Enduring Faithfulness (Romans Week 23) by Michael Williams

Has God given up on people who have wandered far from Him? In this message from Romans 11, we explore Paul's powerful reminder that God's faithfulness endures even through human failure, as He continues to pursue His covenant people and fulfill His promises. Through Israel's story, we discover a God who never abandons His purposes, never stops extending grace, and calls us to live with humble confidence in His steadfast love.

Transcript

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Before I start, I wanted to ask a question. Who's the most faithful person you've ever met? Who's the most faithful person you've ever met? Maybe you think of a spouse or a parent. Most faithful person you've ever met. Somebody's just always there. As I was thinking about this message this week, which I called enduring faithfulness, I was thinking about like who's always there for us, who's faithful. I was reading a story in a book about this dad who his son sort of ran away, got into drugs, got into alcohol, was not living a great life, and was completely cut off and estranged from him. And every year around the Christmas table, he would always set up a seat at the Christmas table for his son, hoping that this would be the year that his son came back. He did this for like 36 years. The story did have a happy ending with the son being restored and all that, but he would send out birthday cards every year. He endured and like wanting this relationship to be healed, to be restored. He believed that his son would always come back. And you might think, and some of you might resonate with that story of enduring faithfulness, of people that are waiting, that are yearning, that are not giving up. There's other stories, of course, of people that we we do give up on. Not every relationship is a parent, son, daughter relationship. Maybe you've had friends that you've had to just give up on. Maybe you've had coworkers or people in your life that are that are toxic and that the right thing to do is actually to move on, to have healthy boundaries. And today's passage, it's fascinating because it's it's really asking at the at the very bottom of it, underneath all the other stuff, which we'll sort through, what's really asking is like, does God still have a seat at his kitchen table for Israel? Or have they gone too far? Like, how long will God wait with those who don't believe? How long will he endure? How long will he will he last? And should he last forever? Should his faithfulness towards us just not at all depend on whether or not we ever respond to him? And Paul, he's gonna wrestle with this massive question. How long will God put up with Israel, or is he done with the Jews? Jesus has come. I mean, this is a people that God chose, and and they have rejected him. They broke the laws, they didn't fulfill their end of the covenant, they killed the prophets. And finally, when God himself came among them, they rejected Jesus. And after all of that, after all of that, there is this question hanging in the air. What's next? What's next? Are they are they just replaced by these new people of God, the church? Are they just relegated to a story and history? Were they just instruments, like Paul seemed to hint in Romans 9? Are they just instruments of wrath, tools he was using to bring about his purposes, and they have no special place in his heart? And so Paul, he doesn't want to avoid this question. And I think one of the reasons he doesn't want to avoid it is because he's writing, if you remember, to a church in Rome that's that's made up of Gentile and Jewish believers. So he's writing to people that would be asking this question. See, to them, this was not like an end times text. This was like a practical, like, is God still dealing with my family or has he moved on? It's like a real thing that they're wrestling with. But I think a second reason that Paul doesn't want to avoid this question is, I think this question actually reveals something deeply true and beautiful about the heart of God. And so as we go through it today, and we will talk about some of the stuff that gets attached to this text and some of the interesting things, and I'll give you some of my opinions, and I'll just leave them at that as my opinions. I want us to be careful to not get caught up in all sort of the hoopla end times and Israel and modern-day Israel and all those things. And I want us to ask the question and to really wrestle with does God give up on people? Does he give up on people? Or does he endure? And so, with that question in mind, let's pray and then we'll get into our passage. Lord, we welcome your presence here. We thank you that you are with us. We thank you that you are faithful. For those who are here wrestling with some version of this question, I pray that they would hear your voice and know that you're for them. We ask that you would speak to us this morning. Prepare our hearts to hear from your word. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Amen. So we're going to be in Romans 11. Just a real quick background, because I know not everybody's here every week. You can listen to these messages online if you want to get caught up, but Romans 1 through 8 was kind of one big argument. You might think of it like a climb up a mountain. And then a lot of times, Romans 9 through 11, it feels like a bit of an insert. It feels a tiny bit like Paul is deviating from his course. He could have gone right into chapter 12 where he talked about how we should live, but instead he takes this moment and he talks about Israel. And so he talked in chapter 9 about God's elective purposes with Israel, how God was using Israel to bring about the plan of salvation. And in chapter 10, he talks about the nature of faith and why Israel rejected God, how they were ignorant of the righteousness from God, which is that righteousness is a free gift, something not earned. And now he's taking back this question that he's been with in 9, 10, and 11, which is, what is God doing with Israel? In our text today, there's going to break into two pretty simple parts. It's going to be the question, which I've kind of already hinted at, which is, is God going to continue on with Israel? Is he faithful to Israel? And then he's going to give a warning. And if you think about it, the church is made up of Gentiles and Jews. And he's actually very specifically going to address the warning to the Gentiles, to the non-Jewish people in the church. And the rest is for all of us. What is God doing with the Jews? So I'm going to begin in verse 1. We're going to read just the first six verses. I'll read the rest sort of as we go, because it is a long passage. I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means. I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel? Lord, they've killed your prophets, they demolished your altars, I alone am left, and they're seeking my life. But what is the divine reply to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. So too, at the present time there's a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. So I'm going to pause right there. He begins right away by saying, by no means. So he's sat in the table and he's going to explain his answer. And Paul's actually going to give us four answers in these six verses for why God has not rejected Israel. In just a moment, when he's talking about Israel here, just a little background, he's talking about a people. He's talking about a people. He's using this word clearly and consistently in chapters 9, 10, and 11 to refer to the descendants of Abraham. Now he brought up in chapter 10 this notion that there's an Israel within an Israel, a people of the faith, the true people of God. And so he's not talking about just the elect. He's talking about those who God has made a covenant with in the Old Testament. Now Israel came from the family of Abraham, and as Israel grew, it of course began to incorporate and include people that were not of Abraham's bloodline. In fact, when Israel left Egypt, the exact Hebrew word is like mishmash of people left. So we're not talking about like the purity of bloodlines here, but we are we are talking about some ethnic people, these Jews. And they left Israel, or they left Egypt, and they they form Israel, and the story of the Old Testament is the story of these people, and God makes promises to them. He makes promises to them through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He makes promises through Moses. He makes promises through David. And as he makes these promises with these people, what Paul is taking up when he's asking the question about Israel, he's talking about his kinsmen. That's the reason he immediately points to his tribe. He's not talking about some true Israel within Israel. And he's saying, what's going to happen to them? And he gives us four answers as to why God's not done with them. And the first answer he gives is a personal answer. Look at what he says in verse 2. Or verse 1 and a half. I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, and a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Is God done with Israel? Of course not. I'm an Israeli. I'm a Jew. I'm from the tribe of Benjamin. Get what Paul is saying? He's saying, of course God's not done with his people, the people of Israel, because he's not done with me. He's not done with me. Now, some of you, you know the story of Paul. Paul was completely against Christianity. He persecuted those in the church. If when you read the passages about God hardening Israel's heart, Paul is like example number one. He could be like in the biblical encyclopedia as an example of a Jew who was zealous for God but completely ignorant. When he writes that in chapter 10, I often think he's thinking about himself. Oh, they were zealous for the righteousness of God, but they were ignorant as to where it was found. They didn't have the knowledge that God was revealing his righteousness in Christ. And so Paul, he is the one who is hardened. He is the one against the Messiah. And yet, on this road to Damascus, his life is interrupted by the Messiah. Jesus comes in the most unexpected way and completely changes Paul's life. In fact, it's difficult to imagine a bigger change in a person's life. He went from persecuting Christians to becoming the main reason Christianity actually survived and made it beyond Israel. He went from being against the church to being the builder of the church. This was a man who was against God, who participated in the killing of early Christians. And on the road to Damascus, he has this encounter with Jesus. He realizes he's been wrong about everything. And his life completely changes. So when Paul begins by asking the question, is God done with the Jews? Well, I guess not, because he wasn't done with me. He chased me down. One of the ways we can know that God is faithful, that his faithfulness endures, is that he chases the most unlikely people down. See, we might feel far from God, we might feel distant, we might feel cold, we might feel like we're never coming back to God. But God pursues us. We know that he's faithful because he pursues us even when we do not pursue him. The second reason he gives is a reason by election. Notice what he says. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew. So the first reason Paul says God's going to stick with these Israelites is because he stuck with me. He's chasing me down. He chased down those early apostles who are all Jewish. Second reason he gives, though, is that these are the people God foreknew. Now this is a pretty heady concept, this idea of foreknow, but the basic thought is this, that God is outside of time and before anything was created, they were thought of in the mind of God, that he foreknew them in the sense that he knew about them beforehand and had a purpose for them. You might remember just a few chapters ago, Paul says that those he foreknew, he predestined. That they're part of this plan God has for people. And you might ask the question, why does this thought remind me in really hard times that God is faithful? And I don't want you to miss this. Paul is saying, before Israel or you and me ever thought about God, God thought about you. Before you had an idea about Jesus, he had an idea about you. Before you ever spoke, you were spoken into existence. Before you ever loved, you were the object in his mind. You were God's dream. Paul is saying, look, I know that God's going to endure and be faithful to Israel because he foreknew them. They were his craftsmanship. They were his treasured possession. They were his beautiful thing in his mind. That before they ever did a thing, God loved them. This is how I know he's going to be faithful because it's not about them, it's about God. Now, for some of us, that might be hard. And we might immediately make up like some walls, some pushback. Well, Paul's talking about the Israelites. Maybe the Israelites were God's treasured possession. And what does that have to do with me? How do I know that that God foreknew me? But Paul says in chapter 9 that not only was Israel foreknown by God, but but Gentiles were foreknown by God. That it was always the plan to graft them in, to make them a part of his plan. That you and I, all of us, who have been drawn and called by God, God knew us before we were born. We are his idea. I mean, think for a moment. There is a God who is outside of time that has already seen every single moment of your life. When you were born, when you first spoke, when you took your first steps, when you first fell in love, when you first had your heart broken, when you went through that divorce, when you had that disease, the moment in the day that you're going to die, who has seen it all, and you are foreknown by him. You are known exactly, and you are treasured by him. Of course, he's going to be faithful to you. You're his. You're not your own. See, fundamental to the question of is God going to remain faithful is the question, what does God think of me? For many of us, we don't like ourselves, or at least we don't like parts of ourselves, and so we have really difficult times imagining that God thinks good things about us, that we might be the object of his desire, that we might be his treasure, that he might want us. Is it possible? Is it possible that long before what you're going through right now, whatever it is, that you were a thought in his mind, that you were the object of his love, that you were treasured by him, that he knew your exact purpose when he made you, that those he foreknew he predestined to be conformed into the image of his son. He knows exactly how you're going to turn out, even though you're just in the middle or at the very beginning of the process. And that he cares for you and is overseeing the entire process, and that he is faithful. The third reason he gives for how he knows that God has not rejected his people is he talks about a remnant. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel. They've killed your prophets, they've demolished your altars, I alone am left, and they're seeking my life. But what is the divine reply to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee down to Baal. So too at the present time there's a remnant chosen by grace. His third reason for why God has not rejected his people is that there is a remnant. Now, of course, Paul and the early apostles, they're part of this remnant, but but really the question beyond the question, the thing behind the remnant is this idea that you and I don't see all that's going on. We are not good evaluators of whether God's been faithful to us, because we don't see all that God is doing. That far more of what God is doing is behind our back than in front of our face. Elijah has reached the end of his rope. He feels like he's the only one left, the only faithful person. Maybe some of you have felt like that in a situation like, am I the only healthy person in this group dynamic? Am I the only one left? Am I the only one who cares? Am I the only one who's conscientious? And he feels like he's the only one, and God's word to him is there's so many people you don't see. There's so much you don't know. You see from this limited perspective, and you've judged me unfaithful. I see it all, and I see way more than you about what's going on. God is faithful because he's at work in unexpected places. We see this throughout church history. Who could have imagined, sitting in this house church in Rome, that in a few hundred years Christianity would not be centered in Israel, but would be centered in Rome, and that the entire empire would have been converted. God was doing something that they could