The Case of the Missing Kit-Kat
Hunter Jobbins was a freshman at Kansas State University. One day last spring he drove up to his dorm & parked his car out front. He was just going to run inside to grab something & come right back out. So he left his car unlocked.
In the cup holder in his car, he left a perfectly good Kit Kat bar on display.
When he returned to his car he was shocked to see that the Kit Kat had gone missing! What was strange is that the Kit Kat was the ONLY thing missing.
Hunter kept looking around the car to see if he could find it, but what he found was this note written on a napkin. It read…
“Saw Kit Kat in your cup holder. I love Kit Kats so I checked your door and it was unlocked. Did not take anything other than the Kit Kat. I am sorry and hungry.”
Hunter posted a picture of the napkin note along with this tweet…
“Left my car for maybe 15 minutes in front of the dorms & I come back to this. College Man.”
Why Do We Struggle with Trust?
This is the world we live in! A world where people steal our Kit Kat right out of our car when no one is looking!
Is it any wonder we have such a hard time trusting?!
It’s one thing when someone steals our Kit Kat. But we all know that the real reason we have a hard time trusting people isn’t because someone took our chocolate when we weren’t looking.
I believe that one of the reasons we have a hard time trusting God is because at some point in our life, the people closest to us have let us down.
You probably remember the first time you experienced first hand broken trust.
What happens when people let us down?
A lot of things, for sure. But one thing that I think happens is that when people fail us we tend to think that God has failed us.
[Tweet “When people fail us we tend to think that God has failed us.”]When people let us down we assume that means God has let us down.
Having a Visible Faith in an Invisible God…
So how do we have a visible faith in an invisible God when more often than not, we feel let down? When we realize that this Christian thing we signed up for is harder than we thought?
The letter to the Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians who were living in a time when it was not easy to follow Jesus. They were up under heavy persecution for their faith.
In spite of their difficulty, in spite of their suffering, even though it was hard to follow Jesus, they held on to a visible faith in an invisible God.
And I think this is important because I realize that for some of us, maybe a lot of us, the thought has crossed our minds… wouldn’t life just be easier if I stopped believing?
But what the writer of Hebrews wants to remind these believers in Jesus about is that God is faithful to those who are faithful to Him.
The Promise
When it became difficult to keep trusting in God, to keep holding on to their faith in the Son of God, here’s what the writer of Hebrews wanted to remind his friends of…
Hebrews 10.35-39
So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.
“For in just a little while,
the Coming One will come and not delay.
And my righteous ones will live by faith.
But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”
But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved.
In other words, you can have a visible faith in an invisible God because God has made a promise to those who have faith in Jesus & God never breaks a promise.
[Tweet “You can have a visible faith in an invisible God because God never breaks a promise. “]In the middle of their difficulty, in the middle of their suffering, in the middle of all their problems the writer of Hebrews, whoever he or she was, reminds these Jesus followers that you can trust in God because God has made you a PROMISE that He will come & SAVE you & God always keeps His promises!
The Past
But that’s not the only reason you can trust God. That’s not the only reason you should hold on to hope when you feel like you can’t hold on any longer.
The Hebrew writer knew that when you can’t see God working in your life in the present, you have remember that God has been faithful in the past.
[Tweet “When you can’t see God in the present, remember that God has been faithful in the past. “]So the writer of Hebrews launches out on reminding these Jewish Christians of ALL the WAYS God has been faithful in the past to His people up to this point.
Over & over again in Hebrews 11, the author reminds the people that “It was by faith…” that the people of God who had come before had experienced the power & the presence of God in their lives.
[Tweet “It was by faith that the people of God had experienced the power & the presence of God.”]This is why you can have a visible faith in an invisible God. Because no one who ever trusted in God was ever disappointed.
[Tweet “You can have a visible faith in an invisible God because no one who trusted in God was disappointed.”]Because God never let one of them down. So you can know that if you put your hope, your trust, your faith in this God, that He will not disappoint you either.
But there is also a hard truth, a hard reality revealed in Hebrews 11… You may not see God come through for you on this side of the grave, but you will see God come through for you. For all those who hold on to their faith in Jesus, God will come through for you.
This world is not your home. You’re a pilgrim on a journey. Your destination is a new heaven & a new earth. Your God will come through for you.
But there’s still one more reason to hold on to your faith when it’s hard to hold on, & it trumps every other reason.
The Passion of Christ
Hebrews 12.1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.
The reason you can hold on to your faith when it feels like you’re barely holding on at all is because Jesus held on to His faith when He was hanging on the cross.
[Tweet “You can hold on to your faith because Jesus held on to His faith when He was hanging on the cross. “]Jesus, who lived the perfect life, died a sinners death on a criminal’s cross. He was publicly humiliated & put to shame. He was laughed at, slapped, spit on & ridiculed. He was beaten, whipped, tortured & nailed to a cross left for dead. The religious leaders conspired against Him. The government condemned Him to die. His closest friends abandoned Him.
Everyone had let him down.
He even cried out to God the Father, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
But God the Father had not abandoned Jesus the Son.
It appeared that way for a moment. Because Jesus died that day. He was buried in a grave. They placed a stone in front of the tomb.
But on Sunday morning as soon as the sun began to rise that stone was rolled away from the tomb & God, who can always be trusted, raised Jesus up from the grave!
You can have a visible faith in an invisible God because God will never let you down.
The Rest of the Story
After Hunter posted his tweet about how his Kit Kat had been stolen from his car. the tweet went viral and got the attention of the Hershey Co.
In a response to his tweet, KitKat_US said, “Who steals someone’s Kit Kat?! WHO DOES THAT?! Shoot us a DM and we’ll replace it for you.”
Little did Hunter know what would happen next. The Hershey company didn’t just send him a replacement for his stolen Kit Kat. They showed up with 6,500 Kit Kat bars to replace the one that had been stolen!
Then Kit Kat posted this tweet: “Keep your Kit Kat, thief. @jabbins now has ALL the candy #KitKatThief.”
Here’s the point… don’t miss this…
If Hershey will give 1 guy 6,500 Kit Kats because he had one stolen, how much more will your Father in Heaven take care of you?
I don’t know what difficult circumstance you’re going through right now… but I want you to know that God SEES! God KNOWS! And God won’t let you down.
He will pour His blessings over your life until your life overflows!
