We're going to be in the book
of Hebrews both hours this morning. Hebrews chapter 10, if you would
like to turn there. We're just gonna be looking at
one verse for the first hour, and it's kind of irregular because
I'll be going backwards for the second hour, but it's the way
that the Lord's laid it upon my heart. One of the most glorious
facts about our Lord, and everything about our Lord's glorious, but
one of those glorious facts is that he is faithful. He is faithful. We judge our faithfulness and
the faithfulness of others based upon our word and our action.
But if I promise to do something for you and I do not have the
power to do so or the ability to do so, that means I'm not
going to be very faithful. His power is not limited. His
ability is not limited. So if he says he's going to do
something, you can count on it because he is faithful. No matter
what you and I do, no matter what anyone does, whether it's
humans, whether it's angels, whether it's with Satan, it doesn't
matter. We cannot change the Lord's faithfulness. Cannot change
the Lord's faithfulness. Cannot challenge the Lord's faithfulness.
He will remain faithful. Nothing will ever prevent God
from remaining faithful forever and ever and ever. I can rest
in that. It's not my faithfulness that
he's looking to. It's not your faithfulness that
he's looking to. God is looking to the faithfulness
of God for your salvation. God is looking to the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of his people.
Let's read our text Hebrews chapter 10 verse 23. He said, let us,
and we're just gonna look at this one verse, let us hold fast
the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful
that promised. I've titled this message, He
is Faithful. He is faithful. He is faithful
and he cannot lie. Two characteristics of our God
that's so different than us. You and I can lie. We can not
be faithful, faithful in service, faithful in our love. There's
times where we, well, it's just true, isn't it? We're not faithful
all the time, but he is. He is, and everything that he
does is faithful, everything. 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us, 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. He says, he says, he prays the
very God of peace, sanctify you wholly and keep you preserved
blameless. Then he says, he's going to do it. He's going to
do it. How do we know? Because he tells
us faithful is he that calleth you. That's how. That's how he
sanctifies his people, because he's faithful. That's how he
preserves us blameless unto him, because he's faithful. Aren't
you glad he's not looking to us to keep ourselves faithfully?
He's not. He's not looking at you and saying,
you better be faithful. You better be faithful. He's
looking to his son who's faithful. He's looking to his son on our
behalf who is always faithful. Our God is faithful in every
aspect, every aspect of salvation. He's faithful in election. He's
faithful in redemption. He's faithful in regeneration.
He's faithful in keeping his people. He's faithful in every
aspect of salvation. And every aspect of salvation
is completely dependent upon him. If he doesn't perform it
faithfully, none can be saved. But he did. Every aspect was
performed, was kept, was honored by the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly,
faithfully unto the Father, so that you and I might be saved. His very name is faithful. His
name is faithful, his person, his character. Revelation 19
says, and I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse, and
he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. It's his name. Is my name Faithful? Is your
name Faithful? One of my daughters, their middle
name is Faith. But she's my daughter. She's not gonna be faithful in
all things unto the Lord. None of us can be. Christ did.
The Lord Jesus Christ did on our behalf, in our room, in our
stead, because we can't be faithful. I saw heaven open to behold a
white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful
and true, and in righteousness doth he judge and make war. Just
as our faithfulness is determined by our word and our ability,
so is God's faithfulness determined by his word and his ability.
Now the glorious truth of that is, is his power is limitless. His ability is infinite. His word cannot be broken. So
if his faithfulness is determined by his word and his ability,
you can believe it because nothing can stop it. Nothing can change
it. He's going to perform that which
he said he would do faithfully because he is God. Whatsoever he desires, he does.
