Faithfulness Shown Through Christ

Thesis

God’s faithfulness has been shown to use all throughout human history, visible in the small every day displays of His faithfulness as well as the grandest shows of it such as the crucifixion of the Christ.

Introduction

I went to see my friend Jesse recently

His family works for a missionary organization that trains and sends out missionaries

The crazy part is that they live on campus and are fully provided for by the organization

they don’t get paid anything

The organization doesn’t ask for any donations

people just bring in food and clothes and all kinds of stuff

So seeing God provide for these people so abundantly combined with Neph’s sermon last Sunday on trust brings us to today’s topic

I want to talk about God’s faithfulness

Trusting God’s Promises

So let’s begin by looking at Genesis 12:2-3 which is a list of promises that God makes to Abram

“And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed”

Alot of these Abram never saw yet we see them all to have come true

Paul asserts in Romans that the church is apart of the true Israel, which makes for a pretty great nation

Abram is a name we discuss even today

name me someone from that time period who wasn’t in the bible, I can’t

Through Abram all the world has been blessed, namely through Jesus who came through the line of Abram

Joshua 23:14 Is a verse from Joshua’s Farewell address where he seeks to encourage the people of Israel before he passes away

“Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, (He is going to die) and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed.”

Joshua lead the people of Israel into Canaan in a period called the Conquest

This is the period the Israelites saw all kinds of miracles and quite a few you would likely recognize

Probably most famous in the period was Jericho

Yes the city where Joshua was commanded to take all Israel around the city 7 times and blow a horn, and on the 7th day the walls fell outward

In almost every battle they encountered, God intervened and performed unquestionable miracles

Moving on to Numbers 23:19 we see a scene between Balaam, a seer who was hired by a king named Balak who sought for Balaam to curse Israel. Yet Balaam was not able to, and amongst this Balaam in verse 19 expresses how he cannot revoke the blessing that God had put upon them and says the following

“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Balaam here presents a dichotomy that we can learn from

Man lies, had need to repent and apologize, and doesn’t always follow through on what we say

God tells the truth, has no need to repent or apologize, follows through on what he says

This reality of God following through is a great thing for us because he declares us not guilty through the sacrifice of Jesus, but it is also terrifying because God doesn’t always promise good

A perfect example is Jeremiah 25:8-11

“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. ‘Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. ‘This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

This is the Babylonian Exile which we see through the last little bit of the Old testament in books like Daniel

Jesus also makes a terrifying promise like this as well in Matthew 6:14-15

Just after Jesus delivers the Lord’s Prayer during the sermon on the mount He follows it with this line

“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you. (This is a pretty awesome promise right here, but it soon turns) But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

Here we see both a positive and a negative promise

If we do forgive then we will be forgiven

But if we don’t then we absolutely won’t be

Thus we come the the climax of all these promises being fulfilled

Paul in these next two passages I want to bring up to you suggests that Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection is the ultimate show of God’s faithfulness

Acts 13:32-33a “And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, ”

This suggests that the gospel is a fulfilment of promises, specifically the fact that He raised up Jesus

The fathers Paul’s mentions in this passage is Abraham, Isaac, and Israel/Jacob

This is what I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon

God blessed all families through Abraham because from his line came Jesus

Paul then doubles down on this in Romans 15:8-9a saying

“For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy”

Paul is making very clear here that Jesus’ death and Resurrection is a fulfillment of promises made by God dating all the way back to Abraham

Conclusion

This all brings us to the undeniable conclusion, that God honors his promises

When we see God say something, he absolutely means it

What’s even better is what we see Paul write in 2 Tim 2:13

“If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

Being faithful is inherently apart of who God is

This is great news for those of us with a Sin problem

which just so happens to be every human who has ever lived besides Jesus himself

God made us a promise, that we are free of that problem through Jesus

and he is faithful despite our failure

If you haven’t decided to accept that amazing promise yet, it’s not too late

If you’d like to then please step forward as our worship team sings our invitation

The Application

God will fulfil his promises

It’s may take some time

Promises God has made us as Christians

Annotated Bibliography

NASB

Nu 23:19 shows that God is very true to his word unlike man. We can trust his promises.

2 Tim 2:13 Paul suggests that despite our unfaithfulness God is still faithful because it is apart of His nature

Jos 23:14 This is apart of Joshua’s farewell address. he encourages his audience with this statement suggesting that God has fulfilled his promises to the people

Gen 12:2 We today have seen how Faithful God was to these promises He made to Abram. Mind you Abram saw none of these in his life, but we, thousands of years later, have seen God fulfill every one of these

Jer 25:8-11 Shows that God’s promises aren’t always for the benefit of humanity, yet they are still carried out. God doesn’t make idle threats.

It is both comforting and terrifying that God 100% means every promise He’s made us

Jesus telling us we won’t be forgiven if we don’t forgive is terrifying

Jesus also telling us if we believe in Him then we will have eternal life is comforting

Acts 13:32 Paul outright says that Jesus is the ultimate evidence of God’s faithfulness

Rom 15:8 Paul again is making a case for Jesus being evidence of God’s faithfulness, suggesting that Jesus being a Jews was a completion of the promises made to “the fathers”

Manser, Martin H. Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies. London: Martin Manser, 2009.

Entry 1035, “God, Faithfulness of,” provides an ample amount of verses within it that are very related to the topic.