Faithfulness is an essential part of who God is.
In fact, today on Truth for Life, we'll find out why it's impossible for God to be unfaithful. Alistair Begg explores the Bible's definition of faithfulness and shows how God models it for us and how it's cultivated within the followers of Jesus. I invite you to turn with me to 2 Timothy and to chapter 2, where we'll read the first thirteen verses. 2 Timothy chapter 2, reading from verse 1. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses in trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.
If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. Thanks be to God for his Word. Our gracious God, we bow before you. You are the one who wakened us to this new day. You are the one who has brought us to this hour. We believe that when your Word is preached that your voice is heard. So grant then that beyond the voice of a mere man we may hear your voice, and that in hearing it we may trust it and obey it. For we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, I invite you to turn to Galatians chapter 5, and as you turn there, we're getting close to the end of these studies in the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things.
There is no law. All right. Faithfulness. I had a note from somebody in the last couple of days, simply telling me that they were looking forward to the worship of God's people on the Lord's Day morning—that's this morning. I texted back to say, Well, this is wonderful. It's good.
I'm encouraged. It's a sign that God is at work in your heart. Any indication of progress in the gospel is tied entirely to the initiative taking love of God. And as we come routinely now in these mornings to the fruit of the Spirit, we have belabored the point, and purposefully so, that the fruit of the Spirit as it is produced in our lives is there as a result of the work of God, who gives us a new heart and who moves us to obey him. By nature we have a heart of stone. By grace he gives us a soft and a fleshy heart.
By nature we have no interest in his Word or in his work. By grace the seeds of his goodness are planted in our lives. And the fruit of the Spirit as it is produced in the life of a child of God is a reminder of a principle that Paul espouses in 1 Corinthians 3 in relationship to the proclaiming of the gospel.
And we're familiar with it. One plants and another waters, but only God can make things grow. And what is actually true of evangelism is equally true in terms of Christian devotion and growth in grace. It is God who makes these things grow. It is God who, by his amazing kindness, plants the seeds within our heart. He makes them grow but grants to us both the privilege and the responsibility of planting and watering so that the fruit of the Spirit, as we've been considering it, does not take place in a vacuum. You remember how Paul told Timothy that he had to train himself to be godly. That sounds like something you're supposed to do.
And of course, it is exactly what we're supposed to do. Peter similarly, when he writes to his readers, encourages them to make sure that they add to their faith godliness and so on. Now, these things remind us that to grow in godliness is to grow both in our devotion to God and, at the same time, in likeness to his character. So, devotion to God and likeness to his character. No one in the twentieth century has been of more help to me as a young man in this—and I was a young man at one point, I'm referring to earlier in my life—but Jerry Bridges in his book on holiness and the practice and discipline of Christian godliness.
And those of you who are familiar with Jerry's books—and if you're not, go into the bookstore and enjoy them and purchase them and benefit from them—if you know his work, then you'll be familiar with his triangle and the three points in his triangle in relationship to these things. He says one point represents the fear of God, and then another the love of God, and then another the desire for God. And he points out how the triangle is equal on all sides so that if we are to grow in our devotion to God, it will be directly and related to the balanced growth in terms of our love for God and our fear of God. It makes perfect sense that the development of Christian character is the overflow of God's love. That's why the fruit of the Spirit begins, I'm sure, with love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. So that's why it's very, very important that we keep in mind this little picture that we've had from the beginning of an artificial Christmas tree with ornaments that are hung on from the outside as opposed to a real, live, living plant where the evidence, the fruitfulness is evidence of life. Now, let me just give to you one quote from Jerry Bridges.
I think you'll find it helpful. He says, A focus on the outward structure of character and conduct, without taking the time to build the inward foundation of devotion to God, will fail us. This eventually results in cold morality or legalism, or even worse, self-righteousness and spiritual pride. We must develop the inner and outer aspects of godliness simultaneously. Now, we've seen this, and it is worth just reminding ourselves again that when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the people of God at Pentecost—you remember, Peter preaches, the folks are cut to the heart, they ask, What should we do?
Three thousand are added to the church. He tells them, Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then what does Luke tell us? Luke says that immediately, immediately, they devoted themselves to the apostles' doctrine—that is, to the teaching of the Bible, to an understanding of God's truth—they devoted themselves to the fellowship of God's people, they devoted themselves to the worship of God as expressed in the sacraments, and they devoted themselves to the practice of prayer not only personally but also corporately. Now, that is there not simply so that we might know how the church began but as a reminder to us of how the church will continue. It is absolutely impossible to neglect these things without depriving ourselves of the very means of grace provided by God in order to cultivate and stimulate and develop the growth of his fruit within our lives—the fruit that we consider now, the fruit of faithfulness.
