

The choice is ours—God reaches out to every single one of us, He always takes the initiative. He always makes the offer. But He never forces anyone—He won’t even argue with you if you say “No, thanks” to His invitation. Will we allow Him to be Master over us—or will we insist that we’re in charge and nobody’s going to tell us what to do or how to live?

This is a choice that needs to be made individually. Have you made your choice? And if you have—or think you have—are you sure? Because one of the great lies that satan loves to whisper in our ears is: “You don’t really have to give God total control. Just give Him a little—He’ll be satisfied if you just give Him parts of your lives.”  Are you putting qualifiers on God? Are you saying, “I’ll do anything, Lord, except …”? If you are, then you haven’t really made your choice.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

We should all memorize this verse and remind ourselves of it daily. Because we are so good at trusting our heart, trusting our feelings—and convincing ourselves that surely God agrees with us.

So how can we know for sure if we’re truly trusting in the Lord? The apostle Paul, in our reading from I Corinthians 15, says, “I would remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word” (I Corinthians 15:1-2). Are you standing in the gospel, walking according to God’s Word?

Psalm 1 says we are blessed when our “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law we meditate day and night” (1:2). When we study God’s Word day and night.

Luke, in our gospel reading, is talking about Jesus “with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people” (Luke 6:17). And, he tells us, “All the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all” (Luke 6:19).

And we think “Wow. How amazing that must have been.” Forgetting that we have that same power available to us through God’s Written Word and through the Spirit of God living inside of us.

And we have the same ability that the prophet Jeremiah had to talk to God. To bring every decision to Him in prayer.

When you have to make a decision do you go first to God in prayer? Do you wait to hear His answer? Or is your kind of prayer just telling God what you’ve already decided to do and then asking Him to bless it, certain that your way is the best way, the right way? Or maybe giving Him two or three or four choices and asking Him to direct you to the correct one?

The early church viewed prayer very differently than we do. We read in Acts 2:42-43 that “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.” There is a direct connection between the prayers of the church and the wonders and signs being done.

The early church understood that prayer is not preparation for our work—prayer is the work of God’s people. The primary work.

In Matthew 9:36-38, when Jesus saw the great crowds of people who were afflicted in many different ways, “He had compassion for them, for they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’”

The work is great, He’s telling them. But does He say, “So you need to get busy and do something?”

No. He says, “Therefore, pray. Pray to the Lord of the harvest.”

Do we really believe that our power comes through prayer? Do we really believe that the key to success in this congregation, the key to success in any mission, is not in our own wisdom or ability—they key lies in our hand by our Lord’s instruction?

Instruction that comes to us through prayer and through God’s Word.

Jesus said, “Just look at all the problems out there. Look at all the people who are afflicted and harassed.”

Therefore, pray.

Scripture tells us clearly that there are only two ways for mankind: The way of trusting in our Lord or the way of trusting in ourselves.

Joshua called on the Israelite people to “choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

“As for me and my house,” he said, “we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

Joshua understood that we have only two choices—do we?

Prayer becomes important as a regular part of our lives—as the most important part of our lives—only when we realize that in order to live a life that is blessed, a life that has deep roots in the living water that flows from our Lord Jesus, we must be in constant communication with Him. We must look to Him to receive our orders.

Prayer is the primary work of God’s people. We are called to follow Jesus—and Jesus made prayer His work.

To anyone not related to Jesus, prayer looks silly—or even stupid. We have only to hear the disparaging comments of many in the media when prayer is mentioned.

But how many of us think, deep down in our hearts, “Well, prayer is fine, but we need to do something. We need to take action. I’m sure that’s what God wants us to do. Well, no, He hasn’t told me that, but I’m sure that I know what He wants me to do.”

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

The church is not called to be fixers; we’re not called to be critics; we’re called to pray.

The early church existed in a time when evil was everywhere—in the government, in the Jewish religious leaders, everywhere. And nowhere do we see that they took any kind of action against evil.

