The Faithfulness of God
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
29 December 2002

One of the wonderful things about the Bible is the inexhaustible supply of images of God it gives us to conjure with and feed on.

PICTURES OF GOD
Just as a single snapshot or portrait of a person is incapable of capturing what they’re like, because a person can be happy and sad at the same time, so it takes many “pictures of God” to represent Him faithfully.

Just as Jesus is the Person through WHOM God chose to present us with an authoritative picture of himself, so the Bible is the Book through which God has chosen to present us - through he inspired writings, with a definitive picture of himself!! No single image is sufficient. And the Biblre presents us with many different pictures of God:

The Bible presents us with God the ANGRY. This is not a popular picture today - what the Bible calls “the wrath of God” is not a subject often preached or a picture welcome in the 21st century. Yet the Bible talks of the “furious anger” and “great wrath” of God towards those who disobey Him.

The idea of God’s anger makes us feel uncomfortable, perhaps embarrassed, or even afraid - but it IS a piece of the Bible’s jig-saw picture of God. And it has important lessons for us.

But of course it’s just one piece - and there are many others. God, the Bible tells us, is PATIENT - what a relief that, though God is no stranger to anger, He is “slow to anger”

The Bible tells us too that God is merciful and loving. How glad we should be that, though God is no stranger to anger, he is merciful and “quick to forgive.”

If we are truly to understand God, know Him, reflect His character to an unbelieving world, then we need to re-place the Bible at the heart of our faith and engage with what it says not just for an hour a week but every day.

One of the reaosns the Bible has been given us is to give us a true rounded, full picture of God.

Just as the Bible presents GOD to us, so we must present to others, in our daily life and Christian witness, a rounded picture of the character of God. We are the books that most people read and judge Christianity by!!

Today we're going to turn our attention to the subject of the FAITHFULNESS of God. The word FAITHFUL means constant reliable, dependable, stable, loyal, committed. And we’re going to look at what the Bible has to say about this.

THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD
We have to bear in mind the uncertainty and precariousness which surrounded life for people living in Bible times. It wasn't just that their knowledge of science and the way things are was limited. Their knowledge of current events was minimal. T V hadn't been invented. There were no newspapers to keep them up to date. In their personal life illness could strike and, in the national life of Israel, conflicts and war were all too common. The economic life of the entire community could be devastated by famine or drought. No-one ever knew what was just round the corner for them.

In the midst of such uncertainties the CONSTANCY of God was something very precious to them and remains just as precious for us.

All the advances in science and technology, and in communication, have made us wiser and much better informed than those who lived long ago, but our insecurity remains:

* will I lose my job in the restructuring of the business?
* what if I fail my exams?
* will I have enough money to pay for my care when I'm old?
* what if one of my children's in an accident or contracts some incurable disease?

In the midst of the uncertainties and insecurities of life (and we all meet them sooner or later) the CONSTANCY of God is often a reassurance and, sometimes, the greatest comfort:

"Change and decay in all around I see, O Thou who changest not, abide with me."

In the same way even our best friends are sometimes unreliable and let us down. There are a number who bear the name of "friends" but, as Proverbs 18:24, declares "there is ONE friend who sticks closer than a brother." Others may fail or disappoiint us - but God is to be trusted.

A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY
Right from its beginnings the Bible speaks of God as FAITHFUL. One of the first things Moses did when the Jews reached the promised land, after the years of their wilderness travels following their escape from Egypt, was to remind them of the FAITHFULNESS of God:

"Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the FAITHFUL GOD, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands."
(Deut.7:9)

Moses' reminder that their God was a faithful God was timely. When he arrived in Egypt to set them free from their slavery and deliver them from Pharaoh's oppressive rule, he had announced to them that God had sent him to lead them to the land God had promised to their fore-fathers - and he described it as"a land flowing with milk and honey." It wasn't long after they had crossed the Red Sea, however, before they began to complain bitterly. The manna God provided for their daily food seemed second rate compared to the "haute cuisine" of Egypt!

"If only we had meat to eat" they grumbled "Remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost - also the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic." (Numbers 11:5)

As their journey through the wilderness continued, they often grumbled and complained to Moses and Aaron. "I thought you said God had sent you and promised to give us a land flowing with milk and honey! But that was just an empty promise - we'd have been better to die in Egypt!" And numbers discussed in the night the merits of packing up, leaving Moses and Aaron and the rest to their ill conceived journey, and returning to the land they'd left!!

