Again, and we're going to read first of
all in Psalm 12.
I want to spend some time thinking with
you about the subject of commitment and faithfulness.
So, Lord willing, tonight and tomorrow night and
Friday night we'll be looking at the theme
of commitment and faithfulness.
Psalm 12, verse 1.
Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases, for
the faithful fail from among the children of
men.
This is actually an urgent appeal.
The word help, Lord, is literally save, Lord.
Save us, rescue us, for the godly man
ceases, for the faithful fail from among the
children of men.
So I want to think with you about
the condition that we find ourselves in today
as Christians.
I've been serving the Lord full-time since
1980 and I guess I would call myself
one of those who were born and raised
in a gospel hall, saved when I was
eight years old.
So I've been around assembly life virtually from
the time that I could see or hear
anything.
And there's something that has changed commonly among
assemblies.
And this is a very superficial observation and
it may not be entirely fair.
But it used to be, at least where
I grew up, that the same number of
people were there Sunday morning, Sunday night, and
Tuesday or Wednesday night, whatever the midweek night
was.
And if there was a series of meetings,
well, we were there.
I grew up on a dairy farm and
we had sort of what I call a
working relationship.
We didn't know too much about fun and
games.
We did a lot of work.
But something that is imprinted upon my consciousness
is that nothing kept us from meeting.
It didn't matter if it was spring seeding
or haying time or fall harvest.
When the time for meeting came, the machinery
was shut down and it had to be
a dire emergency to keep us from meeting.
And I don't look at that, I don't
think of it as being some kind of
a legalistic framework in which we lived, but
simply it was a matter of commitment, a
matter of priority.
And that's something that has changed.
And I don't know how your experience is
here, so I'm not judging you, but commonly
when I move among God's people, there might
be about half of the assembly present at
most of the other meetings other than Sunday
morning.
And that's quite a distinct change.
In fact, it's become a real issue for
many assemblies when a series of ministry meetings
is conducted even, that it's such a challenge
just to get the whole assembly there to
hear the teaching.
And the same thing is true for the
regular teaching meetings.
I remember in Timmins pondering this problem, that
there were saints among us who were never
there for a Bible reading.
On Sunday mornings we had switched to ministry,
and there were believers who were never being
exposed to the consecutive verse-by-verse Bible
exposition.
And one couple in particular who eventually dropped
out, the husband ran into some very significant
spiritual problems.
And those actual exact problems were things that
were taken up in the Bible studies in
those months when he was going through those
problems, but he wasn't there to hear it.
And so that's just one little glimpse of
what I see just among us as Christians.
And so I'm going to consider the fact
that we are in a society that is
deteriorating.
It's breaking down, and we could almost say
it has almost totally disintegrated.
And one of the key elements that is
involved in that breakdown is the destruction of
commitment, the lack of commitment or faithfulness.
And so I want to think with you
about that, and I'll just give you some
stats which probably you already know anyway.
Just in general relationship terms, in 1960 the
divorce rate was about 10% here in
this country, and the ratio of single adults
was about six and a half percent.
By 1980 the divorce rate had jumped to
50%.
So there's obviously a tremendous social revolution taking
place in that generation in those 20 years.
And meanwhile the percentage of single adults had
risen to 20%.
In 2009 its divorce rate is just about
the same, 50%, but the percentage of single
adults is about 30%.
So from about six and a half percent
to 30%.
So there's a very significant change of thinking,
of lifestyle, and the basic change that that
reflects is towards individualism, lack of commitment to
relationship, and so on.
Now I noticed in Canada that the divorce
rate had actually gone down in the last
year or so, from I'm not sure when
that was basing it on, and so that
sounds a bit encouraging, but actually it's not
because people are being more faithful today, it's
just fewer people are getting married.
You know what the average lifespan of a
common-law marriage is?
Five years.
So that's a pretty high-stakes game, isn't
it?
To enter into a relationship that will have
a profound effect upon your being, your well
-being, and to say, well give it five
years.
That's an average lifespan of common-law marriage.
And one of the interesting things I found
in the statistics of Stats Canada is called,
they keep record of marriage and divorces and
of common-law marriage stats, but they don't
keep track of common-law marriage breakdowns.
And so I guess what I would like
you to think about is, is that tendency,
that trend, that characteristic, is it seeping into
our souls, in our Christian life, in our
marriages, in our assembly life?
A breakdown of sense of commitment.
Well I want to take you back to
the Scriptures and to try to get back
to the source of commitment.
I want to look, first of all, just
a little bit of word study, and we're
going to notice some of the words that
are used in the New Testament, particularly for
commitment and faithfulness.
I'm going to give you a few well
-known verses.
John chapter 2, John chapter
2 and verse 23 to the verse 25,
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the
Passover, in the feast day, many believed in
his name when they saw the miracles which
he did.
But Jesus did not commit himself unto them,
because he knew all men.
Now you've probably heard this commented on, that
the word believe and the word commit here
are exactly the same word.
And so in a significant number of cases
in the New Testament, the word to commit
to and the word that is translated to
believe in the passive sense, what's the word
believe passive.
To believe on somebody is the active form
of trusting someone.
The word faithful is someone who is worthy
of trust.
Somebody that you can put your confidence in.
And so the word believe and the word
faithful are actually the same word.
One is simply active, one is passive.
And in many verses in the New Testament,
sometimes the word faith or faithfulness could be
used depending on the context.
And I'll give you a couple of examples
of that.
But just to emphasize this, that the word
for faith, faithfulness, and commitment are all intertwined.
Just different forms of exactly the same word
in many cases in the New Testament.
I'm going to quote you a few of
them, you don't have to turn to them.
Luke chapter 16 and verse 12, in the
context of stewardship, the parable of the unjust
steward, Luke 16 and 12, if you have
not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who
will commit to your trust the true riches?
Again, there's two expressions here that are exactly
the same word.
If you have not been faithful.
And then, who will commit to your trust?
Commit to your trust, that whole expression is
the same word again, just in the active
sense.
1st Thessalonians 2 and verse 4, Paul speaks
of being allowed of God to be put
in trust with the gospel.
Again, 1st Timothy 1 and 11, the gospel
committed to my trust.
And the next verse, 1st Timothy 1 and
12, he counted me faithful, putting me into
the ministry.
Titus 1 and 3, the preaching of the
gospel, committed unto me.
Now there are two other words in the
New Testament that are also translated commit.
And I'll give you a couple of examples
of those as well.
And again, these words are fairly self-evident.
I bank at a bank in Canada called
TD Canada Trust.
And that word trust is very familiar in
the banking system.
So what do you do when you go
to the bank?
Well, sometimes we are withdrawing money, but that
only lasts so long.
You have to deposit money.
And when you deposit money, you are placing
with them your money.
And that's literally what this word is in
Luke chapter 23 and verse 46.
Father, into thy hands I commend.
It's really commit.
I commit my spirit.
And that is to place with, as entrusting
as a deposit, into the care of someone.
2nd Timothy chapter 1 and verse 12 and
14, another familiar little section where Paul says,
I know whom I have believed and am
persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that
day.
And then a little further down he says,
that good thing which was committed unto thee
keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in
us.
So again, these words to commit is to,
as we would say, to deposit with, to
put on deposit, which is really to entrust
with.
Again in 2nd Timothy 2 and verses 1
and 2, the things that thou hast heard
of me are from me among many witnesses,
the same commit thou to faithful men who
shall be able to teach others also.
You know, when you start looking at all
the different references to the idea of faithfulness,
committing, you can see how characteristic it is
of God's things.
God entrusts us with his work.
God entrusts us with his truth.
He commits it to us and we are
entrusted with it, to care for it and
to do something with it.
Now the third word that is used is
found in 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 23,
where the Lord Jesus in the trial, he
committed himself unto him that judges righteously.
