in our study of God's attributes. I do want to continue with that. One of the great divine attributes that we don't stress nearly enough is God's faithfulness. The Bible from cover to cover, beginning to end, testifies of God's immeasurable faithfulness. In the study of the attributes of God, faithfulness is not normally at the top of the list. This attribute is not even listed in many of the more popular or well-known systematic theologies. It is, however, one of the attributes that gives the Christian hope in all the promises of God. In a world that beats us up daily, in a society that assaults us constantly, and with a sinful heart that strives to rob us continually of our hope in Christ, God's faithfulness gives us that blessed confidence and renewed vigor in our faith. Because we know that we can rely on and trust in God and all that He says. For us, he says everything to us in his word. And the Christian who does not read God's word regularly, that does not meditate on it often, will likely be deprived of divine joy and peace and hope. But when we speak of God's faithfulness, we are primarily speaking of his faithfulness to his people. In the Old Testament, God is seen as being faithful to His people Israel. In the New Testament, He's seen as being faithful to the people in His church, both corporately and individually. And His faithfulness is set alongside and in stark contrast to the unfaithfulness of both Israel and the church. Although Israel had so many benefits from God, Paul lists some of those in Romans 9, verses 4 and 5, where he says that the Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all the eternally blessed God. Amen. The benefits are sadly almost on every page of Scripture and we see that Israel was unfaithful still. In the New Testament we see it as well. Over and over again we see the writers of the New Testament confronting believers in their sin and their lack of love for God. We even see it in the book of Revelation where Jesus is rebuking the churches for their unfaithfulness to Him. But in spite of all of God's people's unfaithfulness to Him, whether it's Israel or whether it's the church, God still remains true. And He will remain true to His promises to His people for eternity. And this is why our salvation and so many other things we have are not dependent on us. What we have from God is because of His faithfulness. But how exactly do we define God's faithfulness? What exactly is that? Well, divine faithfulness is God's trueness to His Word toward His people based on the promises He has made and recorded in Scripture. The Old Testament word for faithfulness is imunah. We get the word amen from this in the New Testament. It means firmness or certainty. When God makes a promise, and He keeps that promise, which He always does, He is faithful to the promise He made. So all of God's promises can be relied on. They are firm. They are absolutely certain. That's because of His faithfulness. Interestingly, the Hebrew word, when it is expressed in its basic form, only occurs in the Old Testament in a participle form, which is a continuing action. And when it's used of God, it shows us His continuing, unfailing faithfulness. So I want to begin our study this morning on God's faithfulness with first looking at God's faithfulness to Israel. You can't help but notice God's faithful in the first book of the Bible. This is where God's faithfulness begins. If you turn to Genesis 12, we'll look at this. It really starts here in Genesis 12 and then continues really through all of the Old Testament and all the way through the New Testament. as the New Testament ends with a description of us in glory in the book of Revelation. But beginning here in Genesis with God's faithfulness to His people, Genesis chapter 12 and verses 1 to 3, you may be familiar with this. This is what we call the Abrahamic Covenant. I'll go ahead and read that in verse 1, Genesis 12. Now the Lord had said to Abram, get out of your country from your kindred and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." The first thing that we see here in verse 1 Is it, well, in all three verses we see a three-fold promise in the Abrahamic covenant, but in verse one we see the first part of that promise, which is a land. He promised a land to Abram, or Abraham. He promised Abraham a permanent land to dwell in, a perpetual land. He says later on it will be a possession forever to Abraham and his descendants. He told Abraham to go to this land that he would show him in verse 1. This of course was the land of Canaan which would become Israel's and then be later known as the land of Palestine. This land promise is emphasized in Genesis, not only to Abraham, but also to Isaac and Jacob, his son and his grandson. And that's really what we see from Genesis 12 through the end of the book, is God talking about the Abrahamic covenant. The first part of which, as I said, is the land promise. But concerning this promise directly to Abraham, Genesis 12.7 says, you may want to jot these down or follow along with me. Genesis 12.7 says, Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants I will give this land. He said in Genesis 13, the next chapter, in verses 14 and 15. And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, and westward, for all the land which you see, I give to you and your descendants forever. Genesis 15, 7. Then he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it. Chapter 17, verse 8, also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. God also continued this promise of a permanent land. to Isaac, his son, in Genesis 26.4. He said, I will give to your descendants all these lands. same promise he made to his father Abraham. God also continued it to Jacob, Abraham's grandson, in Genesis 