Please turn to Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah 17 is going to be our text for this morning verses 5 through 8 and as you find Jeremiah 17 verses 5 through 8, I'll just get into our little bit of background. I was preaching in Auckland, New Zealand years ago, and Lisa and I visited this big tower they have called the Sky Tower, and the main observation deck is 600 feet above the ground. So you go up in an elevator, and the elevator has a glass floor in it, which is kind of scary. As you go up, you see the ground just disappearing, and you're trying to like, you know, Get up to the edge or something I don't know but when you get to the top of the observation deck all around the perimeter is also glass and they have these signs that say that the glass in the floors is actually stronger than concrete and And you kind of believe that intellectually But it's one thing agreeing that the glass is stronger and another thing standing on it 600 feet above the ground And there are some people who admit when they go up there that, hey, yes, I believe the glass is strong enough to hold me. I can see people standing on the glass all around me, but I'm not going to do it. They have an intellectual faith, but they don't have a trusting faith. And there's a big difference between the two. Above the observation deck is actually another little deck. And if you're really trusting, if you have a lot of faith, they put you in a harness and they swing out over the edge. And then they drop you 30 feet so the people in the deck right below you can see you dangling in the air. And then they hit a button and you plunge down towards a large bullseye 600 feet below and they slow you right before you hit. and bring you in for a gentle landing. So the people who have lots of faith, they go out over the edge. And so when we're talking about these kinds of things, I was thinking about, that's really a good illustration of what it means to really kind of trust in Christ. There is a huge difference between agreeing the glass is safe, the dangling right over the edge is safe, and actually going on it. There's a big difference between saying, we need to trust in Jesus, our Lord, in all things, and actually doing it. I mean, the concept is easy, we all know, but the doing of it is a whole different thing. And just as people have fear of trusting in invisible see-through flooring, we also have trouble trusting in the invisible God, don't we? Our text this morning gives us two biographies of every person. And it teaches us about the grace that comes to those who trust in the Lord. Now there are those who trust in themselves and other things, other people, and those who trust in the Lord. The division is not strictly between believer and unbeliever either as every single believer will tell you there are times when they don't trust the Lord. There are daily times when we don't trust the Lord. Even believers fail to trust in the Lord. And all trusting faith has this intellectual element. You know things in your mind. It's not just a blind leap into non-reason. And yet, even among trusting faith, there are two kinds of faith. There is a trusting faith that saves and a trusting faith that does not save because its object is wrong. The book of Jeremiah is one of the major prophets. It's major in size, not importance. That's why they call them the major prophets. And Jeremiah lived kind of in an interesting time. As far as materially prosperous, it was the best of times. As far as spiritually, it was the worst of times. Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem. He calls the people who are living in luxury and rebellion to repent, to turn back to the Lord, or they are going to see Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean king, come and conquer Jerusalem and take them captive to a foreign land. Jeremiah preached to a very corrupt, idolatrous society full of immorality and social injustice just like our world, the world we live in. And his calls to repentance from sin and faith in God are almost universally rejected. It just sounds familiar. It sounds like London or Kentucky. And in Jeremiah chapter 1, we learn about Jeremiah's call to the ministry. And then in chapters 2 through 45, Judah's sin is exposed in relentless detail. And Jeremiah calls Judah to repent so God can bless them. God just wants to bless them, but he cannot bless them as long as they're running headlong into sin. Our text, Jeremiah 17 verses 5 through 8, comes in the middle of a section where Judah's sins are exposed, where repentance is preached, and the judgment is threatened on those who will not repent and will not believe. So if you have your Bibles, please turn to Jeremiah 17. And look at verse 1. I'm going to read verses 1 through 8, and then we are going to focus on verses 5 through 8, but I want to give you a little context. So notice what Jeremiah 17, 1 says. The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus, with a diamond point. It is engraved upon the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars, as they remember their children, so they remember their altars and their ashram by the green trees on the high hills. Oh, mountain of mine in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures for booty. your high places for sin throughout your borders, and you will, even of yourself, let go of your inheritance that I give you, and I will make you serve your enemies in the land which you do not know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever. Thus says the Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in a stony waste, in a wilderness, in a land of salt, without inhabitant. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by the stream, and will not fear when the heat comes, but its leaves will be green, and will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit." Pray with me, and we'll jump in to this text which teaches us about the grace of trusting. Father, we come before you as sinners. as helpless and hopeless apart from Christ. Proud, self-serving, always going astray like sheep. Sinners in need of your grace. Sinners in need of salvation. Sinners in need of sanctification. Lord, we are guilty and we admit it. We all go astray. We all turn to our own way. But Lord, Your grace is sufficient, as we heard in the baptisms this morning, to take a hard-hearted rebel, to transform them, to turn them around and slowly conform them into the image of Christ. And we are thankful for that. We pray this morning as we consider the two biographies of every man, that we would see ourselves in the mirror of Your Word, that we might assess the true condition of our souls. And Father, that we would take that action which gives You most glory. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. So from Jeremiah 17 verses 5 through 8, I'm going to show you the grace of trusting by looking at the two biographies that pretty much everybody in the world fits into right now. And you need to see these two biographies so you can avoid living a cursed life, but instead enjoy the life that comes by trusting in God so you can receive His amazing grace. So our first point is biography one, the cursed man. Look at verse five where we read, thus says the Lord, cursed is the man. Sounds very ominous. Nobody wants to be cursed by God. We all want to be blessed. We all want to have God's favor. But we need to look at the cursed man for contrast. A lot of times we don't understand the magnitude of grace, the brightness of grace, the glory of grace, unless we kind of look at it against the black backdrop of our depravity. And so that's what Jeremiah is doing here. He starts off showing us the real bad stuff, the black part, the cursed part. Cursed indicates that a person is in an ongoing state of being cursed. After Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus, and after the famous verse, you know, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, we read this in John 3.36, He who believes in the Son has eternal life. But he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. The holy wrath, displeasure, and judgment of God hangs like the sword of Damocles above the head of every unrepentant sinner, just hanging there by a thread. threatening the cursed man. The wrath of God abides upon the disobedient man, waiting and wanting to fall upon him. We often think of Jesus as the kind, gentle, loving Savior, and so He is. But we often forget that He is also a Savior of justice. In Luke chapter 12 verse 49, Jesus also said, I have come to cast fire on the earth and how I wish it were already kindled. He goes on to explain that He must die first, pay the penalty of our sins. And it tells me then that Jesus will return in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not love the truth so as to be saved. So the word cursed in our text, it comes from an Akkadian word. It means to snare, to bind, to tie up. And that's really what the cursed person's life is all about. They are bound up under the judgment of God like an animal that is being ready to be slaughtered. The vast majority of those living in the world today fit into the category of the cursed man. And could it be you? Could it be you? Some are atheists. Others claim to be agnostics. Some are young. Some are old. Some are even faithful attenders of Bible-believing churches. And yet they are still the cursed. We heard in the testimonies, right? We heard the testimonies of people who grew up in Christian homes, went to church, and yet were cursed. We heard it. In fact, many of those addressed in our text were very religious. They were offering sacrifices in the temple on a regular basis. They sang the Psalms of David as maybe they walked up the stairs. They sang the Psalms of ascent. And from external appearances, they seem to be godly. But the fact was, most were cursed. And Jeremiah gives us three characteristics of the cursed man. And the first is in the middle of verse 5. Look there. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. There's a play on words here. In the Hebrew, you can't see it in the English. But in the Hebrew, there is There is two different words for man being used here. When the text says, cursed is the man, it uses the Hebrew word, gemor, the word for strong, mighty warrior. But when the text says, trust in mankind, it uses the weak, normal word. So the mighty, macho, strong warrior is trusting in the weakling. It's a sarcastic jab because the mighty trusts in the weak. The word trust means to have confidence in, to have security in. Remember our two kinds of faith? There is an intellectual faith that doesn't trust and an intellectual faith that does trust. Both believe, one trusts, relies upon, leans on, believes in volitionally, the other does not. There's the person who trusts in the glass floor, walks on there and says, hey, look at it, it's a little bit scary, it feels a little bit weird, but I'm standing on the glass and I can see the ground 600 feet below and it doesn't bother me. And then there's another kind of person who stands back and says, I'm not standing on there. And you say, well, don't you think the floor can hold? Well, yeah, I know it can hold me, but I'm not standing on there. I'm sure the glass floor is strong. I'm sure it can hold my weight. And I can clearly see it holding other people. But I am not going to trust my life to the glass flooring, which is actually stronger than the non-see-through flooring