Great is Thy Faithfulness

Message was delivered on Aug 7, 2016 

     
Exodus 3:12-15 
2 So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’ 

We are only qualified to do Gods work, not because of our own talents, abilities, or training, but because God is with us. And if He is not with us, then no amount of skill or experience will make us qualified. We serve and belong to a God who is alive, who is present, who is right here, right now. And He who gives life and breath to everything that lives. I AM... is whether anything else remains or not.

Let me ask you, when did you last feel Gods presence in your life? I don’t mean a merely intellectual recognition that God is with you, for our God is everywhere, but rather, when did you last recognize in your heart that Our God is personally...intimately abiding in you?

If you are like many believers, it may have been a while since you really felt His presence. Too many people go about their lives without a genuine sense of Gods closeness. Repeatedly in Scripture, we see that whenever God calls someone into His presence, 
I Am, reminds us of His enduring presence. We just read this in the story of Moses. I Am was with Joshua, Gideon, Jeremiah and so on...Just to name a few. These men discovered, as we can, that the awareness of Gods presence energizes us to follow Him. It was never in mans power to be obedient to I Am, it is all by His empowering presence.

Why does I Am, repeatedly assure His followers of His presence? He does so..because we need to be reminded of the reason for our confidence. Each time God calls His own into action, He essentially says, “ you can be strong, and courageous because I Am is with you”. Victory was never about our abilities, our skills, strength, gifts or dedication. It all had to do with I AM’s presence. “I can do all things through who...( Christ ) who strengthens me”, (Phil 4:13) 

I Am knows how difficult life can be, and He knows every detail of each struggle that we face. As a believer in Jesus Christ, we can put our trust in Him, and that I Am will keep His word, because I Am is faithful.. He is here right now, He is with you wherever you go, as He promises in His words, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you”.

Our God is Faithful...

Exodus 34:6
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 
Deuteronomy 7:9
9 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. 
Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,upright and just is he.

These are just a few verses to describe our Gods faithfulness. Let me give you a short story of a father who does not quit in a time of need. 

In the country of Armenia, in 1988, Samuel and Danielle sent their young son, Armand, off to school. Samuel squatted before his son and looked him in the eye. “Have a good day at school, and remember, no matter what, I’ll always be there for you.” They hugged and the boy ran off to school. 
Hours later, a powerful earthquake rocked the area. In the midst of the pandemonium, Samuel and Danielle tried to discover what happened to their son but they couldn’t get any information. The radio announced that there were thousands of casualties. 
Samuel then grabbed his coat and headed for the schoolyard. When he reached the area, what he saw brought tears to his eyes. Armand’s school was a pile of debris. Other parents were standing around crying. 
Samuel found the place where Armand’s classroom used to be and began pulling a broken beam off the pile of rubble. He then grabbed a rock and put it to the side, and then grabbed another one. 
One of the parents looking on asked, “What are you doing?” “Digging for my son,” Samuel answered. The man then said, “You’re just going to make things worse! The building is unstable,” and tried to pull Samuel away from his work. 
Samuel set his jaw and kept working. As time wore on, one by one, the other parents left. Then a firefighter tried to pull Samuel away from the rubble. Samuel looked at him and said, “Won’t you help me?” The firefighter left and Samuel kept digging.
All through the night and into the next day, Samuel continued digging. Parents placed flowers and pictures of their children on the ruins. But, Samuel just kept working. He picked up a beam and pushed it out of the way when he heard a faint cry. “Help! Help!” Samuel listened but didn’t hear anything again. Then he heard a muffled voice, “Papa?” 
Samuel began to dig furiously. Finally he could see his son. “Come on out, son!” he said with relief. “No,” Armand said. “Let the other kids come out first because I know you’ll get me.” Child after child emerged until, finally, little Armand appeared. Samuel took him in his arms and Armand said, “I told the other kids not to worry because you told me that you’d always be there for me!”  
Fourteen children were saved that day because one father was faithful.

Wow!!!  Church, how much more faithful is our heavenly Father! Whether trapped by fallen debris or ensnared by life’s hardships and struggles, we are never cut off from God’s faithfulness. He is true to His character. He is reliable and trustworthy and can be counted on always. I Am “will never leave you, nor forsake you”.

