God's Character: Loyal Love & Faithfulness

Call to Worship

Psalm 100 ESV

A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Sermon

This week we’re continuing on and looking at the final two words in the Exodus 34:6, it’s not our last week of the series, we’ll finish up next week. But this week we’ll be looking at the two very connected characteristics loyal love and faithfulness.

To review our main verse, Exodus 34:6-7, “““And the Lord passed before Moses and said: Yahweh, Yahweh, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal-love and faithfulness. He maintains loyal-love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He won’t declare innocent the guilty, He will bring the iniquities of the fathers upon the children and grandchildren, to the third and the fourth.”

The phrase loyal love in this context is interesting, because if you go to a number of different translations you’ll see a lot of different terms. Loyal love, unfailing love, steadfast love, loving devotion, lovingkindness (as one word). And we get the same kind of idea for each but there’s something that makes it noteworthy. Much of the time when we look at different english translations of the bible, if they have different words they’re using in the translation of the same verse, it often means that the word in either Greek or Hebrew, in this case Hebrew, that they’re trying to translate doesn’t have a direct literal translation in English. And so translators will try to find words that are close, or try to find a combination of words that are close. And that’s the case here. The word they’re translating is the Hebrew word Hesed, and it has a lot of different facets to it.

One Hebrew scholar named Daniel Block said this: “The Hebrew [word] Hesed cannot be translated with one English word. This is a covenant term, wrapping up in itself all the positive attributes of God.”

So this word is really big, it has a lot of different parts to it, but here’s kind of a general overview. Hesed is talking about love in all of the possible ways we can fathom it. Not just love as a feeling or an action or a response or a promise, love as all of it all at once.

The major facets are these:

First, hesed is talking about a covenant or a promise. It’s a deep sense of loyalty like a vow that someone has made to love unconditionally. (Think of that deep promised love between a husband and wife)

But hesed isn’t ever about just obligation, it’s a deeply felt type of love tying into itself compassion and grace and mercy which we’ve all already talked about.

Hesed also is very practical, it implies a deep sense of kindness or generosity. Not just saying you love someone or something and not doing anything about it, it’s a love that you act on that you sacrificially give of yourself for someone else.

With these in mind we can see how only using one English word doesn’t really grasp the whole thing, the closest we could get is to a say it’s a loyal covenant based lovingkindness.

Paired with this phrase is very often the word faithfulness, or in Hebrew Emet, which is most often translated faithful, but it also sometimes means trustworthy, or truthful, or stable. It refers to the stability of something, if something’s true then it’s stable, immovable. If someone is faithful then they’re stable, they don’t get taken away easily. So in the case of Exodus 34:6, the claim being made is that God is stable, consistent, faithful, immovable, unchangeable.

Emet and Hesed show up together all the time in the bible, often being translated as steadfast love and faithfulness. They are deeply connected, and so it’s hard to talk about one without talking about the other. Which is why we’ve paired them together.

A couple of times already in this series I’ve mentioned the book God Has a Name by John Mark Comer, in his chapter on two words he says this:

“When you put hesed and emet together, it’s incendiary. “Overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness” is called a hendiadys… a hendiadys is a literary device where two nouns are smashed together to help define each other. Meaning… God’s love is His faithfulness. [And] God’s faithfulness is His love.”

Don’t worry if you’ve never heard that word, I hadn’t until this week and as I looked it up I found we actually use it quite a bit without knowing it. For example, when we talk about the weather we might say “it’s nice and warm”, we’re using the two words together, we’re essentially saying it’s nicely warm, that just doesn’t flow right. Or another example we could say, “I’m surprised they showed up despite the rain and weather”. We’re really saying the rainy weather, but again we choose to say it slightly differently. Same thing is happening here with hesed and emet, it’s as if every time they’re together we’re saying God’s faithful covenant based loyal lovingkindness. It sounds like a bunch of synonyms but it’s not exactly, it’s more like the two words are working together to create a deeper emphasis than either of them are capable of on their own.

