From Knowledge to Trust

By William R. Cunningham
August 5, 2007

Introduction

I have spent many years of my life in the pursuit of knowledge.  I want to understand the universe, human behavior, electronics, computer science, God, the Bible, and many more things.  My professional career is a direct result of my pursuit for knowledge in the area of computers and information technology.  My ministry involvement is also a direct result of that same pursuit.

I have recognized the fact that knowledge will protect you and help you decide what you should or should not do in a particular situation.  Knowledge will help protect you from someone who would otherwise take advantage of you if you were ignorant of a particular topic.  Consider what would happen if the car mechanic knew that you possessed knowledge of the inner workings of a car when you brought your car in for repairs. 

I recall a story I was told many years ago by a man named Bob.  Bob said that he took his car for an inspection to a mechanic who was equipped with new diagnostics equipment.  The device is connected to your car and it would provide information about emissions and other parameters.  The car was started and then the mechanic, looking at the screen on the diagnostic equipment proclaimed, “I see what the problem is here.  Look at this!”  The screen showed a lot of data that could easily have been considered legitimate except for one thing.  Bob noticed that one of the leads of the equipment was not connected to the car.  He told the mechanic, “There is still a lead on the ground over there.”  Simple knowledge of circuits protected Bob from being deceived by a mechanic (However, it could also be that the mechanic didn’t know the lead was on the ground and honestly thought that he was getting accurate readings from the car).

My point is that knowledge is very important in our lives and without it we risk many unnecessary problems.  Knowledge is important in our health, wealth, and especially in our relationship with God and each other.  Knowledge can help us achieve the things that God has purposed for us and it can help protect us from deception.  Knowledge is what I am going to discuss with you today.  However, I am not going to discuss knowledge in the way that you are probably used to, namely mental knowledge.  I am going to talk about knowledge more from the realm of experience than study.

For example, I may have knowledge of certain electronic principles, but unless I actually experience those principles then I really can’t say that I know them.  You may read about someone, but you can’t say that you know the person unless you have experienced him or her (spent time and got to know the person).  So there is a significant side of knowledge that we should be aware of and that we should embrace as we manage our lives and do our best to live it according to God’s ways.

Scripture Lesson

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit. ( Jeremiah 17:7-8).

Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. ( Psalm 1:1-3)

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord Shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and flourishing, ( Psalm 92:12-14)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. ( Proverbs 3:5-6)

Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7)

Focal Points

• Knowledge
• Experience

Knowledge

There are three things that Solomon said that we should get; namely wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.  Let’s start from knowledge and work our way to wisdom.

The Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary defines knowledge as follows.

“The truth or facts of life that a person acquires either through experience or thought.  The greatest truth that a person can possess with the mind or learn through experience is truth about God (See Psalm 46:10; John 8:31-32).  This cannot be gained by unaided human reason (Job 11:&; Rom. 11:33).  It is acquired only as God shows Himself to people—in nature and conscience (Ps. 19; Rom. 1:19-20); in history or providence (Deut. 6:20-25; Dan. 2:21); and especially in the Bible (Ps 119; Rev. 1:1-3)

Mental knowledge by itself, as good as it may be, is inadequate; it is capable only of producing pride (1 Cor. 8:1; 13:2).  Moral knowledge affects a person’s will (Prov. 1:7; Phil. 3:11-12; 1 John 4:6).  It is knowledge of the heart, not the mind alone.  The Book of Proverbs deals primarily with this kind of knowledge.  Experiential knowledge is that gained through one’s experience (Gen. 4:1; 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 John 4:7-8).

The Apostle Paul’s wish for the church at Colosse was that they might increase in the “knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).”

There are two basic types of knowledge: knowledge of the mind and knowledge of the heart.   We can obtain knowledge mentally (Example: through study) or we can obtain knowledge through experience.

Experiential knowledge is very important and the best type of knowledge to acquire.  Let me tell you why.  Suppose you studied a particular chapter in your school physics textbook.  It isn’t until you put your knowledge to use (a lab or even solving problems) that you can say that you know the material.  You can only truthfully claim to know something if you experience it otherwise you only know about it.  Likewise you cannot say that you know someone because you heard about him or you read about him.  You know a person because you experience that person, i.e., you spend time with the person in a relationship of some sort.

Therefore, true knowledge comes from experience or perhaps even thought (philosophy for example).  You can’t say that you know God simply because you have become an expert with the Bible.  Biblical knowledge alone does not bring you true knowledge of God.  True knowledge of God comes when you experience God.  This means that you have to spend time with God and be aware of him operating in your lives.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

The word “acknowledge” in the above verse means to know, learn to know, perceive, to perceive and see, find out and discern, to discriminate, distinguish, to know by experience, to recognize.  We should therefore know God through experience and distinguish what he is doing from all else and then our paths will be straight.

Along with knowledge we should gain understanding and wisdom.  Understanding is the ability to comprehend or grasp the knowledge that we have.  Understanding gives life to the knowledge that we gain through experience or study.  God reveals himself to us and through understanding I am able to apply be edified.  We cannot be edified unless we understand.