The early church understood that their purpose, like that of Jesus, was to be a blessing. And to pray.

To pray for the people who were harassed and helpless—which included everyone who did not know Jesus. Who did not place their trust in the Lord.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

The early church understood that there are parts in each one of us that we know nothing about, parts that we are not even conscious of. And they understood that when they prayed for others, the Spirit of God is at work in those unconscious parts. And that as time goes on, things begin to happen.

We pray to a God who understand the unconscious depths of personality about which we know nothing—and He has told us to pray.

He didn’t say organize a demonstration. He didn’t say try to persuade people that what they’re doing is wrong. He said, “Therefore, pray.”

Luke 9 tells the story of a time when Jesus wanted to pass through a town in Samaria and the town refused to allow Him to do so. James and John were angry. They wanted to “command fire from heaven to come down and consume them.”

Luke 9:55-56 “But Jesus turned and rebuked them and said, ‘You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”

Jesus didn’t say, “Go into the field.” He said, “Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest.”

He wasn’t talking about the world in general. He was pointing to the crowds of struggling people, people who had reached a crisis in their lives, people who were “white for harvest.” People that we find everywhere, not only in foreign countries, but in neighboring houses, and the way we discern who they are isn’t by what we do, it’s by prayer.

Does it work? Pastors praying for elected official.

Only after we have prayed are we told to “Go.” To go where God sends us, where He tells us to go. To do what He tells us, that He may work His mighty works through us.

There is only one field of service that holds no snares—and that is the field of intercessory prayer. Perhaps the reason we don’t really like this field is because there’s no place in it for publicity, no place for personal glory. No place to hear the world proclaim our great works.

Prayer is the primary work of God’s people. Our Lord Jesus told us that prayer of the ground of His redemption is the greatest weapon He has provided for us. And prayer is the way that we receive our knowledge of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the reason the Spirit seems to be of so little influence in the world—and the church—today is because we have not taken the time to receive the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ regarding His Spirit.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, there are two ways available to mankind: trust in the Lord our God or don’t trust in Him. As for those of us in this house, let us choose the Lord. And let us commit to learning how to do the hard and laborious work of prayer that He calls us to.

It is through prayer that the world can be change. I hope you’re all continuing to pray for two specific people and now I’m going to ask you to pray for the people in our towns who do not yet know Jesus Christ as Lord of their life. Pray that we can begin by changing the communities in which we live—and that as we discover the power that is in us through the Holy Spirit, that will be just the beginning of a movement that will spread across this land and around the world.

Let us pray.

Lord, help us to hear with open hearts so that we may better understand your Holy Word. And understanding, that we may believe; and believing, that we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and glory in all that we do.

George Mueller was born in Germany in 1805; as a young man, he moved to England to study with the London Missionary Society, but quickly became disillusioned with what he saw as the worldly strategies of existing mission organizations. Convinced that these groups were relying far too much on their own abilities and far too little on the resources of our heavenly Father, George began his own mission organization in Bristol, England, where he was also serving as pastor or a congregation where he would spend the next 66 years, leading his last prayer service the day before he died at age 92.

George felt that God was directing him to focus on several areas in his mission organization: to start schools where children and adults would be taught Bible knowledge; to distribute Bibles and other Christian books and literature; to encourage and support missionary efforts—and to care for orphans.

At the beginning of the 19^th century in England, orphans were everywhere. Sanitation in the cities was poor, cholera and other epidemics were rampant, and often dangerous working conditions all contributed to the problem of homeless, uncared for children. Mueller would see these children as he walked to church and he began to pray for God to show him how he could help them.

In 1835, when George was 30 years old, he called a public meeting to present his idea of an orphanage. No collection was taken, but someone handed him ten shillings and a Christian woman offered to help care for the orphans.

George and his wife Mary had been praying and were convinced that God wanted them to start an orphanage not just to care for orphaned children, but also to demonstrate God’s great glory. And so they made a decision that they would ask no one but God for the necessary funds, because, as George put it, “when we bring our worries to God in prayer, we will never meet a deaf ear or a reluctant glance. We will instead find a Father who gladly bends His shoulder to bear our burdens.”