Nothing can stop him from being faithful. Nothing can stop him
from saving you. Don't you love that? If He chose
to save you, you're going to be saved. If He chose to save
me, I'm going to be saved, and there's nothing I can do about
that. Somebody said, well, I don't really like that. Well, you haven't
been made a sinner. If that bothers you, you don't
know how bad of a sinner you are. When you find out how bad
of a sinner you are and that you can't do anything to get
rid of the sin, you can't do anything to have righteousness
before God or have justification before God, when you hear that
the Lord's gonna save you and there's nothing you can do about
it, you're gonna say, phew, praise God, all by grace. He does it
faithfully each time to his people. Matter of fact, he says in 2
Timothy 2.13, if we believe not, Yet he remaineth, he abideth
faithful. He cannot deny himself. If we
believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself. What
does that mean? That means everyone that's in
Christ, even if you have days where you don't believe or you
have doubts and you have fears and all these things happening,
he remaineth faithful. He cannot deny himself. Everything about salvation revolves
around his faithfulness, not mine, not yours, his. Everything about his salvation
revolves around him being faithful, every bit of it. If it revolved
around our faithfulness, we would be saved one day, and then the
next day we would be not saved. Isn't that true? Because sometimes
we look to Christ and we're resting, and sometimes we're worried,
we're perplexed, we're distraught, we're angry. We're looking at
circumstance just like Peter, we're sinking. He brings us back
to the truth, and we say, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. No, everything about salvation
revolves around the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
faithfulness of the father in election, the faithfulness of
the sun and redemption, the faithfulness in the spirit and regeneration.
And the faithfulness in their power to keep every single person
that they redeemed, that he redeemed. He was faithful in creation,
wasn't he? Before time ever began, he was
faithful in election. And then he created time in order
to show forth his faithfulness in redemption to his people.
He created this earth and everything that's in it. He created all
the things that we would ever need in order for us to live
physically on this earth. He created the food that we would
need to eat. He feeds the birds of heaven, scripture says, faithfully. He feeds the fish in the sea,
faithfully. The birds don't worry about where their next meal's
coming from, why? Because God's faithful. God's faithful. And is it not true that the Lord
gives us our daily bread? Not just physically, spiritually,
he gives us the bread, the sustenance that we need. Faithfully, faithfully. Every single morning, the children
of Israel would wake up in a wilderness, They had no ability to find food
in that wilderness. They had no ability to get water
in that wilderness. And God would cause bread to
fall from the sky. He'd call manna to fall for them. Then when they needed water,
water came forth out of the rock, which is a picture of, Moses
is the one that smote the rock. It's a picture of the law smiting
Christ that it would bring forth that life-giving water that we
need. But every morning, that manna would be there. That manna
would be there. And the Lord did that faithfully
to them for 40 years. Their shoes never wore out. Their
garments never waxed old. They never needed to do repairs
to anything. The Lord was faithful in keeping
them to the promised land. And I can tell you and promise
you on the authority of the word of God, he's gonna do the exact
same thing for you and I. Every morning you wake up, there's
fresh manna. There's fresh manna that he gives
to his people. Your clothes of righteousness
will never wax old because it's the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Your feet being shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace will never wear out because
you're looking to Christ who is faithful, not your faithfulness.
That's all the picture there, isn't it? Why didn't the clothes
wear out? Because it's a picture of the
Lord's righteousness. It never grows old. Why? Because he is faithful. Because he is faithful. Children
of Israel weren't faithful, were they? No, they weren't faithful. They were like me and you. They're
grumbling and complaining. I hate this. We loathe this light bread,
they would say. We used to have garlic and onions
and In Egypt, you also had bondage. Do you not remember that? Nobody
thought of that. They just thought about the good
stuff. They were crying out unto the Lord for 400 years. Lord,
please deliver us. Lord, deliver us. And they're
like, well, we had it better off in Egypt. We had it better
off in Egypt. No. No, Lord's people don't think
that way, do we? We have time of doubt, time of
duress, fear, grief, hurt. But at the end of the day, we
come to the place, Lord always brings us back to the place where
we realize, Lord, thank you for being faithful. Thank you for
not leaving me to myself. Thank you for supplying all my
needs according to your riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Thank you for being faithful. Why does the sun come up each
morning? calls God's faithful. He allows
it to rise each morning, allows its beams to shine forth on the
believer, the non-believer. He allows the rain to come and
fall upon the believer and the non-believer, the elect and the
non-elect. He allows all these things to
happen because he's a gracious God and he is faithful to his
people. He's faithful. That's why he
says here to us, hold fast. profession of our faith because
he is faithful. What's the profession of our
faith? Simply put, Christ is all. Christ is all, Christ is
the profession, Christ is who we believe, Christ is what we
believe. Somebody asks you, do you believe in justification?
