When we speak of God's faithfulness, we emphasize His constancy. And this is linked to the word emet, which means truth. He is true, He is constant, there is continuity in Him. We speak of commitment, firmness, persistence in good, reliability, predictability in that when He promises something, He keeps it.
What will God do? He will do what He has said. We cannot tell Him what to do, but we can be certain that He will do what He has said He will do. He is faithful, and He has given tokens of His faithfulness to man in the emblems of His faithfulness.
The emblem of alliances
When we talk about the emblems of faithfulness, the first thing is the covenant. Our relationship with God is not based solely on His benevolence, and His benevolence would be amply sufficient, or on His promises, and His promises would be amply sufficient, but on the covenant.
A covenant is a binding agreement between two parties, sometimes equal, sometimes not—us and God, for example. Within this binding agreement, each party commits to operating in a certain way and assumes specific obligations to the other party. If they fail to meet their obligations, the consequences will be dire. And in the ancient world, people understood this concept of covenants. And they made covenants. People made covenants. Individuals made covenants, with each other.
Sometimes there are covenants between families. And nothing can break that covenant. It's a formal commitment that cannot be destroyed, and for anyone who breaks the covenant, the consequences would be dire. God used this concept of covenant to show our fathers in the faith the importance of His Word, the importance of the relationship He wanted to establish with them.
God's Faithfulness in the Noahic Covenant
He established a covenant with Noah. He declared that never again would He make the earth completely covered with water. There would never be a flood on the earth again. So you understand that when God decides to make a covenant with human beings, it is a way of making them understand that what He promises to do is irrevocable. He made a formal commitment, this covenant is an unconditional covenant. Man has nothing to do, Noah has nothing to do, and it is a unilateral covenant.
God's faithfulness in the Abrahamic covenant
In Genesis 12, the Lord said to Abraham, "Leave your country, your kindred, and your family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing." I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.
God, in His kindness to demonstrate His faithfulness to Abraham, did exactly the same thing with Abraham that humans do in a covenant ceremony. The fire of God's presence passed between the two parts of the animal lying on the ground.
He didn't ask Abraham to do it. He gave a unilateral commitment, to help Abraham trust Him, because he knew the path wouldn't be easy, that there would be disappointments along the way. He comes back again and again to remind him that there is a covenant between them because it was essential that Abraham be able to trust Him, that he believe in His faithfulness. And many years after his first call, he was finally able to have what God had promised him. But for the land He had promised him, he had to wait hundreds more years. He was no longer there. But God had given him such a commitment that he was convinced of His faithfulness.
God's faithfulness in the Sinai covenant
When they came out of Egypt, the law was given. But this covenant is a conditional covenant. He gave laws, rules that had to be respected, rules that had to be respected. And the first thing is that they were not to prostitute themselves before the idols of the neighboring countries. By this covenant, He established the system of worship, sacrifices and the legislative system of the nation.
God's faithfulness in the covenant with David
This covenant is a covenant that is both natural and supernatural. The promise for David is that a descendant of David will always be on the throne, and by this covenant the Messiah was to come from the line of David. And that is why they call the Messiah the son of David.
And each of these covenants demonstrated God's faithfulness. He committed and kept his word. He perfectly accomplished whatshe said. Another important element is that each of these covenants foreshadowed the final covenant, the new covenant in the blood of Jesus. The sacrifices of the Sinai covenant are no longer necessary; Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and He was sacrificed once and for all. And in the new covenant, we see His faithfulness in an extraordinary way.
The new alliance inaugurated
When Jesus died on the cross, people thought they had killed Him. But God was inaugurating a new covenant. This is what God's Word calls the covenant in His blood. And when we come to Christ, if we receive the salvation He offers by faith, we become partakers in that covenant.
In other words, He makes a commitment to us. I can sit in my house, an isolated individual who doesn't really count for much in the chessboard of human existence, but who matters enormously to God because He has made a personal commitment to me.
Jesus came. Jesus paid the price, He removed what separated me from God and by coming to Him, not only am I reconciled to God, but I am part of His covenant and everything Jesus did is made available to me.
