When We are Faithless, He is Faithful - Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Second Timothy, please, chapter two Before we read, we're gonna pray one more time. Father, we thank you for the word of God. Lord, renew and restore unto us the joy of thy salvation this morning. Lord, we ask that you would help us fall in love with Christ, and help us glean from the wisdom of the word. Help us feel our mortality this morning.

Peel back the veil between this world and the realm that we are going to enter into one day. Help us see eternity. Make us eternity conscience. Lord, you have promised the power of the Holy Spirit to those who would boldly declare your gospel. Give us that power this morning.

Let it be known, let it be felt, let our hearts testify that we have met with the living Christ on this Sunday morning. Save the sinner, sanctify the saint. Do what only you can do in our lives. We pray that you would do miracles in marriages this morning. We pray that you would provide the needs of those who have been desperately calling upon your name.

We pray that you would heal the sick. We pray, oh God, that you would you would mend what is broken. You would make callings clear. You would receive glory from our lives. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Second Timothy chapter two verse 11. The word of God reads, 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. Paul is ready to wrap up his series of encouragements for his spiritual son, Timothy, to endure in his calling and in his faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he does so by summarizing summarizing his insights with a saying, the saying. And this term, this phrase, the saying, is peppered throughout the pastoral epistles.

It's mentioned more than once. And it gives us the idea, some believe the impression that the early church had some creeds. They had hymns. They had sayings. They had quotes.

They had things that were shared amongst believers, and it could be very well that this was a popular one that Timothy himself was familiar with, and Paul is just bringing it back to his attention to say, you know this saying that you've heard? I want to let you know that it is trustworthy. Now no matter what format you think this is in, whether it's a song, a hymn, or a quote, or a creed, what's more important is believing and trusting in the reliability of what is being said. It's the content, not the package that it comes in that we should be concerned about. And the first thing that is mentioned about these lines that you and I just heard is that it is trust worthy.

It is absolutely dependable. It is rock solid. It is a mistake. It's, it's not something that you can move. It's not something that you can defy.

It is something that is clear and a bedrock that you can build your entire life on. Many people frame their lives based on things that they've learned from their upbringing, from philosophies that they have learned, or from different things, traditions of men that they have adopted. But this saying speaks of this life and the life to come, and it is credible and concrete. You can bank on it. You can rely on it.

You can frame your entire, and you should and you must as a Christian, frame your convictions and frame your life based on these wonderful yet dire truths. And it's beautifully structured. Four lines, four statements, if thens, if thens, if thens. And the first two are positive. The first two grant us some kind of hope for a reward, whereas the last two are warnings, and they should sober us.

And the very structure of these sayings or this saying, kind of gives us a hint of what we should adopt as Christians concerning a balanced view of who God is and what it means to be a believer in Christ. There's no guessing that an airplane with disproportionate features would guarantee a turbulent and even dangerous flight, and it is no different for the Christian. You and I must be balanced in our understanding of who God is, and we must understand all that he is and receive all that he is, or else we will have turbulence, unnecessary turbulence, and even put ourselves in great danger of where we're headed. Because we emphasize one thing over the other, or we ignore one thing over the other. So you and I must know the goodness of God and the severity of God.

We must know hope in God, and we must know a godly fear of God. We must know the rewards in Christ, and we must also know the warnings. The warnings that Christ gives even to those who profess to know his name. And if you and I receive that, if you and I have both wings, if you and I know that balance, we will know the fullness of God's purpose and we are headed to the right destination. And so let's explore these things.

Each line in itself is worthy of a message, but we're just gonna scrape the service the surface, and hopefully receive what God has in mind for his people from just touching the tip of the iceberg. If we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we have died with him, we will also live with him. Now at first reading, you might think this is speaking about martyrdom. That if you die for the name of Christ, if you're willing to endure physical suffering, then you will know resurrection hope.

And that would make sense because Paul here is in prison and he's ready to face his own execution. It would make sense for him to say that. It's worth dying for Christ because you will live. But I believe it's speaking about something else. There's a there's another form of dying that you and I are familiar with as believers that we must be familiar with.

It's a form of identification. It's a it's a daily dying. It's a dying that you and I did when we first confessed Christ, and it's something that you and I continue to do until we meet with Christ. And so this is not just giving us hope for eternal life, this is the recipe for knowing life with Christ now, today. And Paul spells it out in so many other places and he does so, so eloquently in the book of Romans chapter six verse four.