not have imagined. And if you were alive in the fourth and fifth century, you wouldn't have imagined the spread of Christianity to the West. You might have been stuck there thinking this is the collapse of it all. And in the meantime, it's moving west. And if you had been alive in the 14th, 15th, 16th century, who could imagine Christianity going to this new world? The United States and the United States being the epicenter of missions for multiple centuries, taking the gospel around the world. And if you judge the faithfulness of God in the 2000s in the 21st century, and you think Christianity's not doing well because the church isn't doing well here, who could imagine that the church is actually growing and exploding in the southern hemisphere? See, we look back to where God has worked to judge his faithfulness. And Paul is saying, no, God's not working where you think, but he is working. It's a surprise. There's people you don't know about. And we often judge by where we are standing. Ah, you know, the United States, we aren't doing well this decade. So the kingdom of God must not be doing well. No. God has a remnant, he has people, he's at work in places we don't even think about or know about. The epicenter of the Christian faith is not us. And it might be that even though we make ourselves the center, we're actually on the edges of what God is doing. And that God and the Holy Spirit are having a grand old time and are thriving in other communities. That revival is breaking out in other places. Paul is being instructive here. He's saying, look, you can't judge whether God's done with Israel because things look bleak to you. God is doing way more than you can ask or imagine. And by the way, Paul was proven right. There's been a remnant, and the Jewish believers have always been a part. Jews have always been a part of Christian history. He has preserved them. They're our people. We can never say God has done with the Jews because our Christian church has always been made up of Jews who follow Jesus. They've always been a part of the body. There's never been a moment where we can say and push that aside. It's always been there. It's always been important. And a fourth reason he says we can know that God's faithful. He hasn't rejected his people. He says in verse 5 and 6, so to at the present time, there remains a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. The fourth reason he gives for how he knows God hasn't given up on people is that it's grace. This is important to understand. He's saying we know that God's faithfulness is not negated by our unfaithfulness because God's faithfulness is based on grace. It is freely given. God is going to be faithful to this group of people he's talking about because God made unilateral promises to them. And it's not on the basis of their good works. It's not on the basis that they killed the prophets. It's not on the basis that they rejected the Messiah. It's by grace. So many of us, we secretly struggle with thoughts of whether God is going to persist and be faithful to us because we secretly believe that it's based on us. That God will be faithful to me when I'm trying. God will be faithful to me when I do good things. God will be faithful to me when I start giving to the church. God will bless me and do things for me when I do X, Y, and Z. God's faithfulness does not depend on you or me, but it depends on His grace. And He is faithful to dispense grace. His grace is powerful. It's unrelenting. It woos and calls and draws people. It's that there will always be grace accomplishing God's purposes. That it is not dependent on what we see, but on the power of his grace, on the effect of his grace, and on his mission in the world. There's a brief transition. And then Paul actually gives a prophetic picture of how this is going to look. He reaffirms then, what then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but they were hardened. The rest were hardened as it's written. God gave them a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see, ears that would not hear, down to this very day. And David says, Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and keep their backs forever bent. So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means. But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fool inclusion mean? So he gives this no means. God's not done with Israel, and then he comes right back to, yep, they've messed up. Yep, they've hardened their hearts. They've been hardened. We review a little bit in chapter 9. He talks about this at length, this idea that God has given us over to the desires of our heart, that we have hardened our heart, that we are bent, and God also hardens us to accomplish his purposes. And he gives this very clear picture that God used the disobedience of his people to bring about the crucifixion of Jesus, to bring about the blessing to the whole world. And this is fascinating because Israel's original purpose given to Abram was to be a blessing to the whole world. And who but God could fulfill that purpose through their disobedience? They were meant to be a blessing to the whole world. They were meant to obey the covenant, and by obeying the covenant, become a blessing to every nation, to bring the nations of the world into Zion. And then fail on that completely. They reject God, and so he hardens their heart and he uses their disobedience for the crucifixion of Jesus to bless the whole world anyway. And God, in his sovereignty, he uses them. And he uses them for his purposes. But he's not done with them. He says they