So every child of God has the right to peace. The right to joy because the word of God tells us righteousness, peace and joy, that is the kingdom of God. So if you are part of the kingdom of God, you must be a joyful person. That is your inheritance. You must live in peace, that is your inheritance. It is not something you have to beg God for, truly God, if You are in a good mood today, give me peace.
The random dimension is gone. And there is assurance because there is a covenant and a commitment. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit—this is the kingdom of God.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, the guarantee exists, if you have given your life to Jesus whatever you do, if you repent, you ask for forgiveness you are forgiven. And I say if you repent, it is not, I will do as I want and then I ask for forgiveness. Repentance is essential to forgiveness, we do not mock God. But the guarantee we have is that He forgives.
Do you know that every day we commit crimes? The lies in your hearts and the slander on your lips are infinitely more serious than you think. And God, in His holiness and purity, cannot contemplate iniquity. Our values are not those of God.
Things that seem trivial to us are extremely serious because He is pure and He is holy. But because Jesus paid the price for us, because we entered into a covenant with Him, we have the certainty that He does not condone our mistakes, but when we are truly repentant, we are forgiven. No child of God should have to live with guilt.
Through these extravagant covenant blessings, we can live a life of absolute serenity and total dedication to the affairs of the kingdom. You have peace of mind knowing you have a benefactor who is always available and always reliable.
The sacrifice He made is greater than all the sins we have committed.
In Luke twenty-two, verse twenty, Jesus said just before his death, after supper, that the cup is the cup of the new covenant in his blood which is shed for us. So Jesus was not replaced at the cross. He went to the cross to inaugurate a new covenant between God and men. This covenant will cover all human beings; all those who believe in Him will not only be saved, delivered, but enter the kingdom of God and benefit from a covenant with God.
The emblem of nature
If you are one of those who think that the world exists without God's intervention, you will not understand God's faithfulness in nature. There is an extraordinary orchestration that God has carried out in nature, which ensures that there is reliability. God Himself uses His faithfulness in nature to give us the guarantee of His faithfulness in our lives.
In Jeremiah 31:5, He states something extraordinary. Jeremiah declares what the Lord says, "He who gave the sun for a light by day, who gave the moon and the stars as a rule to be lights in the night, to stir up the sea and make its waves roar. He whose is the Lord of hosts, listen to this. These laws would have to be interrupted. In other words, the sun would have to disappear, the moon and the stars would have to disappear."
Then he says this. This is what the Lord says. This is the prophet Jeremiah speaking. It would take the heavens above being measured, the foundations beneath being explored, for me to reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done, declares the Lord. In other words, I have made a covenant with them that I can never break.
God's commitment to human beings is an irrevocable commitment. If you entrust your life to Him, He will never let you down. You will never wake up one day and say, "Everyone has abandoned me." You will never live a life where you are totally helpless—I don't know what to do or where to turn." Because human beings are unfaithful.
And he continues in Jeremiah 35:
If you could break my covenant with the day and with the night, and make them not appear at their appointed time, at their appointed time. Then my covenant would also be broken with my servant David, and he would have no sons to occupy his throne. So would my covenant with the Levites, the priests who serve me. Just as the heavenly bodies cannot be counted or the sand of the sea weighed, so I will make the descendants of my servant David and the Levites who serve me countless.
So God is saying, they are rejecting those with whom I have established a covenant. But I have not rejected them. One of the most extraordinary things about walking with the Lord is that you have someone who is on your side all the time. The whole world can reject you. A child of God should not feel rejected.
But God is faithful. There is in Him a continuity, a persistence in doing good; an insistence to heal, to deliver, beyond what we can conceive.
God is faithful, faithful to fulfill His word, faithful to fulfill His promises. Faithful to save, faithful to empower, faithful to protect, faithful to deliver, faithful to rescue, faithful to lead, to give a new beginning, faithful in difficulties, faithful in afflictions. Whatever you are going through, we are in a fallen world, whatever situation you are in, you are never abandoned, He is faithful. And if you let Him, He will manifest His goodness in the midst of its difficulties.
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God's Faithfulness (3) Bible Study Questions
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