And you don't have to turn there. Just listen. He says, therefore, we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. See, speaking in the past tense here, you have died with him.

Not that you're going to die, but that you already have died with him. And because of that death that was exemplified by the illustration of water baptism, you're going in as the old, you're coming out as the new. We're gonna witness that next week, I found out. It's more than just dramatizing some spiritual truth. It's more than just some poetic thing.

Yeah, I've died with Christ. No, it's a reality. It's something that you actually do. It's something of a soul condition. It's the entry point, as Paul says, into walking in the newness of life.

That's not talking about eternal life. That's talking about now. That's talking about a newness of life now, a new outlook, a new in look, a new reality, a new perception, a transformed existence as a result of what? Making the conscious choice that I'm not just gonna believe in the cross of Jesus Christ, I'm gonna climb on that cross and get nailed with him. What?

For my salvation? No, for your discipleship. Salvation is free, but discipleship is very costly. So when Paul says if we have died with him, we will also live with him, it's a recipe of knowing how to live with Christ, not just in a search for a hope to come. And I want to show you, this is where I would ask you to turn, how Jesus illustrates that.

In John chapter 12 verse 20, this is an interesting passage. Jesus is ready to go to the cross. He's in Jerusalem. They're celebrating the feast. In verse 20 of chapter 12, we read, now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks what are Greeks doing in Jerusalem?

So these came to Philip who was from Bethsaida in Galilee and asked them, sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew, Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus, here's some Gentiles, and the question is, what are you doing in this neighborhood? You're a Gentile. They must be converts to Judaism. And here they are because we know that there are certain feasts that call for all people who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

You must come to the feast and celebrate certain feasts at the temple in Jerusalem. So they're there. And they realize that this Jesus that they heard about from a distance is actually not too far from this area, and so they find Philip. Maybe they knew him from beforehand, but they find Philip and they say, we wish to see Jesus. We want to come closer to him.

We want to have a face to face encounter with him. We want to hear the jewels of truth and wisdom, not from secondhand experience, but we want to know it for ourselves. I read that the other night and I thought to myself, I'm reading this verse and I'm looking at my heart. Can I say the same thing today? I wish to see Jesus.

Do I really want to know not some mystical vision like, Lord show up in my room. I'm talking about a closer communion with Christ. A greater knowledge of Christ. A closer examination of Christ. I wish to know him.

I don't want to know him from a distance. Let me come close as possible to him. Many Christians wish for other things. We wish to see Jesus. So they come up to Philip, and Philip hears these foreigners that want to meet with the Jewish Messiah, and so he doesn't know what to do.

He's perplexed. So he goes to his buddy Andrew. He doesn't know what to do. So they look at each other, just go to Jesus. And what's more perplexing than this situation for these disciples is how Jesus answers.

What does he say in verse 23? And Jesus answered them, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Profound, glorious, wonderful, worthy of great meditation, but it doesn't seem to clarify whether these Greeks are going to be able to see Jesus.

And we never actually get the answer of whether or not these Greeks were able to physically meet with Christ. And it seems like this profound answer is unrelated to the situation. Like, why is the Lord Jesus saying this at this time? And it's because it's not unrelated. Because what these Greeks asked for was a preview of something to come.

You see, the Lord stops in this moment and he looks at his disciples and he's clarifying. Do you realize that these Greeks who are asking to see me, this is a sign of the budding of the harvest that is to come. Do you realize that this is now the dawn on the horizon of redemptive history, where me as the savior is going to reach out not just to my own people, but to the four corners of the earth. And here we see Greeks asking for Jesus. And that's clarified by the fact that he speaks about his death.

He says it right here, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Philip, Andrew, I want you to realize what you see here is a sign that's only gonna fully manifest when I finish and complete my mission on the cross. There's gonna be many more Greeks, and Chinese, and Arabs, and Canadians, and South Americans that are gonna ask, we wish to know Jesus. We wish to see Jesus.

And so Christ here is clearly clearly anticipating clearly anticipating to be baptized with this suffering, so that he can know the full reward of it. And what's amazing here that this text even proves that Christ had to die. He had to die. Had he had preserved his life, it would have been like a farmer keeping a grain of wheat in his hand and refusing to give it up so that a harvest would come. He had to go to the cross.