Say yes, they'll say, what is your justification? Correct them
and say, no, it's not a what, it's a who, and his name is the
Lord Jesus Christ, he's my justification. They ask you about sanctification,
say the same thing, Christ is my sanctification. They ask you
anything that pertains to salvation, redemption, regeneration, Christ
is the one that has to do all of it. And he know what he does? He does it faithfully each time
for his people, for his people. Find it amazing that he was faithful.
He had to prepare a body for himself. Have we ever thought
about that? He had to prepare a body of dust, just like it's
what our bodies are made of. God formed man out of the dust
of the ground, breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life,
man became a living soul. God had to make a body, prepare
a body, for the Lord Jesus Christ to come to this earth, and he
did that faithfully. As the Lord Jesus Christ is upon
this earth living, he was faithful unto his Father in everything
that he did, faithfully performing all the healings that he did,
all the miracles that he worked, pointing to the Father the entire
time, proving who he was, revealing to those Revealing to those who
were the elect who he was, I'm the Lord Jesus Christ, I am him.
You remember, I said this Wednesday, and I love this, Simeon, being
the high priest, the Lord said, you will not see death until
you see the Lord's Christ. And Simeon, all the babies that
came through, you gotta think, that's where they would go for
the circumcision. It was the eighth day, that's
all the children that would come through there. But they come
walking in with the Lord Jesus Christ, and as soon as Simeon
sees him, he says, now I can depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation, O Lord. Well, who told him that that
was the Lord Jesus Christ? Who told him that was God? God
did. See, that's what he does for
his people, is he reveals the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully
to us, and shows us that he is the faithful one. Don't look
to self, look to him, he is faithful. He fashioned a body for himself.
He lived a perfect life under God in that body. The very world
that he created, he became a man to redeem God's chosen people,
those whom he loved. He served faithfully. He served
God. He was also serving us during
that time, too, as our substitute. Serving God, honoring the Father,
but he was, as our substitute, serving for us. faithfully interceded for his
people while he was upon the face of this earth, saying, Father,
I pray for them which thou hast given me. I pray not for the
world, but I pray for them thou hast given me. All that the Father
given to me, I will not lose one. I will not lose one. He
prayed faithfully for you, and he prayed faithfully for me.
Did you know that the only difference between Judas and Peter Understand
something, Judas betrayed the Lord by selling him for 30 pieces
of silver, and we're gonna hear about this the second hour, so
I don't wanna preach a second message also, but he betrayed
the Lord with a kiss. Peter denied the Lord, denied
association with him, but that's still a betrayal, isn't it? So
in essence, they did the same thing. Peter just didn't get
paid for it. I mean, look at that. Same, same issue of the
heart, same unbelief of the heart. But there was one thing different
between Peter and Judas. The Lord looked at Peter. Peter
said, I'm ready to go all the way with you, even into death.
I'm going to die with you. They come for you. They're coming
for me. And the Lord rebuked him and said, Satan hath desired
to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for you. He prays faithfully
for his people. And because of his prayer always
being heard, always honoring the Father, the Lord, if he's
prayed for you, if he's prayed for you, he loves you, he died
for you, you're one with him, you're righteous. You're justified. And he will not leave you to
yourself. Why? Because he's faithful. Because
he's faithful. The night came for the Lord to
do that which he was born to do. In the garden, he said, Father,
let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine be done. He prayed faithfully for the
father's will to be done. And he took the cup, the cup
of sorrow, the cup of damnation. And he drank the entire contents
of that cup, bearing our sin and his own body upon the tree
faithfully unto God for the purpose of the salvation of his people.
And he faithfully hung on that cross. endured the entire wrath
of God being poured out upon his soul faithfully, not wavering,
not complaining, not murmuring. He did it faithfully. In every
drop of blood that was shed, he shed it faithfully. Faithfully. Didn't do it in disdain. Didn't
do it in anger. Did it as a lamb before the slaughter.
