God’s Faithfulness
June 22, 2008
Charity Rouse

            The hymns we choose to sing tell a lot about our faith.  From the hymn survey last fall, the top hymns include:  “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “It Is Well With My Soul,” and “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”  What these and others of the top hymns have in common is that they remind us of God’s faithfulness and that when God makes a promise, it is kept.  At the same time these hymns recognize our human frailties and shortcomings.  We sometimes sing our favorite hymns to remind ourselves that no matter what happens, God is there for us providing comfort and help. 

            Thomas Chisholm expressed it this way: “Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee; thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not; as thou hast been thou forever wilt be.  Great is thy faithfulness!  Great is thy faithfulness!  Morning by morning new mercies I see; all I have needed thy hand hath provided – great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”

These expressions of a God who is faithful are not unique to the hymns we sing, we also see these themes in the scriptures.

            Our scripture lessons this morning give us two examples of times that God helped his people.  In Genesis we find a portion of Abraham’s story that is less familiar to most of us.  Hagar and Ishmael often get overlooked in our telling of Abraham’s rise to be the father of many nations.  We focus on Isaac and tend to forget that Abraham had another son by the slave Hagar.  Prior to today’s scripture, we find that Sarah actually pushed Hagar on Abraham when Sarah figured that she was not going to bear Abraham a child.  However, once Ishmael was born, she became jealous.  Then, along came the angels who told Sarah that she would bear a son – and it happened!  Once Isaac was born, Sarah’s jealousy intensified and she did not want Ishmael to share any of Isaac’s inheritance and so she had Hagar and Ishmael kicked out into the desert.

            God’s promise to Abraham is this – that he will be the father of nations through both Isaac and Ishmael.  When Hagar and Ishmael are in the wilderness of Beersheba and run out of water, Hagar certainly must be wondering how her son will become the father of a nation when they are not going to survive another day without water.  At this point, Hagar sets Ishmael under some bushes and goes a ways off because she dreads watching her child die.  In her grief over what she thinks is coming she begins to cry.  God hears her cries and the cries of Ishmael and provides water for them so that they can survive.  Eventually, Hagar finds a wife for Ishmael and he has 12 sons.  Apparently he also had some daughters because later on Isaac’s son Esau marries one of Ishmael’s daughters.  I’m sure Sarah would not have been happy about that!

            Hagar could have sung along with Martin Luther that “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper he, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.”  Luther was paraphrasing Psalm 46 at a time (probably in 1527) when he was virtually penniless, sick with a number of different illnesses including the plague, and was under the threat of death.  He, like Hagar, was able to take refuge in God’s promise of comfort and faithfulness.

            In Psalm 86, the psalmist also cries out to God for help in his time of trouble.  He expresses his faith that God will hear his prayer and will answer him. 

            We share this faith that when we call on God, our prayers will be heard and answered.  Do I believe that God always hears and answers our prayers?  Yes.  Are they always answered in the manner that we want them to be answered?  No.  Through painful experience I have learned that sometimes God answers “yes” to my prayers, sometimes “no”, sometimes “not now” and often offers an answer that I could not anticipate at all.  However, there is always an answer of some sort.  As an example, toward the end of 2006 and in the spring of 2007 when I was praying for God to show me where I was to serve next, my expectation was that it would be somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina, close to my family.  Was I expecting the answer to be Topeka, Kansas?  Well, no.  However, I trusted the answer that God gave me and continue to trust in the comfort God gives and that no matter what I do or where I am, God is with me.

            Joseph Scriven realized that prayer is the only way to face the trials and temptations of life.  Written as a personal message to his mother when she faced great sorrow, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is a reminder to each of us to take everything to the Lord in prayer.  Scriven was writing from experience:  his first fiancée drowned, his second fiancée died from illness, he lived in poverty and ill health but yet he was able to write “Have we trials and temptation?  Is there trouble anywhere?  We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer!”  He trusted that God heard his every prayer.  Did he expect each prayer to be answered his way?  Probably not, or else he might have been happily married to that first fiancée!

            The other thing about prayer is that in order to hear the answers God gives, we have to allow God the time and space to answer us.  How many times do we say our prayers as lists of things we want, people who need healing, maybe something we’re thankful for and forget to give God a chance to reply.  In our culture, allowing for silence is something we’re uncomfortable doing.  A friend of mine in Winston-Salem was so uncomfortable with the possibility of silence that she kept at least 2 televisions going pretty much 24/7 whether she was watching the program or not because she could not stand for there to be silence in her house.  At times, we are all like my friend, using television, radio, ipods, etc. so that we can avoid silence.  Between the noise and our busy schedules it is a wonder that God is ever able to get our attention.

            Sometimes the only time we pay attention is when we need something from God.  Hagar was afraid for her life and that of her son, the psalmist refers to “the day of trouble,” and the hymn writers were at rock bottom.  Maybe it is only at those times when we have nothing left, no strength to go on living that we can truly appreciate God’s faithfulness in our lives. 

Many of you may be familiar with the story behind the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.”  In brief, it went like this:  in the late 1860’s Horatio Spafford was a Chicago businessman who had lost his only son and was having financial problems.  His wife was in poor health and following the great Chicago fire, it was recommended that she have a change of scenery.  Spafford decided to take his wife and 4 daughters to England but he was delayed by business so he sent his wife and daughters on as planned.  In the Atlantic ocean on November 22 another vessel hit the ship they were traveling on and only Mrs. Spafford was saved.  Spafford received a telegram telling him of this accident and traveled to join his wife in England.  During the journey he must have spent a lot of time praying to God and listening to God’s responses because (as the story goes) he wrote the text as his ship passed over the site of the accident.  “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’”

            How many of us can truly say that no matter what happens in life we know that “it is well with my soul” because we are certain of God’s faithfulness?  Most of us can say that statement some of the time, but it is hard to remember in the midst of our busy lives that God is faithful to us all of the time.  However, we know that God accepts us as we are with all our human frailties and faults, anytime, anywhere we call out to him.

            If you are seeking that relationship with God today and wish to publically announce that you are ready to embrace God’s faithfulness, please come forward during the hymn.  If you are seeking a church family to walk alongside you on this journey of faith and you would like for First Baptist to be that family, you may let us know by coming forward as we sing together “Just As I Am” acknowledging that God accepts us as we are, who we are and where we are.