And we say amen. We say amen to that powerful truth because you and I are the fruit of this truth. You and I are the fulfillment to a certain part of this prophecy, of this parable. But listen, this is not just about Jesus. This is about you and me.

What do you mean? Would you like to know this morning how you can know fruit in your life? I'm speaking about a cultivation of true life, true life, not existence. A lot of people are existing. They're not living.

I'm talking about a fragrance of peace and joy, a solid satisfaction, a contentment, a knowing of purpose, a wholeness, a sense of joy and purpose and sustaining grace. You know what you have to do? The same thing Jesus did, die. Die to yourself this morning. You're saying, how can you apply such a text that clearly speaks about Christ and his gospel work and bring about us, and point it to us.

Because I didn't do it. Jesus did. Look at verse 25. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Christ is not introducing a new teaching here.

It's totally related to his previous point about his own journey to the cross. So what how did he go from, look what my death is going to bring about, to you need to lose your life. Because Christ going to the cross is not just the means of our salvation, it's the model for our living. It's as though he's saying, as dying is the only way for me to reap a harvest, so dying to yourself is the only way to enhancing your life to an incomparable enrichment, which will only lead to eternal hope and eternal honor. There's no way around it.

If you really want to know life, you will surrender to the author of life. But if you hate yourself, you want to know if I can tell you how much you hate yourself by this, that you refuse to give your life to a God who will orchestrate it perfectly. When I look around at people who don't have Christ in their life, I don't pity, rather I don't envy. I pity. Why?

Because it's as silly as a farmer who holds on to one grain of wheat and says, I want to preserve and hold it, instead of surrendering it so that he can win a harvest. He can win a harvest. He can know fruit. He can know abundance. And all he's doing is collecting his little life in his hand.

So then the question is looking at this, what does it mean to die with Christ? What does it mean to die? It's the same thing as denying yourself. And if you want to know this in great detail, there's a message on YouTube from this pulpit called the joy of self denial. It breaks it down in great, great detail.

But if you wanna summarize what it means to deny yourself, when you take all the pieces of what it means to to die with Christ, it ultimately means that you place the interest of Christ above your own, and that you are willing to give costly acts of love with no motivation of receiving anything in return. And this way of life is not just a rule for Christian keeping. No, listen. It's the recipe for happiness. We almost divorce God's glory with our joy when God's glory is our joy.

It's our satisfaction. That's the manual. You can't change it. That's the way God ordained it. The path to joy is on the path of glorifying Christ.

And I didn't say it. Jesus himself said it in Acts twenty thirty five, through the mouth of the Apostle Paul. You know what so interesting about what I'm about to read? You can't find it in any gospel account. Paul says, in all things I've shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

You can't find that in Matthew, you can't find that in Mark, you can't find that in Luke, you can't find that in John. So it must have been passed down orally. But listen, the Holy Spirit thought it's so necessary that it would not just be passed down through oral tradition, that it would be marked and engraved in the eternal scriptures. This is one of the few sayings of Jesus that are found outside of the gospel, proving the uttermost importance of believing it. It is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

Jesus didn't say it's not a blessing to receive. That wouldn't be true. We've all been blessed by receiving something. But he is saying that there is a greater blessing in extending your hand rather than just opening it. Is that true?

Can we really believe that? It is more blessed to give than to receive. Like, if you want blessed simply means happiness. You wanna know more hap genuine happiness, then orchestrate your life, frame your life where you are giving more than receiving. And listen, that doesn't mean you you get presents more for people than you receiving presents.

Now what did Paul say earlier? He just said it right here. We must help the weak. See, Paul was a man who provided for his own means. He was never a burden on other people.

But Paul went beyond that. He also helped those who couldn't help themselves. And then what does he do? He quotes Jesus saying, this is our duty. We must do it as followers of Christ.

He goes, no. There's a greater blessing in that. There's a greater blessing that simple simple observation. Think about the most self centered person you know, and of course, it wouldn't be you. Right?

Oh, I can think of a 100 other people who are more self centered than me. But seriously, think about somebody that you might know that is so self centered, so self absorbed, so to themselves. Everything about their relationships is about them doing something for you. Now let me ask you this, follow it up with this. Are they the happiest person you know?

Clearly not. It's just a law of life that Christ has ordained, and he's not blowing smoke here. He's not just saying it so that he can give us some kind of hype of living a sacrificial life. He lived it. You know the famous words, right?

