God Is Faithful

Well, happy 4th of July weekend Summit, family and friends. How are we?

Okay, let's try that again. Happy 4th of July weekend Summit, family and friends. How are we? There we go.

There we go. This is the time of year where we as citizens of the United States of America, we get to celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. For you historians in here, you probably remember that this is where the 13 colonies declared themselves a free nation, free from British rule. But for those of us in here who are disciples of Jesus Christ and citizens of the kingdom of God, we get to celebrate our independence every single day, right? So scripture is our declaration of independence. And in John chapter eight, it says whom the son has made free, it is free indeed. So this is the day that the Lord has made and we shall rejoice and be glad in it. Okay, so if you've been set free, this is the day that the Lord has made and we shall rejoice. See, that's where you get to participate.

There we go. And be glad in it. My name is Chuck Reed. I'm one of the pastors here at the Summit Church, and we are continuing on in our series called The Whole Story. So if you have your bibles with me, whether you have the eBible version or the tree Bible version like I have, turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 31.

Jeremiah chapter 31. Any eighties music lovers in the building? I got a few eighties, great time of music. And in 1986, there was a song by a British pop group called the Human League, and they came to prominence with a number one hit called Human. And this song specifically talks about infidelity.

Well, most recently, there was an insurance company who reintroduced their song back into the world, letting people know about their services. And so the song Human, the chorus goes like this. It says, I'm only human, of flesh and blood I made.

I'm human, I'm born to make mistakes. Well, the insurance company, they open up their commercial this way. They say, humans, we mean well, but we are imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. And they go as far as to say, it's amazing that we humans have made it this far. See, this insurance company promises to be there to help when things break or get messed up in your life.

If only you had this insurance company covering you, if only they were on your team, you would have minimal, if not any worries at all, when life goes in the wrong direction for you. This song became a hit, like many songs become hits because it points to a very real reality. We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world filled with pain and suffering. Ladies and gentlemen, this is our reality. And this is a truth that we all can identify with.

So here's a question I pose to you all. Who is your insurance company or go-to fix-it person when things break in your life or you break things in other people's lives? I'm quite sure everybody's got that go-to mechanic, Brother Earl. You can call Brother Earl up, whether your car is new or old, and you tell Brother Earl something going on with your car, and he can say, let me hear what's going on with that car, I'll tell you what's going on there. Brother Earl is your man, that's your go-to person. Maybe, for example, if you're sick, maybe some of my fellows in here want to speak to you specifically. I know for me, when I get sick, I typically curl up in the fetal position, and I think about the times when mama brought that chicken noodle soup in the room to me.

Any chicken noodle lovers I got in the house, a few of y'all in here? Or maybe when your eyeglasses break, your remote control breaks, or that favorite chair in your house breaks, everybody called on the master handyman, Mr. Duct Tape, to fix everything that's broken in your house. Well, here's another question I want to ask you all. Who did God call on when His creation, His prized possession, chose to break away from Him? When man willingly disobeyed His commands and did not honor the terms of the covenant He made with them, who did He have to call on when we mankind were unfaithful and we committed adultery on God?

When the love of His life broke His heart, did God have an insurance policy or an insurance agent to call on to fix the problem? Well, pick me up in verse 31 of Jeremiah chapter 31, and let's see the answer to these questions of how God dealt with and continue to deal with mankind's infidelity. Verse 31 reads, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. Verse 33, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts, and watch this, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Verse 34, no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. I want to preach from the title today. God is faithful.

God is faithful. Will you pray with me? Father, in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, help us. Amen. I thought that was going to be a long prayer, didn't you?

Yeah, see, all we need is help. See, we've been reading through the whole story of scripture. We've been reading through the whole entire Bible as a church, and we call this series The Whole Story because we're seeing how every single page of the Bible points us to one person, Jesus Christ. And if you have been following along with us through the Old Testament so far, you have noticed the love God has for his creation. God loves the children of Israel deeply, but they are concerned with him, but they are consistently and willfully unfaithful to him. They outright disobey his commands, and they continue to worship idols, false gods, and they do this on a regular and consistent basis. You see, sin entered the world when our foremother and father, Adam and Eve, disobeyed. And because of that disobedience, God cast them out of the garden and out of his hands. And ever since then, man's sinful nature is getting worse and worse from generation to generation, and God's anger is more and more inflamed. So God decides to destroy some of them for their disobedience, but promises to still love and provide for them. You see, Israel gets it together for a little bit. They repent, but it's only for a short period of time.

