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Minister’s Forum

“What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?” (Romans 3:3).
God is faithful. That means God does not change … neither does his word, and neither do his promises to you.

Recall that great promise which God makes to us when he confronts the crafty serpent in the Garden of Eden. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
Here God speaks to us of his son, whom he would send into the world for the purpose of dying upon the cross to pay for our sins. God sends Jesus out of his great love for us. God is faithful.
And so is Jesus. The faithful son of God takes upon himself the humble mantle of human flesh. Jesus becomes one of us. The Lord of Lords lives among us. The King of Kings comes into this world and endures the very same trials and temptations that each of us must face in our daily lives. Not only does Jesus do this willingly, he does so without complaint. Jesus does so for one purpose. He has come to fulfill his father’s will, the will established in that promise which God made to us in the Garden of Eden long ago.
What does God’s will require of Jesus? He must remain fully obedient unto death, even death on a cross. When the time for his crucifixion draws near, Jesus does not waver; Jesus does not shrink away. Out of his great love for you and me, Jesus courageously prays, “Thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42).
Jesus then goes to the cross in fulfillment of his father’s promise to you and me. Upon that lonely hill called Calvary, the Lord will die for our sake and for our salvation. For Jesus is faithful.
Faithful. That’s the nature of our God and father. That’s also the nature of his son, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Our recent Easter celebrations stand as a resounding reminder of the faithfulness of our God, "in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). When God makes a promise, he keeps it. For our God is faithful.
That’s God. What about us? Are we faithful? When it comes to the question of our faithfulness, human history is well documented, isn’t it? Just look at Adam and Eve, to whom God had given dominion over all that he had created. There was but one provision. The Lord God gave this command to the man and woman he had created, saying of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Now that doesn’t sound too complicated, does it? And yet, what happened? The first man and woman wasted little time in breaking the one simple commandment that God had given to them. Were they faithful? You know the answer. And from there, it was downhill all the way!
When Jesus told his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem where he would suffer and die upon the cross, what did those disciples say? Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same (Matthew 26:35). But where were those same disciples on that night when Jesus was surrounded by the crowd who came to arrest him and see him put to death on a cross? They were nowhere to be found; “They all left him and fled” (Mark 14:50). Were those disciples faithful?
And last, but not least, that leaves us, doesn’t it? What about us? Are we faithful? You know the answer. We are not. We regularly give in to those very temptations for which our faithful Lord Jesus would die upon the cross in our place.
And yet, despite our self-serving attitudes and our willingness to put the things of this world before the things of God, God continues to remain faithful in his promise to you. Through the holy, precious blood and innocent suffering and death of his son, Jesus, you have been redeemed. He who gives himself for you calls upon you to follow him.
Trust in God’s promise in Christ Jesus to you, and follow him!

Rev. Bruce Milash • Immanuel Lutheran Church, Augsburg

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