That it is the food, my food to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. It is my food. Food, a universal thing that we all are familiar with, that we can all relate to. That when I eat, I'm satisfied, I'm full, I'm sustained. And he says, you know what food is to the body?

Obedience is to the soul. It is so fulfilling. It is so enriching. It is so, if I can use this word, tasty. It brings flavor to my life.

Obedience. And you know what's so amazing? Jesus said this in the context when he was hungry and weary, and his own disciples had to go and grab lunch. And the opportunity presented itself for him to witness to someone and to lead her to salvation while he was grumbling in his stomach, and his mouth was probably parched. And then he he says on the arrival of his disciples, when they bring him the food that they were sent to go get, I ate.

And they're wondering, who got you food? And he clarifies, you don't understand. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me. You know what's so incredible about that? We read that so quickly, and we don't we don't understand the implications of it.

Though he was hungry and weary, the opportunity to perform the father's will presented itself, he obeyed, and when he did, the joy of the obedience was so powerful that it actually silenced his physical hunger. It it actually eliminated and helped him forget his own fatigue and personal need. Think about that. If such fulfillment comes from walking in obedience to Christ, a sacrificial life that can actually silence the needs that you and I must have in this life. Because Jesus often obeyed God and he didn't even have time to eat.

And do you think he complained about it? No. He said, that's my food. Like even if it cost me my lunch and my breakfast, that's my food. There's such a thrill in this.

There's such a satisfaction that it actually quenches my desire to to meet a physical and human need. Now if it can do that, how much more can it silence the things that our flesh desires that we shouldn't have anyway? Think about it. If Christ here says, I can obey God to the degree that I don't have to complain that I didn't eat today, didn't go where I wanted to go today, that it canceled my appointments that I had planned today. If it can do that, what can it do with your sin?

The temptation that continually gnaws at your soul and the grumblings from within that are calling you to satisfy the desires of the flesh. If it can quench physical hunger, surely you can quench temptation. Surely there's a joy in walking with God that helps you soar above these things that try to live, get you to live a lesser life. And Christ being weary and hungry proves that it's not always convenient to serve Christ. It's not always convenient.

It's inconvenient oftentimes. But there's still a joy in it, and it makes it worth it. It makes it worth it, and Timothy needed to hear that. Timothy was gonna face many many many many many many trials. Persecution is breaking out.

There's gonna be a cost to follow Christ. You might have to run away. You might have to hide. You might have to know days of hunger, sleepless nights. But Timothy, if you've died with him, you will know life.

It will be worth it. It will be worth it. Then he goes on to say something that parallels it. If we endure with him, we shall also reign with him. And so you can almost say that the the dying with him is very similar to enduring because it's not just a one time thing.

You endure dying to yourself. You continue to walk in that lifestyle of crucifying the flesh. And he says, if you endure listen, the reward is not just that you know life with him now, but there is a future reward, which doesn't mean much to many Christians today by the way. Why? Because it's not immediate gratification.

It's not tangible now. It's a future thing. It's almost in our minds like theory. Maybe it will happen. I'll find out when I get there.

That's not how the new testament believers believed about eternity. It wasn't some wishful thinking. It wasn't a haze. It was as clear as you see me right now in this moment. He says, if we endure, we will reign with him.

I'm not gonna unpack this in great detail because we talked about crowns a few weeks ago. But it does beg the question, how much of eternity is in our thinking? How much of eternity or does it just erupt when we go to a funeral? If you don't have eternity in your thinking, you will not know true endurance. It's as simple as that.

It's very difficult for a Christian to be able to endure unless they really trust and believe of an eternal realm that is to come and swallow up this world and be more real than you can ever imagine. How do you endure people scorning you? How do you endure people slandering you? How do you endure people betraying you if you don't believe that one day the judge of the earth will do right and he'll defend your cause? How do you endure your personal suffering?

How do you endure anything when you do not understand that one day this flesh will be peeled off, and you'll be clothed with glory? And so it affects absolutely everything. And for Timothy, it was gonna affect him as he was ready to face great trials in his life. Now here comes the negative. He goes from the positive.

He goes from, if you die with him, you will live with him. If you endure, you shall reign with him. Now pay attention to something that you're not gonna hear often in American Christianity. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we deny him, he will also deny us.

Paul words are not new. He's quoting the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew ten thirty three, but whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my father who is in heaven. You know, there's gonna be a few things we're gonna say in heaven, I'm sure, when we get there. And I think one of the two things that we'll say is, you're here?

You're here? You got here? Let's go sit over there and talk about your testimony. You know what else we're gonna say? We're so and so.

Where's so and so? Whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my father who is in heaven. Some might argue that this text has nothing to do with Christians because true Christians, true believers, genuine professors of Christ cannot deny Christ, which is true. While others would argue that this does apply to professing Christians because Paul says if we deny Christ, he will also deny us. Implying the possibility of someone who once confessed Christ to later disown him for a variety of reasons.

Whichever side you hold to, one thing you cannot deny this morning, this is applicable to Christians. This is applicable to those who profess Christ, and you know this by now, that not everybody who professes Christ is a Christian. You know that. You know that just because somebody comes to church every Sunday morning means that they're born again, that they're heaven bound. You know that.

Sometimes that doesn't show, even in this life, but in the life to come. And Paul is saying this, and it makes sense for him to mention at this point because he himself was paying the price for his allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was ready to die for Christ. He was not gonna deny his Lord. And now from this position, he is coaching Timothy because Timothy is very likely to face his own test of faith and he is reminding him, Timothy, don't deny Christ.

Don't back down. Hold firm. Confess him unto death. Because if you do, you will reign with him. If you do, you will live with him.

But how would someone who professed Christ publicly, who even served in some kind of ministry, even entertain the possibility of denying Christ, and it is really for one simple reason. The cost of discipleship becomes too great for them. See, we limit this idea of denying Christ if somebody points a gun to your head and says, renounce your faith, or I'm gonna blow your brains out. But that's not the only way people deny Christ. It's not only in the form of persecution.

It's not only in the form of threats for your life. Many people give up their fidelity for Christ and in Christ once they reach a breaking point, when they realize that there is a cost while I'm living to this whole living under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And so yet people say, God, ever since I followed you, you've done nothing but ruin my relationships. I've lost my friends. I've had to say goodbye to family members.

Can't find a spouse, making it very hard for me to get married. I didn't realize how difficult it was to actually you know, I heard, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, though none go with me, but I thought that was just some exciting song, but now I'm living it. And I don't I'm not sure if I really want to do this whole standing for righteousness thing anymore. I'm not sure if I'm willing to do this because I'm better off living my own way. If this is what it means to have Jesus Lord of my life, to know loneliness, and to know pain, and to see a sword cut through my household, I'm I'm not sure if I'm up for it.

Lord, you've called me into the ministry. You've called me to serve you. I'm getting paid way less than I thought, and I could be making much more money than I'm what I'm doing right now. And the people that I'm trying to help are making this so much more difficult than it needs to be. And here I'm looking out into the world and I see the wicked prosper and they know peace and they know health in their families and here I am suffering for something future?

I quit. I'm giving in my two weeks, there's no way I signed up for this. This was all fun and exciting in the beginning when I first got saved, and I says, you know, I'll do anything you call me to do, but once I realized this is what my existence is gonna look like, forget about it. Lord, you give me a child, and you flick my daughter with cancer, and you take her away from me on top of that. I've devoted my life to you.

I've pledged to raise her up to follow you. And here I am, a faithful servant of Christ, and you're gonna take away my baby from me. I renounce a God who treats his children in such a way. You see, denial is not always the reaction to persecution. It is often the fruit of unmet expectations.

Go a couple of chapters after this, in chapter four of second Timothy verse 10. For Demas, in love with this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica, Christians also has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Demas, you see him in different epistles, a fellow worker of Paul, a missionary. And all for a sudden, in the greatest time of Paul's need, Demas bails. Why does Demas bail?

Why? We have a great reason to believe that when he saw what the price ultimately was, it was all exciting to travel with us, Paul. It was great to see miracles and for people to appreciate you and to applaud you because here's a man of God coming into town, and he travels with Paul. I loved all of that, but you're telling me I have to go to jail? You're telling me that I might actually lose my life?

You're telling me that this is what my future might look like, like this Paul? Forget about it. And what his heart ultimately proved was, he really loved the world more than Christ. And when the opportunity came, he disowned his Lord. And he pursued the comforts of this world and the freedoms of this world, and I only had one question running through my mind when I read about Demas and Paul.

Who do you think is regretting it now more? You're saying, brother, this is messing with me. I hope that's a good thing. What about Peter? He denied Christ.

