Psalm  89      The Greatness of Faithfulness

Rev. David Holwick  ZA

First Baptist Church

Ledgewood, New Jersey

August 22, 1999

Psalm 89:1-17


THE GREATNESS OF FAITHFULNESS



  I. Old Faithful.

      A. Since its discovery, more than one million eruptions observed.

         We had a special treat on our vacation - seeing it erupt

            at night.

         We finished church in Old Faithful Lodge, went to front and

            saw people sitting around.

         No big deal - they sit around it 24 hours a day.

         But we stuck around, and it went off, billowing in the darkness.


         An article in the papers a few years back said Old Faithful

            was no longer faithful.

         Due to nearby earthquakes and water changes it had lost its

            rhythm.

         It turns out the article was a bunch of baloney.

         Underground changes have affected the time between eruptions,

            from 69 minutes to 88, but the eruptions are as predictable

               as ever.

         One other thing remains consistent - only the next eruption

            can be predicted with accuracy.


      B. People long for something they can trust.

          1) We want to be able to trust people.

          2) We want to be able to trust God.


      C. Can they trust us??


II. Faithfulness is the bedrock of relationships.

      A. Marriage.

          1) Adultery and lust.

              a) Can people really be faithful to one another?

              b) Rebecca Rubenstein loans me a book by A. C. Grayling,

                    "The Future of Moral Values" and wants to know my

                        reaction.

                 It certainly portrays where Christians think society's

                    ethics are going:


                 Sexual fidelity is impossible and attempting it

                    only leads to hypocrisy and failure.

                 Self-denial is unnatural.

                 Much better to have open marriages.

                                                          Grayling, p. 28


              c) Faithfulness is hard, but required by God.

              d) Many fail, sometimes repeatedly, but faithfulness can

                    still be returned to.

          2) Time and commitment are other areas of faithfulness.


      B. Friendship.

          1) Keeping our promises to others.

          2) Being there for them.


      C. Business.

          1) Honesty.

          2) Integrity with partners and patrons.

          3) They can trust you to go the extra mile.


      D. Faith.

          1) The most important area of faithfulness.

          2) Human faithfulness looks to God for its example.


III. Can you trust God's faithfulness?

      A. The faithfulness of God in Psalm 89.

          1) It is established in heaven itself.               89:2

              a) Associated with love that stands forever.

          2) Based on covenant, a formal commitment.           89:3

          3) Part of the unique mightiness of God.             89:8

          4) Stronger than creation.                           89:9

          5) An essential part of God's nature.                89:14


      B. Essence of faithfulness in Old Testament.

          1) God is great.

          2) God makes promises and commitments, and keeps them.

          3) We can trust him to do what he says.


      C. Sometimes we feel he has failed us.

          1) Many have trusted in God, and felt burned.

          2) Even in Psalm 89:38, there is despair over the fall

                of David's dynasty.

              a) God promised David a son on the throne forever.

              b) Now all of them were killed.

              c) Has God failed them?  Can he still fulfill promise?

          3) God's faithfulness can only be accessed against backdrop

                of eternity.

              a) Hundreds of years after the extinction of David's line,

                    it was revived by Jesus.

              b) God keeps his promises, in his own good time.


IV. Our faithful God requires our faithfulness.

      A. Columbian who has 15 years of success and 15 of failure.

         Years ago, missionary David Howard visited the village of

            Corozalito in Columbia.

         The town had 94 people.

            92 of them were Christians, due to an uneducated farmer.


         Victor Landero came from a decadent background.

         In addition to farming, he had operated a brothel and without

            being married to any of them, lived with three women at the

               same time.

         But when the Lord took hold of Victor's life, he gave him an

            amazing gift of personal evangelism.

         In addition to leading his family - 9 brothers and sisters and

            his parents - to the Lord, he evangelized his entire village.


         Then from Corozalito he began to reach out to surrounding

            villages, establishing churches wherever he went.

         Howard went to the remotest areas, and invariably found little

            churches founded by Victor Landero.

         Over a period of 15 years, Victor led hundreds, maybe thousands,

            of people to Christ.

