God is Faithful - Duet 7:9

An elderly lady was well-known for her faith and for her boldness in talking about it. She would stand on her front porch and shout "PRAISE THE LORD!" Next door to her lived an atheist who would get so angry at her proclamations he would shout, "There ain't no Lord!!" Hard times set in on the elderly lady, and she prayed for GOD to send her some assistance. She stood on her porch and shouted "PRAISE THE LORD. GOD I NEED FOOD!! I AM HAVING A HARD TIME. PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!" The next morning the lady went out on her porch and noted a large bag of groceries and shouted, "PRAISE THE LORD." The neighbor jumped from behind a bush and said, "Aha! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries, God didn't." The lady started jumping up and down and clapping her hands and said, "PRAISE THE LORD. He not only sent me groceries, but He made the devil pay for them. Praise the Lord!"

Do YOU find yourself in a place where your faith is being tested ?

Maybe you don't understand what God is doing, why he is doing it ?

You pray and God doesn't seem to be answering your prayers

The Devil is coming against you at every turn

He starts to make your feel worthless,

Reminding your of your past, your inadequacies

How do we respond? Where do we turn?

Now lets be honest there are times when because of our being perplexed, worried, or outright upset we may be unfaithful.

We can act like a confused little child sometimes and that is just what we are, God's little children.

When we are all done with our spats we end up feeling like the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7 doing the very things we hate.

We do what maybe we have always done, or are used to doing.

There is an area of our mind that hasn't been renewed in Jesus Christ and we go back to a habit.

When difficulty come we please our flesh, rather than turning to God.

If you see me eating a pound of peanut M&M's while drinking coffee all day long

You can bet I am struggling with a bout of my flesh rather than to Christ.

I don't know about you but the more I grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ

the more I realize just how sinful my flesh is.

Just how much I have to trust in Christ every moment of the day.

The systems of this world are sinful and everyone that has trusted in Jesus Christ has come out of these corrupt systems.

So many of us have been lied to over and over again by educators, the media and our politicians.

That we become very guarded. Always believing the worst is going to happen.

It's even worse when those who are closest to us and should be protecting us don't do so.

For those of us with these trust issues

Those feelings of being guarded and not trusting tend to spill over into our relationship with God

We think that God is out to get us Perhaps we think that he is just waiting up in heaven to punish us, like an abusive parent.

Rather than wanting the very best for us

We may even begin to think in the middle of our difficulty that he is not faithful to us

I want to read something to you.

Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

When I wrote this I was going to say

God's promises can be trusted but it is the promise keeper that can be trusted

That is where our faith must be anchored

Can God's promises be trusted? Yes! Abosolutly!

The Word's in this book can be trusted

It is the promise keeper that makes them so.

The Word faithful means to be established, firm, and trustworthy

It means you can lean on them, you can lean into them

His promises do not move, they are firmly established, they can be trusted

More importantly God does not move

Hebrews 13:8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Last week we read in 1 Tim one of Paul's trustworthy saying.

Paul makes five of these trustworthy sayings throughout his epistles.

These sayings summarize key doctrines.

During the times of the early church these sayings were well known in the churches

As concise expressions of cardinal gospel truth.

This week I want to focus on

2 Timothy 2:11-13 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

If we have died with him, we will also live with him

We die with Jesus Christ when we believe on him.

Because we are declaring that we are dying to ourselves, that we may live for the Lord.

God deposits the Holy Spirit in us and we are made a new creation.

Faith in Jesus alone saves.

When we declare with our mouths that Jesus is our Lord And trust with our hearts that God raised Him from the dead

I want to point out what I believe is a failing in many modern church's today.

In much of the modern evangelical culture we have lost the significance

of teaching the baptism at the point of conversion.

Biblically baptism symbolizes the death and resurrection of a new believer with Christ

Romans 6:3-5 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

If we have died with Jesus Christ we will live with him.

When our physical body dies we go to live with God in heaven.

Our spirits will leave this physical tent and be relocated with Jesus Christ in heaven.

Our bodies right now are simply a physical location for our spirits. So when we die we simply change locations

Philippians 1:21-24 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.