And again 1st Peter 4 and 19, wherefore
let them that suffer according to the will
of God commit the keeping of their soul
unto him as unto a faithful creator.
And this word is really a word that
is more often used in a sense of
at court or military term of handing over,
surrendering, delivering up, releasing to, relinquishing to, into
the authority or power of someone else.
And so if we are suffering, he says
you commit yourself to God as a faithful
creator.
Commit your soul into the keeping of God.
So if we were to have a definition
for commitment, what would it be?
What does it, what are we really saying?
Well, commitment is the choice to give or
to devote yourself to the support and promotion
of a cause or the protection and care
of a person.
It's accepting responsibility for something or for someone
as a steward of God.
So I guess we need to ask ourselves
the question, are we committed in God's things?
Are we committed as Christians and does it
matter?
I want to take you back to the
source of commitment and this to me is
very, very important because in our culture, commitment
and faithfulness are being looked at as being
a couple of old-fashioned virtues that really
aren't too relevant anymore.
They belong to that culture where people were
stuck.
They thought they had to stay married or
they thought they had to be loyal to
the company or they thought they had to
endure their hardships.
And today we think differently.
That was then, this is now.
And so really we need to examine this
whole thing and ask ourselves, is commitment and
faithfulness really just kind of an old-fashioned
way of doing things?
Or is it something bigger than that?
I'm going to suggest to you that it's
not just a good old-fashioned virtue.
It is an eternal virtue because it is
founded in God himself.
I want to take you back through the
Bible to a number of passages that speak
about the faithfulness of God.
So let's look first of all in Deuteronomy
chapter 6.
So we are really looking now at the
idea of where does faithfulness come from?
Deuteronomy chapter 7 rather.
Verse 6, For thou art an holy people
unto the Lord thy God.
The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to
be a special people unto himself above all
people that are upon the face of the
earth.
The Lord did not set his love upon
you nor choose you because you were more
in number than any people, for you were
the fewest of all people, but because the
Lord loved you and because he would keep
the oath which he has sworn unto your
fathers has the Lord brought you out with
a mighty hand and redeemed you out of
the house of bondmen from the hand of
Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he
is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant
and mercy with them that love him and
keep his commandments to a thousand generations.
You know, we get so used to the
idea that God is interested in us and
that God is absolutely faithful to us that
we hardly are able to step back and
contemplate how ridiculous the idea actually sounds.
That the God who created the universe, of
whom it says that the the heavens and
the earth cannot contain him, and it's a
condescension for him, he humbles himself to even
notice his creation and to think that he's
interested in you or me and that he
would be so interested in us that he
is more committed to us that any person
that we know, that he's more loyal to
us, he loves us more deeply, he is
more determined to care for us than anyone
else on earth.
Isn't that just sheer absurdity?
And here's this little group of people who
found themselves slaves in Egypt and God rescues
them out of Egypt in this awesome shattering
way, basically destroys the most powerful nation on
earth at that time and brings these people
out and claims them for himself.
And he says, I didn't love you, I
didn't set my love upon you because you
were the most important people on earth, you
were really just the smallest, but because I
love you.
You know, this is one of the best
defensive moves for any husband if he gets
quizzed by his wife.
I hope you do tell your wife that
you love her, if you don't, shame on
you.
I met a man this summer who professed
to be saved and we believe he really
did get saved in tent meetings this summer
and unfortunately he lost his wife and children
in the springtime through his own failure.
And one of the things that he admitted
to me is that he never told his
wife he loved her.
I can't fathom that.
I don't know what kind of relationship they
had.
So it's a long uphill battle to regain
what he's lost.
What incentive does she have to bring him
back?
Well, hopefully she will see a change in
him, that there'll be a new man.
But the Lord has set his love upon
us as his people.
And he says, I did it because I
love you.
And I know it's one of those things
that ladies like to ask, well, why do
you love me?
Now, you know, you're going to get in
trouble.
So the best thing is just say, I
love you because I love you.
And then think up all the good reasons
afterwards.
What is he saying here?
The reason is within himself.
