God is Faithful

[00:00:00] It's good to be together this morning. I trust that we've been challenged. I appreciate you sharing that, Chad, and I'm thinking that your quietness right away when Tom asked for something to share was because you were thinking about that, and I think that's good. This morning I want to share a message with us. God is faithful. [00:00:30] And I want to think about this because I found in my own life that the faithfulness of God is something that has given me peace in a lot of situations. I don't know how you find it. There's probably some of you here today that have difficulty understanding, appreciating, and accepting the faithfulness of God because you've never seen it modeled. [00:01:07] You had a father who was not very faithful or you didn't even have a father figure that you recognized and that does play into our understanding. It makes it difficult for those who have that type of experience to really lay hold, grab hold and hang on to the faithfulness of God. But it doesn't change his faithfulness. I want us this morning to think about that, and I want us to be encouraged and strengthened. [00:01:45] We have some questions we want to think about. What determines faithfulness? Who's the determining factor? How do you decide if someone's faithful or not? And we really should ask a question in relation to that. How do we understand anything about God? Can you go into the science lab and determine anything at all about God? [00:02:18] You can determine his creativity and some things like that, but you can't understand the character or the attributes of God in the science lab. When we were on the plane flying back in Nepal, Brother Raymond was talking to a lady from Europe and he mentioned something to her about the creation. She was going to go trekking and she said, oh, that God thing, she said, science has disproven that long ago. Oh, really? I didn't know science had any measure to measure God. [00:02:52] And then recently I heard someone else say, well, he had difficulty with this whole concept of where did God come from? Well, sorry, wrong question. And so, you know, when we start thinking about anything about God, the only way that we have of knowing anything about God is if God tells us, right? Why? If something's bigger or greater or higher than I am, the only way that I can understand it is if that something explains it to me. [00:03:33] Or someone equal there, something equal there explains that to me. That's the only way I can understand it. It's the only hope I have of getting a hold of that. And so when we start talking about God's faithfulness we've got to recognize that you and I are not the determining factor. We don't determine whether God is faithful or not. And you know what? That's one of the problems we get into. [00:04:04] Whenever we decide God hasn't been faithful, we're in for a lot of trouble. Because we're arguing with the truth. If we understand the truth, we lay hold on the truth, then the truth sets us free. And we've got to recognize that. Do you know any human that's totally faithful? Well, no. If he was, he'd be God. And so, as humans, we want to be faithful. We can endeavor toward that. We can strive toward that. But we fail. We're not totally faithful. Where can we find the best example for faithfulness? Well, of course, we go back to God. [00:04:48] And then I want us to think about, what does the faithfulness of God mean for my life? You start thinking about the issues that we deal with, we struggle with. You think about fear. You think about worry. You think about waiting. You think about not knowing. Things that we as, all of us as human beings struggle with big time. None of us do well with this thing of waiting and not knowing things. [00:05:21] None of us do well with worry and fear and that kind of thing. We all face those things. So what do we do with them and how does the faithfulness of God have something to do with that in my life? And I think that's important for us. In the Old Testament, the word faithfulness has the meaning of firmness, of security, of fidelity. It has kind of a broad meaning. In the New Testament, the word faithfulness relates to us as trustworthy. [00:05:59] Now there's three areas that I want us to think about this morning about the faithfulness of God and I want us to look at a number of scriptures I want us to think about first of all that God is faithful in his person in his character who he is faithfulness is not something that God puts on it's him and when you deal with God you deal with faithfulness There's not some days when God is faithful and sometimes you catch Him and He's not faithful. [00:06:36] There's not some times when you can trust God and other times when, well, just not sure. And so we've got to recognize that God is faithful in His person. It's Him. That's who He is. That's what He is. And that's always who He is and always what He is. And so we need to recognize that. If we come to God on that basis, then we get blessed. We get strengthened. We get encouraged. [00:07:11] If we come to God on the basis that, well, you know what, I don't understand this situation. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make sense to me. God must have been sleeping. God must have had his head turned the other way. God, you know, I don't see God in this at all. Then we're heading down a path where we're going to end up in a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble. Turn over to Malachi chapter 3 verse 6. God is faithful here in his person in judgment. [00:07:48] He's talking to the children of Israel and this, by the way, the book of Malachi is an interesting study One of the terms they say that God talks to them about is Here's what I've done, here's what I've said, but you say Here's what you say And what they were saying was in opposition to what God had said And so God talks to them about that in a number of things But look at what he says in verse 6 Therefore I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. [00:08:24] Usually when we talk about God not changing, we're relating it to how He deals with us in