To be depart from our flesh is to be with Christ

if we endure, we will also reign with him

Last week we learned that false teachers will try and lead Christians away from the faith

However, True believers will continue to endure, trusting in Jesus Christ for their salvation.

Jesus confirmed this in....

Matthew 24:13 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Enduring to the end does not earn our salvation

The emphasis of this verse is not on endurance.

Rather it is on the salvation of those who believe.

Those who believe will be marked by their enduring trust in Jesus.

Because they rest in the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ

in the midst of hard times and persecution.

You may be saying to yourself right now

You don't know what I am going through

You don't my life, how am I going to endure

How am I going to overcome the temptations that are currently overwhelming me

Jesus says, I am going to fight for you

I know you cant do this on your own

Just as you can come to God on your own without Jesus Christ

Neither can you remain in God on your own without Jesus Christ

God does not leave you alone once you come to know him. God will never leave you or forsake you

He is not only is with us but lives in us as believers.

James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

It is through our trials that God is refining us

He is making us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ

It is by counting it as joy that we learn to love as Christ loves

Loving our enemies, forgiving them, while speaking to them the truth

It is then that our faith becomes steadfast

God is testing us so that we might learn to lean on his faithfulness.

Rather than walking around with a pound of peanut M&M's all day, we can be walking in His Spirit.

And when we become steadfast in our faith we may be mature and complete

Living a life of victory through the Holy Spirit

I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

if we deny him, he also will deny us

This is a warning against a final denial such as an apostate just like we talked about last week

Throughout Scripture the Holy Spirit warns of the danger of falling away from the faith.

This is not speaking of a temporary failing that occurs in the life of a true believer like Peter

If you remember just before the crucifixion, Peter denied Jesus three times

In the same way a believer can deny Jesus

by avoid opportunities to tell people about Jesus and deliberately suppressing their faith

But the denial that Paul is speaking of is not a temporary failing of a true believer

Rather this is a permanent denial and rejection of Jesus Christ

by someone that has never been converted and does not believe in God's power to save them from sin

It carries with it the same tone as Matthew 10:32-33 “Therefore, everyone who will acknowledge Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before My Father in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father in heaven.

2 Tim 2:14 if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. This verse does not mean what I thought it meant for years.

I thought it meant that if a believer was doubting or had a temporary failing, God was still faithful

I am not alone in this , there are Bible commentaries that agree with this

The Greek word for faithless here means to be unbelieving, to not believe.

It best rendering implies that this is speaking about someone that has not yet surrendered their life to Christ.

If you are familiar with the idea of antithesis the word faithless is the antithesis of faithful.

In the Greek when you put an a in front of a word, it means the exact opposite of that word.

It means the exact opposite of a being faithful.

Sometimes we read Scripture and we read the verses that we like.

or maybe we read what we like

Maybe I was guilty of that earlier today.

Earlier I read Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Deuteronomy 7:10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.

The Scriptures tell us that sin is pleasurable for a season but the wages of sin is death.

God is faithful to repay those who reject his kindness and grace

There are those of you that are trying to get all the pleasure in of sin and

Hoping that you can turn to Jesus in at the 11th hour

I know that because that was me.

You need to know that God will not be mocked.

That true faith in Christ Jesus changes your heart toward obedience.

I also want you to know if you have never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior

If you have never stepped out in faith

God remains faithful to what He has done in Jesus Christ, He is trustworthy

What he did at the cross is finished.

Romans 5:8 But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

Jesus said at the cross Father Forgive them for they know not what they do

Is this you today?

Are you just beginning to see that God has always been the faithful one.

If this is you I want you to know that you can come to the alter and acknowledge your sin to God today.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

How much do you believe that promise?

I know what you might thinking. Your thinking, how can God forgive what I have done.

God wants us to trust His Word like a little child.

We stand in fear and doubt because of the pain and struggle of life

God says believe in me, trust in me, I am the ONLY one you can trust.

Because He is true, He is faithful, He will forgive your sins.

Do you understand that God promises to cleans us from all unrighteousness?

He is faithful and just to forgive all who call on him, because that was his eternal plan.

He cannot deny Himself.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely. And may your spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.