He did deny Christ. Three times, he denied Christ. What about it? It was a momentary failure. And Christ is so forgiving, his arms are so wide that even with the grave sin of denying him, he was willing to embrace him again, and take him back, and hold on to him, and commission him afresh.

You know, I always wondered why would the Holy Spirit include one of the greatest sins you can commit to one of the greatest apostles that ever lived? Why? Why are you gonna embarrass Peter and put his denials in the New Testament for us to read and study about? You could have excluded that. And I believe it's to show that if God in Christ was willing to forgive, the very sin that he says, I will deny you before my father who is in heaven.

If he's willing to forgive such a sin, how much more is he willing to forgive? How much more is he willing to to say, I look past it. I forgive you. But this denial, this denying of Christ, this is a permanent sense of saying, I'm out of this. I disown you.

I'm not living for you anymore. You're not my Lord. You're not my savior. I'm pressing the eject button and I'm doing this my way. And we know that the different soils prove that that is possible when Jesus taught about it.

And Jesus wants us to understand through the words of Paul, if a person denies him, he will also deny them. And what's interesting is, he parallels that with the next verse, in verse 13. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. So we exhale. That was a tough verse before that.

That was really, really tough. That was that was difficult to deal with. And then we come to an often quoted verse that has comforted so many believers. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. But remember what I said in the beginning, that this is a pair of two positive conclusions and two negative.

You read that on the surface level, it it sounds like it's something that says, you know, regardless of whatever your confession was and if you abandoned it, the faithfulness of God will override your unbelief, and he'll keep his side of the covenant, and he's gonna drag you in whether you want to or not. That's not what it's saying here. If you wanna know what Paul is saying here, you have to ask one simple question. If we are faithless, let's put that aside, he remains faithful. Here's the question, to who?

Does he remain faithful to the faithless, or does he remain faithful to something else? And the question is, it's someone else. Who himself? If we are faithless, he remains faithful to who? Well, he says it.

For he cannot deny himself. So it's about the faithfulness of God towards his own character, his own word, his declarations. So we have to understand first that this word faithless here, it's not speaking about a fluctuating devotion. It's not speaking about moments of doubt, moments of temptation, or even seasons of sin necessarily. This word faithless is speaking about unbelief.

Faithless. No faith. And so the idea is, again, a disowning, a disbelieving in someone or something. And so he's paralleling what he said before. If we are faithless without faith, guess what?

He's still faithful. To what? To himself. What do you mean? Unlike man who is willing to make many promises to Christ and to others and take back their word, when God says something, he will keep it.

When God declares something, not only will he not change it, he can't. I didn't say God won't lie. I said he can't lie. It's impossible for him. So while man fluctuates in their pledges and in their vows, when God has decreed something, it's sealed, it's final, you can trust that he'll never change what he has established in his word.

So what does this have to do with what we just read? Well, if you deny him, guess what? He is faithful to deny you. Really? So while man is trying to reconstruct the doctrine of hell and are trying to tranquilize the threatenings of God and his righteous wrath, They're wasting their time, because they can convince themselves and convince their congregations, but God has already determined, I am faithful to my word.

If you want to be in unbelief and reject my salvation, I'm not changing my mind. You will be condemned. You will face an eternal hell. You will know the wrath of God forever and ever, because I'm faithful to what I have said. And see, this is how we're making God in our own image.

If you want to know what this whole thing is about when people are trying to reinterpret the word of God, it's idolatry. Why? Because you're trying to make God like man. Why? Because God, true, the true God doesn't change his word.

Man does. And so we're trying to take what we do and place it on God. So who are we really worshiping? Who are people really worshiping when they're saying there's no more hell? Christ is not the only way.

Who are they really worshiping? They're worshiping themselves. Because man lies. Man changes their word. Man changes their promises and takes back what they've said.

God doesn't. So we're taking what man does and we try to pin it on God and we're saying, this is God. No. You're worshiping you. If we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself.

And people will alter and change their convictions about truth, but God is saying, I am unchanging. And my word is as unchanging as I am as God. My threats, my judgments, and my wrath about those who are unbelieving has not and will not change until it is accomplished. Saying, I don't know if I can quote that verse the same way I've been quoting it over the years. Man, this is a lesson to being very careful how we take verses out of context.

It sounds nice on its own, but when you when you honor the surrounding truths, we see what's really being said. Now, let me say this. I'm very certain that most of us in here might feel a little troubled by what was just said. But at the same time, I believe what you just heard concerning the faithfulness of God to himself should be one of the most comforting things that you can grasp about God. I don't want to downplay the seriousness of this text.