aren't rejected forever. Does it mean because they were hardened that because they have stumbled, that they will fall? He says no. And then he gives a prophetic picture of Israel, and he gives it in three stages. And I want to just say a word real quick, because this is about Israel, but but I want to mention something. What Paul is doing here to help them see the faithfulness of God is he's zooming out. He's zooming out. And sometimes prophetic words they can do this. They can help us see the whole story. They can give us perspective we didn't have. And so Paul, he's zooming out and he shows the story of Israel in three stages. The first stage is that they're hardened. And God uses their disobedience to bring about salvation for Gentiles. And so in stage one, we see that God uses his original chosen people and their own hardness to bring about the salvation of Gentiles. We actually see this in the early church all the time. The book of Acts is constantly. People are going into cities with the good news. They go into the synagogue. They try to reach the Jews. Most of the Jews are hardened and they go reach the Gentiles who get saved. They're hardened, he says, in this first stage, so that the gospel might go to the Gentiles, so it might go all around the world. The second stage he gives, we see in verse 11 and 12. Through their stumbling, salvation comes to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous. Stage two, the Gentiles now have the gospel. And Israel, the people of God, originally begin to get jealous of the Gentiles. What are they jealous of? They're jealous of the blessings of the new covenant. All the blessings of Abraham and Moses and David are they find their yes in Jesus. And in Paul's mind, the gospel has gone to the Gentiles, not because the Jews have been rejected eternally, but because the Gentiles are supposed to live in that new blessing so that the Jews become jealous. You might think of it like this: perhaps you have a family and you have a wonderful Christmas every year where you have a big meal and you open presents. Your kids decide to run away. And so you end up adopting a new family. And then your kids miss you and they're peeling out through the window at the big family meal at Christmas time, thinking, why did I ever run away? They got a new family, and does that mean I don't have a seat at the table anymore? And no, it's meant to draw them in. One question we might ask ourselves is, are we living in a way to make anyone really, but but Jews in particular, are we living in a way that they're jealous? That they're aware that we have some blessing they don't have? Is there anything distinct about our lives? Is there anything that might make us pause? Is your neighbor jealous of what you have spiritually? Are you in proximity where other people can see the blessing that your faith is to your life? Or is the reward you get from your faith and from your community, is it hidden from the world so as not to make anybody jealous? We are meant to shine our light out brightly. And in this particular context, Paul is saying there's gonna be this middle stage where these Israelis they become jealous. They want what we have. The third stage then is at some future point, and we see this clearly in verse 26. At some future point, after the hardening has come upon the heart of Israel, like the other Israelis, until the full number of Gentiles have come in, then all of Israel will be saved. Paul's imagining some future point. Stage three. In the future, there's gonna be this moment where all of Israel, he's talking about this ethnic Jewish people, they're all saved. He doesn't, this isn't literal language in the sense that like he's talking about every single person, but he is talking about a national sort of ethnic conversion of a whole people group. And he's saying, this is what's coming. And by the way, in in chapter 9 and chapter 10, he said, This is what I'm praying for. And now here in chapter 11, he said, This will happen. That God has not rejected his people. He's used their disobedience to bring about his glory. He's going to cause them to long to come back, he's going to make them jealous, and one day they will come back because God is faithful. And so these are the stages of Israel's history. They're the stages for this group of people from the line of Abraham. And notice what he said, he's clearly not talking about just the elect, because he talks about the people that have been hardened, not the people that, like himself, the Lord has already rescued. So this is some sort of revival. And then he even hazards a bit more. He says, if their stumbling meant riches for the world, if their defeat was used to bring in the Gentiles, this is verse 12, how much more will their full inclusion mean? He's saying, if God used their disobedience to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, which he did, how much more will he use their return to bring the gospel to the Gentiles? That there is this revival prophesied when the people of Israel come back. And so in Paul's mind, they're not discarded. They're not yesterday's news. They're not a tool God used to just bring the Messiah. They're a continued part of his plan. He consistently uses the language that it is only by faith revealing the righteousness of God revealed to us. So it's not some different way they're going to get saved. They're going to come back to Jesus. And when they come back to Jesus, it's going to bring blessing to the world in a greater way than their disobedience brought it. Now, their disobedience brought