Unfailing Love
Notes
Transcript
2007-07-08 Unfailing Love
It is good to be forced to do some things. We don’t always want to do everything. Changing diapers, doing the dishes, mopping the floor, washing the car, even going to work. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to do these things. Some jobs are not so glamorous.
Some passages in the Bible speak more directly to us than others. We all probably have favourite passages. I know one young lady’s favourite passage is . Some passages have special meanings for us because of events in our lives associated with them: baptism, profession of faith, weddings, and funerals.
So, if we have favourite passages, sometimes it takes discipline to read something different. Sometimes we need encouragement, as with a challenge from the Bible League, to read passages that we might not normally read.
There are some people who want nothing to do with the Old Testament. They say, “No creed but Christ.” Which is true, but Christ is just as much in the Old Testament as He is in the New. In fact, we would not have recognised Jesus as the Messiah, if it were not for all the Old Testament prophecies. And, we would not have a clear understanding of God’s love without the Old Testament.
“Wait a minute!” I can hear you say, “What do you mean we wouldn’t have a clear understanding of God’s love without reading the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is an angry God. Didn’t He put all those plagues on those poor Egyptians? Didn’t He send snakes to poison His own people? Didn’t He send the Israelites into exile? How can you talk about God’s love in the Old Testament?”
Well, easy. I can talk about God’s love in the Old Testament because the Old Testament talks about it.
Look at verse 41, “May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise.”
From this verse alone, we can discern two things. The Lord exercises unfailing love. And the Lord brings salvation according to His promise.
Let’s look at the first one. The Lord exercises unfailing love. Think back on your own life. How unfailing has your love been? Children come home crying because their best friend doesn’t want to be best friends anymore; true, a couple of hours later, they’re best friends again. But think about most people’s dating experiences. You promise your love forever, only to break up a couple of months later.
There’s a song lyric that goes, “Do you know everyone you ever swore you'd love for life. I don't know them any more. I know their names. I'd recognize them on the street, and I don't love them” (Barenaked Ladies, Maybe Katie). Not a great description of our unfailing love, is it?
Or shall we consider Valentines Day? In 2006, The National Retail Federation expected Americans to spend 13.7 billion dollars on Valentines’ gifts. Surely that must be an indication of unfailing love?
Or shall we consider our love for God? Do we ever fulfill the greatest commandment? Do we unfailingly love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? No, we don’t, do we?
God’s love never fails. God’s love isn’t on display only for Hallmark holidays. God’s love is on display all the time. But, I’ll give the New Testament lovers a break. God’s greatest display of love was Jesus sacrifice on the cross.
But that wasn’t the only instance of God’s unfailing love. God can’t have unfailing love at one moment in the New Testament, and not at another time. God must have exercised unfailing love since even before the beginning. Otherwise God’s love wouldn’t be unfailing. We are so like children. When you scold a child, he will complain bitterly about the injustice of it all. But later in life, he will see your love for him, even during moments of discipline. So it was with God in the Old Testament.
God is constant. God never changes. But people do. We change all the time. says, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”
Clearly, at one time, we were infants; we were tossed back and forth by waves. We were not rooted in Christ, anchored to the Solid Rock. And so, when trouble, turmoil, or temptation came to us, it pushed us around.
But now it should be different. We should be rooted in Christ. We, like the Psalmist, must trust in the unfailing love of God.
But how?
How do you trust in God? How do you come to know His unfailing love?
When temptation comes, and you fall into sin, do you know that God still pours His unfailing love upon you?
When strife comes, and you have doubt, do you know that God’s unfailing love for you hasn’t changed, that it cannot change?
When struggles, pain, hardship, suffering of loved ones happen, do you know that God’s unfailing love still exists?
God doesn’t change. God is always true. God always loves. God is always merciful. God is always gracious.
When you read the Old Testament, you see God’s consistency. You see God’s love.
And as you read the Bible, you see that God is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. God is dependable. God never fails.
But you have to know that about God. You have to read this book in order to know God. You can’t just believe what you hear. Read it for yourselves! Be like the Bereans, who examined the scriptures to see if what the Apostle Paul taught them was true.
If you’re struggling with doubt, temptation, suffering, anything, turn to God’s word! It is constant; it is unchanging.
That’s what the Psalmist did.
There are things in this world that will rail against us. Even the so-called freedom of religion in North America is under fire. The church faces persecution in many places in the world.
The Psalmist was under fire. He felt persecution. People mocked him. They taunted him. “Where is your God now? Why won’t he save you? You say you trust in him, but where is He?”
The Psalmist answered from God’s Word. He put his trust in God’s Word.
That’s what Jesus did, when Satan tempted Him. Jesus responded to the Devil’s taunts, his enticing lies by speaking the clear truth of God as revealed in His Word.
How can you face taunts, how can you face temptations, unless you know God’s Word?