And so with them both in the Exodus passage, they’re working together to emphasize just how incredibly deep God’s love and faithfulness are.

Like many attributes of God, He shows these to such a large extent, that it’s difficult to really see the whole picture until we understand it at a smaller level, and like other attributes we’ve already looked at, this is easiest if we look at some human stories from the bible.

We’re going to look briefly at two different women in the bible. The first one is named Ruth, and the second is named Gomer.

We already talked briefly about Ruth a couple of weeks ago but I want to come back to her story again because it’s so rich.

If you’ll recall the book of Ruth starts and there’s a family with a husband and wife and their two sons and their wives. And the mother’s name is Naomi, and the two wives names are Orpah and Ruth. And because of a famine all of their husbands die. And so Naomi tells the two women to go back home to their families. And Orpah goes but Ruth stays with Naomi and her and Naomi travel back to Israel and they stay in Bethlehem. And they have very little food or money and so Ruth goes and tries to pick up the scraps from the workers in the field of one of her dead husband’s relatives named Boaz. And Boaz hears about their story, and sees the loyalty that Ruth had to Naomi and he’s impressed and so he looks out for Ruth and intentionally provides extra food for her. And Ruth brings it home to Naomi, and this is what Naomi says:

Ruth 2:20 “And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, [for his Hesed] has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.””

And as the story goes on, Ruth and Naomi have this idea. In the middle of the night Ruth goes to Boaz’s house and meets him and she’s no longer wearing mourning clothes, instead she’s wearing clothes that show that she is available for someone to marry her, and boldly she asks Boaz to mrry her and take care of her and Naomi, and Boaz agrees and he marries her and provides for both of them.

The reason that this story is such a good picture of Hesed is because it embodies all three core facets of the word. Covenant loyalty and faithfulness, the action of generosity and kindness, and deep felt compassionate love.

In this story Boaz truly embodies hesed because he demonstrates all three of those:

Covenant Loyalty and Faithfulness

There was a rule in the Israelite community that when a man dies a close relative takes in the dead man’s family and provides for them, often this was a brother, but if his brother’s were also dead it was supposed to be a different close relative. When Boaz meets Ruth and Naomi, he sees that none of their husbands relatives have taken them in yet, and so he choose to act faithfully, to act on covenant loyalty and to take care of them.

Generosity

When Boaz meets Ruth, he sees that she’s having a dificult time getting things in the field, and so he looks out for her, he sends her with his own young female servants, and commands his male servants to take care of her and make sure she’s getting enough food and water. He shows her generosity by giving her food from his fields and by providing for her and Naomi.

Deep Felt Love

The most incredible act of love in this story, is actually one that’s kind of hard to miss. It’s in the language of the phrase the “kinsman or family redeemer” It’s that idea that we talked about where a close relative takes them in and provides for them. After Ruth has asked Boaz to marry her, Boaz says yes, let me make it official in front of the town leaders, and so he goes the next day to the town square, but he finds out that there’s actually this other man that’s a closer relative than he is to Ruth and Naomi, and this man by rights should be the one that buys Naomi’s land and marry’s Ruth and takes care of both of them. And at first he only knows about the land and he wants to acquire it and so he says yes, but once he finds out he also has to marry Ruth he declines. But as he declines, Boaz steps up and out of love does something he’s not required to do, he chooses to take on the responsibility of providing for them, showing deeper love, deeper hesed, than is deserved.

And so it’s because of this beautiful idea that we see so strongly the idea of hesed displayed in both Ruth and Boaz’s actions. As people, they are some of the best in the entire bible when it comes to seeing hesed and emet on display.

Gomer on the other hand is not. You’ve likely never heard of Gomer, maybe you have, but she’s relatively obscure in terms of bible characters. She shows up in the book of Hosea. And she appears for a really tragic reason, the people of Israel have left God and turned their backs on Him and gone after other gods. And so God asks the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute because that will demonstrate what Israel is doing to God. And this is what happens.

Hosea 1:2–2:1 (NLT)

When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.”