But not only because he is love and
he has chosen to set his love upon
us, which is because he would keep his
promise, his oath, his covenant.
And so we have this character of God,
God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and
mercy.
And I would like you just to think
for a moment about a thousand generations.
Now, I don't know how long you evaluate
a generation to be.
If we say 40 years, what's a thousand
generations?
Longer than the history of the earth.
To a thousand generations, you might as well
say forever.
And so here is a God who is
the essence of faithfulness.
I've made a promise and I will keep
my promise to a thousand generations.
Isn't that wonderful that we have this kind
of God to know, to be secured in.
Now let's go to Lamentations chapter 3, another
quite familiar verse.
And the context here is really challenging.
Lamentations chapter 3 and we'll start at verse
22.
It is of the Lord's mercies that we
are not consumed because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning.
Great is thy faithfulness.
What's the context?
You know, if you didn't know the context
of this passage, you could imagine that this
would be someone who is out contemplating the
sunset or the sunrise and just thinking about
the beauty of creation, the majesty of God,
the faithfulness of the way he has ordered
everything.
Or just looking back over a very happy,
prosperous time of life and just being so
grateful for the God who has been so
good for so many years.
And that would be true.
But the context is a desolated city, a
burned out city, the temple destroyed, dead bodies
everywhere.
And here's the prophet Jeremiah acknowledging that God
has been faithful, exceedingly faithful.
He acknowledges, first of all, that this is
not God's fault.
The devastation that has come over us is
not God's fault.
If they had been obedient, he would never
have allowed the enemy to come in and
destroy them.
He would have been faithful to protect them.
But I want you to think about this
in the context of God's discipline, God's judgment
in our lives.
Even in judgment, God is faithful.
And so Jeremiah acknowledges it is of the
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.
We could have been wiped out, obliterated, finished.
And though it was so devastating, he acknowledges
because God had given to Jeremiah the prophecy
that this desolation of Jerusalem would last for
70 years.
And then God was going to bring them
back.
So God was still faithful to his promise
to his people, even though he was judging
them so harshly.
And I hope that we can recognize this
for ourselves, whether individually or as assemblies, or
even as we might think of the culture
in which we are in, that we are
a part of.
When God judges, it doesn't change his faithfulness.
And so he says, therefore, have I hope.
This means there is always hope in God.
There's always hope in God, even though judgment
comes for evil.
Let's come into the New Testament to 1st
Corinthians chapter 1.
And this will be more directly to us
and our calling.
God is faithful to his calling.
1st Corinthians 1.
Notice verse 4.
He says, I thank my God always on
your behalf for the grace of God, which
is given you by Jesus Christ, that in
everything you are enriched by him in all
utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you.
Verse 8 says, who shall also confirm you
unto the end that you may be blameless
in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful by whom ye were called
unto the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ,
our Lord.
Now there's another verse I could maybe just
read here as well.
1st Thessalonians chapter five, where the word calling
is given again.
1st Thessalonians five, verse 23, and the very
God of peace sanctify you wholly.
And I pray God, your whole spirit and
soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you who also
will do it.
Again, when you know what Corinth is all
about, when you know the failings that he
is going to have to address in that
assembly, this is an amazing confirmation of God's
faithfulness.
Here's an assembly that has sunk about as
low as an assembly could without being wiped
out.
There wasn't a lot of resemblance to the
character of Christ going on in that assembly.
But he says this, God is faithful to
his calling.
He has called you to the fellowship of
his son.
Now what does that mean?
He's made you a companion of Christ.
He has made you a partner with Christ
for his kingdom.
And God is faithful to fit you, to
equip you, to enable you to fulfill this
calling, to not only be saved from hell,
to be rescued from judgment, but to be
fitted to be a servant of Christ for
the ages to come.
Because this is looking not just at our
present Christian life individually and as an assembly.
He speaks in verse six, as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you.
In other words, there was established in Corinth
a testimony for Christ, a testimony that upheld
the name of Christ, that brought Christ to
the community.