It is terrifying for those who are in unbelief. You should tremble. You should lose sleep at night. As one preacher said, one sleepless night on earth is better than a thousand in hell. If you don't know if you're saved, realize this, God is faithful to his word.

If you don't know if you've truly believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, you better figure it out quick. God is faithful. God is faithful. He's not gonna change his mind. But this truth, I'm not reading it as a faithless person.

I'll preach it to those who are faithless, and to those who deny the gospel, and deny the lordship of Jesus Christ. Yeah. That's our duty. But I'm reading it in light of, I've died with him. And by the grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I'm enduring for him.

So I look at that truth and I realize he's faithful not just in his judgments, not just in his decrees concerning wrath and discipline, but in the fact that I will live with him and I will reign with him. You see, the reason why you can be comforted by this truth, although for the faithless, it is a horror in a holy way. It is a joy and it is a comfort. You know why? Because there's not one morning where I wake up and I think that God changed his mind today.

Did God take back his promises? Is God gonna give me up? Is there one verse in my Bible or is there a certain thing that I've I've latched onto to bring me hope in this season? Did God did God change his mind about that? There's not one day where you and I should even think about that as a possibility.

He can't ever, ever, ever lie. Ever. You see the promises of God are a wonderful thing. What makes the vows of God so precious are not the promises in themselves, it's who is promising. It's the unbreakable faithfulness of the promiser that makes the promises of God so precious.

See, if I'm a person who has broken my word to you many times before and I come up to you and I make you a promise, I'm gonna come and help you move next week, or I'm gonna come and I'm gonna do this for your family in a couple months, That doesn't mean very much, if anything at all. But if I'm somebody who has always and consistently kept my word when I said, yes, it is yes. When I said, no, it is no. And I come to you again and I bring another assurance, you will know something of rest. You're not gonna be in anxiety.

You're not gonna worry if I'm gonna change. You're at rest because there's something about my reputation that makes the promise valid and comforting and assuring. God is faithful. He's faithful to me. As much as he is faithful to judge the wicked for denying the gospel, he is faithful to keep me, sanctify me, and provide for me as one who is latch on to faith in Him.

And this is what we have to understand, and Timothy needed to understand it as well. Yeah, it was a warning, but you can look at it in a different sense. So as much as this is has a context, it's still a principle about who God is. And I read this and I thought to myself, with that truth being known, though the context is warning about apostasy, how familiar are you this morning with the promises of God? Think about it.

Be honest with yourself. How familiar are you with the promises of God? What what collection have you made with God's pledges and his vows towards you that you've locked in your heart and that you revisit when you need to know what God said about this circumstance or this situation. Because you're dealing with someone who never lies, who never lies. And that should cause a faith to arise.

If God said it, it's gonna happen. If God said it, it's going to if he did it with them, he can do it with me because he cannot deny himself. You know what's at stake? God's glory, God's reputation. And so God's ultimate motive in being faithful even to you is not you and me, it's himself.

He can't deny himself. We have no problem marring our reputation, and we have a little concern, but when we really really want to do something for self, we're willing to to just smear what people think about us so that we can escape some kind of commitment. God can't. He won't. He's unable to do so.

Numbers twenty three nineteen tell us, God is not man that he should lie. Or a son of man that he should change his mind as he said, and he will not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Muslims love to use this text and say, oh, God. See, God can't become a man.

It doesn't say that. It says he's not man. He can become a man, and he did in the person of Jesus Christ. This is not to say that he can't become a man. This is to say that he's not like us.

He's making a great contrast as Timothy is in the scripture. Man lies, God doesn't. Man says something and they change their mind, God doesn't. When God says something, he fulfills it. Men often say things, and they don't accomplish what they said they would do.

Build your life on this bedrock. Build your life on this saying, if we have died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we shall reign with Him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful.

You know, people get concerned about this whole denial thing. If the temperature gets right, am I willing to deny him? Have you ever thought that thought? Have you ever imagined yourself in a scenario? If Isis were to just bulge in here right now and point weapons at us, what am I willing to do?

Have you ever thought about that? I don't think we should be asking that question. I think the simple question we need to be asking is, do you want to deny him? Of course not. Then know this, he will empower you to remain faithful.