The Nelson’s New Illustrated Dictionary of the Bible defines wisdom as, “ability to judge correctly and to follow the best course of action, based on knowledge and understanding.”

Wisdom therefore allows us to use the knowledge that we have gained to manage our lives.  We read earlier that wisdom is the principle thing.  However, in order to have wisdom there must be knowledge and understanding.

Trust

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

We know that we should trust the Lord.  Solomon said to trust him with our whole heart (Proverbs 3:5-6) and don’t lean on our own understanding.

Before we go further I’d like to elaborate on something here.  We said earlier that knowledge leads to understanding and understanding leads to wisdom.  However, Solomon said not to lean on our own understanding.  So what good is understanding if I can’t depend on it.  The key is our own understanding.  Remember How the Nelson’s Bible dictionary defined knowledge earlier.  It said that truth cannot be obtained by the unaided mind.  Therefore, God is involved in opening our understanding and that our understanding is not mere mental gymnastics.

Now we should totally depend on the Lord.  Trust means to have confidence in and to depend on.  So we are to depend on God and then we will prosper in our way.  God will make our paths straight if we trust him and therefore do what he says.

There are many scriptures that refer to trusting in the Lord, but how exactly do we trust God?  What does trusting God look like so to speak?  I believe that the key to trusting God is through knowledge.  I’m not talking about merely knowing something about God.  I am talking about having a relationship with Him and therefore experiencing Him.  You begin to know God (obtain the truth about God in the heart) when we experience God and we can only experience God if we do what He says to do.  We can then look back and see how God has been faithful all of the time.  Those memories are like memorials to remind us of the faithfulness of God in past situations, which provides more confidence in future situations.

Some examples of those types of memorials are as follows.

• Joshua 4:7-9 (After entering the Promised Land)
• Luke 22:19 (The Eucharist – communion)
• Exodus 12:14 (The Passover Feast)

I think it is very important to remember what God has done for us in the past so that we would have more confidence in him in the future.

This means that God’s providence is very important with regards to knowledge and trust.  We can see the providence of God mostly by looking back since no one can see the future (unless God shows it to him or her).  God’s providence is how He interacts with us and through the situations in our lives.  It is how God guides us down the path that he has set for us.  If we would only remain on that path and accomplish the goal set for us!

Obedience

An important part to trust is obedience.  However, remember that knowledge, understanding, and wisdom typically will precede an action on our part.  It is important that we do what we learn and not just accumulate head knowledge.  Obeying God provides the opportunity to see God in action so to speak.  When we see God in action then we will see how faithful he is to us.  We will see how we can indeed trust Him and totally depend on Him.

We can not know the trustworthiness of God unless we act on what He reveals to us.  Many times we know the right thing to do and we don’t do it.  So just having facts in the head will not get us to where we need to be with regards to our relationship with God

The Progression

I find a progression of things when I look at my own life.  I see the providence of God operating in the things that I do and even through my mistakes.  First there is the pursuit for knowledge of God.  Many years ago I realized that it is important to experience God (I even purchased the Experience God Bible).  However, there was still the question of how to “have faith in God” as many say.  I believe that operating in faith is simply to operate from knowledge.  We cannot trust God if we don’t know to trust Him.

We learn to trust God by first obtaining knowledge of His word (what He reveals to us) and then acting on it.  This will provide us the opportunity to experience God and thus build more confidence.  The more we obey Him, the more we see his faithfulness.  The more we see His faithfulness, the more we will trust Him.  We can see his faithfulness through God’s providence.  We can see how God is operating in our lives.  We can know God through experience and this implies the past.  Our past experiences with God will help us to move forward in the future.  Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he said, “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17).  Jesus even said that if we have faith as a mustard seed then we can move mountains (Matthew 17:20).  That perhaps highlights the progression of faith.  Faith grows as we experience God.  God moves in our lives as we move.

We can be blessed by God as we progress in our faith and experience with Him.  We can be prosperous as we walk with the Lord.  It seems to be all about relationship, i.e., our relationship with God.  This also surely implies the need for righteousness because we cannot walk with God and live an unrighteous lifestyle.

Righteousness means to be in right standing with God.  It means that we are in right or proper relationship with the Lord.  The proper relationship with God is one of growth and maturity as we consistently experience Him.

Conclusion

Knowledge leads to faith and faith leads to more faith, which in turn leads to a prosperous life.  Knowledge is the acquisition of truth through experience or thought as God reveals Himself to us and we act on that revelation and new knowledge.  Knowledge involves understanding and wisdom as we take what we know of God and from God and apply them to our lives.  This in turn leads to more experience of God and subsequently more trust.

To trust God is simply a progression of experiences with Him (this is like anything else in our lives if you think about it).  We experience God and see his faithfulness, which leads us to trust Him even more.  Our faith in God increases as we do what He says from situation to situation and from day to day and then we see how much He can be trusted when we see how true He is to His word.

Gain knowledge, wisdom and understanding.  Begin to experience God in your life.  Be aware of God moving in your life and situations through divine providence and act on it.  Allow God to steer you in the direction that He has already purposed for you so that you can live a fulfilled life.  Knowledge leads to trust and trust leads to fulfillment and that means you are truly blessed.  Amen.