And that was the people of the assembly
in Corinth.
And even though they had failed, they had
fallen, and they were no longer reflecting that
as they should have been, yet he is
expressing a confidence in God that God was
still committed to making this thing work.
Have you ever thought that the assembly isn't
going to make it?
Have you ever been in such distress over
the conditions, the conflicts, the problems going on
that you thought this thing isn't going to
survive?
That's when we have to lay hold of
the faithful God.
God is faithful.
And God is committed to what belongs to
his Son, what is for the honor of
his Son.
And so this gives me a lot of
encouragement that even when believers in the assembly,
and I don't know anything about your conditions
here, so I'm not talking about you, but
I have sat across from believers saying, concerning
the assembly that they were in, this is
not an assembly.
This is not a church of God.
They thought that there had been so much
failure, and especially in the leadership of the
assembly, that God couldn't possibly own it.
Well, I think they're wrong.
Not because there wasn't some validity to their
charges, but because they don't know how faithful
God is.
How committed he is to upholding, to restoring,
to recovering what belongs to Christ.
And if there's one thing that we must
grasp, is that no matter what combination of
failing exists among us as individuals, and even
collectively in assembly testimony, an assembly of God
is more than just the individuals in it.
It is something of Christ.
It is his.
And God, in his faithfulness to us personally
and collectively, will work in all his faithfulness
to bring us to conformity to the Lord
Jesus.
God is faithful, who has called you unto
the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our
Lord.
Looking at a little further in 1 Corinthians
chapter 10, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, here we
have the context of temptation, of failure, and
it's going back to the history of Israel
and the many failings that were seen during
the wilderness experience.
Verse 11 says, now all these things happen
to them for examples or types.
They are written for our admonition, upon whom
the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take
heed lest he fall.
There has no temptation taken you but such
as is common to man.
But God is faithful, who will not suffer
or allow you to be tempted above that
you are able, but will with the temptation
also make a way to escape that you
may be able to bear it.
You know, God's permission of evil is one
of the mysteries in our present creation, in
the present world.
A good God and an evil world.
A sovereign God and evil running rampant.
This is one of the struggles for faith
and one of the triggers of unbelief in
our world.
But what we have here is the faithfulness
of God to protect from evil.
Yes, he has permitted evil to exist.
He has permitted it to be active in
the world that surrounds us.
He has even permitted it to still exist
within us, but not so that it destroys
us.
He is still monitoring and the emphasis that
is here is that the sovereign God super
intends every temptation and every trial that he
permits to touch our experience.
So you better believe it that God is
interested in you and in your life and
that he is watching you very, very carefully.
He's monitoring the pressure points.
He's monitoring those weaknesses, those areas of vulnerability.
And it says this, there has no temptation
taken you but such as is common to
man.
We might think that nobody else has quite
gone through what we are going through.
You know, it's actually one of the, in
a strange way, one of the most comforting
things when you find out that other people
have been through what you have gone through.
Somehow it strengthens us or helps us to
feel that we're not so much alone.
There are others who have gone similar circumstances.
But even more importantly than that is the
fact that God is interested in bringing us
through without being overtaken by evil.
And that is very critical for us to
appreciate.
What is God being faithful to?
He's being faithful to his own character of
goodness.
And the fact that he is bringing us
to that character, that is his work in
us to bring us to likeness to himself.
And so in his faithfulness to the calling
of bringing us to perfection of goodness, he
is not going to hand us over to
evil.
He is not going to capitulate and just
let evil take over.
And one of the things that I would
gather from this passage is simply this, if
I am willing to be preserved, if I
want to be preserved from sin, God is
willing to keep me.
God is always willing to deliver.
It says this, he will not allow you
to be tempted above what you are able,
but will with the temptation provide a way
to escape.
Now, this is where we need to be
in touch with God, to be sensitive to
God, to the warnings that he gives.
For myself, I have learned, and I do
have to learn this over and over again
through life.
Whenever evil approaches, whenever I am being drawn
by evil, there is a warning from the
Spirit of God.
