Lessons Learned From God's People - God Is Faithful! Series

TEXT: Various

TITLE:

TOPIC: God’s faithfulness

OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, May 17, 2009

PROP.: God is faithful to His promises and his people and he shows his faithfulness through his power, his plans and his purposes!

INTRODUCTION: Our sermon series is called: “Lessons learned from God’s people” We spent a lot of time learning the lesson - “How to be Holy”

Now we are spending some time learning the lesson - “How to be faithful!”

Last week, we focused on the faithfulness of you and me. We primarily looked at the example of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and I pray that last week’s sermon increased your desire to want to be faithful! That as we studied and heard about the flat out refusal of these three men to bow down or to serve any other god except Jehovah, your desire to be faithful to God increased!

ILLUSTRATION: Stories of faithfulness always inspire us! And stories of betrayal don’t. What comes to mind when I say the name: Benedict Arnold? Traitor? Back-stabber? Egg inventor? No. Eggs Benedict was not created by or in honor of Benedict Arnold. That’s another story for another day.

Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but switched sides to the British Empire. As a general still on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and attempted unsuccessfully to surrender it to the British. After the plot failed, he served with British forces as a loyalist. (kind of an oxymoron, huh?) (Wikipedia.com)

Stories of betrayal do not inspire us. If anything, they disgust us. When talking about your favorite disciple of Jesus, does anyone mention Judas Iscariot? No. Probably not. Why? Because he betrayed Jesus for some silver! We don’t like stories of betrayal.

(((((WHY are we so disturbed by that story? Because we wonder how someone could be so unfaithful to after they were showed kindness, love and compassion?????? It doesn’t make sense to us, does it? I can’t fathom why Judas did what he did. (How he could sell his friendship to Jesus Christ for such a small fee. Oh wait. Don’t you and I do the same thing? Don‘t we betray Christ each time we choose to sin?))))))

It is my aim this morning, to have you realize , you will be inspired by God’s faithfulness to you and to me.

This week, I want to continue to learn the lesson of faithfulness, but the lesson that we will learn this week is: that God is faithful!

I. God is faithful!

I know what you’re thinking: “That’s all he’s got? That’s his first point? I woke up early, dragged myself out of bed, to hear the preacher say, “God is faithful.” - YEP!

You see, I believe this first point is a message that you and I either tend to forget, take for granted or really don’t believe.

--Winding the world up and leaving us all alone

There is a philosophy that is out there that believes in God, but has some messed up opinions on how God works. You see, they believe that God created the everything that you see in 6 days, but then He has left us to our own demise. LIKE A CLOCK THAT HAS BEEN WOUND UP AND LEFT ALONE.

They basically are saying, that God doesn’t care for us and isn’t involved in our lives! I am here to show you that God is indeed involved in our lives and that He is indeed FAITHFUL!

DEFINITION OF FAITHFUL: What exactly do I mean when I say that God is faithful?

Max Depree, in an article on church leadership stated: “A friend of mine described a colleague as great at running the “ninety-five-yard dash.”

Faithfulness means seeing it through till the end. “Seeing what through?“ Whatever you are committed to. Marriage. Christianity. Sports. Lacking the last five yards of anything makes the first ninety-give pointless!”

God is not a 95 yard dasher. He completes the whole thing! He’s faithful to the end!

First, God is faithful…

A. to His promises (to His word)

If there is one lesson we learn from God‘s people, it’s that God keeps his promises!

This whole thing started with Abraham. The Israelites are the result

God promised Abraham - Genesis 17:4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.”

And so God took this child-less man and was faithful to His promise and during the time of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, Abraham’s descendents numbered 1 - 2 million. GOD IS FAITHUL TO HIS PROMISES!

Joseph remembered God’s promise - You remember Joseph’s last request to his brothers right before he died? Genesis 50:24,25)

24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." 25 And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place."