If God had sent Moses, they said to themselves, then God had let them down!! It's always easy in the short term to doubt the faithfulness and the goodness of God. The hard times are a test of our faith. We feel like complaining and easily become bitter.

But Moses told them to trust him and to trust the God who cannot lie (even in the heat and hardships of the wilderness!) and their FAITH in God proved justified. Now they stood in the land of promise - "a land flowing with milk and honey" - and Moses urged them to learn a lesson from what had happened:
"Know therefore that the Lord your God is God - HE IS FAITHFUL!"

The word means constant reliable, dependable, stable, loyal, committed. God IS faithful, and his faithfulness, like his mercy "endures for ever."

A COVENANT RELATIONSHIP
What this means is that the God we have isn't capricious or unpredictable but dependable. He is a God worthy of our trust who won't let us down. In the Bible the idea of the COVENANT is used to underline this.

A covenant is a binding agreement entered into by two parties. In the Bible we find God making a covenant or binding agreement with Abraham and his family and their descendants to be their God. In the covenant He binds HIMSELF to be Abraham's God and the God of his descendants for ever. He swears on oath, as it were, to love them and be for them forever.

Now when it comes to the New Testament we find Jesus talking about a NEW COVENANT God is making with us by His death - at the Last Supper, for example, Jesus Christ spoke of his blood as "the blood of the new covenant", which was about to be "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

In His sacrifice - and on the Cross - the faithfulness of God - God's commitment to us His children is most fully seen. Here at Calvary God's unconditional commitment to us - to be our God and to love us and be FOR us is powerfully demonstrated. On the cross He binds himself to us in forgiving love. This proves beyond question that God's relationship to us, as his children, isn't a casual one.

When someone is very relaxed and unconcerned in their approach to life and their responsibilities we sometimes describe that person as "laid back" - "He's got a laid back approach to life" we say. If by "laid back" we just mean relaxed then, of course, there isn't necessarily anything wrong in a laid back approach - but there's a thin line between being "laid back" and being careless. And what the covenant faithfulness of God means is that He isn't laid back in the sense of being careless about us.

Put differently - his relationship to us as His children isn't a casual one, but a committed one! - and because He's committed to us and because he's the kind of God he is, FAITHFUL, He is dependable and can be trusted.

DEPENDABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY
This means two things. In the first place it means God won't lie to us. Speaking of the faithfulness of God in Romans 3 and the possibility that God could lie or be untrue to himself Paul remarks - "By no means!" That would be utterly impossible (for God to lie) it beggars thought: "Let God be true and every man a liar!"

God won't varnish the truth about us to make it more palatable. God won't call "peace, peace!" when there's no peace. God won't run away from the facts about us or let us run away from them!! This is part of His faithfulness. He won't ever lie to flatter us.

This is part of the genius of the Gospel - it deals with our sin as sin, without attempting to disguise its seriousness or deny its power and results.

Praise God that in His faithfulness and out of his covenant love He has provided a remedy for sin - that takes its seriousness seriously and offers us forgiveness!

The FAITHFULNESS of God means that God won't lie to us. But it also means that God won't let us down - At the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem Solomon recalled Gods faithfulness to his people from the very beginning:

"Praise be to the Lord who has given rest to His people Israel just as He promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us....."
(1 Kings 8:56)

When Solomon looked back and thought of God's promises - all that God had said He would do for Israel he was sincerely able to say NOT ONE WORD has failed!!

LAY HOLD OF THE PROMISES!
The fact that GOD IS FAITHFUL means that God can be relied on to do what He has promised. If we trust Him, claiming His promises, He won't fail us. When it comes to His promises, the more we accept them "as if" true the more we'll find they are true.

This has very practical consequences, because the Bible is full of many great and precious promises given us by God, and we can approach them in different ways. We can approach them with scepticism - but scepticism drains all the power out of the promises of God and renders them powerless to help us personally.

Or we can approach them awe and receive them with faith - laying hold of them and personally appropriating them for ourselves. This is how God wants us to handle his promises - not as objects of study but as tools for victorious living.