they're standing on. and putting their trust in. They would rather trust their life to the weaker flooring, which is like many today. They may be religious, they may go to church, they may give mental assent to the fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day, but they're not going to trust Him. They're gonna stay back. They're gonna keep trusting themselves as they acknowledge the truth about who Jesus is. The cursed man may believe there is a God, that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for our sins and the cross, was buried, rose again the third day, was born of a virgin, et cetera. Intellectually, he knows that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And if you were to ask him, He would tell you so. If somebody were to promote something else in his hearing, he would even argue against the truth, but he himself is not going to trust. Practically, he trusts in himself, or he trusts in others. You ask him, so tell me, how did you come to know the Lord? Answer that question in your mind. How did you come to know the Lord? You answer the question, how did you come to know the Lord? And in your mind, where does it go? Does it race to the time when you did something? Does it go to your Christian parents, your upbringing, your Bible knowledge, your service, or any other good works? Does it race to the time you prayed the sinner's prayer? asked Jesus in your heart, went forward at an altar call, made a decision for Christ, things the Bible never tells us to do? Or does your mind race to someone other than you? Does your mind race to Jesus Christ, who died for you, shed His blood for you, paid the penalty of your sins, and saved you by His grace? God is speaking to you in our text. The mirror of His Word is being held before us. And you need to look into the mirror and say, Who am I? What do you see there? Because the text gives this scary warning, Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. Many profess the right things about God and Christ and the gospel. Nevertheless, they look to mankind. They look to themselves. They look to their good works. They look to their past. They look to their history. They look to the time they signed a card and prayed a prayer, the time they memorized a series of verses, or they felt bad about their sin and their mom paid with them in the kitchen. And so they think that, yes, I must be saved. And though they may verbally agree, With all that is true, in their mind, they're actually trusting in what they did. The confusing part is that some people repent and believe in their pew and then come forward at an altar call. Other people come forward at an altar call and they repent and believe. But no one is ever saved by coming forward. Some people do believe when they pray a prayer, a sinner's prayer, because they repent and believe and they pray the prayer. Other people pray the prayer and repent and believe. They're saved by repenting of their sins and placing their faith in Jesus, not the prayer. If you can be saved by a prayer, then why not just go out in the street, have one written up, and say, hey, you know, how much will it cost for you to just pray this prayer real quick so I can save you? That would be kind of good. I mean, you know, 20 pounds, good enough. Hey, 20 pounds, here it is. Pray the prayer. It's yours. You're going to heaven. I mean, we could like really take the sea by storm, right? But that's not what saves you. And that's the confusing part, because in the church, men have developed all these different methods to try and find out who comes to Christ. And it was a history of time. It went through Charles Fittie, and even Charles Spurgeon and others tried to identify who was coming to repentance and faith, which in some respects was good. I mean, you want to know who comes to Christ so that you can disciple them, pray with them, get them plugged in, get mentors attached to them. That's good. But this is what happened. People begin to get proud and they begin to say, well, look how many nachos I got in my belt this morning. I had six people come forward as if that's what saves them. Or 10 people come to the anxious bench and therefore they're saved. But of course, going to a location doesn't save you. Praying a prayer doesn't save you. Making a decision for Christ doesn't save you. Repentance and faith in Jesus Christ alone is what saves you. And it is an act of God, not an act of men. And so many in the church are deceived about their true spiritual condition, just like many people in Jeremiah's day. J.C. Ryle warns, quote, "...learn the enormous folly of joining anything with Christ in the matter of salvation. There are multitudes of baptized men and women who profess to honor Christ, but in reality do Him great dishonor. They give Christ a certain place in their system of religion, but not the place which God intended Him to fulfill." Christ alone is not all in all to their souls. No. It is either Christ in the church, or Christ in the sacraments, or Christ in the ordained ministers, or Christ in their own repentance, or Christ in their own goodness, or Christ in their own prayers, or Christ in their own sincerity and charity on which they practically rest their souls." It is dangerous. It is dangerous to trust in anything but Christ. the person deceived by this satanic maneuver that comes in many forms, oftentimes stops looking for salvation. They don't think they need rescued from the wrath of God to come anymore because they think they're already saved. They then go willingly to destruction, like an ox to the slaughter, not knowing That they're lost while they're attending church, while they're professing to be Christians, while they're learning Christian jargon. And so I ask you, what are you trusting in? Second, look at the middle of verse five. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. Literally, who makes his arm strength, his physical ability, skills, power, strength, and not the Lord. It's a shame, and we all do it, even those who know the Lord. You need something done, and instead of just stopping before you do it, and saying, hey Lord, I really need you to help me. Could you help me do this task? Be a good employee today at work, fill up the baptism tank, or whatever. You know, could you help me do this and ask him for help before you do it? What do we do? We just kind of forget the Lord and just launch off into it in our own strength, never thinking about God, never asking God for help, doing it in the flesh, trusting in our own strength. And then when trials come and God throws little wrenches in there to try and say, hey, you need to trust me, you know, here's some trials, here's a little sickness, here's a financial difficulty, here's a relationship ping, you know, and what do you do? You then try harder, you work harder, you trust in yourself, you bear down, and I'm working as hard as I can. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. I just want you to know, it happens to preachers. I sit down in front of my computer and I'm just surrounded by theology books and devotionals and I've got my computer screen up and all my Bible software on there. You would think that would be enough to remind me to pray. And so often I sit down there, and maybe I spend some time with the Lord, and then all of a sudden I get a little, oh, a little email, I answer that back, and oh, I got another one, and oh, that's an interesting one, and oh, I gotta answer this person's question pretty fast, and man, I gotta get to my sermon, and all of a sudden I pull up there, start diagramming the text, and looking up words, and building my sermon, and all of a sudden it dawns on me, I haven't talked to God about this. I'm writing a sermon. in the flesh, trusting in myself, my education, my abilities, my skills, my former knowledge. We need to learn to trust the Lord all the time. Because this text warns us that when we make flesh our strength, we're not acting like believers, we're acting like unbelievers. Look at the third, towards the end of verse five, where we are told, why? Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. And here is the real center of the issue, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That's it. That's the cancer right there. The real issue is inside. The actions are produced by the operating system of the heart, and our heart has turned away from trusting in the Lord. That is the core sin right there. And that brings the Lord's curse, not His grace. The heart and the Bible is everything that's you that isn't physical. It's your thoughts, your minds, your emotions. You're not thinking about God. You're not trusting in God. You're not relying on God. You're trusting in you and your skills and your whatever, your physical strength, your mental powers. And here we are told the cursed person's heart turns away from the Lord. And the word turns away means to defect, apostatize, abandon, specifically to forsake God's Word. So to summarize, the cursed man is cursed because he trusts in mankind, he makes flesh his strength, and his heart turns away from the Lord. Then we're given five consequences of doing that. And I'm just going to go through these quickly so we can get to the funner stuff. Look at verse 6. First, for he will be like a bush in the desert. We've all seen those, you know, if you've ever been to the desert or, you know, watched a nature program. What's in the desert? A bunch of little scraggly, leafless... You're wondering, have they ever grown? They just look gray and lifeless, right? That is the picture of the cursed man, spiritually speaking. Dry, withery, not flourishing, stickery, dried up. And look at the middle of verse 6, and we'll not see when prosperity comes. That is spiritual prosperity. We know the wicked can be rich and prosperous in a worldly sense. Asaph struggles with that, right? In Psalm 73 as he cries out, Lord, how come I'm trying to do what's right and I'm suffering, and the wicked are doing what's wrong? And look how they're prospering, and then he remembers their end, and then he says, okay. Yeah, that's right. It leads to a bad place. Third, look at the middle of verse 6. But will live in a stony wastes. His spiritual life is like a stony, rocky, hard wasteland with no life. Four, look towards the end of verse 6. He lives in a wilderness or a desert, a dry, barren wasteland, kind of like between the Jordan Rift where it's really hot out in the Sahara Desert. That's kind of the wilderness area. 5. Look towards the end of verse 6 again. The land of salt without inhabitants. What's the whole salt thing? Conquering armies, when they wanted to really lay waste to a place, they would burn everything. They would bring gobs of salt in and spread it everywhere. Why? Because once the ground has a whole bunch of salt in it, nothing grows. Nothing can grow. Because salt keeps plants from being able to grow. And so he lives not only in a dry, arid, waterless place, but a salted place. It's a land of salt without inhabitant. Alexander McLaren said, quote, the hot desert stretches on all sides. The fierce sunbeams like swords slay every green thing. The salt particles in the soil glitter in the light. No living creature breaks the melancholy solitude. It is a wasteland where no one came or has come since. the making of the world, and here and there a stunted gray shrub struggles to live and just manages not to die. But it has no grace of leaf, nor profitableness of