God's Obedient Servant Series

After listening to their stories, Jethani asked, “How many of you were raised in a Christian home?” They all raised their hands. “How many of you grew up in a Bible-centered church?” All hands stayed up. Shaking his head in disbelief, Jethani said, “You've all spent eighteen or twenty years in the church. You've been taught the Bible from the time you could crawl, and you attend Christian colleges, but not one of you gave the right answer. Not one of you said that in the midst of your sin God still loves you.”

Jethani concluded: “I did not blame the students for their failure. Somewhere in their spiritual formation they were taught, either explicitly or implicitly, that what mattered was not God's love for them, but how much they could accomplish for him.” (Skye Jethani, With, Thomas H. Nelson, 2011, pp. 80-82; www.PreachingToday.com)

You see, the only thing that will get us through the darkness is NOT our faithfulness to God, because that is so fickle. No. The only thing that will get us through the darkness is His faithfulness to us. We can count on that no matter what happens.

I like the way John Piper put it in his book, The Pleasures of God. He said: “Sometimes we joke and say about marriage, ‘The honeymoon is over.’ But that's because we are finite. We can't sustain a honeymoon level of intensity and affection. We can't foresee the irritations that come with long-term familiarity. We can't stay as fit and handsome as we were then. We can't come up with enough new things to keep the relationship that fresh. But God says his joy over his people is like a bridegroom over a bride. He is talking about honeymoon intensity and honeymoon pleasures and honeymoon energy and excitement and enthusiasm and enjoyment. He is trying to get into our hearts what he means when he says he rejoices over us with all his heart.

“And add to this, that with God the honeymoon never ends. He is infinite in power and wisdom and creativity and love. And so he has no trouble sustaining a honeymoon level of intensity; he can foresee all the future quirks of our personality and has decided he will keep what's good for us and change what isn't; he will always be as handsome as he ever was, and will see to it that we get more and more beautiful forever; and he is infinitely creative to think of new things to do together so that there will be no boredom for the next trillion ages of millenniums.” (John Piper, The Pleasures of God, Multnomah, 2000), p. 188; www.PreachingToday.com)

Even when our love for Him fades at times, His love for us remains at the same intensity through all eternity. Count on that love even in the darkness. What do we do when the lights go out? 1st, Rely on God’s unfailing love. 2nd…

RELY ON GOD’S UNLIMITED POWER.

Depend on God’s infinite ability to save. Trust in His great strength to rescue us from any real danger. Listen to God as he continues to speak to the children of Israel.