Let us consider it along the pattern that we've done before. Let us consider, first of all, that this faithfulness is grounded in the character of God, that it is exemplified in the person of the Son of God, and that it is then to be cultivated in the people of God. First of all, then, faithfulness. We could do an entire series on the faithfulness of God, but we are not going to, at least not for now. And it is important that we understand that the word here for faithfulness is essentially an expression of trustworthiness. Trustworthiness. So that the fruit that is produced in our lives is the fruit of reliability and trustworthiness in the same way that, as we read in 2 Timothy chapter 2, God is absolutely faithful because he cannot deny himself.
It is an impossibility. So, as we think about it, then we're thinking in terms of fidelity, if you like, to the standard of truth, and we're thinking about reliability in our dealings with others. So we look at the character of God and we say, Is God true to his Word? Yes, he is. Is God faithful in his dealings with his people?
Yes, he is. In fact, the character of our heavenly Father is that which is produced in us, even as it is our likeness to our elder brother. Again, let us be clear. This is not natural virtue. This is the work of God. And it's no exaggeration to say that the whole Bible pulsates with the drum beat of God's faithfulness. If you want something to do on a rainy afternoon or even on a sunny afternoon, take a concordance and simply look at faithfulness, and you will spend many an hour focused on, and helpfully so, God's amazing faithfulness. We began this morning with the psalmist's words, Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of your holy ones. The psalmist says, Let's just get started in this way. Let us marvel at the fact that you are a faithful God. Who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? A wonderful picture, as it were, of the faithfulness of God just emanating from his person, as it were.
And when you read through the Bible, you discover that this emphasis is again and again. You think about the earliest stories of the Bible. Abraham and Sarah, the promise of a son. Oh, a son! How could we have a son? We're so old. Sarah laughed.
Wasn't a good response. But Sarah bore a son. The writer of the Hebrews tells us that Sarah received power to conceive, even when she was past the age—how?—Hebrews 11.11, since she considered him faithful, who had promised. She suddenly realized that what she thought and what she imagined had to be brought underneath the rubric of the faithfulness of the God who promised. James—and I just went to James because I was referencing Hebrews—but James, you will remember, that tells his readers that God doesn't change. The way that night turns to day, God doesn't change like that. He doesn't change like shifting shadows caused by the passage of the moon or of the sun—shadows all over the place.
James says, We're familiar with that—the moving of planets and stars and so on. That's not like God. That's why the hymn writer gave us, There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Any good hymns are ultimately tied into the Bible. God is absolutely faithful. His faithfulness is revealed in his character. The Lord is faithful. He remains faithful.
He who promised is faithful. His faithfulness is unassailable. It is everlasting. It is immeasurable.
It is incomparable. Eventually, language just has to bow down before the immensity of it all. Because God keeps his promises, he preserves his people, and he sustains his creation. Why have we not all burned up? Why are we in the access we're on? If we were any closer to the sun, our planet would be frizzled.
If we were any further away, we would live in a permanent ice age. The scientists say, Well, the Bible says God did this. He created, and he sustains. Why is it that we have been made members of his family? Because he's a faithful God.
Why is it we're still in the game? Because he's a faithful God. William Grimshaw, in an earlier era, put it to his congregation like this, Before the LORD will allow his promises to fail, he will lay aside his divinity. He will ungod himself.
What a strange and striking and archaic statement, but you see what he's saying. Can God ungod himself? Can God lay aside his godness? Can he lay aside his divinity? Can he be anything other than he is?
No. Therefore, says Grimshaw, he'll have to do that before he stops being faithful. Maybe you're here this morning, and you doubt the faithfulness of God.
Maybe you've come out of a circumstance in your life that has been particularly pressing and difficult. Maybe there's something in your past, and you just have decided that there was an excerpt there, there was a period of time that somehow or another had just skipped the faithful part. No, God is faithful in all of his dealings.
No mistakes, no shadows due to turning. He's sweeping even all of the bad stuff into the unfolding drama of his purpose to make us fruitful and make us like Jesus, so that the character of God is then revealed in the Son of God. All of the fullness of the Godhead that dwells in bodily form is found in Jesus. When the prophet is anticipating the coming of the Messiah, one of the pictures that you have at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 11 is of the dress of this one. How will he be clothed?