And then that immediate rebellious cycle takes hold again. And God has sent Israel into exile for their disobedience because he will no longer hold back his wrath, his anger, and his judgment. So he calls on Jeremiah as a prophet, and he sends him to the children of Israel to relay a very important message. And this message is about their infidelity, about their hardheadedness, and God's saying, I'm getting ready to deal with y'all about that. So let me translate that through the words of my grandmother as she prophetically spoke in my life when I was a little kid, not too long ago. I'm still pretty young. She said that, she said, baby, let me tell you this.

A hard head makes a soft behind. Okay, y'all laughing, so I think y'all can resonate with the fact that that's true. So she used to tell me, she said, boy, go out there and get a switch. And then she would say it like this, repent for the kingdom of the rod is in my hand. And this is the message that Jeremiah was communicating to the children of Israel.

Your hardheadedness, your rebellion, your infidelity has ignited God's anger and is bringing forth his wrath. And some of you may be thinking, was it really that bad? I couldn't have been that bad. It was absolutely that bad.

So let's zoom out of Jeremiah for a second. Imagine the pain you would feel if a spouse chose to find joy or love in the arms of another lover. Anyone who has ever been the victim of infidelity or betrayal knows how deep that cuts. When your spouse walks out on you, or you find about a secret affair, when your very best friend betrays you, when a close family member stabs you in the back, it hurts. It messes you up. It makes you say all these years I've been faithful to you.

I've been pouring myself out for you and for what? But that's not what God says. He has absolutely every right to say for what, but that's not what he says. So let's dive a little deeper. Let's zoom back into Jeremiah. Let's pick it up in chapter two.

So let's go back. We in 31, but let's rewind and take back to Jeremiah chapter two, verse 13. He says this, for my people have committed to evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. He was the one that was giving them life and they whom themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold any water. In other words, they rejected him. They turned away from him.

And then they started turning to other things that could give them life and sustain their lives. Okay. That's not clear enough. Let's move over into Jeremiah chapter five, verse three. This is the word of the Lord.

Oh Lord are not your eyes on the truth. You have stricken them, but they have not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to return. They are despising instruction and they refuse to repent and get it right. Well, that's not clear enough for y'all.

Okay. Let's move forward in Jeremiah chapter six, verse 10. To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed, their ear is uncircumcised and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. Therefore, I am full of the fury of the Lord.

I am weary of holding it in. God ain't playing y'all. When you get to a point where the word of the Lord gives you no more life, that is absolutely bad. They have become so sinful and God was so angry that he told Jeremiah, don't you even pray for them. Imagine God, the Holy Spirit speaking to somebody in your small group and your community and saying, don't you dare make a petition to me on their behalf. I don't want to hear it. He would go on to say in chapter 15, even if Moses, the one God used to aid in their deliverance, even if Moses or Samuel was to plead to me and come to me on their behalf, I don't want to hear it.

I will not turn my heart towards my people, says the Lord. So imagine your anger in those situations that we talked about earlier. Multiply that by the biggest number you can think of and it still pales in comparison to the anger God felt when his children chose rebellion and idol worship over their relationship with him. And to top it all off, this was not the first time that they committed this adulterous act.

They have been unfaithful time after time after time. And like any good parent, at some point you get tired of communicating the same things over and over and over to your hardheaded, disobedient children. And so if you grew up in a house like mine again, this is how judgment was communicated. Boy, I brought you in this world.

I'll take you out. She made it clear she was not playing any games. When mama spoke, it was time to get in line. God, the Holy One of Israel became utterly disgusted and fed up with their faithfulness to rebellion when they should have been faithful to his redemption, especially since he had fulfilled every promise he had did everything that he said he would do for them. Joshua chapter 21 runs down God's resume and says, Hey, listen, I brought you into the land. I swore to your fathers. I gave you provision while you were in there. I gave you rest on every side. I defeated every last one of your enemies. And then we pick it up in verse 45, where it says not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed.