28-4, where he said, I will give you the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham. So here we see for three generations God continued the same promise. And of course, through Perpetual generations to your descendants forever He said again in Genesis 28 13 when Jacob had a vision of the ladder you remember that where he saw that that vision of the ladder to heaven and In that in that vision. He said to Abraham or to Jacob I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants and And again in 48.4, God told Jacob, Behold, I will give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession. So God promised a permanent land for him and his descendants. That was the first part of the promise. The second part of the promise is a seed in verse 2 of chapter 12. He says, I will make you a great nation. Now you remember Abraham didn't have any children at this time. He's 75 years old. His wife is 65 years old. They have no children and God said to Abraham, He will make him a great nation. But then in Genesis 13, 16, God said, I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered. A seed promise, a posterity promise, a promise of descendants that could not be numbered. God also said in Genesis 15, five, look now toward the heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. When I get up early, sometimes around three in the morning or four, depending on the time of year, I go outside. And of course, where I live out in black forest, you can see stars forever. And I just look up, and I look at those stars, and I remember this promise to Abraham. I can't imagine, you know, you just sit, and it's almost white, the stars that we can see, you know, where you're not close to the city. So, I can imagine when Abraham actually heard that from God, scratching his head, Lord, I'm about 75, 85 years old, and I'm gonna have these descendants? You gotta be kidding me. And as in this land promise, God also gave the same promise of a seed to Isaac. All three of these promises that God gave Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant, he repeated to Isaac his son and Jacob his grandson. Genesis 26.4, God said to Isaac, and I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven. same promise that he gave Abraham. Isaac also blessed Jacob and said to him in Genesis 28, three and four, now this is under the inspiration of the spirit, Isaac saying to his son Jacob, may God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may be an assembly of peoples and give you the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you. that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham." In Genesis 48, 3 and 4, Jacob then said this to Joseph, his son, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me and said to me, behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you and I will make of you a multitude of people. So God promised Abraham a land and he promised him a seed. Innumerable seed. A perpetual, everlasting possession of a land and innumerable seed. And then thirdly, he promised a blessing to Abraham in chapter 12, verse 3. Or more specifically, that Abraham would be a blessing to others. He says, and in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. All the nations of the earth in Abraham. God promised Abraham that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed by him. This of course is a reference to the world being blessed by the coming Messiah with the offer of salvation. Man had fallen into everlasting damnation when Adam disobeyed God in the garden. But God promised the seed of the woman to destroy the seed of the serpent and remedy the damage the serpent had done to mankind. The promise in Genesis 3.15. The seed of the woman would find its ultimate seed in Israel's Messiah, who would bring salvation from eternal damnation to all who would put their trust in him. And it would come through Abraham in this promise of being a blessing to all nations. Genesis 22, 18 says, and this was said to Abraham by God, in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed God also told Isaac in Genesis 26.4, again, God repeating the same promise of being a blessing to Isaac. In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And then in Acts 3.25, you remember Peter What he said in his sermon at Pentecost to the Jews He said you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers Saying to Abraham and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed So we even have the promise repeated by Peter in the New Testament of that promise of blessing to the nations given to Abraham Isaac and Jacob But the irony in Genesis is that God blessed Abraham and his sons in spite of their sins. This was an unconditional promise. An unconditional promise being one-sided. God said, I will do this. He didn't say, if you do that. He just says, I will do it regardless of what you do. It's a unilateral covenant. This is not a bilateral agreement between Abraham and God. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about this. didn't have this in my notes, but in Genesis 15, when God ratified this covenant with Abraham a little while later, he gave it to him in Genesis 12, but then ratified it in Genesis 15. You might remember that in Genesis 15, God told Abraham to slay several animals, cut them in half, and lay one half of the animals on one side, one half on the other side of a path that someone could walk through. And in ancient customs, this would be in a, I believe it was an Akkadian custom, when two parties made an agreement, this is what they would do. They would kill the animals, literally cut them in half, lay half on one side, half on the other side, wide enough for two people to walk through. Usually two kings or two parties would make this agreement. And what they did was, they would, after they had slaughtered the animals and split them, the two persons would walk through the path in between the two halves of the animals, and it was to signify that if either one of us breaks this covenant, so this should happen to us. Well, that's what God had Abraham do. He had them split the animals, lay them on their sides, and then what did they do? God put Abraham to sleep so he couldn't walk through the middle, so only God could pass through. And what did that signify? A unilateral covenant, a one-sided covenant. The covenant did not depend on Abraham at all. It depended 100% on God. And so if God made that covenant to Abraham to give him a land forever, to give him a seed that could not be numbered, and for Abraham to be a blessing to all nations until time would cease, God has to make good on that covenant. And Abraham had nothing to do with it. And that's why If you read the rest of this, you see this covenant unfold from Genesis 12 to the end of the book of Revelation. That's what this book is about, God being faithful to His covenant with Abraham. And Peter even reiterates it in the New Testament. And it will not be completely fulfilled until when? The millennial kingdom. when Israel realizes the full scope of the land that God gave them, the innumerable seed at its height during the Millennial Kingdom, and of course, the ultimate blessing to the nations, which is Christ ruling in the Millennial Kingdom. So it's from Genesis 12 literally to the end of the book of Revelation. It's all about the covenant to Abraham, which includes us, the church. the blessing to all nations. But Israel, in spite of this unilateral covenant, which they didn't have anything to do with, which they didn't deserve because of their sins, and of course the sins started right in the book of Genesis. I mean, if you made Genesis into a movie, I mean, this would be an R-rated movie. But God blessed them anyway. Why? Because they had nothing to do with it. It was unilateral. And God did it. Why? Because of His promise. He cannot break His promise. He's not like us. He made the promise, that was it. So if you want If you want to state a theme for Genesis, it would be God's faithfulness to His people in spite of their sins against Him. And I mean, just look in the book of Genesis. I mean, just look at the Old Testament. We might say that that's the theme for the entire Old Testament. God blessing His people in spite of their sins. Blessing them according to His promise in the Abrahamic Covenant. Over and over and over again we see Israel sinning and rebelling against God. And over and over and over again we see God faithful to His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He even states that in times when they're disobedient to show them that this has nothing to do with you. It's all on God. when the children of Israel were in bondage in Egypt and they cried out for deliverance. Why did God hear their cry? Because they were so righteous and the Egyptians were so sinful? Is that why? Exodus 2.24 says, God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. That's why He heard their cry. It had nothing to do with them. They were idolaters in the land of Egypt. when Israel sinned to the point of God sending them into captivity. This is what he said in Leviticus 26, 41 to 42. If their uncircumcised hearts are humble and they accept their guilt, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham. 2 Kings 13, 22 and 23, Hazael. the king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. But the Lord was gracious to them, and the reason the king did that was because they were in rebellion against God. So God sent Hazael to oppress them all the days of Jehoahaz. But the Lord was gracious to them, had compassion on them, and regarded them in their rebellion because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and would not yet destroy them or cast them from his presence." God destroyed all the other nations for their sins because they didn't have a covenant with him. He didn't make any promises to them. He only made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. when Israel rebelled against God in the desert. God gave them their daily needs anyway. Why? Psalm 105, 41 to 42 says, God opened the rock, and water gushed out. It ran in the dry places like a river. For He remembered His holy promise, and Abraham His servant. God wasn't being permissive with His people when He blessed them when they were sinning. He wasn't overlooking their sin. He was keeping His promise. In Israel's worship, they were to constantly remember the covenant with Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob, so they would never forget God's faithfulness to them. 1 Chronicles 16, 15-17. Israel is to remember His covenant forever, the word which He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham and His oath to Isaac, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel for an everlasting covenant. I mean, this is all through the Old Testament. Honestly, you really cannot understand the Old Testament unless you understand the Abrahamic Covenant. That's what the whole thing's about. So from the very first book of the Bible all the way through the Old Testament, the attribute that stands out and cannot be minimized is God's faithfulness. And he was faithful and is faithful to his covenant made with the fathers, as Peter said, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He promised them a land forever, a seed forever, and a blessing forever to all the families of the earth through the coming Messiah. You say, well, how faithful is God to his people? Well, this is what Moses said in Deuteronomy 7, 9. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Psalm 36.5 says, Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. and God will be worshiped for His faithfulness. Isaiah 49.7 says, Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, the Holy One, to Him whom man despises, to Him whom the nation abhors, to the servant of rulers. Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship. Why? Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel. Psalm 71.22 says, Also with the lute I will praise you and your faithfulness, O my God. Praising God for His faithfulness was central to the worship in Israel. And the faithfulness is faithfulness to His covenant. Psalm 92, 1 and 2 says, It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your lovingkindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. what should be our focus as God's people. David said in Psalm 37.3, dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. Feed on it. God's faithful, feed on it like it's your food. Well, God didn't just make a covenant with Abraham. He made a covenant with David as well. The Davidic Covenant recorded in 2 Samuel 7 verses 12 and 13. Here God promised David a perpetual king to sit on his throne, ultimately referring to the everlasting king in the person of Christ. So really the Davidic Covenant springs out of the Abrahamic Covenant. It's a narrowing of the Abrahamic Covenant. In the Abrahamic Covenant, we had a land, a seed, and a blessing. And now within that seed, we are going to have an everlasting King. That's really defining the blessing that will come upon every nation, the third aspect of the Abrahamic covenant. And speaking to David, of his son Solomon and his descendants, this is what God said in 2 Samuel 7, 12 and 13. He said, David, when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So we see more specificity to the Abrahamic Covenant within the Davidic Covenant. And as with that Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant was fulfilled because of God's faithfulness. Ethan, the psalmist in Psalm 89, verse 1 to 8 said, With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall be built up forever, your faithfulness you shall establish in the very heavens." So what aspect was Ethan talking about? What aspect of God's faithfulness was he speaking of? And he quotes God right after he said what he just said. saying, I have made a covenant, this is God speaking, I have made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn to my servant David. So Ethan is talking about the Davidic covenant here. He says, your seat I will establish forever and build up your throne to all generations. Then the heavens will praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints. faithfulness in the Davidic Covenant. For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of the Almighty can be likened to the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be held in reverence by all those around him. O Lord, God of hosts, who is mighty like you, O Lord? Your faithfulness also surrounds you. Verse 24, the same psalm, God speaking, But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with David, and in my name his horn shall be exalted. Verse 35, God says again, Nevertheless, my lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. God's faithfulness to David and the covenant he made with him is an extension and further clarification of the covenant he made with Abraham to bring his Messiah into the world to be a blessing to all the nations. But the godly in Israel always look to God's faithfulness, always. Psalm 143.1 says, give ear to my supplications, in your faithfulness answer me." In other words, the psalmist is saying, I'm a covenant child. Exercise your faithfulness and hear my prayer. Psalm 98.3 says, He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel. Also in Lamentations 3, 22 and 23, the all-familiar statement of God's absolute reliability. Jeremiah says, through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. That's where we get the well-known hymn, Lamentations 3, 22 and 23. And we could ask the question here, if Israel was not completely consumed for their sins, why aren't we completely consumed for our sins? It's the same reason Israel wasn't consumed. God's faithfulness. faithfulness to His promises. And that brings us to secondly, God's faithfulness to His church. We just looked at His faithfulness to Israel. Let's bring it home a little bit. His faithfulness to His church. If God is a faithful God, and He is, then he will always be faithful to his people, either in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Makes no difference. So the same theme of God's faithfulness that we see in the Old Testament, we see in the New Testament. Nothing changes. If you're familiar with the book of 1 Corinthians, you know that the Corinthian church was far from being a model church. There were numerous problems in this church. You may want to turn there. We'll look at that in a minute. Paul established the Corinthian church on his first missionary journey. I'm sorry, on his second missionary journey. And on his third missionary journey, he stayed there for two years. And there he was preaching and teaching and discipling the believers there. And in spite of all of his efforts, to mature this church, it just didn't seem to be working out. And this is very instructive for us, particularly for pastors and leaders, recounting some of the sins in this church. We learn from 1 Corinthians that there were divisions as to who was the most spiritual group, The church desired speakers with great oratorical skills rather than spirit-empowered preachers. There was incest in the church, fornication in the church, sexual deprivation in marriage to some in the church, divorce in the church, participation in idol