Did it as a lamb before the slaughter faithfully. He didn't pay attention
to the scoffers and the mockers and those that were saying all
blasphemous things. You know what he did? He said,
Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. They know not
what they do. He was performing the very deed
that would save his people from their sin. And he did it faithfully,
faithfully. He shed his blood faithfully,
as he promised he would in the covenant of grace. And he successfully
redeemed his people on the cross because he was faithful. He faithfully performed every
action needed. Every action that had to take
place, he did it. Every work, every detail. When his soul was
made an offering for sin, he endured the wrath of God faithfully. Faithfully. And finally, he draws
his last breath and he announces the most glorious truth to you
and I, his people, It is finished. I have faithfully succeeded in
redeeming the chosen people of God. He was faithful for three days
waiting on the father to resurrect him, wasn't he? Three days and
three nights. He was faithful waiting. And did the Father resurrect
him? Yes, the Father's faithful. The
Father resurrected him. What did that show? That showed
that we were justified. That is evidence of our justification,
that God was satisfied with the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that his faithfulness, the Father honored his faithfulness for
his people. Now he is seated as our faithful
high priest interceding for us. All those other high priests
of the Old Testament There's several different accounts. One time, they let the fire go
out, and they said, well, we're gonna relight the fire with just
regular old fire. The Lord said, no, no, you can't
use wildfire. And he killed them. They weren't
faithful high priests, were they? Weren't faithful priests. Hophni
and Phinehas, they were taking the Lord's sacrifices, and they
were watering it down, or they were eating it raw like they
weren't supposed to. Not honoring the Lord's word. And Lord killed
him for it. They weren't faithful, were they?
What if you and I were to be our own priests? Could we be
faithful in the ordinance of priesthood under God? It's not
possible, is it? The Lord Jesus Christ, our high
priest, he is faithful. He is faithful. He doesn't sleep.
He doesn't sleep. He's performed that which is
necessary for our salvation forever and ever and ever. And that's
never gonna change. Do you know why? Because he's
faithful. Because he's faithful. I love that he faithfully intercedes
for us, takes our prayers, and washes it in the blood, and presents
it to the Father as perfect, and the Father hears our prayers
when we pray. I love that. Scripture declares
1 John 1-9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
His faithfulness His faithfulness has brought salvation. His faithfulness
bought our salvation. His faithfulness brought about
forgiveness of sin. He's faithful in all things. Now in time, in his time, and
it's all his time, we get so bent out of shape over time,
don't we? Run a few minutes late somewheres, worried to death
about it. Everything about us is constrained by time. The Lord,
he's not constrained or restrained by time in any way. He created
time, he owns time, it's his time. It literally belongs to
him. And at the appointed time that
he has purposed before the world ever began, he comes to a sinner
whom he has chosen in the covenant of grace, whom he died for, whom
he loves, and he says, live. He does this faithfully to each
and every sheep that he has, each and every elect, child of
God, each and every person that he died for. He does this faithfully
to consistently without failing at the perfect appointed time. Then something, something amazing
happens. His faithfulness becomes our
plea. Our faithfulness is not my plea. Lord, look what I'm
doing. Look, Lord, what I'm not doing. Well, that's my faithfulness,
isn't it? He's not looking to that. No,
his faithfulness becomes our plea. Lord, look to Christ what
he did. Look to Christ on what his work. Don't look to me, not
unto us, O Lord, unto thy name be all glory. Don't look to me
for any righteousness whatsoever. It doesn't exist. Look to Christ
who is our righteousness. Second Thessalonians tells us,
but the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep
you from evil. The Lord is faithful to establish
you and to keep you from evil. David said, he pulled me out
of the mire, that mire's clay, that's dirt and filth, isn't
it? Pulled me out of the mire and he put my feet upon a solid
rock and he established my goings. put a new song in my mouth, even
praise unto God. What is that rock that he put
us on? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. The rock that cannot be moved,
the foundation of God standeth sure. Having this seal, the Lord
knoweth them that are his. I understand something very important
that's different than all religion. What we preach is this, that
is so different. His faithfulness is not determined
by our obedience. His faithfulness is not determined
by our obedience. Our obedience is determined by
His faithfulness. What do you mean by that? I mean,
we're gonna be obedient unto him because he's the one that's
faithful. He's the one that keeps us. We're
gonna love him because he's given us the love to love him. Our
obedience is determined because of his faithfulness, because
of his faithfulness. What obedience is that? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. If we believe, it's because he's
faithful. He's faithful and caused us to
believe. Our salvation's not based upon our choosing him faithfully,
but it's his choice that brought our salvation to be faithfully. And he faithfully reveals it
to his people. It is finished. Because we're one with him, as
the scripture talks about, we're one with him. Listen to what
he says in Revelation 17. If you're worried about Not being
faithful and we we do I want to be faithful to the Lord in
service. I want us to our Our church to be faithful unto the
Lord for him to have all the glory in it. I want to be kept
by him I don't want to be a reproach. I don't want to be known as being
unfaithful in preaching the gospel. It's a It's a frightening thing. I want us to be faithful. Listen
to this what he tells us in Revelation chapter 17 He is Lord of Lords
and King of Kings and they that are with him are called and chosen
and faithful. We're faithful in Christ. When
the father sees us, he sees the blood, he sees the faithfulness
of Christ. He sees the finished work of
the cross. He sees us as faithful, as faithful as his son, as faithful
as his son. That's grace, isn't it? That's
all grace. Last thing I want to point out
to us is he is faithful in keeping his people by his power. He's
faithful in keeping his people all by his power, all by his
strength, all by his might. You and I can't be faithful in
that. Our powers are limited. Our strength is limited. Our
might is limited. He's limitless in everything. As a matter of fact, he says
this, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I'll go with
you all the way, even to the end. Do you believe him? You
should. He's faithful. He's faithful.