         Practically every person in his area had had an opportunity to

            hear the gospel.


         Then he heard there was an Indian tribe deep in the jungle.

            It had never been evangelized.

         Victor decided to move there to evangelize these Indians.

         He hacked out a small farm to grow his food, learned their

            language, and shared his faith.


         Fifteen years later, David Howard returned to Columbia and met

            up with Victor.

         David asked him if he now had a church among them.

            Quietly and sadly, Victor replied, "No."

         Fifteen years in the same village, and no church.

         After seeing dozens of churches spring up during his first

            15 years.

         Nevertheless, Victor added with confidence, "I will spend the

            rest of my life with them, because there is where my heart is."

         Victor is now 70 years old, but even though he sees almost no

            results, he carries on faithfully.

                                                                    #4756


      B. Essential points:

          1) Victor had a settled sense of God's calling.

              a) Results were secondary as long as he was doing God's work.

          2) He was obedient to that calling.

              a) Knowing what God wants you to do, and doing it, are

                    two different things.

          3) Obedience must be lived out daily.

              a) Faithfulness for each day is what God ultimately

                    requires.

              b) Like "Old Faithful", our current faithfulness can only

                    be predicted by our most recent faithfulness.

          4) We must have hope.

              a) Faith is not simply believing some truth.

                  1> It is a faithfulness - a "hanging in there" - in

                        difficult circumstances.

                  2> Victor's 15 years of fruitful ministry and 15 years

                        of unsuccessful ministry add up to 30 years of

                           faithfulness.

              b) Faithfulness is not abstract but rooted in the experience

                    of God's people.

                  1> Gideon and David saw results.

                  2> Abel and Abraham saw little in the way of results.

              c) Apparent failure of the faithful can give us hope.

                  1> Experience of David Howard's brother among Indians

                        in Canada encouraged Victor.


  V. God honors faithfulness.

      A. Faithfulness in relationships leads to fulfillment.


      B. Faithfulness to God leads to heavenly blessings.


            Matthew 25:21


            "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant!

             You have been faithful with a few things;

                I will put you in charge of many things.

             Come and share your master's happiness!'"



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SOURCE FOR ILLUSTRATION USED IN THIS SERMON:


#4756, "Victor's Tale," by David M. Howard, Christianity Today,

            September 16, 1991, page 41.


This and 4,500 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,

  absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html

=======================================================================


Additional material:


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Sex outside of marriage is a woeful breech of one

of God's Ten Commandments, but it is not the lone definition of adultery, a

former marriage and family therapist said.


"We come as a total package -- mind, heart and body.  I'm afraid that many

people feel that physical infidelity is the only definition of adultery,"

said Betty Hassler, a former marriage and family therapist and now a design

editor for LIFE support products at the Baptist Sunday School Board.  "When

we are not faithful in our minds and hearts, there can be devastating

consequences to the marital bond," Hassler said.


"Just because you're not having sex with anybody else doesn't mean you're

necessarily being a faithful partner.  If I am only physically faithful, I

can still picture myself intimately involved with someone outside my marriage

relationship.  Jesus said lust is just as destructive as committing the

physical act because you have betrayed the oneness of the marital union."

Hassler was reacting to a University of Chicago poll which indicates couples

seem to be taking a turn toward righteousness.


The survey conducted about America's sexual practices found "more than 80

percent of women and 65 to 85 percent of men of every age report that they

had no partners other than their spouse while they were married."


According to the book, "Sex in America: A Definitive Survey," which reports

the University of Chicago findings, "no matter how sexually active people are

before and between marriages, ...  marriage is such a powerful social

institution that essentially married people are nearly all alike -- they are

faithful to their partners as long as the marriage is intact."


While Hassler believes married couples are, for the most part, faithful

physically to each other, she said she's not completely convinced moral

reasoning is the root of the loyalty.


"I think the trend toward monogamy is partly based on survival instincts,"

she said, indicating couples are more worried about deadly sexually

transmitted diseases and about what divorce does to their children.

"I think people are afraid to be promiscuous because of those reasons, not

necessarily because of religious reasons."