So George and Mary prayed. After five days of prayer, $300 came in, which was enough money to rent a house, equip and furnish it. Four months after his initial public presentation, George opened the doors of the orphanage to 26 girls between the ages of 7 and 12.

It’s important to understand how George was praying. He was asking God to provide for children in need and to do it in a way that would provide visible proof that God does indeed hear and answer prayers. George and Mary continued to pray and seven months later, they opened a second house, this one to care for children from infancy to age 7. Ten months later, a third home was opened to house boys over the age of 7. Soon there was another house for girls. 130 children were now being housed in Mueller’s orphanages.

George prayed and God provided, but that didn’t mean that everything always went smoothly. It didn’t mean that there were never any problems. At one point, donations had been drying up for months. Week after week, they struggled with barely enough funding to provide food for the children. Until one morning George Mueller rose from his bed knowing that the plates and cups and bowls on the tables were empty. The children would be waiting for their morning meal and there was no food.

Was he anxious, frantically wondering what to do? No—because George Mueller was a man, who, despite a lifetime filled with the need to care for hundreds of children with never enough funding, didn’t worry.

He knew who was in charge and he knew it was not him. George, who read the Bible from cover to cover almost 200 times in his lifetime, knew God’s promises. Perhaps he thought about Jesus’s words that we heard earlier in Luke’s gospel: “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” (Luke 12:24).

When George arrived at the orphanage that morning, he gathered the children together and prayed. He raised his hands and said, “Dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat.”

Before he was done praying there was a knock on the door. The baker stood there and said, “Pastor Mueller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2:00 AM and baked some fresh bread and here it is.” George thanked him. No sooner was the baker gone than there was another knock at the door. It was the milkman. He said that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage and he’d like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it.  

George Mueller was a man who never worried, according to written accounts by his son-in-law, James Wright, who was also the associate pastor at Mueller’s church. it wasn’t because his life was so easy. George and Mary’s first child was stillborn, their third child died at the age of 15 months, and their fourth child was also stillborn. Mary died when George was only 65 years old. He later remarried and his second wife also died before George.

Yet somehow Mueller was able to live out Jesus’ words in our gospel reading: “Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” (Luke 12:29-31).

He not only knew what Peter meant when he wrote, “Cast all your anxieties on Jesus, because He cares for you” (I Peter 5:7), he somehow knew how to do this.

I’m pretty sure that none of us wants to go around being anxious about things. But, for many of us, we don’t seem to know how to let go of our worries.

George Mueller knew that the key was a combination of prayer and soaking in God’s Word—that together, the practice of these two things bring the kind of peace that the apostle Paul talked about, the “peace that passes all understanding.” Paul, of course, achieved this peace the same way George Mueller did—prayer and study of God’s Word.

 When asked how he could remain calm in the middle of a hectic day filled with uncertainties at the orphanage, Mueller would say, “I rolled sixty things onto the Lord this morning.” Or seventy, or a hundred. He took his burdens one by one, off his own shoulders, and rolled them onto God’s.

The children of God, Mueller often said, “are permitted, and not only permitted but invited, not only invited but commanded, to bring all their cares, sorrows, trials, and wants to their heavenly Father. They are to roll all their burdens upon God.”

To fail to do this, Mueller said, is sin.

We often think of sin as telling a lie or stealing or gossiping—we think of it as breaking rules. But if you read the Bible carefully, we get a different picture of what sin is.

In our OT lesson, the prophet Samuel is upset with King Saul because Saul got tired of waiting for Samuel to arrive and went ahead and offered a sacrifice to God. To us, this maybe doesn’t seem like a bad thing—it might even seem like a good thing. But God didn’t give kings the authority to offer sacrifices to Him—and Samuel, speaking for God, told Saul to wait for him. Then Saul went to war against the Amalekites, as God had commanded, but he failed to destroy everyone and everything as God had commanded. Saul decided instead to keep the livestock and let the Amalekite king live.

