D - God's Character Pt. 6
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So this was last month’s memory verse. We had a hard time trying to memorize it. We had a few brave souls try they’re hardest and succeed.
Exodus 34:6 (NIV)
6 … “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loyal love and faithfulness”
And over the last couple of weeks we have been talking about God’s character. We’ve looked at God being Compassionate, Gracious, Slow to anger, abounding in loyal love. and today we are going to talk about God being faithful.
But before we do that, let’s talk about our words from last week:
Who can tell me the what the Hebrew word for Loyal Love is?:
Loyal Love = Khessed
Well, for today we are going to talk about God’s faithfulness.
The word for Faithfulness is
Faithfulness = Emet
Emet can also mean:
Emet = Truth
So when the authors talk about God they say He is full of Emet which also means that God is
Trustworthy
I mean, that’s an interesting thing to thing about right? Is God trustworthy? Can I trust God?
1 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”
5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
So in this story we see a character named Abram. For those of you who don’t know Abram’s named was later changed to Abraham and he became known as the father of the faith.
At the beginning of these verses we see that God reaches out to Abram and tells him: Hey buddy, you know you can trust me right?
And Abram responds and says:
Lord, I want to trust you but I don’t have any kids to give all my stuff too. If you don’t give me any children, I’m going to have to give this other guy all of my stuff when I die. I don’t want to do that. And God says:
5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
You’re gonna have so many kids you won’t be able to count them. This is guarantee from God to Abram. As a matter of fact, did you know that you and I can be one of Abram’s children?
What? How? Well, let me explain. Maybe we aren’t going to be Abrams direct children right? I don’t think he’s my granddad or even my great granddad. But let’s take a look at what happens next in the story:
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Abram believed God, and that act of belief was enough for God to consider Abram as righteous. This means 2 things for you and I:
If you believe in Jesus, you will be saved.
Super simple, people think you have to work your way into heaven and the truth is, we can’t do that no matter how hard we try. Some people believe that if you do more good stuff than bad stuff, then the good stuff will outweigh all of the bad things I do, but that’s not true either.
Righteousness does not come from:
WORK
It actually comes from:
FAITH
You can’t work your way into heaven, you have to believe in Jesus in order to have eternal life with Him.
If you believe in Jesus, you will be saved.
If you do what Abram does, you are his descendant.
39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did.
Some people came up to Jesus and said: We are children of Abraham and Jesus said:
If you were, then you would behave like Abraham. In other words, if you believe in Jesus, and obey Him, you too are a descendant of Abraham.
Since Abraham has existed, how many people do you think have become Christian since then? SO SO SO SO many. There are so many Christians in the world just today, and every single one of them is a descendant of Abraham. Just like God promised:
5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
God kept His promise to Abraham because God is faithful, don’t you think He can keep His promises to you?
Discussion Questions:
1. How do the following passages portray God’s faithfulness?
Genesis 15: 1-6
2. How are we called to respond to God’s faithful character?
3. What are your thoughts on this verse:
2 timothy 2: 13
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
Let’s spend some time going over our memory verse for today:
1 John 3:18 (NIV)
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.