I'm never gonna leave you. Even if we walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, he said, I will fear no evil. Why? Because
the faithful one is with me. The faithful one is keeping me.
His rod and his staff, they comfort me. Oh, he's faithful. He prepares a table before me
in the presence of my enemies. He anoints my head with oil.
My cup runneth over. Because he is faithful, surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and
I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Why? Because he
keeps his people in Christ. He said, I'll be with you all
the way, even to the end, and he is faithful. And one day,
he's promised he's coming back, and you can believe it. One day
the heavens are going to open up, and the Lord's going to descend
with a shout, the trumpet, the voice of the archangel, the dead
in Christ will rise first, then we which are alive and remain
shall meet them in the air. All the glory that he's put in
his people will be revealed because we will be conformed to the image
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we'll be revealed as what
the Lord sees as faithful. The Lord sees as faithful. You
know, the Lord does not look, understand this, this is something
that it's hard to understand. We just believe it by faith.
The Lord looks at you right now. If you are in Christ, I'm talking
about right now in the flesh, he looks at you. He does not
see sin upon you. Christ put that sin away. He does not see
that sin. He does not see that sin. He sees the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, perfectly righteous.
That's one of my children. Perfectly righteous, perfectly
holy because of his faithfulness, because of his faithfulness. On that glorious day, our Lord,
well, He is and will be on that day, our faithful advocate, our
faithful advocate. Recently, I had a situation where
I had to go to a courtroom and had to give my testimony as to
why I should be able to keep something that I have and somebody
else wants me to get rid of it. The ordinance is in place, so
I told them my side, and they asked me this question. Are you
representing yourself today? And I immediately thought, boy,
I need an advocate. I need a substitute. I felt that way, too. I need
an advocate, somebody that would plead for me here, somebody that
would help me here. I'm all alone. And these people
don't know me. I don't know them. I don't know
what's in their heart towards me. I need an advocate. I didn't
have one. But slowly, as I talked to these
people, they were down-to-earth people. Everything worked out
according to the Lord's purpose, and it was peaceful, and it wasn't
horrible. But if we ever stand before God
thinking that that's going to be the case, then we're fooling
ourself. You've got to have an advocate before Him. You've got
to have a substitute before Him. You have to have one that when
your name is called, He stands up and says, I'm representing
this one. This is my child, I'm representing
him. And when the Lord sees Christ,
he says, perfectly righteous, enter in thou good and faithful
servant. He will stand on our behalf that
day. He'll stand on our behalf that day, just as he's always
stood on our behalf. He's never not, he's always stood
on our behalf. He never failed to do that once.
And we will be declared as his people, as his chosen people,
perfectly righteous for one reason, for one reason, not by works
of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy. We'll be declared justified,
we'll be declared sanctified, glorified, the perfect righteousness
of God, not because how faithful we have been, but because of
how faithful the Lord Jesus Christ has been for his people. We will be called righteous because
of his faithfulness. He's faithful. No, he's faithful. Let's pray. Father, take these
words according to your will and bless them to our understanding.
Thank you for your faithfulness. Calls us to believe in Christ's
name. Amen. Let's take a break.