about the explosion of the church amongst the Gentiles. So we're left to wonder and imagine what their obedience will bring about. And he hints at that, and Pastor Rich will talk a little bit about it next week, that he certainly seems to be hinting that it'll bring about the second coming of Jesus, that it's that it's tied to this end-time event, but but we'll get into that next week. But Paul's main point is that God is not done with these people who have rejected him. That he is enduringly faithful. I want to end by a warning that he gives. And thus saving some of them. For if the rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what would it happen to the life of the dead? If the heart of the devil would have rooted holy, then the branch is holy. If the root is holy, then the branches are not a holy. This is the warning. But if some of the branches were broken off, you talking to the gentiles, while while the olive trees were drafted in their place to share the riches of the root of the olive tree, do not boast over the other branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that supports the root, but the root that supports you. You will say branches are broken off that I might be drafted in. That might be true, that is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief. He's using a metaphor for us. It's not too hard to figure out. The olive tree is Israel, and they've been broken off. We've been grafted in as non-Jewish people. And he's telling them, and you might picture this, you're sitting in a church in Rome, in a house, and there's Jews and there's Gentiles. And he's been going on for two chapters about the disobedience of Israel, the hardening of their heart, and how the riches of the gospel have come to the Gentiles. And now he's turning to the other kid. And he's saying, Don't be proud. If God could cut them off, God can cut you off. Don't boast. Stand in awe that you've been grafted in at all. Remember that you're the guest to their olive tree. Keep He's saying some honor, but then he's also saying, don't put your confidence in the things of the flesh. What got them to being cut off? Their unbelief. He expounded on this in chapter 10. It was because they were ignorant of the righteousness of God, is the phrase he used. They were ignorant that it was all a gift. How did the olive tree originally get pruned? They were ignorant that it was a gift. They were proud to be the people of God and thought they had earned it. And the reality was it was all grace. And now Paul's giving this haunting warning to us. You can boast in being the people of God and think you've done the right things. But if you forget that it's all grace, you too can be cut off. We have to hold this with tension. Because for multiple chapters, Paul's been talking about assurance, assurance, assurance. If God's got you, he'll never let you go. And now he gives this haunting warning, like, whoa, I can be cut off again? Like that, that seems like that's that's harsh, right? How do we hold these in tension? Sometimes this is called the doctrine of eternal security. It's this idea, like, can I lose my faith? And of course, Paul says if you if you hold on to your faith, you won't be cut off, that it's the lack of faith that leads to being cut off. But but Paul seems to have in this picture two different things: a God who is enduringly faithful, and people, he says, that have to endure to the end. And maybe a way to think about this is to say that that saving faith is enduring faith. That one sign that we've truly put our faith in Christ is that we endure. Maybe one sign that we never put our faith in Christ is that we did not endure. Paul here clearly seems to have a category. And by the way, Jesus did too. Jesus talked in a parable about people that seem to receive the word and grow really quickly. And then because of the cares of life, it gets choked off and dies. That there is this appearance of life that does not last. And Paul here, he's concerned for these Jews. He's concerned for these Gentiles. To the Jews, he's saying, God is not done with our people. And to the Gentiles, he's saying, don't boast. Don't brag. You haven't replaced what God's doing over here. You're here by grace. And it is only by grace that you get to stay. So remain. Remain in the faith. Do not boast in the confidence of what you have done. I want to close with this really simple question for you. Do you believe, do you believe that God has been and will be faithful to you? Paul is clearly talking to the people of Israel. He's clearly talking about the descendants of Abraham, but he's also giving us a window into what God is like. What is God like? God is the kind of God that doesn't give up on what he has made. He's the kind of God that endures even a people that reject his Messiah and kill his son. He's the kind of God that takes people's disobedience and uses it for his glory. He's the kind of God that does not quit on us. He's in our corner. He wants us, he wants you, he wants me. That God is enduringly faithful to you personally. That he is in your corner. That he will persist with you no matter what you've done. No matter how far away from him you feel, no matter what sins you've committed, that he foreknew you. That he wants you. That he pursues you. That it's not based on anything you've done. It's not based on your church record. It's not based on your sexual history. It's not based on your devotional life. That his faithfulness flows out of his heart, out of his character. And that you are an object of that faithfulness. Let's pray.