And Samuel told him that because of these two things, God has rejected Saul from being king. The problem, Samuel said, is that what God wants is obedience. “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry” (I Samuel 15:23).

If you’re going to presume that you know what God wants, Samuel is saying, you might just as well put a Buddha statue in your house and worship it—because thinking you know what God wants is just as bad.

Sin is much more than breaking one of God’s rules. Sin is disobedience to God’s will and to God’s command. Adam and Eve in the garden sinned when they disobeyed God and ate the fruit that He had forbidden.  “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams” (I Samuel 15:22).

This is sin—and we’re all guilty. Every single one of us disobeys God regularly and often. Because we want to be in charge. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it.

And this is why we so often struggle with anxiety, why we so often worry.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can never place too much weight on God’s shoulders. Not one of our worries is too heavy for the God who has already traveled to the very depths of our misery, who has already carried our curse on His back in the form of a wooden cross, and who has thrown off the chains of death.

This is what George Mueller somehow managed to learn—and to practice. And we know how he did it: he prayed about everything and he knew God in a way that few of us do—because God speaks through His written word. And George Mueller knew that Word.  

Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

All things. Do you believe this? Do you know that when you’ve reached the end of your strength, when you think, “I can’t do this job another day,” or “I can’t deal with this marriage another day,” or “I can’t deal with my financial struggles or health struggles or whatever it might be for another day” that you don’t need to? Because when you can’t handle your job, or your marriage, or your finances, or your health today, you can roll that burden onto Christ Jesus.

Maybe you don’t have the strength to do your job for one more day. But you can do your job for one more day through Christ who strengthens you. You can do marriage or finances or sickness through Christ who strengthens you.

George Mueller knew this. He lived with the continuous problem of inadequate provision not only for himself and his family, but also for the hundreds of orphans in his care. Ten years after he opened his first orphan house, people were complaining about the orphanages. The neighbors didn’t like living next to all those noisy children, because there wasn’t enough space to grow gardens and hang laundry, people and things tended to spill over onto other people’s property.

What should he do? Some of us might have said, “Well, I guess maybe it’s time to close the orphanages—or at least reduce the number of children to a more manageable level.”

No George and Mary—they kept praying and discovered that not only did God not want them to close any of their houses, He wanted them to go bigger. God provided seven acres of land further out in the country and told George to build a single large house that would hold 300 orphans. The final cost was $90,000.00, all of which God provided.

Ten years later God told him to build another large house, this one to hold 400 orphans. A third home and then a fourth were eventually built, each housing 450 orphans.

Now George was providing for 1600 orphans every day—without ever asking anyone other than God to bring the provision. God wanted someone to care for the orphans in Bristol, England—and when George answered the call, God brought the provision. If it sometimes took a long time to arrive, or if it arrived only at the very last moment, George understood that, too. He wrote: “It was from the beginning in the heart of God to help us; but because he delights in the prayers of his children, he had allowed us to pray so long.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, have you ever thought about this? That maybe when God delays in answering your prayers, it’s because He just loves to have you keep coming back to talk to Him, to be in relationship with Him?

James 4:2 says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.”

God cares about our smallest worries just as much as He cares about our biggest worries. George Mueller wrote, “It’s not simply great matters we are to bring before God, not simply small things but ‘everything.’ Therefore, all our affairs, temporal or spiritual, let us bring them before God. Because life is made up of little things.”

For those of us who struggle most with worry, anxiety doesn’t go away when trouble does. Even when our family is healthy, our job secure, our friendships steady, worry continues. But with practice, we can learn to roll even those small burdens onto God. Onto our God who is always ready to carry them for us.

In Matthew 11:30, we hear Jesus say, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” If we’re huffing and puffing our way through life, maybe we’re not walking with God. Maybe we’re running in the flesh—maybe that’s why everything seems so hard.