So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son. And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed at Jezreel. In fact, I will bring an end to Israel’s independence. I will break its military power in the Jezreel Valley.”

Soon Gomer became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to Hosea, “Name your daughter Lo-ruhamah—‘Not loved’—for I will no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them. But I will show love to the people of Judah. I will free them from their enemies—not with weapons and armies or horses and charioteers, but by my power as the Lord their God.”

After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again became pregnant and gave birth to a second son. And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi—‘Not my people’—for Israel is not my people, and I am not their God.

“Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore—too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said, ‘You are children of the living God.’ Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together. They will choose one leader for themselves, and they will return from exile together. What a day that will be—the day of Jezreel (which means God plants)—when God will again plant his people in his land.

“In that day you will call your brothers Ammi—‘My people.’ And you will call your sisters Ruhamah—‘The ones I love.’

So all of this happens and we see this lived out analogy, as God uses Gomer’s unfaithfulness to represent Israel’s. And yet despite the unfaithfulness from Gomer, and from Israel, both Hosea and God remain faithful to the end. And this point continues to be made throughout the rest of the boo. Interestingly, chapter 3 uses similar language to the story of Ruth, as Hosea redeems Gomer even though she doesn’t deserve it. This is what it says:

Hosea 3 NLT

Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.” So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. Then I said to her, “You must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution. During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even with me.” This shows that Israel will go a long time without a king or prince, and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols! But afterward the people will return and devote themselves to the Lord their God and to David’s descendant, their king. In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness.

And so just like Boaz with Ruth, Hosea shows Gomer hesed and emet, loyal love and faithfulness, he gets her back, and takes care of her and it clearly represents YHWH with the people of Israel. And throughout the book of Hosea, God gets Hosea to preach and demonstrate about him and his wife, and God and Israel and to make people understand the incredible faithfulness and loyal love of God.

The book of Hosea ends and this is what God says: Hosea 14:4, 7 “The Lord says, “Then I will heal you of your faithlessness; my love will know no bounds, for my anger will be gone forever… My people will again live under my shade.”

And so from Gomer we see what loyal love and faithfulness do not look like, and yet at the same time what they do look like from Hosea and God to people who actively turn away and betray them. And as we examine these deep ideas of constant faithfulness and loyal love we can pair it with this idea of redemption.

In these ideas of redemption we can see this deep sense of loyal love and faithfulness, and charity and love, as someone wins someone back at a price, when they faithfully love them even when it hasn’t really been meritted.

And I think that this idea of redemption is vitally imortant to use being able to truly see God’s hesed and emet, His loyal love and faithfulness. In the Psalms, David and other often talk about the hesed and emet of God. In fact, over half of the occurances in the bible of the word hesed are in Psalms, and over a quarter of the occuranes of Emet are. And many times these words appear in the context of God redeeming, saving or rescuing people. One of the more famous psalms is Psalm 136 which says: Psalm 136

Psalm 136 ESV

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever; the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever; the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, for his steadfast love endures forever; and brought Israel out from among them, for his steadfast love endures forever; with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever; and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever; but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who struck down great kings, for his steadfast love endures forever; and killed mighty kings, for his steadfast love endures forever; Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures forever; and Og, king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures forever; and gave their land as a heritage, for his steadfast love endures forever; a heritage to Israel his servant, for his steadfast love endures forever. It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever; and rescued us from our foes, for his steadfast love endures forever; he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.

So from this we see several things, other than just the constant repeat that God’s hesed extends forever, we also see a story within it, one where God faithfully brought forth live, how he sustains life, rescues people from their enemies, protects them, provides for them, redeems them and restores them, all because of His steadfast love, His hesed. Which faithfully takes care of everything we could possibly think of.

And when we get to the New Testament and meet Jesus we see all of these same things, He also demonstrates perfect hesed. And from it we see all of the same things, he sustains all things, he protects the vulnerable, he provides for people, he gives life, and he redeems people.

