God is Faithful - Part One

This is part of the three-point message I will preach at the 55+ community this Sunday.

God is faithful.

(1 Corinthians 1:9-13)

God is faithful.

That fundamental truth is the very root of our faith. If God is not faithful, then we are no more than walking shadows, strutting and fretting our hour on the stage of life – and then it’s over. If God is not faithful, then life is nothing more than a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, but in the end, meaningless.

Some of you may recognize my paraphrase from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 5 and scene 5.  But it’s true, isn't it?  If we cannot take God at His word, then why are we wasting our time reading the Scriptures, praying, and going to church every week?

God is faithful. But how do we know that? How can we be certain He is true to His word; That He is trustworthy? That’s easy to answer. We know He is faithful because . . . well . . . look back to Calvary.

It is on that blood-spattered hill where God did all that the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient God could possibly do to demonstrate just how much He loves us. And it is incontestable that a lover is always faithful to His beloved. God is faithful to His promises such as of salvation, and His promise to never leave us, even and especially in the valley of the shadow of death. And He is faithful to His promise to always forgive the penitent.  

Let’s look first at His promise of eternal life to all who love (and, therefore, obey) Jesus. This is an important point I don’t want you to miss.

If you are God’s son or daughter through obedient faith in the sacrificial atonement of Jesus for you, then you CAN have unqualified confidence in your eternal destiny. You can live absolutely assured that when you die you will find yourself staring into the loving and smiling face of Jesus our Savior.

Some might think it presumptuous to have such confidence. I say to that accusation, ‘Nonsense.’ It is never presumption to take God at His word. It was He who said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:24) 

Neither is it presumption to believe the apostle John who, under the inerrant inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote: “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:11-13) 

Belief is always tied to obedience in Scripture. Now notice the verbs in these two texts. If we ‘believe,’ then we ‘have.’

Oh, please hear this! God is always true to His promises. That includes His inviolable promise of salvation for anyone who trusts and obeys Christ. Please don’t fall for the whispering lies that say you can never be sure of your eternal destiny until you get to wherever your destiny is. When we live for Christ, walking with Him each day, seeking to the best of our ability to obey Him – and always ready to confess and turn from sin – God is faithful about His covenant with you, signed with the blood of the Savior. Our trust in His promise of eternal life is not at all presumption.

It’s called faith in a faithful God.