Jesus said, “I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). We have been invited to walk with the gentle Jesus. “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6).

Jesus was a carpenter, and in Jesus’ day, carpenters did a lot more than build houses. One of the things they built were yokes. Yokes were used to harness two oxen together. When a young ox was being trained, it was paired with an older ox who already knew what was expected and how to get it done. One who knew that a steady, even pace was needed while looking straight ahead, one who knew that pulling together with the other ox was the only way anything would get done.

The young ox would get impatient with the steady pace and want to run ahead. When they did that, they got a sore neck. Other times the young ox didn’t want to do anything—they just wanted to sit. They got a sore neck. The lead ox just kept on going no matter what the young ox did, because the older ox had learned to listen to his master.

When we allow ourselves to be yoked with Jesus, He maintains a steady pace right down the center of the narrow road.

But when Jesus calls us to take His yoke, often we don’t want to. It sounds like a burden. But when we put on the yoke of Jesus, we’re forced to remove all the other yokes we’ve been walking with. The yokes of worry and anxiety. Some people think that Jesus is a crutch for weak people. Maybe it’s true. Jesus might be our crutch, but He’s the only one we need. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

When we learn to walk with Jesus, we learn to take one day at a time. We learn the priority of relationship. We’d learn that our walk is one of faith, not sight, and one of grace, not just a list of rules.

I wonder what might happen if we practiced this model in our own ministry. I wonder what might be different if we prayed about everything before we did anything. If, when things seem to us to be hard, or even impossible, if we just stopped and prayed and asked God what He’s trying to teach us, what He wants us to do?

I wonder what might happen if we really understood that walking with Jesus, walking with the Holy Spirit, isn’t about running around constantly, exhausting ourselves as if everything depended on us? What God expects of us is that we listen, we “cast our anxieties on God, because He cares for us” (I Peter 5:7). Would God tell us to cast our anxieties on Him if He didn’t plan to do anything about them?

In the next verse, however, Peter writes: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8). The devil devours by filling us with fear, with anxiety—because when we’re consumed by fear, we don’t do anything. And when that fear grows, it pushes out God’s Word and God’s command that we listen to Him.

What Peter is saying here is that we can listen to God or we can listen to the devil. And sometimes it’s only by knowing God’s Word—really knowing it—that we can tell the difference. In 2 Corinthians 11:14, Paul tells us that “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

This is why we need to pray together and test all things. Peter and Paul knew this; George Mueller knew this. Moses and David and countless other saints over the centuries have learned this—anyone can learn to hear God. But it doesn’t happen without effort on our part. It doesn’t happen without soaking in God’s written Word. It doesn’t happen without setting aside time to talk to God.

But to be effective, as God’s people, we must do this. God has a plan for this congregation, a plan that includes every single one of us. Nothing is accomplished in God’s kingdom if we expect Him to do it all—and it’s His eternal purpose of God to make His wisdom known through His church (Ephesians 3:8-11).

And nothing gets done for the kingdom of God when we try to do it alone. Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He meant it. We have the privilege of watering and planting, but God causes the increase.

I once heard someone looking at a beautiful garden, say to the gardener, “The Lord sure gave you a beautiful garden.” Thee gardener responded, “This garden belongs to the Lord, and I have the privilege of caring for it. But you should have seen what it looked like when the Lord had it all to Himself.”

Mueller wrote: “My dear Christian reader, will you not try it this way? Will you not know for yourself … the preciousness and the happiness of this way of casting all your cares and burdens and necessities upon God? This way is as open to you as to me … Everyone is invited and commanded to trust in the Lord, to trust in Him with all his heart, and to cast his burden upon Him, and to call upon Him in the day of trouble. Will you not do this, my dear brethren in Christ? I long that you may do so. I desire that you may taste the sweetness of that state of heart, in which, while surrounded by difficulties and necessities, you can yet be at peace, because you know that the living God, your Father in heaven, cares for you.”