The Bible links God's faithfulness specifically to a number of promises and I want to end today by pointing you to them and helping you to see how wonderful they are.

HE PROMISES TO KEEP
You'll find the first one I want to use to encourage you in 1 Corinthians 1:8-9. The background is that there was a great deal of difficulty in the church at Corinth - there were divisions and there was moral scandal. The Christians in Corinth were living in a city that was notorious for corruption immorality and pagan superstition. And this is what Paul says to the Christians there in the first chapter of his letter:

"He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." and then in the next verse he reveals the ground of his confidence: "God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ is FAITHFUL."

Here then is a promise that God will KEEP US STRONG - and not just for a while but "to the end" if we look to Him and rely on Him. One of the most frequent mistakes many Christians make is to rely on their own limited resources rather than God's infinite resources. All that God calls us to BE he is ready to give us the strength to be, and all that God calls us to do He is willing and able to give us the strength to do.

Grace - that is, relying not on ourselves but on God - is the great secret of remaining strong as a Christian. There are times when our own strength may fail, but we can ALWAYS be strong in the Lord and in what Paul calls "the strength of his might." And the reason why this is so is simply set forth by Paul:
"God who has called you into fellowship with His Son is FAITHFUL."

RESISTING TEMPTATION
There's one particular area of life where the New Testament underlines God's faithfulness - and that's when it comes to temptation. Two verses deal with God's faithfulness to His children "in temptation's hour." One is 2 Thessalonians 3:3. Again, the Christians in Thessalonica were facing hard times and sometimes struggling. But Paul tells them:

"The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one."

The writer of Hebrews expands on this: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." (Hebrews 10:13)
These promises are given to us to encourage us when we are tempted - to make us realise that we're not meant to face temptation unaided - that God is there to help us, and that if we look to Him and rely on him he won't let us fall.

God, as a faithful Father, promises us THREE THINGS:

1. He promises us strength. In Corinthians Paul says "He will keep you strong...." and in Thessalonians he gives us this promise "He (=God) will strengthen you.

2. He promises us protection. "He will protect you from the evil one." God doesn't send us naked into the spiritual battles we must face but provides us with his "full armour" - if we put on that full armour - the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God - our faithful God will preserve us from any lasting harm.

3. He promises us a way out. In Hebrews 10:13 we are told that when we're tempted God will provide a"way out" an escape route.. But of course because God respects our freedom, although he provides it he won't ever force us to take it. The choice is ours.

HE PROMISES TO FORGIVE US
God also provides for our failure!! In the Bible God's faithfulness is linked to our forgiveness - notably in 1 John 1:9:
"If we confess our sins He is FAITHFUL and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

This verse says that if we confess the sins we have committed to God we can depend on God to forgive us. This isn't in any sense because we deserve forgiveness, but because God has kept his promise and, through the death of Christ in our place, has provided a means of forgiveness for us.

This doesn't mean that we can take his forgiveness for granted - but it does mean that if we repent of our sins and confess them to God, seeking the forgiveness bought for us by Jesus Christ, we can be sure that we have it.

God has given us His word, and because He is faithful we can depend on it.

And finally, God' s faithfulness is given in the Bible as a good reason for "holding unswervingly" to what the writer of Hebrews calls "the hope we profess" that is, the hope of eternal life.

Hebrews 10:23 says "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess" - WHY? Not ultimately because we have any present proof, in the scientific sense, of the life to come and the hope of glory. And not because it makes us feel better - but for the reason given by the writer of Hebrews - and it's sufficient reason to believe in the hope of eternal life and we don't need any other:

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess - WHY? - for He who promised is faithful."

FAITHFUL means constant and stable, reliable and dependable. That's why if we trust Him, and lay hold of his promises He will prove TRUSTWORTHY.

Now some of you DO trust God. But many of you may not believe in God or not be sure of Him. I want to encourage you to believe - to take Him at His word - to trust His promises - to trust HIM!!

“whoever trusts Him will never be put to shame”

Your faith may be weak and your hold on God fragile - then stop holding on to him as though it all depends on you! Trust him - entrust yourself to him (believe) and you will find your weak grasp of him is replaced by His strong grasp of you.

GOD IS FAITHFUL!

AMEN!