judgment. And that's true. And that's what I've given this term here. But it actually is in mercy. And that mercy and judgment in God are related. They're not separated. So understand where I'm coming from here. God is dealing with them, the children of Israel, in mercy. Why? [00:09:00] Because of His promise to Jacob and to Abraham. And so He's dealing in that promise. And by the way, if you look at that passage there, you realize that the Gentiles are included in that as well. So God is faithful in his person, in his judgment. One of the things that happens in many people's lives is they don't use good judgment. You can have a person that's served faithfully in some way for years and they use some poor judgment [00:09:37] and all of a sudden they're not considered faithful anymore. But God isn't like that. In His judgment, in His perception, in His view, His total picture of things, He is faithful because it's His person. James chapter 1 verse 17. I want us to look at this. We're going to be turning to a number of scriptures here this morning because I want us to see the importance of the faithfulness of God. [00:10:09] James chapter 1 verse 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights With whom or in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning And that shadow of turning is the thought there of a facial expression You watch someone and you just see just this shadow go across their face If you took a picture, you probably wouldn't catch it. [00:10:42] But there's just some little hint in their face that you know something's gone through their mind. That's the shadow he's talking about. In God's person, there's not even just that little hint of change. He's faithful, continually faithful. And so we can come to him and we can know what his response is going to be to some degree. [00:11:14] Now we don't have God all figured out, don't misunderstand me. But I want us to realize that God is faithful in his person, he's stable. He's not, he doesn't have this variableness that James talks about here. You know, when we come to Him today, or we come to Him tomorrow, or we come to Him in a hundred years, it's always on the same basis. And so we need to understand that, we need to appreciate that. God is faithful in His person. [00:11:50] Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever I want us to see here that Jesus Christ, that God is faithful in eternity And what I want us to understand about that is that God is not just faithful in time He's just saying yesterday and today, that's time. [00:12:22] But forever is eternity. That goes beyond time and actually forever reaches out both sides of time. Time is actually a block that sits in eternity. In the beginning, that's when time started. In the end, that's when time will be no more. Revelation talks about that. There will be no, time will be no more. It will be over. There's that block of time. God exists in eternity and he's faithful in eternity. He always was faithful. He always will be faithful. There's no change in God no matter when or where or what. [00:13:06] 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 3. The Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from all evil God is faithful in his protection Now, we don't have time to go into it this morning But a lot of people ask this question Why do bad things happen to good people? [00:13:38] Well, he says here that the Lord is faithful who is going to establish you and keep you from evil So does that mean that if we're walking with a faithful God, if we're faithfully walking with Him, that nothing bad will ever happen to us? No. Sorry, that's not what it means. What it means is, is that God is always faithful. He's continuing in protection over us. Did God protect Job? Yes. [00:14:11] He said, Satan, this is as far as you can go. This is the line. You cannot cross that line with Job. Was that protection? Sure it was. God said, Satan, you can't take his life. He protected Job. Now, where is the line of protection? I don't know where it is for you or for me. But God is faithful in his protection. 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 13 [00:14:41] God is faithful in adversity. And I want us to see that. It's important for us. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. There's not some contrast and struggle and argument going on inside of God. Even though we don't remain faithful, He is faithful. He won't deny Himself. His person is always the same. [00:15:16] And then in 1 Peter 4.19, I'm not going to turn to that this morning, but I want us to notice there that in creation He is faithful. It talks about as unto a faithful creator. We're working with one who is a faithful creator. And by the way, Peter talks about that, how the word of God holds in store the creation. It's because of a faithful God that the sun comes up at a certain time every day on the certain day over all the period of the earth and all the period of time. [00:15:56] Scientists can calculate what time the sun is going to come up a thousand years from now And what time it came up a thousand years ago They can figure that out Why? Because of a faithful God He's faithful in creation And we need to understand that Secondly, I want us to notice that God is faithful to His word Let's go back to Deuteronomy chapter 7. [00:16:36] Back in the time of Moses, when God was giving a number of laws and commandments, instructions for the children of Israel. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations and repayeth them that hate him to their face to destroy them. [00:17:10] He will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command thee this day Now, why then are the commandments and the statutes and the judgments important? Because God is faithful to his word And you notice there that he rewards Either way He's faithful in his rewards in relation to his word. [00:17:43] In Psalm 119, and again I'm not going to turn to these two here, Psalm 119 verse 86 and verse 138, he talks about God being faithful to his word in his instructions. All thy commandments are faithful. Thy testimonies are righteous and very faithful. God, in His Word, in His commandments, in His instructions, is faithful. [00:18:14] And I believe that we need to understand that if we're going to appreciate the Word of God, if we're going to love His Word like the psalmist expresses there. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised. He's faithful that promised. In God's promises is faithfulness. [00:18:48] One of the problems that we run into as individuals is we make a promise and we're not able to keep it. When we make it, we have every intention. But all of a sudden, circumstances change. Things happen. You know, we tell somebody, I'll meet you so-and-so at such a place, such a time, and something comes up and we don't make it there. It's not necessarily a matter of faithfulness. We wanted to be there, we intended to be there, but we were not able to make it happen. [00:19:23] But with God, it never happens that way. There's never anything comes up that God is not able to keep his promise. Nothing stops God from keeping his promises. All of His promises are yea and amen. They're final. They're complete. And they will be completed. In 2 Peter 3, verse 10, He talks about the Lord coming back. [00:19:58] The Lord is not slack concerning His promise. He's faithful. He will return. The day of the Lord will come. It will come. He's told us in His Word it is coming, and it will come. Peter talks about all the scoffers that say, Oh, yeah, your fathers talked about that, your grandfathers talked about that, people talked about that for years. Sorry. It will come. Because God is faithful to His Word. [00:20:31] And so He will return. His return is part of His faithfulness. We can plan on it. Do we know when? No. Because somebody said there's 88 reasons why He's going to return in 88 and He didn't come back, does that mean He's not coming? No. It means somebody messed up. They didn't understand. They didn't have their figures right. They didn't have their understanding right. It doesn't change the fact that God is coming back. [00:21:07] Jesus Christ will return to earth according to his promise. And Peter talks about that extensively there in 2 Peter. Alright, God is also faithful to his people. Over in Isaiah chapter 49 verse 7, and you can just write these down if you want to. I don't think we'll turn to most of them, but I want us to notice that God is faithful in salvation. He's faithful to His people in salvation. And I think that as we look at the children of Israel, we begin to understand that. [00:21:45] God promised deliverance. God promised salvation. He promised the Savior to who? To different people. But Abraham is specifically promised a Savior. And Paul picks it up in Galatians there. He says the promise was to Abraham and his seed, Not seeds as of many, but seed as of one which is Christ [00:22:20] Paul just puts it right out there So God is faithful to his people in salvation The fact that Jesus Christ came to earth The fact that he was born of a virgin Lived among men, sinless Died on the cross and resurrected is proof of the fact that God is faithful in salvation. In 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9, it tells us that God is faithful to keep His own. [00:22:55] Verses 8 and 9 there. And I call that in preservation. God is faithful in salvation. He's also faithful in preservation. He keeps His own. And I want us to understand there's actually two aspects to this. And we focus on the one aspect of that, and some other people focus on the other aspect, but they're both actually there. The fact is, Jude says, he's able to keep you from falling. [00:23:32] We often talk about how we have to keep ourselves in the love of God, and actually Jude says that. Keep yourselves in the love of God But there's two aspects to this And we've got to recognize this God is faithful in preserving his people He's faithful in preserving Israel He's faithful in preserving the seed of Christ The Christian And we are not able to preserve ourselves If God would stop preserving us [00:24:04] We would not be preserved We would not be kept It's as God keeps us that we are kept. So don't get those two, don't go off into the two extremes there to where somehow I'm able to keep myself or I have nothing to do with it and God only keeps me. There's both of those truths that are combined in that. But God is faithful in preservation. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 [00:24:35] There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. You're not out there alone. I remember in Bible school one time in a dorm meeting, we sat around one night and we started sharing some of our struggles. And the dean led us through some of that. And when we got done sharing, he said, now, who wants to trade with somebody else? [00:25:08] You know what? We all wanted to keep our own problems. Nobody wanted to trade with anybody else. But you know what? We begin to find out if we're open and we share with others, we find out we all face the same struggles. It might be a little bit different circumstances, but Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are. Our struggles are common to man. And so he tells us, there is no temptation taking you but such as is common to man. [00:25:40] But God is faithful who will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. God is faithful to His people in temptation. You know what? If you're struggling because it feels like God has left, you're being lied to. God didn't leave. God's there. He hasn't walked away. He says that. That's His word. [00:26:11] That's His promise. That's who He is. He's there. I will never leave you or forsake you. God is faithful who will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear. What's he saying? He's saying he's right there with us. He's got his arm around us. He's trying to carry us through. Are we going to listen to lies or are we going to listen to his truth? God is faithful to us, to his people in temptation. [00:26:44] God is faithful to us, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 24 Faithful is he that calleth you He's faithful to us in sanctification