A Loyal God

A Loyal God (Deuteronomy 4:29-31)

Man: “Are you certain this dog you’re selling me is loyal?”

Owner: “Of course he sure is. I’ve sold him five times, and every time he comes back.”

I want to show you three ways God is a loyal God.

1. God can be found (v.29)

29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Today we’re looking at the subject of the loyalty of God. God’s loyalty is not often an attribute that we think much of. Most often we talk about this idea we talk about it in the idea of faithfulness. And He certainly is faithful. But today I want tk show you a little bit about what I think the Bible is talking about when it comes to God’s loyalty.

Moses is giving a charge to the people of Israel as they are poised to enter the promised land.
He tells them to obey God’s Word and they will be blessed. But there will come a time where they will fall to idolatry. There will be times where they will be unfaithful to their God. However, even in their faithfulness, God is faithful and loyal.

One of the promises God always gave the Israelites was despite them sinning and falling into idolatry, if they repented from their sin and turned back to Him he would forgive them. Moses says here that when you are ready to repent, you will seek the Lord and you will find him.

He also mentions that you will find him only if you look for him with all of your heart and your soul.
This is true faith. What else does the bible say about seeking and finding God?

Proverbs 8:17: I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

When we finally find God again, we return to Him. We forsake our own way of doing things.
What is God’s response when we find him?
Does he hold it over our head? No.

He gives us compassion. He gives us forgiveness.

Those who are truly seeking God, will find him.
When you wander off the path, if you truly seek him you’ll find him.
It doesn’t matter how much you’ve sinned or fallen off, if you love him and seek for him, you’ll find him.

Isaiah 55:6-7: 6 Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

2. God can be obeyed (v.30)

30 When you are in tribulation, and all these come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice.

When we seek God what we are really seeking is His kingdom. We’ve tired of living for ourselves.
We’re tired of living for own kingdom.
We’re tired of living for our own comfort.

We’ve had enough.
When we seek for God we are admitting that He is all we truly need.
Because God is loyal God, because He is loyal to covenant, when we seek Him we will find him.

We lose things in our house all the time.
Nintendo controller, remote, etc.
But we know...if we look, really look hard enough, what is lost will be found (unless it was thrown away).
This past week we lost the remote.
I finally spent 15 minutes really looking and I found it in a strange place underneath the couch.
I knew it had to be there somewhere. But I kept missing it. But when I finally committed to looking for it...I found it, as well as other things we had lost! When you truly seek God you’ll find him. He is a loyal God.

Moses says when your sin brings you troubles, and it will, just return to the Lord and obey His voice.
That’s what returning is: obedience.

John 14:15: If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

On the basic level, obedience to God is doing what He says. Why? So we can escape his wrath?
No, Jesus took His wrath for us.
Why? So we can earn his forgiveness, salvation, and love? No, Jesus earned his forgiveness, salvation, and love when he took our place on the cross.

We keep God’s commandments because we love him.
Why do and should we love him?
Because he first loved us and died for us so that we may be forgiven our sins and live with him in eternity.

God can be obeyed...it’s possible...even though we are not perfect.

Acts 5:29: But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.

One of the ways we will be tempted to disobey God is to listen to “men” - other people.
In Acts, Peter and the apostles were told to quit spreading the Gospel in the region.

Peter said, “God has told us to do this. We listen to him. Not you.”
So we obey God’s Word .

John 5:3: For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

3. God can be trusted (v.31)

31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

Attributes of God:
• He’s merciful (won’t judge)

His commands are not a burden. They are freeing.
They liberate you.

When my son disobeys, there is a consequence. He goes into his room and has a time out.
He hates it.
But if he were to obey, he would have more freedom. His freedom wouldn’t be squelched.

He wouldn’t be in jail, so to speak. So obedience brings freedom.

Returning means obedience.
God can be obeyed.
And his commandments are not burdensome...they’re freeing.

God can be trusted. That’s what makes him loyal.
And this verse gives us several attributes of who God is.

The fact that God is merciful means that won’t judge us for what we deserve.
Mercy is withholding judgment.
He’s merciful so we can trust him.

Ephesians 2:4-5: 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

• He’s faithful (won’t leave)

1 Samuel 12:22: For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

God is rich in mercy.
This means his mercy never ends.
He’s wealthy with mercy.
His mercy underscores just how deep is love is for us. Even when we were spiritually dead, He saved us. His mercy underscores that he can be trusted.

The main reason God won’t leave you is not because of you. Yes, he loves us with a love we can’t comprehend.
Yes, we are special in his sight.
But...the linchpin....what holds his faithfulness all together is that he won’t leave us, because doing so would shatter his OWN reputation.

At one point in their journeys, Moses said to God, “Don’t destroy your people. If you do, the nations will think you’re not as glorious a God as you’ve displayed.”
So God relented because of His glory.

This can be hard for us fathom because when people do things for their own glory, it’s sin.

• He’s forgiving (won’t destroy)
Psalm 103:12: As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

• He’s mindful (won’t forget)

Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may depart and the hill be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you,

But for God to act in such a way that brings more glory to Him, it’s not sinful, because God can’t sin.
So his faithfulness which leads to his the fact he can be trusted is so because of his name’s sake.

When you are prone to despair that God might leave you, remember that He saved you for the good of His namesake! He saved you so the whole world would see how good He is.

God can be trusted because he won’t destroy us.
He has taken our sin and removed it as far as possible.
As far as the horizon is, and it seems unending when we look at it, that’s how far God has removed our sin.
God’s forgiveness is so final we can trust him.

Overtime, mountains may crumble. Hills will erode.
But God’s love will never crumble. His love for you will never erode. He will never forget you.

He can be trusted.

Conclusion: God is a loyal God.

Think about someone you can trust. What kind of attributes do they have? They usually have your best interest. They usually speak truth.

They usually don’t let you down. They usually can be relied upon. In short, they’re merciful. They’re faithful.

They’re forgiving.
They don’t forget you.
A person who can be trusted embodies the attributes of God. Sure, they’re not perfect.
But there is enough of God in them to where you trust them.

In 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland a man named John Gray came to the city to be a gardener.
Unable to find work, he joined the police force as a night watchmen.

To keep him company through the long nights, he would take his small Skye terrier named Bobby with him on his rounds. They became part of the living landscape of the city night after night for years.

John later contracted tuberculosis and died in the winter of 1858; he was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
What happened next became legend in the city.
Bobby, the Skye terrier, would not leave his master's grave. Except for accepting midday meals from the kind people in the area, Bobby stayed there day and night with his master.

The caretaker tried on many occasions to evict the dog, but to no avail.
Finally, he provided the little dog with a shelter by the grave.

Greyfriars Bobby—died 14th January 1872—aged 16 years. Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all.

Poem: What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give Him a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
Yet what can I give Him? I’ll give Him my heart.

When the city passed an ordinance that all unlicensed dogs would be put down, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, William Chambers, purchased a license for Bobby and had a collar engraved for the little dog.

Until his death fourteen years later, the citizens cared for Bobby while he guarded his master's body.
If you walk to Greyfriars Kirkyard today, you can't miss the statue that stands across the street.

It is a sculpture of Bobby with these words inscribed on the base:

God is a loyal God.
He has that type of loyalty.
Only, in his kingdom, we are the dog.
When other things come calling, are we quick to forsake Him? God is a loyal God. What should be our response?