fruit, and it only serves to make the desolation more desolate." And that, people, is the picture of the cursed man. And you need to look at your life, and you need to ask yourself, Am I that man? I pastor in Kentucky. It has a long history of Christianity, just like London. And it's still socially acceptable to call yourself a Christian, and pretty much everybody does. But I can tell you most are not. And one of the most bizarre things I find myself doing on a regular basis is to try and convince people they don't know the Lord when they think they do, so they can know the Lord because they don't. It's odd. I talked to them, and so tell me, you know, how did you come to know the Lord? And they run to their works like a dog with a bone. I grew up in the church. It's like, well, let's see, does the Bible say that's how you get saved? No. And I try to read my Bible. Well, you know, the gospel is in there, but reading your Bible doesn't save you either. And I try to be a good person. You know, that's good. That's moral, but doesn't save you. And I was baptized in junior high, you know, when I was 14 years old, I went to camp and I was really convicted about my sin, I was baptized. Baptism doesn't save you either. And you know, I've tried to be good and I try, and they just talk about their works and how they're not able to live like a Christian and my heart just goes out to them. Look, you can't do it. If you could save yourself, are you going to be good enough? Why would Jesus come to die? It's why Jesus had to come to die. We cannot do it. We cannot be good enough. He must save us. He must take our sins away from us. He must give us His perfect righteousness so that we can be right before Him. And they just don't get it. You can just see, it's like a deer in the headlights. Like the deer that walked out in front of my wife and I. We're driving home one night. We see this deer on the side of the road. Starts walking towards the car out in the road. And I'm thinking, I need to slow down. So I slow down, I slow down. I'm barely moving. And the deer just comes and sticks its head right in the headlight and kind of whacks it and kind of walks off on the side of the road. It's like. And you know what? So many people So many people who deny that salvation is of works are actually trusting in their works to save them and are not born again. They are baptized, they become members, they are told they can never lose their salvation, and this begins a very frustrating life for them. They try to live like Christians, but they just can't. They want to love God's Word, but they just don't. They want to love God's people, but they just can't figure it out. And they just have this life of just slavery to sin. And since they've never known what it is like to actually be born again, they're just confused. They try to read their Bible. It just doesn't make sense. They get convicted at sermons, but their life never changes. They feel guilty about sins they just can't seem to overcome. And they wonder if everybody else who's talking about their Bible and about their changed life is actually kidding. If it's just a big farce, like we just kind of all get here and kind of pretend to be something we're really not, and that if you really knew what somebody else was really like, you would discover they're just like you. Because you talk to people like these here two people talk, oh man, I was reading, man, Romans 8 the other day, and man, it was so amazing. It was so encouraging and so convicting. And you're thinking, are they pretending? Do they really like that? I mean, is that real? I just read it, it just doesn't make sense. And it never dawns on them, it never dawns on them that they don't know the Lord. And they're lost, and they're still cursed in church with Bible knowledge and Christian friends. And so I encourage you, I employ you to look at your life. And if you realize, you know what? I am trusting in myself. I am trusting in my works. I am trusting in my upbringing. I am trusting in my Christian parents. I am trusting in some profession I made, some altar call I went forward, some prayer I prayed, or some other man-made work, which I like to call Baptist sacraments. The Catholic church has theirs and Baptists have theirs. that you would seek the Lord while he can be found, and call upon him while he is near. Forsake your wicked way, turn from your unrighteous thoughts, and trust in Jesus Christ alone to save you. And what if you do that? What if you say, Lord, as we heard in these great testimonies, people just coming to the end of themselves. Religious? Yes. All having some Christian background? Yes. All having some Christian influence? Yes. All knowing some things? Yes. But miserable in sin. And they come to the end. By God's grace, they come to the end of themselves. the end of their hypocrisy, the end of their religious profession, the end of their trusting in themselves and plunging themselves into sin, and they say, okay, Lord, just take me and save me and change me and fix me and forgive me and just make me into Jesus's image. I'm so messed up. I just can't do it. And then what happens? Then you receive a different biography. you become the blessed man. Let's look at him. The biography of the blessed man. Look at verse 7 of Jeremiah 17, where we encounter our main theme here in our little micro series on the paradoxes of grace-fueled living. Verse 7 reads, look there, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. Here we are introduced to the antithesis of the cursed man who lives in the stony waste, the wilderness, the land of Saul without an inhabitant. To be blessed is to be endowed with the ability to achieve prosperity and success, really to be given God's grace. That's