1 Kings 8:57-61 (NKJV) 57 May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He not leave us nor forsake us, 58 that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers. 59 And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the Lord,

1 Kings 8:57-61 (NKJV) be near the Lord our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day may require, 60 that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. 61 Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.”

Are You Loyal? In keeping with our theme and our custom, today we study together on the idea of faithfulness We have studied many lessons so far on the idea of being faithful to God Last month we explored the idea of our dependence on God

Are You Loyal? We have studied together on the idea of faithfulness directing us to trust in God This morning we seek to explore the idea of our loyalty to God It was in I Kings 11:4 where the Bible shows the lack of loyalty Solomon had

Are You Loyal? “his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God” The word loyal used is the Hebrew word “salem” It is used 28 times in the Old Testament, 14 times translated as “loyal”

Are You Loyal? That word “loyal” (salem) is defined in a very interesting way There are some ideas that we see within this word that can help us understand what it means to be loyal or faithful to God 3 things we see…

Peaceable One such meaning of the word “loyal” is the idea of being peaceable or at peace with Being loyal to God means being at peace with Him God wants peace with His people (Is. 27:5)

Peaceable When we sin, we are at war with God (Israel) Jesus came to change all of that (Is. 9:6 – Prince of Peace) Through our faith, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1)

Peaceable When Christ died to create peace, we were ungodly, sinners, enemies of His (Rom. 5:6-10) Paul describes what the “enemies of the cross of Christ” are (Phil. 3:17-19) We are either at peace with God or at peace with the world (Js. 4:4; Rom. 8:7)

Peaceable Colossians 1:19-23 Paul lays out very beautifully here what it means to be at peace with God Our maintaining peace with God is dependent on our continuing in the faith

Undivided Another word we see used to define loyal is the word “undivided” Being loyal to God means being undivided or fully devoted to Him and only Him No one can serve two masters (Matt. 6:24)

Undivided If we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us (I Jn. 2:15-17) Demas is an example of this as he forsook Paul because he loved the world (II Tim. 4:10) If we love the world it will eventually pull us away from God

Undivided Paul said that we will either be slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness, but the choice is ours (Rom. 6:16) God is our only Master, therefore we are to be loyal to Him (Matt. 4:10) By it’s very definition, to be loyal means to be undivided

Obedient We have often said that the Bible is it’s own best commentary Besides looking at a word and its definition, the Bible will often describe what a word or concept means We see a perfect example of this with this word loyal (salem)

Obedient I Kings 8:54-61 “to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments” We see this same definition repeated again in I Chronicles 29:19 – keeping commandments, testimonies and statutes

Obedient Contrast that with what we see happen in I Kings 15:3 Abijam walked in sin, which equaled a heart that was not loyal to God Being loyal to God means being obedient to Him, keeping His commandments