Listen, you and I as we walk with God need a lot of change We need a lot of change And none of us ever get to the place where we've gotten to the place where we don't need more change None of us. We all need to be changed. We need to be changed from what we are now into what God wants us to be. That's sanctification. That's purification. And God is with us there in sanctification. He's continually doing that with His people. [00:27:33] All. One of the things that Hebrews tells us is, you know what, if we don't have chastisement, if we're not going through some fire, if we're not experiencing some things in our lives that make us want to reach up, then we're not His children. because every one of His children endures chastisement because we all need to be purified. [00:28:08] And we continue in that. We need to be purified and He's with us. He's faithfully abiding with us in sanctification. Have you ever thought about what it would be like if God would say, I give up on you. I'm sorry. I have tried and tried and tried and nothing works. You're the same person you always were. I'm done. What would happen to us? [00:28:40] That's not God. He's faithful to walk with us in sanctification. He's continually working in our lives saying, I want you to change. I want you to be what I want you to be. And he continues with us in sanctification. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 17. He's a merciful and faithful high priest. Faithful high priest has the idea of incompassion. God is continually faithful in his compassion to his people. [00:29:13] Our needs, our cries, touch the heart of God. They do. He's not hard hearted. You say, well, I've cried and cried to Him and nothing works. Oh yeah, it's working. It might not be what you want. It might not be what you're asking for. But God has a purpose in mind. He has sanctification in mind. He has standing with you in temptation in mind. [00:29:45] He has preservation in mind. He has His compassion in mind. All of those things are in His mind. So you need to remember that. He's a merciful and a faithful high priest. He's faithful in his compassion to us. And he's always interested in us. He never turns away whenever we come to him with a heart cry. We need to remember that. He's faithful to his people in forgiveness. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [00:30:30] God's person is the reason why we can have forgiveness as His people. He's faithful to forgive us our sins. You know what? When we question, and I want you to think about this, because some of us struggle with this sometimes. You say, well, I just don't feel like I was forgiven for that. I've asked God over and over and over to forgive me, and I just don't feel forgiven. [00:31:01] You know what? You're questioning God's faithfulness. He's told us as clearly and as plainly as He can, God is faithful to forgive us. If we ask Him, He's faithful and just to forgive us. So when we go back to Him and say, God, could you please forgive me for that? He says, what? I forgave you. Why are you coming and asking me again? You don't believe I forgave you? He's compassionate, isn't he? [00:31:34] But stop and think about that. God is faithful in forgiveness And when we go back to Him over and over and over and request forgiveness for the exact same thing, now I'm not saying the exact same sin, because that can happen. We can sin over and over. And we go back to Him and He's faithful and just to forgive us again. But, if the very same sin, we go back to Him, the very same incident, we go back to Him again and again and again and ask forgiveness for, we are questioning His faithfulness. [00:32:09] And we've got to learn to trust His faithfulness. You know what? There's rest in trusting His faithfulness. I don't have to worry. I don't have to fear. I don't have to go back to ask forgiveness again because I can just simply trust. God said it. I believe it. That settles it for me. It's done. It's taken care of. It's simple, but it's true. The faithfulness of God. Lamentations chapter 3 verse 23 says, Great is thy faithfulness, O God. Great is thy faithfulness. We sing that song sometimes. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. [00:32:55] And I'm thankful this morning for the faithfulness of God in His person, to His word, and to His people. And I trust that this can help us. It can be something that we can take hold of in a life, a world that goes this way and that way and upside down in every which way. to be able to get a hold of the faithfulness of God and hang on to that no matter what comes our way [00:33:26] gives us a strength, a courage, a stability, and a peace that nothing else is going to give to us. Let's stand together for prayer. I'd like to just ask you this morning, if you've really struggled and you've really doubted the faithfulness of God, And you say, pray for me this morning. I've really struggled in this area of the faithfulness of God. Just slip up your hand. I see those hands. [00:33:57] Father, you know our struggles. You're a faithful and a merciful high priest. You're interested in our lives, in our hearts. And Father I pray, you've seen those who have said this morning that they struggle with understanding your faithfulness And God, I don't know why in each of those lives that might be the case [00:34:28] Maybe because of a father figure that wasn't faithful Maybe because of other issues, Lord, I don't know You know And God, I pray that you help them to see clearly from your word that you are faithful. And help them, Lord, to lay hold on that truth and to claim that truth when the whole world seems upside down, when nothing works, when nothing seems to be going right. [00:35:00] Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit come to their hearts and speak to them in a still, small voice and say, God is faithful. Great is thy faithfulness, O God. And I pray that you help each of us to confess this truth with our hearts and with our lips each day. Great is thy faithfulness. To lay hold on it and to live by it. [00:35:34] We thank you and we praise you for your faithfulness in Jesus' name. Amen.