Most notably, on the cross we see how Jesus was faithful to both Israel and to the rest of the world. Faithful to Christ was the last thing that people during the passion were. His disciples deserted Him, one of His closest friends betrayed Him, the Jewish leaders who should have been His biggest followers were the ones that got Him killed, and yet He allows Himself to be killed all the same in order to pay for their sins, because of His great love and faithfulness. Love and faithfulness beyond what we could possibly comprehend.

And there on the cross He acts as the redeemer in the same way as Hosea and Boaz. At the cross even as He’s being nailed, whipped, beaten, spat on, cursed at, mocked, abused and murdered, He chooses to stay even though He could strike all of those hurting Him down dead with a whisper, even though He could have had angels come and take Him away, even though at any point He could have chosen to forsake humanity and allow us to all die out without any way to fix our sin, instead He chooses to stay on the cross. And on the cross He pays the penalty that none of us ever could, He redeems us, buys us back from the power of sin and death, He comes to our rescue. In the words of the apostle Paul: Romans 5:8 “God showed His great love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And even though like Gomer we run away time after time after time throwing ourselves at everything else under the sun, still He’s there faithful and loving, picking us up, dusting us off, and welcoming us home.

When I was a kid, there was a children’s bible that our family would read from. It’s called the Jesus Storybook Bible. And in the first story of it, as it’s explaining Adam and Eve and the fall, it has this beautiful quote, that I think really demonstrates the extent of God’s loyal love and faithfulness. It’s right after it explains that Adam and Eve had to leave the garden, and it says this:

“Before they left the garden, God made clothes for his children, to cover them. He gently clothed them and then he sent them away on a long, long journey ~ out of the garden, out of their home. Well, in another story, it would all be over and that would have been… the End. But not in this Story. God loved his children too much to let the story end there. Even though he knew he would suffer, God had a plan a magnificent dream. One day, he would get his children back. One day, he would make the world their perfect home again. And one day, he would wipe away every tear from their eyes. You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love. And though they would forget him, and run from him, deep in their hearts, God's children would miss him always, and long for him lost children yearning for their home. Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: "It will not always be so! I will come to rescue you! And when I do, I'm going to do battle against the snake. I'll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I'm coming back for you!' And he would. One day, God himself would come.”

I love that, because it shows that all throughout the story of the bible, all throughout human history. God has been chasing people down, He’s been waiting to put the world right again, and at the cross that’s what He did. He chose perfect love and faithfulness, and He put on display what’s been there since the beginning, His hesed and emet. His covenant based faithful loyal lovingkindness. And it shows as well, the truth that each of us feel, the world is deeply broken, each human being is another child crying out, knowing that they need the loyal love of their heavenly Father to redeem them. And that’s what the gospel is all about, that God’s loyal love and faithfulness endures, that it has triumphed and that it is accessible for all of us.

As we come to a close. I have two final verses for us to think about. First, Lamentations 3:22-23 “The [hesed] of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is His faithfulness.”

That just about sums it up, God’s love is forever, it never fails, it’s new every day and we can depend on it all of the time. We will always need the hope and peace that His love brings, and we can always rely on it to be there for us.

The second verse is this: Micah 6:8 “God has told you what is good; and what the Lord requires of you: to do justice, and to love hesed, and to walk humbly with your God.”

It’s God’s hesed that redeems the world and puts it back together, and He invites us, and commands us as His followers to be a part of doing justice, loving to show hesed, and walking humbly with Him. Maybe we’re not put in the same situations as Boaz and Hosea to redeem people quite so clearly, be we can find ways to faithfully love those around us, to be generous to them, to seek out what’s best for them, and to be a reflection to them of God’s hesed. Everyday we can find opportunities to show more love to people, so look for those. Because as we look to be more loving, we allow ourselves to have character that more closely reflects God’s. God is love, and so as we seek to emulate Him, think about what your life would look like for someone to truthfully say: you embody love itself. When I think about sacrificial love, I think about how you point me to Christ’s love. That’s what we should strive for.

So let’s pray and thank God for His loyal love, and to ask Him to give us opportunites to put it on display.

Benediction

2 Corinthians 13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”