All came to pass. God had been faithful y'all, but that just wasn't good enough for the children of Israel. He had loved them to no end and they still chose to follow after false gods. So God says, listen, Jeremiah, go down, tell my people judgment is on the way. So there are three takeaways that I want us to see from this passage of scripture. Our problem, his promise, and our hope. Our problem, his promise, our hope. Number one, our problem, our problem verse 32, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband declares the Lord.

You see, here's the problem. My brothers and sisters, sin was and is our problem. The song says we are born human, born of flesh. We are made. We are human born to make mistakes. We sinful man are the problem. We are our own worst enemy. We are rotten to the core. And for many of us, that's a tough pill to swallow because nobody likes to be told that they are rotten, bad or evil. But that's what sin has done to us. It made us enemies of God left to our left to ourselves. We are a destructive people. And unfortunately, whether or not we like it, that's our DNA.

Here's the interesting. That's why we got resumes, y'all. So we got resumes. We're trying to earn favor with our potential employer.

Right. And so nothing on your resume says that, hey, listen, when I get to work is when I get to work. I like to get I like to sleep in late. So when I get to work is when I get to work. And I dare you to say anything about it, Mr. or Mrs. Boss.

How about this? How about when I get to work? When I sit at my desk, I need you to make sure I have an extra computer monitor because I need to watch my television shows while I do the work that you're paying me to do. I bet your resume don't say that. I bet your resume don't say, listen, when I get there, Mr. or Mrs. Boss, I like to at least take 20 breaks. And listen, I need one week off every month and I need a raise every month. And so if you don't give that to me, Mr. or Mrs. Boss, I'm going to make sure I don't show up to work and use those sick days that you gave to me. I bet you don't resume don't say that. But Paul resume, Paul says this about his resume. He says, I count it all as rubbish.

It means absolutely nothing to me. Because if I could only be found in him, I have obtained a righteousness that is not found under the law. The righteousness that I have been given is because of his grace and my faith in him makes me righteous.

So I count my resume as absolutely dung, rubbish. And the scriptures provide a mirror for us to see how filthy and nasty that we are. Psalm 53, verse two, God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. Verse three, they have all fallen away together. They have become corrupt.

There is none who does good, not even one. God is holy y'all and he cannot stand the sight of sin. You see, Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden because of their sin.

Israel gets exiled out of the promised land because of their sin. And we become spiritually exiled from his presence because of our sin. He said in Leviticus chapter 11, verse 45, he said, listen, I'm the Lord, your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And so because of that, you be holy for I am holy. Holiness, simple definition of holiness is this. By God's grace, I live according to the word of God and not the world. I live according, by his grace, I live according to God's standard, not the world's standard. And so his laws, his commandments were to aid us in doing so.

They weren't to alienate us from him. Holiness was the right way back then and it's still the right way today. But we got to stay here a little longer just so we can clearly see how filthy that we are. The songwriter says, I'll never know how much it costs to see my sins upon that cross.

In order to see how beautiful God's grace, mercy and faithfulness is, we need to see how ugly our sin is. Take this as a black light moment. You ever seen one of those news reports where they come on and they go into a hotel and you know, they got the light on and they go and say, hey, we want to see how clean this hotel room. So they cut the lights off. They pull back the sheet and they take the black light and they go over the bed and you see how filthy that sheet really is. Well, see, that's how we do it because we have a man-centered view of sin. We are in the room with the light on and we say, oh, this is beautiful. Everything looks clean in here, but God through his word cuts on the light, cuts the light off, cuts on the black light and said, nah, you nasty.

So let's go a little deeper. Jeremiah chapter five, pick me up in verse three. Oh Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish. You have consumed them, but they refuse to take correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to repent. Verse 11, the people of Israel and the people of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to me, declares the Lord. Verse 12, they have lied about the Lord.

Listen to this. They said he will do nothing. No harm will come to us.

We will never see sword or famine. Verse 13, the prophets are but wind and the word is not in them. So let what they say be done to them. They've gotten to a point, y'all, where they so nasty and they so filthy and they so arrogant and they so into themselves that they say, God, you belong to us. We, your God, you do what we tell you to do. That's the effects of sin. We become desensitized to holiness. We become deaf to his voice and we become blind to his beauty.