Imagine if the Devil had gone up to Jesus on the 39th day of His fast and said, “Wow, you must be really hungry. If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (). If Jesus hadn’t read His Bible, if He, even He the Son of God, had not known His Old Testament, He might have taken time to consider the devil’s offer. Surely He was sorely tempted to eat. But if Jesus hadn’t known God’s Word, He would not have been as well prepared to combat the devil.
And let us not think that, “Of course, Jesus is the Son of God, He was more able to stand up to temptation than we are because He is divine.” Jesus was obedient to God the Father, perfectly, because He knew what God required of Him. How did He know? He studied God’s Word.
In studying God’s Word, Jesus knew that God’s Word is true. And in trusting in it, the devil would flee. Jesus believed the truth of what God taught the Israelites in the wilderness. That’s why He quoted to the devil. “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
You see, God brought the Israelites into the wilderness, not by accident, but on purpose, to humble them, to make them hungry, so that they would call upon Him, to teach them that God provides all their needs.
That’s why we have to go through tough times. It teaches us that we can depend upon God. It allows us to realise that God provides for ALL our needs! It implores us to turn to His Word. It forces us to exercise our faith.
What is faith?
The Heidelberg Catechism identifies true faith:
True faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in His Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, that, out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation” (HC LD 7A. 21).
The Psalmist was convinced that everything in God’s Word was true. Read the rest of this Psalm. Don’t be intimidated by its length. It isn’t that hard to read, in fact, this Psalm is quite powerful. There’s an overwhelming theme in it. The Psalmist reflects on the love of God, and He exclaims his delight in God’s Word!
The author of this Psalm refers to God’s law, God’s Word, in just about every stanza. He delights in God’s law. He meditates on it. He turns to God’s ancient law and finds wisdom. He marvels at it.
God’s law is perfect. Yes, Christ perfectly fulfilled it. But we now have the freedom, and the desire and the willingness to follow God’s law. We have the Holy Spirit in us, empowering us to do so. Although it seems like many modern Christians want to do as little as possible. They can’t see what the Psalmist saw in God’s Word.
In God’s Word, in God’s Law, we learn about God.
In God’s law, we find true freedom. In putting our trust in God, we find true rest. In God’s laws, in His Word, in His Son, we can put our hope.
Now, the language of this Psalm is not the kind of language often heard today. The post-modern person doesn’t want anything to do with laws, decrees, doctrines or absolute statements of truth.
But I wonder, would they disagree with the absolute statement that God’s love is unfailing? Would they disagree with the absolute statement that God so loved the world that He sent his one and only Son?
No, they seem to pick and choose those passages they like, and disregard the rest. Like those who focus only on the New Testament, they are missing the full picture of God.
Since it is God who made us, shouldn’t we trust completely in Him? Shouldn’t we align ourselves with His plan? If His love is unchanging, doesn’t the same thing apply to His decrees, His Laws?
When the Psalmist was backed into a corner, slandered, suffering, hurt and dejected, He stopped what He was doing. He examined God’s ancient, unchanging law, God’s Word. He rested. He re-posed. He took a sabbatical. He studied God’s Word.
It’s summer. Maybe things are going on in your families that occupy your thoughts. I know for us, these last two weeks have been tough. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to go about everyday activities.
But that doesn’t get us off the hook. We have to stop and think. We have to take a sabbatical, that is, a Sabbath rest.
It’s summer. Don’t just go from a busy, working life into a busy, leisure life. Take time to rest. Take time to delve into God’s Word!
There’s an article in the EFC’s Faith Today magazine, a few copies of which are on the table under the mailboxes, in that magazine is article on the Sabbath.
One thing the article draws attention to is the word repose. Not only does it mean relax, but if you hyphenate the word, it becomes re-pose. During a Sabbath rest, whether you take it on Saturdays or Sundays, or on Mondays, or on any other day of the week, you should re-pose, that is re-orient your life to God’s Word. This is the process of having our minds renewed. This is what coming to church is all about. We bring our minds, our spirits, and our lives in line with God’s Word.
And then, having filled ourselves with God’s Word, we learn more about God’s law, God’s love, God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. And that in turn enables us to exercise our faith.
We exercise faith that God’s Word is true. That our loved ones who suffer are in God’s Hands that He’s taking such good care of them that not a hair can fall from their heads apart from His will. That our loved ones, if they confess that Jesus is Lord and believe with their hearts that God raised Him from the dead, that God will save them through Jesus Christ.
Faith, trust, isn’t a nebulous, pie in the sky dream. It is real. It is something the Holy Spirit creates in us, and it has a real impact on our lives. It gets us through difficult times. It gets us through God’s discipline. It enables us to stand up to persecution. It makes God’s unfailing love for us real, and motivates us to Love God more in return, to study His Word more, to resist the devil more.
And now, let me close with this. God is faithful. Yes, His love is unfailing. Why? So that those who slander us for our faith may be proven wrong! God saves us out of our troubles, the stuff of life, and the stuff of everlasting life. We can stand up to anything, because we stand on the unfailing love, and never changing, never passing away, truth of God’s Word. Amen.