A Sunday School Lesson On Trust

Here is a Sunday school lesson or Bible study on the subject of trust from the Bible.

Who do you Trust?

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

If you’re like me, you like to trust in yourself; in your own intelligence, your own intuition, and your own experience, but these three have failed me many times. It was only later that I learned to lean on God’s Word and trusting it with all my heart. It turns out that my trust was well placed for He made my paths straighter and I didn’t stumble as often as I did before. If you’ve got a Bible, then you’ve got the Word of God, and if you read it, you’ll agree with what the psalmist wrote; “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). Jesus’ teachings are found in the New Testament and are part of the Word of God, but He is actually proclaimed to be the very Word of God (John 1:1, 14), and so by trusting in Him, you are trusting in His Word. The point is, the Bible illuminates those things around your feet so that you might not stumble over something unforeseen, but there’s more; His Word lights up the path, so we can see our steps and but also what we’re about to trip over if we’re not careful (1st Cor 6:18; James 4:7). Both of these lessen the chance of having a fall. Trust the Light (John 8:12) because the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5). If you lean on your own understanding there’s nothing holding you up and you’re going to fall; instead, acknowledge Him and He’ll straighten the path for you.

Why does the psalmist say we must “acknowledge Him?”

What does it mean that God will “straighten your paths?”

Why is the Word described as a lamp for our feet and light to our path?

Do you try to walk in the path of your own understanding? How so?

Trusting in Self

Luke 18:9-10 “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”

If we are trusting in ourselves like the Pharisees did, then we’re in serious jeopardy because we are not trustworthy. We are finite human beings that could be here today and gone tomorrow. James wrote, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:13-14), so now is no time to be trusting in ourselves. The trust that Jesus was talking about was much more than just our life. The implications are eternal. The self-righteous trust in their own good works but to God, these are deplorable and worthless to Him (Isaiah 64:6; Eph 2:8-9). The tax collector, generally scorned by the Jews, was “standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’” (Luke 18:13) so Jesus said “this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other”(Luke 18:14).

Why was one justified and the other not (Luke 18:13-14)?

Do you know some people who trust in themselves?

Are they on dangerous ground if they’re not saved?

What happens if Christians start to trust in themselves?

Trusting in God

Psalm 25:2 “O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.”

If you want to read about the subject of trust, then I strongly suggest you dive into the Book of Psalms because this book contains more than one third of all the biblical references about trust (53 times) in the Bible (147 times) so if you’re having a hard time with trust, dive into the Book of Psalms. The level of trust that the psalmist had in God was obvious in his writings. He wrote, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie” (Psalm 40:4). By turning “to the proud,” the psalmist may have meant the wealthy but his point is “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (Psalm 37:5).

Why does it mean that God will act if we trust Him?

Does that mean we’ll receive what we’re praying for?

Why does he say “let me not be put to shame?”

Hope in Him

Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.”

The way the word hope is used in the Bible and by its definition, it’s almost another word for faith or trust, so think about Job’s state for a moment; he had lost all he had, including his family and possessions, his health, and his own wife said “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9), so she was not much help. Even his friends turned on him. You would think that Job was surely going to lose his faith, but he never did. He questioned God and God’s goodness, but his belief in God never wavered, and in fact, it was stronger than ever after his trial was over (Job 42:7-17). Job’s faith was such that he could confidently say, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me” (Job 19:26-27)! Job could trust in God no matter what was going on around him (even “though he slay me”).

What made Job change his mind (Job 42:1-6)?

Could you say that about God (Job 13:15)?

Why did Job still want to “argue [his] ways to [God’s] face?

Conclusion

I urge you in your study to look at all of the Bible verses and read them aloud in the class so that you can get the most out of this lesson on trust and this lesson could not be more important today where it’s hard to trust people you don’t know and maybe even those you do. Only God is worthy of our complete and utter trust. For those who have repented of their sins and left them all behind, and then put their trust in Jesus Christ, they have Jesus’ own word on it that, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this” (John 11:25-26)?

Do you believe John 11:25-26?

How hard is it to trust in Job-like circumstances?

Have you ever tried walking in the dark? Is it hard to trust where you’re going?

What has changed in your understanding about trust in this study?

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.