feasts eating meats sacrificed to idols, women's liberation and feminism, desecration of the Lord's Supper, abuse of spiritual gifts, denial of the resurrection, and a failure to make good on promises to give financially. Now this is the perfect church for any pastor to want to go to. There were some serious problems in this church. And Paul had to address the problems, and that's why we have the book, 1 Corinthians. Now, if it was up to many of us to straighten this mess out, I'm sure many of us would have no mercy. We'd just go in blazing with guns. You know, God's way or the highway, I mean, if we had to write a letter, it'd probably be about a paragraph long. It wouldn't be 16 chapters. But look at how Paul began the letter in chapter 1. Verse 3, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you knew everything ahead of time, like I just recounted to you about this church, I'm sure you wouldn't start your letter that way. He says, I thank my God always concerning you. Really? Thank God for this? For the grace of God, which was given to you by Christ Jesus. Well, where's all this grace at? that you were enriched in everything by Him, in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift." I mean, God didn't withhold anything from this church. Complete blessing on this church, just like He blessed Israel in all of their sins. Complete blessing. eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, here it is, who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul looked toward the end of the promise when he was addressing this church. He wasn't necessarily looking at the problem or the problems. And then he says, here it is, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord. He puts it all on God. You're unfaithful, God is faithful. God's faithfulness does not depend on your sins. It's not a license to sin because God spanks really hard if you truly know Him. But the point is, it's not on us, it's on God. And Paul is saying here, it's God's responsibility to straighten you out, not me. It's not the pastor's job to stand up here and rail on the people. It's not. It's the pastor's job to preach. That's it. Preach the Word of God. That's what Paul does in this letter. He just gives them God's Word. How is God faithful to this messed up church? How is He faithful in any church? Oh, we're better than Corinth? Any church is better than Corinth? We're all sinners. This is always faithful. And he says it, God will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Did he say, do you see any conditions there? None. God, if you truly know Christ. Now, there were probably some in the church that didn't know Christ who said they did. But Paul knew that there were true believers in this church, even though they were acting this way. And he says, if you're a true believer, God will confirm you to the end. The mess will be straightened out. God was faithful then and He's faithful now to confirm Christians to the end. Messed up Christians to the end. Why? Because God's reputation is on the line. That's why. He has to make us blameless before Christ comes back. He has to. That was the promise. To be a special people, right? You know, even though we give up on people, I'm as guilty as anyone, God never gives up on His people. He doesn't. Because He's faithful. He's faithful to His promises. What are His promises to the church? To save from sin those He saves. He doesn't just save us from the penalty of sin. He saves us from the power of sin. What's salvation? What do we save from? We're saved from sin and its consequences. That's what salvation is. God not only saves us judicially, He saves us practically. He not only saves us from His wrath, He saves us from the sins that plunge us into that wrath. He doesn't just take care of the result, He takes care of the cause. So, if I'm an adulterer when God saves me, He doesn't just save me from hell. He saves me from adultery. He saves me from the sin that puts me in hell. If I'm a liar, when God saves me, He just doesn't save me from hell. He saves me from my lying. 1 Corinthians 6. He says here in verse 9, and Paul isn't saying you can go do whatever you want, because if you continue to do it, if you continue to live in rebellion against God, and you don't change, that means you're not God's. Because if you are His, He's going to change you. Look at what he says in chapter 6, verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? He's talking about people in the church. people who are continually unrighteous, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God." It will never happen. If you're that now, it needs to change before God takes you home or you're not going. Look what it says here in verse 11. And such were some of you. What happened? God changed them. You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. There's a transformation that takes place. And Paul knows, he knew that sometimes a transformation takes a while. And the ones who end up being transformed are the ones who are truly gods, and the ones who end up not being transformed are not. They're hypocrites. They never did truly understand salvation and trust Christ to save them from their sins. See, salvation is not just a transaction in heaven. You know, God's got this ledger. You got the lost column on this side and you got the saved column. He doesn't just move your name from lost to saved. That's not how salvation works. That's part of it. That's the judicial side. Salvation is also a transformation. It's not just a transaction, it's a transformation. where God takes the old desires for sinning and changes them into new desires for living in righteousness. That's a work of the Holy Spirit where he takes out the heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. So you can't just have your name changed from lost to saved and still keep living the way you always lived. That's not true salvation. So again, we're not saving ourselves. We don't do anything to save ourselves. God does it all because He's faithful. He is saving a holy people. He said it in Exodus chapter 20 and He said it in 1 Peter chapter 3. You are a precious and holy people. So, this is what Paul was telling the Corinthians in the very first chapter. If they were truly saved, God would sanctify them. He would change their desires. Paul was patient enough with them to keep exhorting them to walk in righteousness and not in sin. That's a pastor's job. Tell the people what God wants and what he doesn't want. And the Word of God by the Holy Spirit works in a believer's life. I don't need to be the fourth member of the Trinity. It really wouldn't work out real well. He knew that God worked through His Word, and the repetition of His Word, and the exhorting with His Word, and the proclaiming of His Word, until people changed. I mean, this is why preaching and teaching the Word of God is so crucial. That's the means by which God changes people. And it will do one or two things in your life. It'll either change you if you're a true believer in Christ, or it will drive you away if you're not. That's all. And I'm convinced that's why so many people go to these churches that don't preach the Word of God. They want to soothe their consciousness thinking they're okay with God when they're not. That's the reason so many go to churches who don't preach the Word of God. They want to be saved, but they don't want to do what God says. You can't have both. That's why so many people left Jesus, right? He had multitudes following Him until He started preaching and telling them what God demanded from them, and they, well, we don't want to listen to this. We just want to get some free food. Paul understood that it wasn't in him who sanctified God's people, it was God. Because he's faithful to what he said he would do. What did Matthew say under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the very first chapter of the New Testament? He's gonna send Jesus, right, to do what? Save his people from what? Their sins. And He keeps His promise. He said, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He said the same thing to all of His churches. I'm not just picking on a Corinthian church. The power to sanctify God's people is in the Word of God, not in our pushing and railing on them. You know, men, you cannot sanctify your wives. Only God can do that. Can't do it. You know, when I first got saved, ten years after I was married, I tried to sanctify my wife. Didn't work out real well. Ladies, you can't sanctify your husbands. Can't do it. Impossible. Only God can do that. And if your wife or husband is truly saved, God will do it because he must be faithful to his work of salvation. The problem for us is we don't know how long it's going to take or when it will occur. It might take a lifetime. I mean, looking at it from my wife's standpoint, she's probably wondering, how many lives does he get? We want it now. Sometimes, if we're honest with ourselves, we're the bigger part of the problem. You know, you leave the notes in the lunchbox, you know, the Bible verses. you know, a CD and a player with the radio on so when he starts his truck, you know, he's listening to this powerful message to change. But sometimes we won't take the log out of our eye to help our brother or sister or husband and wife or child with the speck in their eye. You want to help God in someone else's sanctification process? We all want to help. We all have good intentions. Just do what God says. Take the log out of your eye, and then you can help someone else with the speck in their eye. That's what Jesus said. You can still help, but the perspective's got to change. The method's got to change. This is really hard for parents. I mean, this is really hard. The older they get, the worse it becomes if you keep that tactic going. That works at five. It doesn't work at 15. Trust me. Stop pushing them. Stop railing on them. Stop demanding from them. Stop threatening them. And be Christ to them. This is what Peter told women. Go to 1 Peter 3. We read this this morning. It wasn't planned. That was just our reading. But 1 Peter 3, in the first couple of verses, Peter says, "...wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word," that's exactly what we're talking about, "...they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear." Now he's not talking about fear of the husband, he's talking about fear of God. A godly woman is a God-fearing woman. If you want to help God with the sanctification or salvation process, in this case, in your husband's or, generally speaking, anyone's life, you live a godly life. You live a life filled with the fear of God. You live a life that is chaste. You live a life that is without ostentation, according to verse 3, with the braiding of the hair and all the fancy jewelry. You live a life that portrays the hidden person of the heart, verse 4. You live a life that exudes the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, not a nagging one, like verse 4 says. That when your husband goes to bed, that's all he can hear is your voice. Do this. Do that. Why are you doing that? Why are you doing this? You live a life that exemplifies women in biblical times like Sarah who obeyed Abraham calling him Lord in verse 6. Now, I know some of you ladies are saying, well, why are you picking on us? Well, it's not me, it's Peter. But what about our husbands? Well, you know, ladies go first, right? Well, look at verse 7. Peter's not done. Husbands, likewise, with the same spirit, with the same intent that