what, to be blessed by God is to be graced by God. And notice the two reasons given for why the blessed man is blessed. First, he is blessed because of what he trusts in, who trusts in the Lord. Secondly, he is blessed by what his trust is, whose trust is the Lord. There are a lot of people in the world who have great faith, trusting faith, who are headed for hell. Because when it comes to salvation, the amount of faith is not as critical as the object of faith. I mean, you can place your faith in a false god, yourself, the Jesus of Mormonism, the Pope, and you will perish with your great misguided faith. Having great faith is not enough. In Matthew 7, it was read earlier in one of the testimonies, who are the people who Jesus says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity? Religious people in the church doing good works in Jesus' name, calling Jesus Lord. And he says to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." Think about that. That's one of the scariest texts in all the Bible. They were doing things for God rather than letting Christ do things for them and through them. Living the Christian life begins by first trusting in the Lord and making the Lord your trust. And listen, our text is not giving us a botanical garden lesson here. This is not for gardeners who are trying to figure out how to grow plants, literal plants. This is a spiritual lesson in a plant botanical framework. He uses these plants, the plant in the desert and now the tree by the stream, to contrast each other. And he gives us six consequences of being blessed, of trusting in the Lord, of placing your faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. And notice what they are, verse eight, for he will be like a tree planted by the streams of water. We all know when there's a river, the trees grow really big next to the river or the stream because there's always water there. We know that. And so he's gonna be like that spiritually speaking. He's gonna have God's grace in abundance because he has placed his trust in the Lord. Secondly, that extends its roots by the stream. Even though the tree is next to the stream, Its roots go down under the stream. Why is that important? Because you know, even in a year of drought, even if the stream runs dry, what's it like under the stream bed? It's still moist. There's still water there. That is the whole point. Even as a Christian, even if you're going through trials, even if life is hard, even if you're being persecuted, even if you have great difficulties in your life and you can't see any of the visible blessings, the invisible grace of God is still there. Your roots are still in grace upon grace that tapped in to the waters of God's living grace that is going to sustain you and keep you and lay hold of you so you don't fall away. Notice three, he will not fear when the heat comes. Probably a picture of trials as we go through life, you know, it's hot, trials come, but you know what? You don't need to fear because you have all sufficient grace, right? And for even in the scorching drought and the heat of summer, its leaves will be green. They're not going to wither. They're not going to fall off. They're not going to shrivel up. You're not going to shrivel up. You've got God's grace. Once you know the Lord, once you trust in God and make the Lord your trust, you're getting all sufficient grace. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, grace upon grace. I mean, there's so many verses that talk about it. And it will not be anxious fifth in the year of drought. Why? Because even in the year of drought, even when the stream starts off dry and at the end of the year you've had a long, hot summer of trial, of difficulty, of pain, of persecution, whatever you might face in your life, there's still grace down deep where your roots go. It reminds me of Psalm 50, verse 14 and 15. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble, drought, trial, heat, and I shall rescue you and you will honor me. Trust in the Lord. Let your roots sink deep into the encouraging and strengthening promises of God. And when the torrent of trial comes, when no visible resources can be seen, there is still below the surface the super abundant grace of God. Six, finally, nor ceases to yield fruit. Notice at the end of the verse there, ceases to yield fruit. Keeps on bearing spiritual fruit by God's grace to the glory of God and the blessing of others. You know, it's really amazing being a pastor. Sometimes I feel kind of guilty because there are times when, you know, I think to myself, man, I'm kind of busy, but this person's in the hospital or that person's in the hospital. I'm trying to put my sermon together and get this other stuff done and meet with this other person, but I need to go visit this person in the hospital and the person's dying. So it's like, okay, okay, I want to do it. I'm just like trying to make sure I can get everything done. And so I go there and at first, it's kind of inconvenient, you know. And the guy's dying in the hospital and now I have to like stop my sermon prep to go minister to the guy. And I've gone so many times and come back thinking, that person ministered to me. I go there to think I'm going to bless them and they bless me. I've talked to people on their deathbeds. I mean, literally, they're gonna be in glory in a day or two, and they're saying, Pastor Jack, how are you doing? How can I pray for you? I'm thinking, no, no, no, that's my job. I'm supposed to be doing that for you. And they're saying, no, let me just pray for you. It's like, no, this is like what I did, tell them, I know you're dying, but no, don't pray for me. A lot of times we have this idea that if we preserve ourselves and we