And that's when I need to respond to
it, not to toy with it, play with
it, allow it.
Maybe I can go a little further before
I'll go over the edge, but to turn
from it, respond to the warning.
So he governs the circumstances.
He strengthens us internally.
He enables us to overcome.
That is his commitment to us, to protect
us from evil.
Along with that, we have reference to the
Lord Jesus in Hebrews as a merciful and
faithful high priest, and that certainly is aspect
of it.
1 John 1, what about when we do
fail and sin despite all of that protective
care and interest that God has in us?
1 John 1, verse 9, if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.
I think sometimes we learn the truth of
God backwards.
We learn it from failing.
And I remember as a young Christian, failing
in the same kind of thing over and
over again, and gradually coming to appreciate that
no matter how many times I failed, God
was still willing to forgive.
That was an amazing thing to appreciate.
But at the same time, I thought, wouldn't
it be better if I could be preserved
from failing in the first place?
And that's when I began to appreciate 1
Corinthians 10.
But let's just look at this and think
about this.
Even when we have failed, we have sinned,
he is still faithful to us.
And he still invites us back to reach
out to him, to simply be honest before
him and acknowledge our failing.
And if we will simply be honest, he
will forgive.
And not only forgive, he will cleanse.
And that is equally important, to cleanse us
from unrighteousness so that our inner being is
again brought back into touch and harmony with
God himself.
And so we have through these scriptures, and
there's no doubt others that we could look
at, that would give to us this very
compelling portrait of God, of someone who is
totally devoted to us, completely faithful, completely committed
to our well-being and our eternal blessing.
Now, I'm going to try to give you,
in the last few minutes, what is really
the response to that?
What gives commitment its power or its force
in our lives?
What will create commitment within me?
What gives it its force?
What compels it?
And I'm going to start at the bottom
level, and I hope you won't mind me
speaking of it this way.
Let's go to 1 Timothy 1 verse 15.
I'm just going to try to give you
a few references quickly.
Interestingly enough, this verse has faithful in it
as well.
1 Timothy 1 and 15, this is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners of whom I am chief.
The most basic reason is that we need
him.
Why should I be committed to God?
Why should I be committed to the Savior?
Because I need him.
He rescued me when I was totally helpless
and totally hopeless.
He rescued me from eternal judgment.
He saved me as a sinner, and I
still need him just as much today.
You know, in any relationship, the person who
needs the other the least controls the relationship,
and it should be clear to us who
controls the relationship between us and God.
He does not need us.
His interest in us is not because he
needs us in some sort of personal way,
or that he is dependent upon our help.
It flows out out of his own goodness,
but we need him.
Now, need, this sense of need, and I
call this need love.
I'm going to try to put love with
most of these, all of them actually, but
we could, I could admit that in some
cases that need arises out of fear, and
some people will stay in a relationship because
they are afraid of the consequences if they
lose or walk out of that relationship.
Some people stay with the same company even
though they hate their job because of fear
of losing their financial security, and we could
go on, but we also should recognize whether
it's in our marriages, whether it is in
the assembly, we need each other.
We need the Lord, and we need each
other, and that is one fundamental reason to
be involved, to be there, to be committed
to it, to belong, to be part of
it.
Now, the second one which is a little
higher motivation is appreciation love.
Now let's look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 5
and verse 14, another familiar verse, for the
love of Christ constraineth us because we thus
judge that if one died for all then
we're all dead, that he died for all
that they which live should not henceforth or
from now on live unto themselves but unto
him who died for them and rose again.
Now this puts it very clearly, and I'm
going to just suggest an interpretation here.
I know that the love of Christ constraining
us can be interpreted in two ways.
It can be interpreted in the sense that
the love of Christ has become within us,
and his love at work in us is
constraining us to live the Christian life and
to serve and to save others, see others
saved, and so on.
And that's perfectly true, and I wouldn't have
any problems if that's how you understand this
passage.