Hassler, co-author of the LIFE marriage enrichment series "Covenant

Marriage," said God cautioned Israel against worship that was only the

physical exercise of sacrifices.  "God wanted their minds and hearts as

well," Hassler said, pointing out faithfulness in the Bible is always

associated with the totality of our being.


"In our sexually explicit society, it is very difficult to avoid sexual

temptation," Hassler stated, acknowledging physical attraction to a person

other than one's spouse will occur.


"We don't want to set people up for failure in counseling by making them

think they will never be sexually attracted to anybody other than their

spouse.  It's not that you will not be physically attracted to another

person.  God made us with the capacity to be attracted to the opposite sex.


"But it is at that point that you guard your heart.  It's like having that

extra discipline to say 'no' to that piece of pecan pie even though it's very

appealing.  That's the point that often doesn't get communicated in

premarital counseling."


While Hassler supports the premarital counseling many pastors are requiring

before performing a marriage ceremony, she said she feels more caution "needs

to be given to the issue of what faithfulness means."


"Couples need to be told that when you take this man or woman to be your

spouse, you are really giving up a roving eye.  You are promising to be

faithfully committed to protecting that sacred union until death.


"If I don't understand what I am giving up when I get married, then I don't

really have a good basis for making that leap of faith into marriage.  I

think counselors need to emphasize that couples who get married are giving up

license to certain relationships with the opposite sex.  And that doesn't

mean we just don't go to bed with them."


Hassler has counseled couples where infidelity started with seemingly

harmless office flirtations.  "In many situations where people are unfaithful

to their spouses, it starts out innocently enough.  Because of the sexual

freedom today, we don't seem to be as wary and protective of what we say to

each other because there is a lot of flirty conversation passing as innocent

that would not have been there a generation ago.


"It's a sexual mine field out there," Hassler continued.  "People are being

bombarded with sexual situations in the media, which can lead to mental, if

not physical, unfaithfulness.


"Hollywood sets up this false image of sexuality.  Those people on the screen

rehearse scripted love-making scenes.  Marital sex, however, is not all bells

and whistles.  Sexual satisfaction takes time and patience."


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Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press

RNbp5A03mrjB5A03h5A3t

                                                                      #3711

*

Only about 10 percent of the birds and mammals that seem to mate for life

are actually faithful to their partners, according to studies that suggest

infidelity may be nature's way.  Blame it on biology, say the experts.


Animal parents may gain important benefits for the future of their species by

a little hanky-panky, research shows.  A female may stray to pick up the best

genes possible for her offspring, say the experts, while males may be driven

by an impulse to father as many and as often as possible.


New studies using genetic testing techniques show that even the most

apparently devoted of partners often mate around, visiting nearby nests or

dens or clans to enjoy the sexual company of strangers.  Birds do it, apes do

it, and , of course, so do some people, researchers say in reports published

in the journal Science.


"True monogamy actually is rare," said Stephen T. Emlen, an expert on

evolutionary behavior at Cornell University.  He describes a great difference

between "social monogamy," where mating pairs bond and work together to raise

their young, and "genetic monogamy," where parents are faithful sex partners.

Social monogamy is relatively common, but genetic monogamy is the exception

rather than the rule, the studies report.


Emlen said among the primates, the animal order that includes humans, only two

monkeys, the marmoset and the tamarin, are truly monogamous.  All the rest,

monkeys, apes and people, often mate outside their partnerships.  Most

primates, in fact, make no pretense of faithfully bonding for life, and it is

difficult to know for sure that males actually know which of their young in

the clan are their children, he said.  That may even be true for humans.  An

Oregon study suggested that about 10 percent of children were not sired by the

male partner of the parental pair.


Among birds, faithful sex partnership has been thought for years to be

widespread.  Some species, such as the eastern bluebird, gained reputations as

shining examples of devotion.  Male and female partners work together closely

to build nests, incubate eggs, then feed and raise their young.  The truth is,

bluebirds have a sex life that reveals a television soap opera.

[If humans are nothing more than animals, any behavior can be justified.]

                                                                      #2104

*



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