These verses that we just read, when put together, establish that God’s faithfulness is not some minor or secondary part of His character. To say that God is faithful goes to the very core of who He really is. If He didn’t keep His Word, He wouldn’t be God.

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness”, 
“He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love”
“His works are perfect, and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,upright and just is he”.

That’s the way God’s attributes function. If you took away love, God’s character would be incomplete. God’s love works with all the other attributes, like His justice, to produce the right kind of results. God’s faithfulness means that each attribute in His character is working at full capacity at all times. When does God’s love fail? Never!!! because He is faithful. When is God less than holy? Never!!!, because His character is pure and He is always faithful to who He is and to what He says.

A.W. Tozer puts it this way: “All of God’s acts are consistent with all of His attributes. No attribute contradicts any other, but all harmonize and blend into each other in the infinite abyss of the Godhead.”

God’s faithfulness is at the core of His very nature. He is all knowing, holy, the creator, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, just, sovereign, unchanging, and loving because He is faithful to His own character. He never changes any of His attributes.

Here is what the Apostle Paul wrote on the book of Thessalonians...

1 Thessalonians 5:24
24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

This very verse pertains to becoming holy. This confident hope sustains the believers present pursuit of holiness through Christ, despite the ongoing struggles with temptations.
When we struggle. All of us experience hard times in our lives. Some of you may be struggling with sickness, financial pressure, grief, or even depression. Church... choose to focus on God’s love, mercy and faithfulness. He does not promise to prevent problems from coming into our lives, but He does promise to go through them with us. Call to mind what you know to be true. God is faithful, and¬ He will always be there for you and I.

Even when we fall into sin, Our God still remains faithful, and of course there should always be the fear of being disciplined. But none the less, in our time of weakness, God remains faithful. 

1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 

Gods forgiveness is given as we admit our need of it, not on the basis of any act we have done to earn it, but solely because of His grace. The gift of forgiveness carries with it purification from unrighteousness. Our God, accepts us as righteous because He imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. For this verse to have its true meaning you have to have I Am with you in your life...The One name, above all names! And what Name is that???

Immanuel- which means, God with us.

God’s faithfulness means that everything He says and does is certain.” He is 100% reliable, 100% of the time. He does not fail, forget, falter, change, or disappoint. He says what He means and.... means what He says ¬and therefore does everything He says He will do. You really have to know, who your God is, what He stands for, and why we belong to Him! Remember that God loves you and i, with the same love that He has given His only Son. God’s unfailing faithfulness means that everything He says and does is certain, and that we can be certain that He will always be one hundred percent God, one hundred percent of the time, or He will not be God at all.

Ephesians 3:20-21
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Our God loves to surprise His faithful people with answers to prayers far exceeding anything they, or we can ever imagine.That same power is as close as the the Spirit within us. This power is the Spirit of the risen Christ. Because of the power that God has given the church, the Apostle Paul, gives glory to Him. Believers should live to give God glory, and to also reflect Gods glory. Let the people around know that you belong to a faithful God. Lift your head up, because He who has called you is Faithful!

And again in the story of Moses...

Deuteronomy 29:5
5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet.

For forty years God maintained Israel and never had a shortage or crisis. Secondly, His faithfulness is not fragmented, His is an unfailing force of faithfulness. The Babylonians were forceful, but God was greater, they were not destroyed because God’s compassion was with them. Perhaps that is why we are reminded that when we pass through the waters they will not drown us,remember the “Passing Storms”,when we pass through the fire, the fire will not burn us. From the story of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo. Our God was in the fire with them. Through the good times, and hard times. God remains faithful!

                          Lastly:

 
His faithfulness is not stale, He has an unfailing freshness of faithfulness. The scriptures say that they are new every morning, verse twenty three of Lamentations...

Lamentations 3:22-23
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassion never fail. 23 They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Each and everyday is a new day with the Lord. Though we do not know what the day holds, but we know the One who holds it. As i have said earlier, Through the good times, and hard times. God remains faithful...Great is Thy Faithfulness!


Prepare for the Lords Supper....