Earlier today I gave a book on leadership to a young man at our church. As I gave it to him, I told him that I am entrusting him with this book and what he will learn from it. He looked at me and said, “wow, that’s serious.” I thought about that in light of our current sermon series, “Entrusted.” That’s exactly what our response should be when God entrusts us with the gospel and the good fight. “Wow, that’s serious.”
To be entrusted with something carries much more weight than simply to be given something. To entrust is to place trust in someone for a task or the care of something. It means to give to someone, trusting and believing that they will honor it. I may give my son some play money and a nerf gun, but that is very different then my responsibility as a father being entrusted with the safety of and provision for my family. These are very different things, but they help illustrate the depth of the word, “entrusted.”
1 Tim 1:18 This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,
Men, the truth that we have been entrusted by God with His message, His fight, and His equipping should be our call to arms. This is serious! Think seriously about 3 implications of being entrusted.
1. The item being entrusted is valuable. Paul tells Timothy that he has been entrusted with the gospel and the gifting to accomplish God’s purposes. What is valuable to you? Does that list include God’s work? You have been uniquely and divinely equipped by the creator of the universe to accomplish his work. Yet we often don’t give a second thought to what should be our primary thought: How can I fight the good fight for God? This is the most valuable and significant thing we can do. So, what is your calling? And I don’t mean your career! What has God sacredly entrusted you to do?
2. God is trusting us by entrusting us. Entrusted means to believe in or trust. The Almighty God entrusts us with the most valuable news, the gospel which is the foundation for His church. Think about that! God trusts his sons. Even with our failings and weaknesses, He entrusts us. It isn’t the spectacular, incredibly gifted superman that God entrusts and calls, it is the average, faithful man of God. You don’t have to grow to a point where you are ready to be entrusted by God, If you are a believer, you already are trusted and entrusted! This is why we can step out in faith, takes risks for God, and allow Him to work.
3. God equips those He entrusts. To be entrusted with the fight assumes that we will fight the fight: that we will act on that trust. It is a responsibility. The good news is that the ability to fight the good fight is given by God through the work of the Holy Spirit. We may be normal and consider ourselves “average,” but God uses faithfulness and the “average” in extraordinary ways. It is His work and His equipping. We will never get an impossible job from God. However, we do have to step up and act on the trust given to us. In 2 Tim 2:2 we read, “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Being entrusted brings the responsibility to entrust others with the fight. Perhaps we avoid discipleship by thinking we have nothing to offer and are not equipped to disciple someone else because we are ordinary. Well, God does the equipping, He has already entrusted you with the task, and as a child of God, we are far from ordinary! We can’t get out of this one. This article gives a great example of how God uses the ordinary for extraordinary purposes.
Let’s take up arms and fight the good fight. We are entrusted. Wow, that’s serious!
