The Faithfulness Of God

I heard a sermon online last night that was so powerful that I almost feel like I don’t need to write a blog post for today. I almost feel like all I need to do is give you the website and send you there – you’ll get the message that Holy Spirit wants you to hear. It’s www.tscnyc.org, the Times Square Church website, and the sermon is the 10am Sunday sermon, “The Valley of Victory.” You can watch the whole service if you have the time, but if you just want to listen to the sermon, it’s a half hour, and you can listen to it by clicking on the link on the upper right hand side of the screen that lists the 10am sermon with the title and the words “listen now.”

The sermons that I hear from Times Square Church are always a blessing, and they always speak to my heart. When I heard the one last night, I just started praising God in front of my computer. It was exactly what I needed to hear, right here, right now, with everything that I’ve been dealing with. The Pastor who was speaking was William Carrol, and from the moment he started his message, I just had to start praising God for His faithfulness. And that was a big part of the message too, the fact that when we know who God is, when we trust in His faithfulness, He will never allow us to be put to shame. I needed to hear that message, and I thank God for His faithfulness, because He knows what I have been dealing with and how much my heart has been burdened by it.

The reason that Pastor Carrol gave the sermon that title also gave me reason to praise God. He started out by saying that the reason he had given it that title is because there are times when we are in the valley and we feel like it’s a defeat, but in reality, when we know who God is and we trust in His faithfulness, we can know that this valley experience is only temporary, and that He is going to bring us out of the valley in a way that shows us and everyone else His glory and His faithfulness. It reminded me of the message I wrote yesterday about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and how the very people who thought they had brought them to defeat were awestruck by the power and glory of God when He delivered them. The other part of Pastor Carrol’s message touched me in an even deeper place, because he spoke about those times that we feel defeated because of our own weakness and failure. The times when we have tried to do things in our own strength and we could not. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were “good men.” They may have made mistakes, but we never hear about that in their story. We only hear how faithful they were to God and so He was faithful to them. But what about those times when we fail? What about those times when we are not courageous? What about those times when we fall?

Pastor Carrol spoke about Peter, who denied Christ three times after claiming that he would never turn away from Him and that wherever He went, Peter would go with Him. He spoke about one of the passages that I had written about here in another post, “Blessings,” that I wrote on June 12, the anniversary of the day that I said the sinner’s prayer. The passage is from John 21, when Jesus meets His disciples on the beach after He has been resurrected. What he spoke about was so beautiful a message that I don’t know if I can even do it a small amount of justice here. I will try my best, but please do yourself a favor and listen to his sermon. You will be blessed and encouraged and strengthened in a way that only a true word from God can do.

He spoke about how Jesus came to the disciples on the beach while they were fishing in His human form, that He could have spoken to them from the sky if He wanted to, but that He chose to meet them in a very human way to let them know that He understood what it meant to be human, what it feels like to feel like we have failed. He came to them to let them know that He did not see them as failures. That He did not condemn them, even though they were feeling condemned because of their lack of faith and the way they had treated Him. Peter had denied that he knew Him and that He had walked with him when he was asked on the night that Jesus was arrested and brought before the High Priest for questioning. But even if they had not denied Him verbally, the other disciples all deserted Him. One of them ran away so fast that he lost his clothing. Each one had failed in the threatening face of the Cross, and Pastor Carrol spoke about how Jesus still came back to them and met them where they were, in the place where they were trying to go back to their old life because they thought they could not be useful to God any more. He came back to encourage them because He had called them, not to walk in their own strength, but to let Him show His glory through their lives.

When Pastor Carrol spoke about that story, he brought it near to all of us. By the power of the Holy Spirit working through him, the message was one of encouragement to all of us. I was taking notes and so I will try to write his words - but I was writing quickly, and my apologies to you Pastor Carrol if I have written something incorrectly, but I don't want to paraphrase - the words you used were so very powerful. “God called you because He loved you. Not because of your own standards that you might not have been able to live up to. The calling on your life is a supernatural calling. It’s not based on your gifts and skills. It's based on what God can do through your life.” He also spoke about the difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the condemnation of the devil. That when the Holy Spirit convicts us of things that He wants us to change in our lives, He is also convicting us of our righteousness through the power and calling of God in our lives. The condemnation that the enemy brings is not coming from God in any way. God never condemns us and He never will condemn us - because we trust in Him and His faithfulness and He will never let us down. As I write this I am reminded of Psalm 37:23-24, "The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand."

I started taking notes while I was listening to the sermon because I wanted to share it with a friend of mine who has been going through a hard time. I couldn't write down everything, even though I wished I could have, but some other words I wrote down had to do with the image of Christ coming to the seashore as a human being representing, “A human person standing in the circumstance of need, standing there where there is someone who has allowed themselves to believe that God can’t use them any more,” because they have tried and failed in their own strength. He encouraged us to share the Gospel message with each other, to encourage each other when we are feeling weakened and overcome with our own sense of failure and shame. He said that, “The Gospel will overcome any condemnation or shame the enemy will try to bring against us,” and he used the glorious passage in Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone that believes; to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” This was a very much needed reminder to me, and from my own heart and spirit I say to anyone who is reading this, remember, dear children of God, it is by faith that we are made righteous, not by what we do or don’t do. God will help us to change each and every day for the better, and all He asks to begin His work in us is that we have faith in Him.

My favorite passage of scripture has always been Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” There are so many passages that I love – a friend who knows how much I love to read asked me once what my favorite book was, and I answered truthfully that it’s the Bible. That’s another way that God and I have a laugh together – before I was born again I’d never even read it or tried to. It was incomprehensible and completely uninteresting to me. Now it is the very breath of life, something that I never tire of and that always speaks to me no matter what situation I am facing.

Another message Pastor Carrol shared is from the same passage from John 21 with Peter on the beach, the same passage that I wrote about in my blog post "Blessings." It spoke so deeply to my heart because it is a passage the Lord gives to me often, but Pastor Carrol added something else that I had not heard before in my own spirit. It is the passage when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, and it is always something that the Lord uses with me when He wants to remind me that I can keep going, even when I feel I cannot. He reminds me that I love Him and that is why I keep going. But Pastor Carrol added something else that was so beautiful and so needed for me to hear. That passage is not only a reminder that we love the Lord, but also that He knows all things and so He knows how much we love Him.

Thank you Pastor Carrol for bringing a word that gave me the strength I needed to keep on walking. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness, because you knew I needed that word and you gave it to him to share with me. Thank you, Father, that you gave that word to all of us who have heard it, and to the many more who will.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan