Steadfast Love and Faithfulness // Exodus 34:6-7

Join us as we continue our 'Yahweh' series, focusing on God's incredible faithfulness!

Chapters

• 1:02 Fear Of Flying And Control
• 2:58 A Culture Low On Trust
• 3:58 Yahweh’s Character In Exodus 34
• 7:02 Hesed And Emeth Unpacked
• 10:32 When Faithfulness Meets Suffering
• 13:35 God’s Promise To Abram
• 17:55 Covenant Ceremony And God’s Initiative
• 20:40 Promise Fulfilled In Jesus
• 25:29 What God Actually Promises
• 29:17 Pain, Formation, And Real Good

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

If you know me, you know uh that me and flying in airplanes have a little bit of a weird relationship. Uh I grew up as a scared kid, like scared of everything, but for whatever reason, me and Heights never got along too well. And I remember one time we were flying uh back from our Mexico mission trip that we go on each year, which by the way, uh application opens up uh this Sunday. So if you're interested, come to church and then come to lunch afterwards. But we're flying back, and you know, it's not too bad of a flight, like it's pretty smooth. And then all of a sudden the flight attendant comes on the PA and was like, hey everybody, real quick, uh, we just need everybody to close your windows immediately, turn on your your light. And and and in my mind, my first thought is I'm going to die. Like we are actively crashing, and they just want us to be comfortable on the way down. Like that's the reason we're closing our windows. Uh like it's over. Like it's been a good life. Uh, this plane's going down, and I'm gonna die. Uh and wouldn't you know it? It was just Aidan Ribel's birthday, and so they gave him like a toilet paper cake and like walked down. I was like, Oh, praise God, like we're not dying. Hallelujah. Uh there was another time on the way to Mexico that uh we're on the tarmac, right? We're sitting there, and uh the person, the pilot, comes on the PA and is like, hey guys, uh, so there's some storms in the area, and you know, if we hurry and get our bags in the overhead compartment, then like we can get out of here before they shut down uh the runway. I was like, I think like the people in charge of shutting down the runway probably like have a good reason for wanting to do that. So like if they're about to shut down the runway, like maybe just like we shouldn't like take off, but sure enough, everybody like throws their bags in, closes the overhead compartment. I'm pretty sure we like drifted onto the runway and just punched it and then like bounced around forever. Uh and I did great. I definitely didn't like uh pray a bunch of scripture in my head the entire time and have a mini panic attack. Never wouldn't be me. Um don't ask the Watsons, their version of the story is false, so they don't know. Uh so I learned one of my problems with flying is that I had a trust issue. For whatever reason, I like to be in control of things, and when I'm not in control of things, I have trouble trusting the one who is. And for me, I'm I'm better at flying, thankfully, praise God. Uh but I learned that until I learned to trust, I was never gonna have peace. Why am I telling you that tonight? Well, because that's a silly example of me and flying. But if I'm a guessing man, a lot of us came in here tonight with the same issue. Uh, in the world that we live in today, it seems like both trust and peace are in short supply. Uh as a culture, as a people, we're just flaky, right? Like getting anybody to commit to anything is like pulling teeth. Uh, we live in the age where any video that you see online is probably AI and fake, so you can't trust anything there. Uh you you don't know if somebody's telling you the truth or if they're it's just everything's up in the air. And so there's this constant anxiety, feeling like we have nobody or nothing that we can trust. And thankfully, uh, we're gonna see an answer to that tonight in God's word, because the last couple of weeks we've been going through our Yahweh series. Yahweh is God's name, the name he gives us to know him by. And in Exodus 34, 6 through 7, the verses that we're walking through, he goes and not only tells us his name, but he tells us his character, who he is. And this isn't just that he's all powerful, that he's all knowing, that he's everywhere at once, but this is that he is compassionate, that he's gracious, that he's slow to anger. And then this week we're focusing on the next two words that he's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, which I know are bigger words that we don't use a lot, and we're gonna unpack those here in a moment. But I'm gonna go ahead and spoil the sermon for you. Sermon in a sentence, we're gonna see that God's steadfast love and faithfulness mean that even when life feels uncertain or unfair, we can trust that God keeps his promises and that he uses every situation for our good, and he calls us to reflect loyalty in a world that's flaky. And so if you have your ch if you have your Bible, go ahead and flip open to Exodus 34, uh, the two verses before eight, right? So go ahead and flip there, uh, and we're going to read that. It'll be on the screen if you don't have your Bible with you. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving in iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children's to the third and fourth generation. Would you pray with me? Would you take just a moment to pray for yourself, to pray for your heart, that God would open your eyes and your mind to any way that he might be calling you into repentance, into life, calling you out of something, calling you away from something, whatever he has for you tonight that he'd show it to you, that you'd respond. And then would you pray for me that I would preach his word? That I would honor him through that, that I preach by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by wise words or funny stories. God, we thank you for your word tonight. We thank you for the opportunity to be here, to get to have fun together, to get to play games, dress up, and above all else, to get to learn from your word, to get to worship you. And Lord, I pray that we leave here changed tonight. Father, we give you all the glory. Praise things in Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen. All right. So we said, next two words, steadfast love and faithfulness. I say two words because in the original language, they actually are two words. Steadfast love is the word Hesed, and faithfulness is the word amet. And so for just a moment here, we're going to walk through these original words, because like we've said pretty much every week in these series, the Bible wasn't written in English. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew in a small portion in the language called Aramaic, and then the New Testament was written mostly in Greek. And so these are the three languages that when we go back to that, we get the real meaning of these words that can get lost in translation. And so let's start with that word Hesed, steadfast love. It's this really hard word to translate, just like a lot of these, and it could be translated loving-kindness or loyalty. It gets used in Psalm 136, where uh the psalmist writes, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting, that it goes on forever. And so this word is trying to get you to see that God is loyal, that his love is persistent, he's committed, he's consistent, even when it costs him, that he's reliable, he's dependable. And then faithfulness is the word amet, and this word literally means to be firm or to be reliable, to support. And it gets used in Psalm 89. It says, I will sing of the loving kindness of the Lord forever. To all generations I will make known your faithfulness with my mouth. For I have said, loving kindness will be built up in forever, be built up forever, in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness. And this word could be translated as trustworthy, that God is trustworthy, that you can count on him. And so putting these words together show that God is unchangingly loving, that this type of love that God has for his people never walks away, he never abandons his people, he's not going to leave you high and dry. He is faithful to the end, no matter what, that Yahweh is loyal and you can trust him. But let's be real though. Most of us have probably had heard something to that effect in church before, right? God is faithful, you know, God is true, you can count on him. And we could say, hey, I believe this to be true, right? I hold to this. But it's easy to agree with that on the surface, but what happens when life falls apart? When things don't go the way that you thought they were gonna go? And your heart starts to ask, well, you know, if God is faithful, then why'd my parents get divorced? Or if God is faithful, why do I wake up every day fighting anxiety and hating how I look in a mirror? Or if God is faithful, why do I feel like everybody else has real friends and I don't? If God is faithful, why don't I have a boyfriend just because I'm trying to follow God's word and wait? If God is faithful, why did this happen? Why didn't the person I pray for get healed? And here's the thing: the problem is not that God doesn't keep his promises, but the problem is that a lot of times we misunderstand what God has actually promised to us. The world, you would see that God promises health and wealth and prosperity, right? God wants me to be happy. Like so many of us come into it with this mindset, and so when that doesn't happen, we start to question God. But to understand what God has actually promised, we have to go back to the beginning, Genesis chapter 12. This comes right after where we left off in our um Eden series. We we ended Tower of Babel chapter 11, uh, and and it kind of zooms in on the story, and it zooms in on this person named Abram. And he's some random, wandering animal herder. But God starts out his relationship with Abram by making a promise. It says, Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And so the promise, I'll sum it up into this: God says, God, uh God says, Abram, I'm gonna bless you. I'm gonna turn you into a great nation, and this would later become what we call Israel. And then through Israel, I'm gonna bless the whole world. And that sounds like a big promise, right? And you see that it's not just blessing the whole world, but it's it's God, as you continue to read the Bible, God's gonna make all the wrong things right. Everything that got broken in the fall, God is working to make new, to make the sad things untrue. But notice what God doesn't promise. God doesn't promise, hey Abram, you're gonna have an easy life, no pain, no suffering. Like Abram actually has a lot of challenges and difficulties. In fact, some years go by. He doesn't even have a kid. Him and Sarah are 75 years old when they meet God. Never had a child, been barren, right? How many 75-year-olds you know have like popping out babies? It doesn't work like that, right? And so years go by and he still doesn't see God do anything when it comes to having a child and making this nation. So he's like, man, God, what's up? Like, have you left me? And so God shows up one night when Abram's asking him questions. He he's he's just really wrestling with this. And instead of scolding him, God answers him. And he tells Abram, Hey, take several animals, and what I want you to do is I want you to cut these animals in half. It's super weird, just track with me. And then when you cut these animals in half, I want you to spread them apart. Half of them are on this side, so like this is the rear end, this is the head, right? So make an aisle of dead animals, real, real normal, right? This happens all the time. But here's the point: at that time, this is how people would actually make what we would call covenants. They would have agreements, and both people who are making this agreement, right? If it's I'm agreeing to sell you this land, they would walk through these dead animals, and it was their way of saying, hey, if we break this promise, let us be like these dead animals. So this was like, this is this is like pinky promise level, like on my grandmother, like this is really serious commitment. But this is where it gets weird. Abram actually never walks through those dead animals. After he sets up this scene, Gods uh puts him to sleep. He causes them to fall into a deep sleep. And he receives this vision where this smoking pot of fire and this torch actually pass through all of those dead animals. And fire and this smoking pot uh or this torch and this pot of fire are actually symbols of God's presence. And so what's happening is God is going through this by himself. And it's God's way of saying, hey, Abram, even if you don't keep up your end of the promise, I'm going to. Even if you don't do what you said you're gonna do, I'm going to. Even if you don't obey, even if you walk away, I am still going to bless the world through you. I'm still gonna make all of the wrong things right. And it's a good thing because if you read the Old Testament, it's just a lot of stories about how Israel fails to live up to their end of the promise. They screw up over and over and over again. And I'm not just saying like they forget to wash their hands before a sacrifice, like it gets so bad where they are burning their children alive, sacrificing them to false gods. Like it goes downhill quick, but God doesn't leave. God doesn't give up. He keeps up his end of the deal. And one day that promise is finally fulfilled because there's a baby that gets born in Bethlehem named Jesus. And this was not just any baby, he was God in the flesh. That the God of the universe actually put on uh human nature, that God actually stepped into the story, and that Jesus lived a perfect life. And at the end of that life, he died on the cross. And by doing that, he absorbed all of the punishment that we've earned for our sin, every lie we've ever told, every every uh person we've ever hurt, taken advantage of, thing we've said that we shouldn't have said, all of that got put on to Jesus so that we could have his reward, that we could have heaven, that we could become his children. And scripture said that if we place our faith in Jesus, confess with him, confess in our mouth that he is Lord, and place wow, I just butchered that verse, that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. And so you see the fulfillment of this promise that now we know one day Jesus is coming back. And we know that when he comes back, he is gonna make every sad thing untrue. That scripture says every tear will be wiped away, cancer will be no more, anxiety will be no more, no more sickness, no more crime, no more homelessness. We will live with God forever on a new earth. And there's so much that I could spend talking about that that wouldn't even scratch the surface of that. And it sounds amazing, but part of you might think it sounds a bit too good to be true, right? Like, why would God do that? Like, we don't have any frame of reference. Like people, we screw up once and people are done with us, right? We live in cancel culture. You say the wrong thing one time and you're done. We don't even have a way of thinking to understand a God who would be so faithful and true. Why? Because it's who he is. His steadfast love, his faithfulness, that is God's character. So, with that being said, just like every week, we want to pivot and say, okay, we understand this about God, but what does it have to do with me? How does this change how I live? How does this change how I view God? How should this actually impact my life as a high schooler or middle schooler in Bernie, Texas? And really, there's two main things I want to focus on. And one sounds simple, but we're gonna unpack it a little bit, and that's that we can actually truly trust God. Like we mentioned earlier, it's one thing to see that God's been faithful, like in the past, big picture. Yeah, he Jesus came, he died for our sins. But then when life gets real, it gets a little bit more difficult. When your parents get divorced, when you get cheated on, when you lose a grandparent, you get cut from the team, the person you thought actually cared about you, just wanted you for your body. In that moment, it's really hard to see God's faithfulness. Why would he let that happen? But we have to go back and remember what did God actually promise? He didn't promise us a happy, pain-free, easy life. He didn't promise us that we would never go through suffering or hard times. He promised to bless the world through his people, to make all things right, to end death. And he's kept that promise. So when we say that God is faithful, what we're not saying is that you're never gonna go through hard stuff. It's gonna happen on this side of heaven. In fact, Jesus promises, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. And now, this isn't to say that God doesn't want you to be happy, that God doesn't want you to have a what we would consider good life. Uh, but the thing is, God cares more about the fact that you would be holy. God cares more about your holiness than your happiness. God cares more about you doing the thing you were created to do, and that is bear the image of God. To be a visible representation of an invisible God in the world around you, that you would show the people in your school, your football team, and your family who God is. He wants you to be close to him, to be like him. And here's the kicker because the truth is that's the only one place that true and lasting happiness is found. It's not in anything else. One author puts it this way: God is more concerned with your long-term character than your short-term happiness. God is more concerned with your long-term character than your short-term happiness, and he's more than willing to sacrifice one to get the other. There's this truth that sometimes hard things shape us. That they make us more like God, they make us more patient, they make us more loving, they make us more kind. Some of the worst people you've probably ever met in your life are the ones who've never had to deal with anything hard. And some of the most godly, incredible people you've ever met have probably been through some of the most difficult things you could ever imagine. Because it shapes us, it changes us, it gives us perspective. And the other thing is that there's other wills at play too. Remember, we talked about this a few weeks ago. That we have free will as human beings. There are other people on this earth who can use their free will to do evil things that hurt you. And there's spiritual beings. We don't even begin to wrap our head around what that could mean for everything, but there's spiritual beings that have will and can do things that cause evil and pain. But our comfort is that even in the midst of that, God is in control. Romans 8 28 says, All things work together for the good of those who believe. And that's not God calling evil good. But it is saying, Hey, I'm going to step into that evil, I'm going to be with you through it, and I'm going to bring good out of it. I think the most tangible time that this happened in my life, I was about seven years old, and my parents got divorced. And they didn't really keep us out of it very much. Um, we've, God is good, God's brought a lot of healing there. But at the time, it was really, really hard to hear your parents uh really just not have a good relationship and really just uh yeah, it was difficult. Uh my sister didn't take it well, right? My parents moved, mom started dating a guy who was not good for anything, and it just really in the moment uh it felt like my life had completely fallen apart. That there was no hope on the other side, struggle with depression, anxiety, uh, and then take that and turn that into pornography addiction as a way to cope, and then ultimately struggling with suicidal thoughts and just all of the things, it felt like in that moment, God had left me. God didn't want anything to do with me. And I really wrestled with that. But then one day, after baseball practice, uh a kid who didn't, I didn't really know that well, just invited me to come to his church. And that church was First Baptist Church Red Oak. And I start going, and at that church, for the first time, I heard the gospel. Not the cultural version that I kind of grew up with, but the real thing. And at that church I got saved. And at that church I met people who introduced me to people that I actually got to be in community with. I met a mentor who cared about me, who loved me enough to tell me the hard things, to walk through life with me. Right, and on the other side of that, once I started to serve, I started to feel maybe even called to ministry. Because if God had used this youth group to affect me, then man, I want to do that for other people. I learned about DBU and I go to DBU and I meet Christine, right? And then we get married, and then we learn about this little church in Bernie, Texas. And we come here. And I couldn't imagine my life any other way. Now, do I look back and think about how fun my parents' divorce was? Absolutely not. Do I think that God caused that? No. Do I think that God was happy that that happened? No. But guess what? I have gotten a crystal clear picture that God is so incredibly faithful that even though that wicked, evil, broken thing happened, that God used it for good in every single one of our lives. My parents have gotten saved, my sister's growing closer to the Lord. God's used it for good because He is faithful. And so I don't know what you walked in here tonight dealing with. I don't know what it is in your life that you feel like God has left me, God has abandoned me, God wants nothing to do with me. Let me tell you, that is exactly where he will meet you. That he is with you in the trial, he is with you in the struggle. One author puts it this way: our hope is not that nothing bad will ever happen to us, or that God causes everything that does happen to us. Our hope is that no matter what happens to us, Jesus is back from the dead, our future is secure and anything is possible. That God can use the moment in your life that keeps you up at night, that gives you nightmares that you wish you could forget about, that changed everything, that God could use that to bless you so that you can bless the people around you. And so you have to ask, well, how do we do that? Well, that brings us to the second application point. And two, we're called to be faithful because God is faithful. Remember, we're we're a representative of God to the world, meaning we should reflect Him. And this is huge because we live in a culture that's just flaky. We've talked about this. That that I mean, think about you can make plans with friends, and then like an hour before somebody texts, hey, like something came up, which really means like I just found something else I wanted to do. People ghost each other. Dating's basically try before you buy, you keep one foot in the door just in case like somebody new decides to DM me or Snapchat me. We RSVP yes to everything, but show up to nothing. We we we talk to like 10 people at once just to keep our options there. Right? We're afraid of commitment. We're afraid of what if I miss out, what if something better comes along? But the reality is living that kind of life is the real way to guarantee that you're always gonna miss out. Because the best, most rewarding things in life take time. Be real vulnerable here. Uh a few years ago when I had first gotten here, uh, I was really struggling. I got kind of antsy. We moved here, we're we're 21 and 20, don't really have any friends, not a ton of young adults in town at that time. And there were just various things going on where we really began to kind of wrestle with and doubt. Like, is this really where God called us? Like we moved 400 miles away from our family, and I see all these people back home, and they're they're at these mega churches, and they're getting platforms and they're doing all these amazing things. And I was like, man, like God, like why here? Like, is this really did we get it wrong? And we prayed and we prayed and we prayed, and we're like, Lord, if if you have something else for us, if this like just show us your will for our lives. And we really felt like God said, just stay there, just be faithful. And y'all fast forward however many years to now. And I still think that's one of the best decisions that we've made in life. Hasn't always been easy, it's been hard. We've been through some things, we've had two kids, and um but now I look around and and I see that we get to be a part of this church that's growing, God's doing incredible things. I mean, the relationships we have with you guys as students, like this is the best youth group in the world. We love you guys, the best leaders. It just took time. It took being faithful. And that's what we're called to do, to be faithful like God. Is it's not to pat myself on the back, but that's to say, hey, maybe the best thing we can do for the kingdom of God is not to chase the spotlight, is not to try and be the next big thing, not to try and be famous, but to just simply be where you are. Use the gift that God's given you. Be faithful. Show up day in, day out, do what he's called you to do. Give even the most ordinary parts of your life to God, because if you do, he'll use it. And you get to be a picture of what it looks like to be faithful. And think about how refreshing that is to a world where nobody feels like they can trust anything. For you to get to be that person, and then not take that to get pride and pats on the back for yourself, but to say, hey, the only reason I can even try to be faithful is because of the God who saved me. Like you don't want me, you want him. You want what I have. And you point him to Jesus. And so to summarize this, like we said earlier, God's steadfast love and faithfulness mean that even when life feels uncertain or unfair, we can trust that he keeps his promises, he uses everything for our good, and that we're called to reflect him to the world around us. And so I want to wrap up with this tonight. I know not everybody here really has a state of mind to understand someone being faithful, right? Every meaningful, important person in your life is walked out on you. You feel like you have no one you can trust, you've been hurt by the people that were supposed to provide for you, to make you secure. I'm sorry. But that is not who God is.