He will. He'll give you a grace and a strength. You read about these martyrs in the past, and I've always wondered, how is it that these people can go to the stake tied up and burned alive, and they're singing hymns? How can that be? And I believe that there is a supernatural impartation in that moment that God gives to those who truly belong to Him to remain faithful until the end.

If he's willing to give you power to be a witness in your gospel presentation, surely he's willing to give you the power to be a witness in your martyrdom. And that's a joy that we can have. I wanna bring up one more point before we close. It's in Romans fifteen three. I love this verse about Jesus.

When we think about Jesus dying to self, we think about the crucifixion. Jesus died to himself every single day, and it just culminated at the cross. In Romans fifteen three, for Christ did not please himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me. When I read that, I I was just enraptured with praise, for Christ did not please himself.

What does that mean? Well, go to verse two and look what Paul says earlier. He's bringing this up as a point. He's bringing this up as an apologetic. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

To build him up. So you know what's happening here? If you wanna know what it means to die to yourself, it looks like what we just read in verse three. Yes, it means obeying God's will. And listen, the basic you wanna know the foundational thing of denying yourself?

It's not living in sin, but that's elementary. Okay. I won't live in in the sin that I once lived in. That's wonderful. That's important.

But that's ground level. On top of that, you say, I'm going to obey the will of God because that is my food. It's going to satisfy it's going to bring me joy. And then from that, it looks like not pleasing yourself. What does that mean that Christ didn't enjoy himself?

No. It means that Christ didn't put himself first. Remember the context of Romans 14. Romans 14 was those who are weaker in faith, that couldn't eat certain food and recognize certain days holier than others. And those who are stronger in faith, they didn't see as some food that was contaminated.

They they said, it's all sanctified. Those are the more mature spiritually. And Paul's making the case, listen, you who are mature, you who are stronger, lay aside your rights. If if eating that meal offends your brother, not saying feed his legalistic mindset. If he's genuinely coming from a background where this conflicts with his convictions and he needs to he needs to grow a little bit, lay aside your right to love him.

And as he is trying to get these people to believe that he comes to this point, Jesus did not please himself. In other words, if my conduct affects the spiritual condition of my brother, that I'm willing to change my conduct. Well, that's not right. That's denying yourself. That's to die to yourself.

And you're saying, well, it's my duty. It's not just your duty. There's a blessing in that. There's a happiness in that. There's so much more that can be said, so I'm gonna restrain myself this morning.

But consider these things in the presence of the Lord. Bring them before God, and let's pray and ask him, Lord, help me die to myself. Help me endure. And maybe for some, maybe for some, do I really know Christ? Do I really know that he's my savior and he's my Lord?

And then praise him because he is faithful. We thank you for these words. We thank you for these sayings that, again, we admit are worthy of greater meditation. But Lord, for the sake of this task this morning, give us the grace to digest what we received. Thank you for the goodness and the severity of God.

And Lord, instead of denying you, we wanna deny ourselves. We ask that you would help us to do that for the sake of your glory first, but Lord also so that we can know a harvest. We choose to open our hands and not try to clench onto our own lives as a farmer would a seed. We choose to surrender it and bury it unto death, so that life and blessing can flow from that place of sacrifice. Lord, we admit that denying ourselves is not easy.

It's difficult. That cross feels heavy some days. Left to ourselves, we would have everything orbit around us. But Lord, we know that we are miserable in that condition. Help us really believe you when you said blessed.

It's more blessed to give than it is to receive. That's where life is. Help us endure. Help us see the eternal reward at hand. And Lord, for those who are in unbelief and they could be in church, help them realize the seriousness of that unknown condition of hanging in the balance between an eternal glory and an eternal hell.

Let them not wait, oh God. Let them not wait to give themselves to you. And Lord, we pray that when the cost of discipleship is heavy, though thoughts may ring in our mind, we don't want to deny you. You're worthy of 10,000 lives to be lived for you. And Lord help us realize that whatever pain is experienced, whatever suffering, it is momentary.

And it will make our entrance into the eternal shores that much more wonderful When we escape all tears and hunger and betrayal and slander and violence and enter into a world, it will make our sigh that much greater. It will make our relief that much more profound. So we trust in you. Thank you Lord that for those who are truly saved, you never let us go, and you will bring to completion the work that you began in us. Thank you because you are faithful, you will do it.

We worship you in light of these truths today in Jesus name. Amen.