Exemplary Faithfulness
Notes
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Intro:
The inauguration of our 45th President (44th person to hold the office) took place just a couple days ago. During our new president’s speech you may have heard promises—such as:
I will fight for you with every breath in my body -- and I will never, ever let you down. America will start winning again, winning like never before. We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams. --President Donald Trump
and
Together, We will make America strong again. We will make wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. --President Donald Trump's Inauguration speech.
Wow! What a promise! With promises like these we have nothing to worry about. After all, winning "like never before" sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? We are all aware that the past presidents of the United States were able to fulfill all their promises, right? All one would need to do is look at Obama's promises--he was totally faithful to America in fulfilling his promises. WRONG!!! Obama promised that he would "Allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S." that he would enable legal importation of cheap prescription drugs. He was unfaithful. He promised in his campaign to offer a pre-filled-out tax form with the IRS to "give taxpayers the option of a pre-filled tax form to verify, sign and return to the IRS or online. This was to eliminate the need to hire expensive tax preparers and to gather information that the federal government already has on file." He was unfaithful.
Transition:
Now, it is easy to nit-pick on the past presidents, but the unfulfilled promises of any of the presidential campaigns exposes a fatal flaw of human nature and it is this: no matter if you are an "average Joe" or the president of the United States, you cannot always fulfill all of your promises--especially in a sin cursed world. This is as true for me as it is for you--apart from Jesus, no matter who your lifelong hero might be, your hero will let you down eventually. Our presidents let us down--President Trump will let us down. And so we yearn for one who is absolutely faithful--especially at a time like this: a time of change. So, let us be comforted in this: God is always faithful and we ought to place our trust in Him instead of our fears/worries/anxieties in a person or President.
I. The character of His faithfulness
I. The character of His faithfulness
YHWH’s faithfulness is an integral part of his nature --it is an attribute. YHWH can never be anything less than perfect in all of His attributes; He does not have the shortcomings of our nature--sin, finite, weak, and so forth. In short, if He were not faithful, He would not be God. YHWH is incapable of/unable to break a promise.
Num 23:19
God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Yahweh is faithful to his Name and character. YHWH's own Name is at stake for His unconditional covenants--YHWH's reputation as God of the world, the universe, would be compromised if even one promise were not fulfilled completely.
God’s limitless power and steadfast love imply complete faithfulness which contrasts with human nature
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
This short verse here reveals the intense depth of the relationship between believers and Christ the Lord; when we fail at times, this means God will not reject us. These words apply not only to faithless unbelievers, but to believers who at times fail the Lord. We, by our very nature, are prone to failure; as Christians, though born again, are still human. But even when believers are unfaithful, God remains faithful. This means total security in Christ’s promises. BUT, this does not give a license for faithlessness; rather, it eases our conscience when we fail, allowing us to come back to the Father and start anew.
See also Heb 6:13–18
The writer of Hebrews, demonstrating YHWH's trustworthiness, uses the words of the Abrahamic Covenant and the fulfilled promise of descendants to illustrate the absolute assurance:
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
This ancient Hebrew tradition of swearing by someone greater is not really known to us or used today, but it was to add trust to an agreement--it is almost like saying, "...it's true, just go ask so-and-so if you don't believe me!" That "so-and-so" is the greater one. However, it was not really necessary for God to swear that he would keep his promise, because God cannot lie or break his word. However, YHWH made the promise, swearing by the greatest standard and with the highest accountability possible—he took an oath in his own name. Abraham could not have received greater assurance! And so we, too, can have great assurance that when YHWH calls us to serve Him, He is radically dependable to see the work through.
II. The knowledge of His faithfulness
II. The knowledge of His faithfulness
Yahweh’s faithfulness is known through fulfilled promises. Joshua knew this and proclaimed it to God's chosen nation:
Joshua 21:45
Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.
and a couple chapters later:
Look! I am about to die, and you know in all your hearts and souls that not one thing failed from all the good things that Yahweh your God promised concerning you; everything has been fulfilled; not one thing failed.
And we know we will continue to see His promises fulfilled throughout the rest of this age:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
This piece of knowledge here in 2 Peter adds at least a couple important elements. First, His faithfulness and His promises are now directly tied to our repentance today. Second, God is NOT on our timeline--He's on His timeline.