But I've come to appreciate it in just
a little different setting, a different way of
looking at it, and that is this, that
Paul is here stepping back.
He is looking at the big picture, and
he is contemplating a man who has given
his life to save the world, because the
context of this passage is the reconciliation of
which God is reconciling the world to himself,
and has committed to us a ministry of
reconciliation, that God would embrace the whole world
if they would come, because Christ paid that
almost infinite debt for every human being.
And Paul is standing back, and he is
looking at that love of a man upon
whom death had no claim, who could have
ascended back to heaven in perfect acceptance by
his God, having lived a pure and perfect
life, but instead he yielded at a sacrifice
to atone for us.
And he says he died for all, and
that love, he says, constrains me to preach,
to testify.
I can't be quiet.
I can't be silent when I know that
there is a love that could save every
human being and bring them to God.
That love constrains me to speak.
And so appreciation for the love of Christ
should make it impossible for us to be
apathetic in a Christian life, to just let
the world go by, or to live our
lives indifferently for ourselves, because notice what it
says, he died for all so that they
who live, that's those who really get saved,
who become alive to God, verse 15, should
no longer live unto themselves, because that's what
was wrong with us, living for ourselves, living
to please ourselves, living to glorify ourselves.
What is the love of Christ directed to?
To reconcile us back to God, to put
us in harmony with God.
And the way that's going to be accomplished
is by living unto him, living for him,
living with him as the object of our
interest and desire.
Now, my time is almost gone.
There's a couple of others.
One that I suppose in one sense, maybe
goes higher than that even is in second
Timothy two, verses 11 to 13, where we
have what I call covenant love.
Again, we have a faithful saying, it is
a faithful saying, for if we be dead
with him, or if we died with him,
we shall also live with him.
If we suffer, we shall also reign with
him.
If we deny him, he also will deny
us.
If we believe not, yet he abides faithful,
he cannot deny himself.
I'm thinking of verse 13, particularly, and here's
one of those examples where, if we believe
not, may not be the active sense, it
could be translated or interpreted in the passive
sense, and I'll just put it that way,
so you can see.
If we are unfaithful, if we are unfaithful
to him, yet he remains faithful, because he
cannot deny himself.
So you can either take this section as
being very, very comforting, or very confronting, depending
on how you look at some of these
words.
But isn't this wonderful to know?
Even if we are fickle, even if we
are faltering, if our light flickers on and
off like a light bulb just about shorting
out, yet he remains entirely faithful, because that's
what he is.
Covenant love.
He has committed himself.
He has given his promise.
He remains faithful.
You know, I would just like to appeal
to you, if there's anyone here tonight who's
wondering about even sticking around, wondering whether you
should just forget about it, leave the assembly,
leave this work.
Sometimes there's not much holding us.
Here's a reason to continue.
When you are disappointed in other people, when
you are disappointed in the assembly, and you
can't find a reason in the people, or
in the assembly per se, to keep going
on, remember that it is of God to
be faithful.
It is of God to be committed, and
to continue on even though bitterly disappointed.
He cannot deny himself.
So may God grant to us to be
faithful, to correspond to what he is.
There's a couple of others I have, but
I'll leave them and maybe mention them tomorrow
night.
I want to look tomorrow night at some
of the patterns of faithfulness of the Lord
Jesus and assembly truth that is given to
us in the New Testament, and really the
challenge of commitment and faithfulness in God's work,
shall we pray.
Our Father, we are thankful that as we
can look to thee, we are absolutely confident
that thou art faithful, that thy promises are
true and can be depended upon, and that
we are safe in thy salvation, that we
can look forward to eternity in thy presence,
because thou art faithful.
Our Father, we cry to thee that there
might be instilled within our hearts a response
in recognition of the deep need that we
have of thee, of the appreciation that we
ought to have for all that is for
us in our Lord Jesus, that we might
share in thy faithfulness.
O God, we cry to thee that we
might be able to stand for thee and
with thee, and to uphold the name of
our Lord Jesus, even in this day.
We ask thee for this in the precious
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.