And what was happening in the days of Jeremiah, my brothers and sisters are still happening in our world today. And the sad and painful reality is that God's penalty for sin is death. And that's a strong truth that we must stomach. And none of us are exempt. And most importantly, y'all, here's the thing. We don't even want to hear it.

And I personally couldn't go there unless I know there. Thomas Watson, a Puritan, says it this way. Sin has the devil for its father, shame for his companion, and death for its wages. You see, God wasn't trying to pay them back. He was trying to bring them back, back into his loving arms.

He wasn't trying to go tick for tack for them. He was saying, hey, I love you. Come home. Now, that's all the bitter.

Let's get on into the sweet. Which leads me to our next takeaway, his promise. His promise. See, in his infinite wisdom, in the abundance of his grace and the riches of his mercy, he had a strategic plan in place.

God was his own insurance policy and he knew the best way to fix the problem. Verse 31, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Verse 33, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them.

I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Here's the good news. Even in the midst of our folly, God is faithful.

Okay, here's the good news. Even in the midst of our folly, God is faithful. The insurance commercial goes on to say, maybe it's because when one of us messes up, someone else can come along to help us out. You see that someone that came along to help us out, his name was Jesus Christ, but he didn't just come to help us. He came to save us. And so in Jeremiah chapter three, he says, return old backsliding children, says the Lord. For I am married to you. I will take you one from a city and two from a family and I will bring you to Zion and I will give you shepherds according to my heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. In other words, God said this, when you are faithless, I am faithful because I cannot deny who I am and I am God and beside me, there is none other.

My love is not superficial, it's supernatural and my mercy says no. Okay, I got to teach y'all how to shout in here. I had to teach y'all how to hear when God is speaking, you got to rejoice in the fact that he's the one that paid it all. This is the joy that we find in his creation of the new covenant.

It's Christ Jesus. Now let me bring my little bit of seminary education into play right here. Let me help y'all out. So for you big brains in here, this is how we're going to do it.

I want you to take this information and I want you to hold it for a second because we're going to bring this back into view in just a second. See a covenant is simply this. It is a bond between two or more parties, right?

We've come together, right? And so here's something that I need you to understand about biblical covenants. One, biblical covenants are not bonds or relationships amongst equals. The second thing is biblical covenants are based on grace. Grace is simply this. It means we receive what we don't deserve.

So that would mean mercy is we don't receive what we do deserve. Lastly, the terms of the covenant are not requirements to get into the covenant. And so what was this new covenant?

Why was this needed? This new covenant was based through or it actually came about because of the blood of Jesus. Paul says it this way in Romans chapter 3 verse 21. He says, but now the righteousness of God has been made manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. In other words, they just talking about Jesus. We're talking about Jesus right there. It says the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But watch this and are justified by his grace as a gift. That means because of the finished work on the cross that Jesus Christ did for us. It's as if we never sinned at all.

We've been justified. And it says whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. In other words, propitiation is just a fancy biblical word to say Jesus in our place. And so this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

So that's another biblical way to say mercy says no. And then we end up, it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that Christ may be the just and justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, what we learn from biblical covenants is based off that passage in Romans, number one, we showing equal with God.

Get that right off the bat. Number two, we are justified by God's grace and his grace alone. Well, let's bring in the last point of biblical covenants. Listen, he chose us. We didn't choose him. So the terms to get in the covenant would not the requirements of the covenant.

And that's the whole point of this discussion. The way he chose to collect payment on us is by sending his son to live the life that we couldn't live and die the death that we should have died. Jesus took our place. This is what we know to be the gospel of Jesus Christ. He got our sin and he gave us his righteousness. We gave him pain. He gave us promise.

Listen to what Matt Chandler says. He says, the cross of Christ is first and centrally God's means of reconciling sinful people to his sinless self. The cross is the linchpin in God's plan to restore all creation.

Is it any wonder then that the empty tomb opened out into a garden? So the new covenant was and still is God's plan that he uses to forgive the sins of his people and to put his laws within us and to write them on our hearts to be our God and to make us his people. The burden and certainty of this new covenant does not lie with man. It lies with God and the God I serve can do anything but fail.

Okay. I just got three people that believe that. And so because of this, I can join with the kingdom choir and saying blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory, divine air of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed with his blood.