Faithfulness Exemplified
Faithfulness Exemplified
Yahweh’s faithfulness is proved by all His fulfilled promises. We can see His trustworthiness in the following 3 examples:
1. Abraham’s fatherhood
1. Abraham’s fatherhood
You all know the story of Abraham's son, Issac. This story is first fulfilled promise of the Abrahamic covenant. As we read in Hebrews 6 a moment ago, YHWH promised to multiply Abraham and that first starts with Abraham's own son
But in Genesis 15, Abraham starts to get impatient having no child yet AFTER 15 YEARS and complains to YHWH and tells YHWH that one of his other relatives, Eliezer, will be his heir:
And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”
After 15 years of waiting for the promise, God visited Abraham again here and assured him that the promise would be fulfilled in due time. It took another 10 years after the reassurance in this passage for Abraham and Sarah to give birth to a legitimate son, Isaac. But what is really interesting here is the connection that the Apostle Paul makes to us from this passage in Galatians:
Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
2. The building of the temple
2. The building of the temple
In 2 Samuel 7; God tells David that although David wishes to build YHWH a house, David will not build the temple. Rather, David's son, Solomon, will. The fulfillment comes in 1 Kings 8:
1 Ki 8:17–21
Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. But the LORD said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my name.’ Now the LORD has fulfilled his promise that he made. For I have risen in the place of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and I have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. And there I have provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD that he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”
3. The exile in Babylon
3. The exile in Babylon
Jere 25:8–11 God’s faithfulness will not always mean human prosperity. as terrible as this last particular example is, the Exile and the eventual return is a wonderful testimony to the faithfulness of God
“Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
In 2 Ki 25:8–12 comes the promised wrath:
In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. And he burned the house of the LORD and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.
But finally the fulfillment in Ezra 1:
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.
This passage in Ezra is about the same time as Nehemiah comes on scene in timeline of events. This reminds me I heard yesterday about the sermon preached at the inauguration on Nehemiah building the wall being similar to Trump building a wall--um, no comment ;-)
“For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
There are plenty more examples in the pages of scripture but these three examples will suffice as proof to YHWH's trustworthiness.
Faithfulness constantly Revealed
Faithfulness constantly Revealed
God’s faithfulness is revealed to the faithful and so known by the faithful believer:
David in 2 Samuel sings joyfully to God over the protection from King Saul:
With the loyal, you act as loyal,
and with the blameless, you show yourself blameless.
This speaks beautifully of the doctrine of Illumination which is when a believer reads scripture, he or she has a better understanding through the Holy Spirit, than the unbeliever that reads the Bible.
Faithfulness Constant
Faithfulness Constant
God’s faithfulness is constant and cannot be thwarted by anyone or anything
Ro 3:3–4 God’s faithfulness is not negated by human unfaithfulness.
What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,
“That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.”
No one, not even the most evil people (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Kim Jung Un) could derail God's plans.
You see again in Habakkuk, sometimes we have to wait on God's faithfulness to see it in full fruition, but His promises are steadfast:
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
III. The evidence of His faithfulness
III. The evidence of His faithfulness
At this point you could be sitting here today thinking, "That's great for all those biblical people in those biblical accounts, but honestly, I don't see a whole lot of evidence of a dependable God around me. Perhaps you asking, "Whatever happened to God's faithfulness when it came to Northland College closing & all those beloved faculty and staff members went without jobs in an instant?" or even, "Josh, I saw Grace Baptist Church here go from around 200 regular attenders down to just the 60 today in about the span of the last 5 years, where is God's faithfulness in that?" You see, I know at least some of you are thinking this because this is exactly how I was thinking. But this is wrong thinking and here's why: we become too focused on a building and a location which formulates our idea of what God's faithfulness should look like. God is still faithful no matter if Grace, here in Kingsford, shrinks in numbers or grows in numbers. God is faithful no matter what happens with the Northland campus. Why? Because God fulfills his promises, not ours. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should live! As you read God's promises, it becomes more clear that he is concerned about people & principles, not so much places and programs.