How will he step forward? And Isaiah writes, Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins. So we would expect, then, that when the Messiah steps forward, he will do so in proclaiming righteousness.
And what do you define? Right from the very baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, where in John the Baptist says to Jesus, You know, this is kind of upside down. You should be baptizing me rather than me baptizing you.
You remember that. And what does Jesus say in the King James Version? Thus, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. I am the one who has come with the belt of righteousness around my loins. I am here to do the right thing, and we must go ahead and do it. And his faithfulness, then, is expressed in all that follows.
He loved his own, and he loved them all the way through to the end. Now, if we're not gonna stay here until right into the third service, I have to let you move on on this on your own. And I plan to. In fact, I wrote that in my notes. So you've got to—when you're preaching, you've got to decide what your planned exemptions, as it were. And here is one.
So you consider this for yourselves. And read through your Bible, and you will discover that what I'm telling you is true, and that you can read all the way to Revelation 19 and to the picture of the triumphant Christ, where John looks and he beholds a white horse, and the one sitting on it is called Faithful and True. Stephen Curtis Chapman, in his day, wrote a little song that went, My Redeemer is faithful and true.
Everything he has said he will do. And every morning his mercies are new. My Redeemer is faithful and true. What are you gonna do in the face of temptation? Trust in his faithfulness. He is faithful, so that he will not cause you to be tempted beyond that which you are able, but will, with the temptation, provide a way of escape. Think about your life.
Think about moments in your life where if you'd gone this way instead of that way, there's no saying where you would have ended up. What was God doing? Manifesting his faithfulness. Now, that brings us finally, thirdly, to the application of this in terms of each of our lives. So if it is grounded in the character of God, if it is exemplified in the person and work of the Son of God, then this fruit, as we've been seeing, is produced in the lives of his children. And in particular, we're thinking faithfulness. Faithfulness.
How wonderfully striking is this? We live in a culture that is comfortable—comfortable with unkept promises. Our society is quite happy with broken vows, tolerates—we might even say at points—promotes on faithfulness. We live in a culture in which if it doesn't suit to stay faithful, then just don't stay faithful. If it doesn't suit to be faithful to your promises, then break your promises.
If it doesn't work to tell the truth, then tell lies. That's the environment in which we live. And it is against that kind of dark background that we are, as Paul says to the Philippians, to shine as lights in the darkness by holding forth the Word of life. That doesn't mean walking around with a huge, big Bible and waving it all the time—you may choose to do that if you choose, that's fine, that's entirely up to you—but it means that we hold forth the Word of life as life is seen in our lives. Faithfulness in an unfaithful world. Joy in a gloomy world.
Patience in an impatient world, and so on. And the work that God produces within us is in order that we might then commend the gospel, make it attractive to a world that doesn't get this—to a world that has gone in an entirely different direction. That's why in baptism—and we'll be baptizing folks tonight, we look forward to it—the affirmation in baptism is that having died with him in coming to Christ, so we will also live with him.
We don't sing this as a baptismal hymn, but it is a good one. Oh Jesus, I have promised to serve you to the end. I promised. You promised to save me if I come to you.
I took you at your word. You have promised to keep me to the very end of the race. I have promised to serve you to the end. In other words, your faithfulness to me, in me, is then through me.
And it all ultimately redounds to your praise, to your glory, and to your honor. Because the people who know me, including myself, know that by nature I'm not that faithful. I'm not that joyful. I'm certainly not that patient.
And I can't wait to get the gentle tonight. The fact of the matter is, it is all grace from start to finish. That is Alistair Begg challenging us to remain faithful by God's grace. You're listening to Truth for Life.
We'll hear the conclusion of today's message on Monday. If you're benefiting from our study of the fruit of the Spirit, let me remind you this series comes with a corresponding study guide. If you'd like to dig deeper into the character of God and reflect on how you can display practical godliness, you can download the study guide for free on our website at truthforlife.org study guides.
Or if you'd prefer a booklet, you can purchase the study guide at our cost of just $2 in our online store. Go to truthforlife.org slash store. And if you add a donation to your purchase, you can request a copy of the book, The Character of Christ, The Fruit of the Spirit in the Life of Our Savior. It's a book that takes you deep into the love, grace, mercy, and peace that is at the very heart of Christ. Today's the last day we're offering this book for a donation, so be sure to request your copy when you donate to support the Ministry of Truth for Life. You can do that online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening this week. Hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church. On Monday, we'll learn why we can't become faithful just by trying, and yet we can't become faithful without trying. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
