God Needs an American He Can Trust

You just won 100 million dollars in a lottery. Every relative in the world is calling for help with their problems. Every salesman is banging on the door with a great opportunity for your life. All the down on their luck people are making you aware of their right to receive your help before anyone else. Every banker is assuring you that they will make you even richer while following their advice. Who are you going to trust with your millions?   God owns everything for all of eternity. He is looking for some people that He can trust with His wealth. These people will become part of His family for ever and will rule in their assigned places. All their decisions will be the same that God would make himself. This makes it crucial that God find someone He can trust with His gospel. Some trustworthy individual must explain the Good News to the continual stream of new people that have not been exposed to the Scriptures. Everyone needs to hear at least once or how will they have a chance to become a member of God’s family?

No individual in this world can grasp what God wants them to do until some saved person takes the time to tell them. Over three thousand years ago God chose to trust a man named Moses to tell people in this world how they should live their life. Moses was given the law directly from heaven and he struggled to teach the people to trust and obey God’s words. When Moses was at the end of his life he told the people in essence that God had trusted him to give Israel the words of eternal life. This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand, and it is not beyond your reach. It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’ It is not kept beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear it and obey?’ No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it. “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, Deut 30:11-15 (NLT) God asked Moses to write everything down so it would not stay only in Heaven where we could never find it. Every person on earth is choosing to do God’s will or do their own will.

Today we are living under grace and not the Law. However, Paul indicates that we still need someone God can trust to speak His words here on earth. But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven’ (to bring Christ down to earth). And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead’ (to bring Christ back to life again).” In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: Romans 10:6-8 (NLT) It is still impossible to climb into Heaven and find out how God wants us to live. We know that both Moses and Paul wrote down the words of God so that all people would have a chance to be saved. The problem is that many people around the world cannot read and many others cannot understand the words that they do read. God needs people today that He can trust to properly explain His message. It is logical that any person receiving the grace of God into their life realize that they have been entrusted with the Gospel message. God believes in his believers.

The work and the power for the work all belong to God. In other words, everything we have and everything we do belongs to God. In this passage Paul says; Preaching the Good News is not something I can boast about. I am compelled by God to do it. How terrible for me if I didn’t preach the Good News! If I were doing this on my own initiative, I would deserve payment. But I have no choice, for God has given me this sacred trust. What then is my pay? It is the opportunity to preach the Good News without charging anyone. 1 Cor 9:16-18 (NLT) We cannot even take credit for the inspiration or motivation because we are compelled by God. Paul claims that he has received a trust that is sacred. The truth is that anything God has us do is going to be sacred. There are going to be rewards given in heaven but Paul says in this passage that his pay is the privilege of telling other people about their opportunity to join God’s family for eternity. We must love God completely to comprehend the privilege of serving. It is natural that the more we trust God the more He will entrust us with His wealth.

Scriptures tell us about our responsibility in several different ways. It is interesting that even the small word “believe” suggest that God is trusting us. The Strong’s number is 4100 and it requires two American words to explain it. One word is believe and the other is to entrust. It’s the same word in the original Greek Scriptures. Paul used the word several times when explaining that God had “entrusted” him with the Gospel. This one word is showing us in a small way that every single Christian is entrusted with a responsibility to serve God. The fact that so many church people are letting God down does not alter our accountability one bit. The Lord is relying on us to do His work here on earth. Paul always accepted the responsibility that had been placed on him; They saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. Gal 2:7 (NLT) In the Greek it says that God had entrusted him with the Gospel. The fact that God does not expect us to write the Bible does not mean that He has no job for each of us.

There is a huge organization (God’s kingdom) that has always had the goal of wholesome, clean lives for people. Many people hate this life of heaven on earth because they enjoy some selfish habit in their life. We all know that this organization belongs to God but many don’t know that He wants to enlist people to various positions that will last forever. Anyone making their decision to be born-again is at the same time applying for a position in God’s eternal kingdom. Paul mentions his own appointment; The law is for people…who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him. 1 Tim 1:10-12 (NLT.) Paul says only that he was appointed in this verse but in other places he tells us that his position is one of authority in God’s organization. The main qualification for God’s kingdom is trustworthiness. In one parable Jesus said that some good servants brought back five times what they had been entrusted and that others had brought back ten times the amount. But servants who have no gain will be called wicked on judgment day. Jesus tells us that if we are found trustworthy in small things, God will entrust us with bigger things.

Many people say they believe in God. But the real question is whether God can entrust us with His eternal work. The bottom line of this paper is that we must please God. He cannot trust us if we are not pleasing to Him. For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. 1 Thess 2:4 (NLT) The truth we are entrusted with contains eternal life for the people chosen to be part of God’s family. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God—who does not lie—promised them before the world began. And now at just the right time he has revealed this message, which we announce to everyone. It is by the command of God our Savior that I have been entrusted with this work for him. Titus 1:1-3 (NLT) If we do not feel strongly about the privilege of God’s work then who will God entrust his work to?