trust in ourselves and we trust in our own resources that things are going to be good, but it never works out that way. It always comes when we trust in the Lord, and yes, we are weak, and yes, our resources are short, and yes, we don't have time, and yes, we're tired, and yes, the seven other people who said they would come to help me do whatever task the church is doing didn't show, and I'm here all by myself, and on and on, those things happen. We've all been there, but who are you doing it for? The Lord, and who are you trusting in? The Lord. And who supplies the grace? The Lord. But what does it really mean to trust in the Lord so you can tap in the riches of His grace? We're just gonna ask this question. I'm gonna be answering this tonight and next week, Lord willing. Have you ever noticed this? The preacher gets up preaching God's Word to you, and he says, don't do this, and don't do that, and stop doing this, and you need to do this, and every Sunday, it's some of the things you need to do or not do, and even though there's not a lot of things, they just say it in a different way, so you think it's a bunch of things, but it's not. Anyways, we're telling you to do things, because God's Word tells us to do things, and at the same time, the preacher's also telling you, but you can't do it. It's like, what? It kind of sounds like doublespeak. Yeah, you can do it. It's like, okay, preacher, did you just tell me I need to read my Bible? Yes, but it's not of you. Does that ever mess with you? That messes with me. It did for a very long time. I was like, what's with that? You see, living the Grace Field life begins by first making the Lord your trust, so you're in the family of God, so you have His salvation, so you have the Holy Spirit, so you have all of His resources given to you to help you do whatever He wants you to do. It's not about you doing what you think you need to do, it's about God doing through you what He wants you to do. Consider the two men we've just seen, as we wrap up here. There is the cursed man, trusts in mankind. The blessed man trusts in the Lord. The cursed man trusts in his strength. The blessed man makes the Lord his trust. The cursed man turns his heart away from the Lord. And the blessed man turns his heart towards the Lord. The cursed man lives in a desert. The blessed man lives by the stream. The cursed man lives in the stony waste. The blessed man's roots go deep into the stream. The cursed man lives in the land of salt. The blessed man doesn't fear the heat. The cursed man does not see prosperity. The blessed man always has green leaves. The cursed man has no company. The blessed man is not anxious in year of drought. The cursed man bears no fruit. The blessed man constantly bears fruit. The cursed man has a destiny which is hell. And the blessed man has a destiny which is heaven. You see, the Lord not only wants us to see ourselves accurately, but He wants us, if we see that we're in the cursed camp, to repent of our sins. Like all those we read about in Hebrews 11, they just didn't say they believed, they actually acted on it. They stood in the glass. They dangled out over the edge with their life. And they were like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots deep in the stream. It doesn't matter whether heat comes or drought comes or trial comes, God's grace is always there. So for starters, We've learned this, don't trust in yourself. Don't trust in other people. Don't trust in your mental powers, your physical powers, or any other thing but the Lord. Trust in the Lord, make the Lord your trust, place your faith in Christ alone to save you, and don't trust in any other religious activity, going forward, praying the prayer, sinners, this, making decisions. So many people, they hear the truth, and then they trust in a work. Just trust in Christ alone, and He alone can save you. J.C. Ryle's Hymns for the Church on Earth has this hymn. Let me just read you the words and we'll close shop. Trust on, trust on, believer, though long the conflict be. Yet shall you prove victorious, your God shall fight for thee. Trust on, trust on, your failings may bow you to the dust. Yet in your deepest sorrow, O give not up thy trust. Trust on, the danger presses. Tempting strong is near. Over life's dangerous rapids, who shall your passage steer? Jesus is strong to save you. He is a faithful friend. Trust on. Trust on, believer. Trust Jesus to the end. Isn't that great? This afternoon I'm going to be talking about some of the weirdest aspects of grace as we look at that text in 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul says, The Lord sent a messenger of Satan to torment me as an act of grace. We'll see why that is, but let's pray. Father, we are grateful for your mercy and your grace. Lord, we are so thankful for the testimonies we have heard. Oh, we think back to the times when you rescued us. and we were ignorant and blind and didn't know anything and we thought we did and we were proud and we were trusting in ourselves and we were cursed and gone astray without hope in the world. And Father, we just thank you for your providence which brought a faithful believer into our life. brought a Bible into our life, a gospel track into our life, a good video into our life, something into our life, so we could hear about Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead, see our sins, see the judgment we deserved, and see the only person who can save us, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to leave here today remembering that cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. Father, help us to live lives of grace by trusting in you, not ourselves. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.