Jesus, the Christ
Jesus, the Christ
The Christmas Season/the very first noel, as we just celebrated, stands firm as the ultimate evidence of God’s faithfulness! The promises of the Messiah flood the O.T. and were the joy and hope of all the true prophets, priests, and kings of YHWH
And we proclaim the good news to you: that the promise that was made to the fathers, this promise God has fulfilled to our children by raising Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm,
‘You are my Son;
today I have fathered you.’
And finally, the Gentiles find their evidence in the Messiah!
The Saints
The Saints
Gal 3:14
so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Us, here, the chosen race! The priesthood of believers! We are the physical evidence of the spiritual promise and fulfillment of our faithful God! We are the promised descendants blessing of all nations of the world. As you look around this sanctuary you see evidence of His faithfulness all around you in the form of changed lives.
Conclusion
There are literally dozens more scriptures of God’s faithfulness. None however may be the most life-changing as those that proclaim His forgiveness of our sins. There are many Old Testament prophecies promising a coming Messiah or Savior. God’s faithful promise was fulfilled in the New Testament when He sent Jesus to atone for our sins. No matter what sins we have committed, no matter how "bad" we are, God is faithful to forgive us if we accept Jesus and repent of our sins.
In his book, Why Christians Sin, J. Kirk Johnston tells the story of a hitchhiker:
There was an army veteran, Roger Simms. Hitchhiking his way home right after being discharged, he would never forget the date—May 7. His heavy suitcase made Roger tired. He was anxious to take off his army uniform once and for all. Flashing the hitchhiking sigh to the oncoming car, he lost hope when he saw it was a black, sleek, new Cadillac. To his surprise the car stopped. The passenger door opened. He ran toward the car, tossed his suitcase in the back, and thanked the handsome, well-dressed man as he slid into the front seat. The driver askes, “Going home for keeps?” “Sure am,” Roger responds. “Well, you’re in luck if you’re going to Chicago.” “Not quite that far. Do you live in Chicago?” Roger asked. “I have a business there. My name is Hanover.”
After talking about many things, Roger, a Christian, felt a compulsion to witness to this fiftyish, apparently successful businessman about Christ. But he kept putting it off, till he realized he was just thirty minutes from his home. It was now or never. So, Roger cleared his throat, “Mr. Hanover, I would like to talk to you about something very important.” He then proceeded to explain the way of salvation, ultimately asking Mr. Hanover if he would like to receive Christ as his Savior. To Roger’s astonishment the Cadillac pulled over to the side of the road. Roger thought he was going to be ejected from the car. But the businessman bowed his head and received Christ, then thanked Roger. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Five years went by, Roger married, had a two-year-old boy, and a business of his own. Packing his suitcase for a business trip to Chicago, he found the small, white business card Hanover had given him five years before. In Chicago he looked up Hanover Enterprises. A receptionist told him it was impossible now to see Mr. Hanover, but he could see Mrs. Hanover. A little confused, Roger was ushered into a lovely office and found himself facing a woman in her fifties. She asked him, “You knew my husband?” Roger told how her husband had given him a ride when hitchhiking home after the war. Mrs. Hanover asks, “Can you tell me when that was?” “It was May 7, five years ago, the day I was discharged from the army.” She, then, interrupts him with “Anything special about that day?” Roger hesitated but then timidly explains, “Mrs. Hanover, I gave him the gospel. He pulled over to the side of the road and wept against the steering wheel. He gave his life to Christ that day.” She then exploded in tears, shaking her whole body. After a moment, she sobbed and said, “I had prayed for my husband’s salvation for years. I believed God would save him.” Roger finally asks, “Where is your husband, Mrs. Hanover?” “He’s dead, He was in a car crash after he let you out of the car. He never got home. You see—I thought God had not kept His promise.” Sobbing uncontrollably, she added, “I stopped living for God five years ago because I thought He had not kept His word!”
Why Christians Sin, J. Kirk Johnston, Discovery House, 1992, pp. 39-41
The story here illustrates an important message to take home; namely, God is faithful whether we see it or not--whether we ourselves remain faithful. Jesus is the one we yearn after for complete trustworthiness-- especially when we see the political scene around us or even our heroes fail.
Let us pray!