I am not sure if it still sung much, but a generation or two ago a popular hymn for both adults and children was, “Trust and Obey”, written in 1887 by John Sammis:
Trust and obey,
for there is no other way
to be happy in Jesus,
but to trust and obey.
It presents a rather optimistic view of the Christian life. Evidently, when you trust and obey, you’ll always be happy in Jesus. It goes on to say, “Not a doubt nor a fear, not a sigh or a tear, can abide while we trust and obey.” If only! Doubts, fears, sighs and tears are an unavoidable reality even for saints who deeply trust God and earnestly seek to obey him.
But while one can question the triumphalistic spirit of the song, one cannot argue with the imperative to “trust and obey.” There is no other way to live in relationship with the God who loves us and has saved us by his grace. We may not always feel happy, but we will know more joy and peace, hope and purpose as we trust him and obey him.
Our two top tasks
These two acts of the will, for that is what they are, are the two tasks that should really be at the top of our daily “To-Do” list. That’s true whether you are a child in Sunday School or a gospel minister, whether you have walked with the Lord for decades or are just starting out in the Christian life. Life in Christ is a life of trusting and obeying God.
The Christian life both begins and continues with these two acts of the will. For a person to be saved they must trust the saving work of Christ on their behalf, believing that his blood was shed for them to ransom them from the wrath to come. As they trust, they must obey the command to repent of their sin, turning from rebellion against God and from trusting in themselves and in all the world offers.
Then, having begun the Christian life by trusting and obeying, it is the way we are to continue. Daily, we must trust God and his Word, and daily we must obey his call to live according to his ways.
There may be many things on your “To-Do” list each day, but these two are the most important. Maybe your list has a raft of jobs, emails, and meetings; or things to fix, people to see, projects to advance; or perhaps places to go, music to listen to, a gym workout to fit in, and a coffee catch up to get to. My daily list is seldom completed, so I start many a day rescheduling the tasks I didn’t get to the day before and putting the most important things at the top of the list.
But what are the most important tasks each day? While we would like to get a hundred things done, the most important thing to do is to trust and obey God in everything else we do.
Trust
In every undertaking, we need to trust God. We will need to trust his providence in our lives. We trust that he is sovereign over all that lies ahead in the day. We trust that nothing will happen by chance, no event or problem will be outside of his perfect will, and no circumstance will shock him, even if it takes us by surprise. We trust that the one who has numbered the hairs on our head is watching over us and is with us.
We therefore trust his love. We trust that his love will not waver or fluctuate throughout the day depending on our performance. His love for us was secured by his Son in an act of underserved and unsought mercy. We are utterly secure in that love, and nothing we face today can separate us from it.
We also trust his power. Frequently the events of a day remind us of our weakness. We encounter things we can’t control, people we can’t manage, demands we can’t cope with. We get weary and by the end of the day we crash into bed. But God is all powerful. Nothing is too hard for him. He does not grow tired or weary. Nothing we face is beyond his strength or capacity.
We know these things because we trust his word. That is the foundation of our trust. God has made himself known to us in the Scriptures, and as they dwell richly within us, we come to increased confidence in who he is, in the promises he has made, and the plans he has laid. As we trust his word, his word builds our trust; and as trust him, we learn to trust his word more and more.
Obey
It is our trust of God that leads us to obey him. We trust that his commands are good, that his will is what is best for us, that his ways lead to life. We therefore want to obey him because we believe there is no better way to live. We have come to see that living for self and running life our own way is a broad road that leads to destruction. The narrow road that leads to life is the way of hearing and doing what Christ has said.
Jesus said, “If you love me you will obey my commands.” We do love him, and so we obey his commands out of affection for him and gratitude to him. Only obedience displays our faith in him and our love for him.
Not that obedience is easy. If you put “obey” at the top of your “To-Do” list, you have set yourself a tough task. Each day will bring with it temptations to disobey. The world will be in our face. Satan will seek to deceive us. Our own flesh will be weak. We will have to consciously and frequently in the course of each day say “no” to all that is ungodly, and deliberately pursue what pleases the Lord.
But we do not do this alone. Christ is in us. His Spirit indwells us. His Word directs us. His law has been written on our hearts so that it has become our desire to love and please the Lord. It is a hard task, but a good task. The best way to live today is to live in obedience to the Lord.
The daily task
I write this as a husband, father, elder, lecturer, and gospel worker. Each role generates multiple tasks. But I need to remember that there is nothing I need to do more in all those roles and responsibilities than to trust God and be obedient to him. When I don’t trust him, I’m trying to do all those things in my own strength, which simply does not work. And when I don’t obey God, I fail to honour him in all those things and bring harm to the people around me.
That’s true for every believer, no matter what their roles or responsibilities are. Amidst all the things you do, these two are both the hardest and the most important things you will do today. Trust God. Obey God.
The reality is, though, even on our best days we do not trust God as fully as we ought or obey him as promptly and gladly as we should. These tasks are never fully done. But as we face our own weakness and failure, we again turn to the Lord, trusting his forgiveness and grace, and looking at him who alone can renew in us a desire to live in obedience to him.
The song may be somewhat naïve in saying, “Trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus…” But with a tweak of the words, we get to the reason these two tasks are to be at the top of our “To-Do” list. We “trust and obey, for there is no other way to honour Christ. There is no other way to grow in commitment and usefulness to him. There is no other way to respond to his grace. There is no other way to fully enjoy his saving love.”