Watch this. This is my story. This is my song, praising my savior all the day long, which brings us to our last takeaway, our hope. Our hope.

Are you going to get Jesus for a leave up out of here today? So where do we find hope in all of this? Let's look back at these verses again. The hope that we have in all of this is in the I will declarations.

God has communicated in Jeremiah and throughout all of scripture. He says, I will make a new covenant. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people.

I will forgive their iniquity. Hear all these beautiful promises and I will remember their sin no more. The joy, strength and victory we find in these verses is in the I will declarations. And that simply means apart from Christ, we can do absolutely nothing. He pursued us when their hearts were made of iron and he made it possible to truly love God in Jeremiah chapter 17. He says this, this is how bad it was again, but now you can really see how sweet his faithfulness is. It says the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron with a point of diamond.

It is engraved on the tablet of their heart. But God, you have to know that there is real hope in a world that will try to say otherwise to you and will try to aggressively remove you from his presence of thy will be done to the pit of my will be done. And because of this, God launched his perfect plan of redemption and it came through the cross. It came through Jesus Christ.

So let me ask you this. Are you struggling with loneliness today? For Deuteronomy 31 verse 6 says, be strong and courageous. Do not feel being dread of them for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will never leave or forsake you.

See those eye wheels again. So are you struggling with providing for your family? Philippians 4 19 says, and my God shall supply every need according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Are you in some type of fight today? Whether it's emotionally or spiritually, Exodus 14 says, listen, the Lord will fight for you and you only have to be silent. Are you at a crossroads in your life? Are you struggling with clarity or direction? Proverbs 3 says, listen, in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Are you tired? Are you just so weary? He says, Matthew 11 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Are you wondering, are you fit for the master's use and what he's doing in your life? Philippians 1 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. My brothers and sisters, our hope is in Christ and in Christ alone.

Oh, you're just catching up to this praise party already got, don't worry about that. So the commercial closes by saying this, this is how the commercial closes. He said, commercial says this spot on too. That's the thing about humans. When things are at their worst, we put the glory back on ourselves.

This is the insurance company. We are at our best. Well, I come to let you know that that right there don't make a bit of sense when you put God's word up on it.

Cause when we were at our worst, he was at his best. And what he said is, I'm going to come down. I'm going to wrap myself in sinful flesh. I'm going to live a perfect, obedient and blameless life. I'm going to take your sins. I'm going to carry them to the cross. I'm going to shed my blood, but I ain't going to stop there. I got a daddy who's going to raise me up from the dead and it's going to give me all power, all authority. And then I'm going to leave my arms wide open and say, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I'll give your souls rest. His name is Jesus.

And beside him, there is none other. So the good news is that in the good, bad and ugly of life, whether by our fault or the fault of others, Jesus was truly at his best. And he truly paid the cost to bring dead men to life.

And he's still at his best because he's resurrected lives today. We're only human. We're born of flesh we are made.

We're human, born to make mistakes. And God knows this. He knows we're born of sin, shaped in iniquity. But he decided to become our high priest.

And he decided to let us know through that our infidelity is no match for his love. And he made that clear on the cross when he said it is finished. God was, is, and will forever be faithful to his part of the covenant. Jesus didn't come to sell anything.

He didn't come to sell us an insurance policy. He came to give us an eternal promise. What he gives, he gives it freely. To get his promise is found in two beautiful words, repentance and faith. That just simply means that God is right and you are wrong.

Your life belongs to him and it always has. You bow your heads with me. Will you let the master fix what is broken? For some of us that means just simply saying, Lord not my will anymore, but let your will be done. I surrender all to you. The covenant only requires two signatures, my brothers and sisters. And you can say today I'm signing my name where Jesus has already signed his in blood. And if you're one of the ones that Jeremiah said return or backslide, if you're one of those that for some reason you decided to leave his presence, his arms are wide open saying, come on home, come and let me give your souls rest.

Would you let the master fix what's broken? Father in Jesus name you are good and your mercy endures to all generations. God we need you. There's no other prayer that we can offer up but simply say Lord help and we need you. Save us, heal us, and bring us back into your loving arms by your grace and by your grace alone. In Jesus name we pray.