No Favors

People will tell you how wrong God is, but they do not have full story. And people who are saying how wrong God is are not telling the full story. The devil will have you believe that God did him wrong if you only have is side of it.

Paul is teaching that if the world decided to say that God is not faithful, then all of the world would be proven to be liars. You told a lie when you said God is not faithful. You became liars when you tried to use some faulty evidence to prove your theory.

1. Lamentations 3:22-23 (New International Version):

"Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." This passage highlights God's faithfulness and the renewal of His compassion each day.

2. Psalm 36:5 (New International Version):

"Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies." This verse expresses the extent of God's love and faithfulness, reaching beyond human comprehension.

3. Psalm 89:8 (New International Version):

"Who is like you, Lord God Almighty? You, Lord, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you." This verse emphasizes the greatness of God's faithfulness, describing it as a characteristic that surrounds Him.

4. 1 Corinthians 1:9 (New International Version):

"God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." This New Testament verse emphasizes God's faithfulness in calling believers into a relationship with His Son.

5. Deuteronomy 7:9 (New International Version):

"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 commandments." This verse in Deuteronomy emphasizes God's faithfulness in keeping His covenant of love across generations.

6. 2 Timothy 2:13 (New International Version):

"if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself." This verse reassures believers that even in times when we may struggle with faithfulness, God remains steadfast.

7. Psalm 119:90 (New International Version):

"Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures."

Romans 3:3-4 “For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.” To put this in the first-century context. You do not believe after witnessing the miracles, witnesses the resurrection. Let everyone tell the story of what happened and still say you do not believe. Let God be true and every man a liar.

Man’s unfaithfulness does not make God unfaithful in his response to man. We live in a world that tries to dirty good people up and throw everything at them in hopes that it sticks. I have seen people refuse to work with people and then blame the person they refused to work with as one who is difficult to work with. In this text, they are blaming their unfaithfulness on God by saying God is responsible for their unbelieve. What else could God have done?

Paul reminds them that God has kept his promise and God’s word has not failed. Romans 9:6-9 “ But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.” If it was all about the flesh, then Ishamel would have been good enough to fufill the Promise. Yet it was about flesh. The emphasis has been linked to the promise. Who has God promise slavtion to. The Promise has been linked to all nations, Jews and Gentiles. Get beyond the flesh.

If we can accept Ishmel was not associated with the Promise then, the Jews can accept what the Promise is today. Unforchangelty the Promise of God is not what they fully had in mind.

God did not promise to save them whether they are right or wrong, believe or choose not to believe.

When you love the Lord, you will be saved. You will always strive to be faithful to the one who is faithful to you.

Have you ever had to tell someone that they are not doing you any favors? The person who cleans and finds satisfaction is doing so is truly blessed by God. Praise God for the work that they do in our hositials, praise God for brother Miller in what he does for the church. But Lord have mercy, when someone willfully makes a mess or doing it was a prideful spirit and then calls for assistance, they are not doing the one who has a passion for helping any favors. That is to say, you are not helping or benefiting that preson, although that is what they live for. It is that prideful spirit that does not befenit the helpful person. When a job is already difficult, why make it more difficult.

Telling someone that they signed up for it as an excuse to add futher hurt them them does not justify a persons actions. People apply and sign up for the job, few people sign up for the evil dispositions. Now Jesus signed up for the job and the wicked disptions that people would have toward Him as the completed the work of man. There is work that people quit due to the phyciality of things. There is work that people quit and walk away from because of the mental stress that it requires. There is also work that people walk away from when they are surrounded by too many people with bad dispostions. When Jesus signed up to bear our sins. He signed up for it all. The physical strees and weight of suffering and the cross. The mental stress of knowing what he would have to endure before it came to pass and everyone who made it difficult for him to offer himself up for hu Isaiah 53:3 (NIV):"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."Matthew 27:32-33 (NIV):"As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means 'the place of the skull')."manity while he was doing it.

One of the most hurtful things a parent could ever hear by their child is I didn’t ask to be here. Or nobody told you to have me. That is a child’s way of telling their parents you did not do me any favors or you did not benefit me at all by bring me into this world. Regardless of how rough I had it, regardless of how I got here. I am grateful to be here. The greatest gift we can receive is life. We received life when we were born and we receive eternal life when we are born God.

The person who is rendering service does not have to thank the person who is receiving the benefit. Nor are they expected. You want me to thank you for cleaning up your mess? You want me to thank you for bailing you out. You want me to thank you for the privialege of helping you when no one would. We are not doing God any favors.

Romans 3:5-8 “But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.

Sin can so warp our minds that we can think we gave Christ something to do on Calvaries cross. So why can God be mad at us punish us. Besides if it was not for my sin, Jesus would not have died on the cross. The cross is not a message about us helping God, it is a message about God helping us. IF one think it is about us helping God then we have missed the message. It was not us making a mess out of things so that we could give God an opportunity to save us. It is God knowing we would need saving and Him dececiign to save us to give us an opportunity to be saved. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

One brother asked a question about God the Son taking the name of Christ and we discussed reasons of why he took that name. This verses sounds like people who are rebellious to the idea of submitting to God and having the nerves to say I made me, I made you into who you are, the Christ. How can you condemn me.

They are saying we allowed your light to shine. How can you condemn us. We did not allow God to shine his light. God is light. 1 John 1:5 (NIV):"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him, there is no darkness at all."Psalm 104:2 (NIV):"The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent." God is light and questions like this was asked because men loved darkness more than the light. And a question like this speaks of what is in the heart.

God does not use us to make himself look good. That is a carnal way of seeing it. Us being humans we can be carnal. God does not think like us. Some people hang with people who they believe to be inferior than them to make themselves look God. That is not God.

This is a testament to how sin can warp our thinking of God. There are some fundamental things that we know are true. Gen. 18:25 “Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Psalm 96:13 “For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth.” God said he was coming to judge the entire earth. The problem is they begin to think they should not be judged . As the Bible says the judgment of God is going to be according to truth.

In this text, I see a term that is called projection that is being used.

“Accusing someone of doing what you are doing is often referred to as "projection." In psychological terms, projection is a defense mechanism where individuals attribute their own undesirable feelings, thoughts, or traits onto someone else. When someone engages in projection, they may unconsciously deny their own unacceptable qualities by seeing them in others.” There was a demogrphic of people who were unrightosu and unjest and they had the nerve to attach their behaivor and unfaithfulness to God that they may justify themselves.

Never undercut the work of God by attributing what we are not to God. God is faithful. God can do all things although I cannot. God is all powerful although I am not.

Romans 3:7-8 “For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.”

Paul was a teacher and he helped people see the ramifiations of what they were saying vividly. He walked down the path of their reasoning and helped them see where it would lead. Now those who do not know better need to hear where their train of though leads. They may change.

This piece of Scritpure is similar to to 1 Cor. 15:12-19, where Paul is reminding the breathern that he is not laying about the resurrection. He wanted to the to know the end of that thinking.

They were struggling with his teaching. Paul assures them that this is the truth. It is true that all of us will be judged. It is true that you and the Gentiles are heirs of the kingdom of God. It is true that we all need God. Paul said that message of truth has increased the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God was not built upon a lie. Paul’s message to everyone else also included himself in which he himself was the chief sinner. If Paul can accept his standing in God, all of us should as well.

Our sin does not do God any favors, our sins placed God on the cross and because of that I strive to limit not increase sin in my life. I am working with God to iradicate it. Willfully sinning is not doing God any favors. Hebrews 6:6 “if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.”