unknown: 25:19

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 25:19

And if you need any more evidence, look to the cross. Scripture says that while we were still enemies of God, while we were trying to get God out of our lives, we were trying to take his place, that's when Jesus died for us. Not when you cleaned yourself up, not when you tried really hard, not when you went to that extra Bible study, not when you posted that scripture uh passage on Instagram or put that in your bio. No, while you were an enemy, God died for you. He saved you. And then from then on, he called you his kid. And you're not holding on to Jesus with all your might, like if you mess up, all of a sudden you're gonna let go and fall back to where you used to be, like you're gonna get unsaved. No, no, no, no. He's holding on to you. That every time you mess up, every time you screw up, there's an open door to turn around to repent. Just like the prodigal to run home, and God throws off his cloak and wraps his arms around you and says, Welcome back, because he is faithful, even when we aren't. But then there's some of you here who've known a lot of God's blessing in your life. You know, you grew up in a stable home, y'all grew up with money, nice house, nice car, nice things. You don't need to apologize for that, but I want you to hear this. Don't miss, don't be, don't fall so in love with the blessings that you miss the blesser. God's gifts are good, they're great, but they make terrible gods. And God's faithfulness is not to be taken advantage of, right? It's not permission to just go and do whatever we want, but it's Him calling us back to Himself. And so if that's you, and maybe you came in here tonight and you just feel like, man, I've I've got everything in my life. Like things have been good, I have a stable home. You know, I I don't have any, I don't have this crazy story or anything. Like everything's just kind of been good, but there's still this emptiness in me. Well, maybe it's because you've missed a relationship with the one who made you for it. And so I don't want you to miss that tonight. Wherever you lay, wherever you're at with the Lord, I just want you to pray about that. Think about that tonight. Because God is faithful. But his faithfulness demands a response. Eventually we have to bow the knee and say, Lord, I'm done doing this my way. It's it's you, God. I'm taking all my effort, all my striving, all my grades, all my sports, my highlight reel. I'm putting it at your feet and I'm saying, God, I'm giving this life to you. I'm not doing it my way anymore, I'm doing it yours. And in that moment, you're saved. So everybody, bow your head, close your eyes for me real quick. I'm gonna pray, and we're gonna move into a time of response. And I just want uh we're gonna have a song here in a moment, and it'll be an opportunity to respond. If that's you and you say, Man, I've seen God's faithfulness in my life, but man, I've just kind of been ignoring it, putting it off, running away, doing my own thing. Would you turn around tonight? Would you say, God, I'm done doing it my way? I want to invite you as we stand and sing the song. There'll be leaders in the back. If you need somebody to pray for you, whatever you're going through, go find someone. Or maybe you came in here tonight and you said, Man, I walked in here and this is for me. Because I feel like God had forgotten about me. I felt that God didn't see me, that God didn't care anymore. And I'm ready to stop believing that lie. And I'm ready to give my life to him anew. Or maybe I'm just ready to turn around. Maybe I did that long ago, but I've walked away. God hasn't. You can return to him, be forgiven, be healed. Would you pray with God?