I just talked to your wives about. dwell with them with understanding. It doesn't mean, you know, okay, that's just the way God made her. Giving honor to your wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. You want to win your wife? You wanna see her sanctified? God says give her honor. You say, you don't know my wife. Doesn't matter. You got the log in there, I understand. She's only got a speck. What kind of honor? As to the weaker vessel. I got news for you guys. You're going to have to answer for your wife when you get before the Lord. She's not going to have to answer for you. In the marriage, 100% of the marriage is on the husband. She's going to have to answer for her own deal, but you have to answer for both of you. That's the way God made it. You are the head of your wife, according to 1 Corinthians 11. This is not a 50-50 proposition in marriage. Anybody who tells you marriage is a 50-50 proposition, I'm talking to the guys, doesn't know the Bible. It's 100% men. It's all on you. Read the Old Testament. All the laws were directed toward the men. The women didn't have any rights in the Old Testament. Not because they were inferior, but because the men were supposed to have all the responsibility. and treat their wives with honor and respect and compassion. Why? Because you're not equal. She's the weaker vessel. You're equal as human beings, but you're not equal in the marriage. Listen, men need to realize that women are to be treated with honor, respect, and compassion. That's the way God made them, their weaker vessels. That's by design. Sin has nothing to do with it. God made Eve a helpmeet to Adam. He didn't make her an equal corporate partner in the marriage. What's the weaker vessel? It's a fine piece of china, that's what it is, to be handled delicately. I'm telling you, if you think in a marriage that the husband and wife are equal in function, that marriage is doomed from the start because you got two people going at it all the time, vying for who's gonna have the upper hand. And that's why we got over a 50% divorce rate in this country. People don't understand what marriage is. They're just not a basic understanding of marriage. Men, on the other hand, they're the fine pieces of china, you know, that you put in a glass case in this temperature and humidity controlled room. And what are we? Guys. We're the trash cans. You know, you got this priceless piece of china on this side and you got this trash can with stinking trash on the other side. This is how God saves and sanctifies others that we're so frustrated with. We gotta understand our roles. I'm as guilty as anybody. Listen, I want to make my wife responsible for anything when something goes wrong. It's not until after I go back and read 1 Peter 3 that I can't do that. It doesn't matter how much I chafe at it. I can't do that. It's all on me. If a person is truly saved, God will sanctify them. Well, there's others. Read 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24 where it says that God who calls you is faithful, who will also do it. Speaking of sanctification, you've got to forget about the other person for a minute. Forget about your wife or your husband or your child or a person at work who claims to be a Christian. You need to look at yourself. If you're like me, you get so frustrated with myself because I see so little progress in my sanctification. You know, I want to be like Christ. Every time I open my mouth, I stick my foot in it. Every time I try and do something, I end up doing the wrong thing. That sounds biblical, doesn't it? What I want to do I hate, what I don't do is the thing I want to do. That's where I need to remember that God is faithful. See, we can beat ourselves up so badly that we can't climb out of the hole. That's when we need to remember that God is faithful, even with us. Me, the chief of sinners, he's faithful to. He's gonna sanctify me. I try and think about, I don't know what that's like, not to sin. I've been sinning for almost 65 years. I don't know what it's like not to sin, but God has promised, it's His promise to His church that He is going to make us, like His Son, sinless. And I have to believe that, that no matter where I'm at right now, I'm gonna be like Christ one day. That is a miracle. Just ask my wife. So, when I am down and when I'm doing the wrong thing and all this other stuff, what do I do? Here it is, 1st John 1.9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's His promise. Some of you are in a hole, you need to get out of it. You need to go to 1st John 1.9 and get back on track. Some of you are leading such a defeated life. Your despair is unbearable. Trust me, I've been there, I know what it's like. Sometimes you wonder if you're even a Christian. But you need to remember, God is faithful. It's not you. Just like in the marriage, it's all on Him. and you need to remember what Paul said in Philippians 1.6, being confident of this very thing, speaking of sanctification, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. The world is relentless, the flesh is relentless, Satan is relentless, the people around us are relentless to destroy our Christian life. But God won't let that happen if we're His. Because He's faithful. Lord, thanks for this time. Sorry we went a little long this morning. I thank you for my brothers and sisters and their faithfulness to the Word of God. We are so thankful for that word. And we are completely trusting in your faithfulness to sanctify us and make us like Christ. If there's anyone here that doesn't know Christ, I pray, God, that they would start at first base and repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one who can save them from their sins by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Amen.