What is faithfulness? What do we mean when we say someone is faithful?
Faithfulness is not…
· attending church every time the doors are open.
· serving in ministry positions where God has not gifted you.
· teaching Sunday School longer than God calls you to.
· financially supporting the ministries of the church out of compulsion or obligation
· being a member of a church
Faithfulness is rooted in faith. To have faith means that we place all our trust in God. Faithfulness is directly related to our faith in God.
We have faith in God when we…
· worship God.
In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus is engaged in a dialogue with a religious lawyer. The man asked Jesus, “Which is the most important commandment?” Jesus said to him, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (22:37 NKJV)
Loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind is to worship him. Because we trust God, because we believe in God, because we know that he loves us, we worship him.
Faith in God leads us to worship. Why?
Do you remember the old hymn, Count Your Many Blessings?
"Count your many blessings
Name them one by one
Count your many blessings
to see what God has done."
The most important indicator of our faithfulness is our worship of God. Worship is exalting God to the place he deserves—first place. Worship is living a life that honors God. Worship is placing God at the center of everything we do.
When we gather on Sunday morning, we worship because we are living lives of worship. If you want to go to the next level in worship on Sunday mornings, then worship God every day. Worship God in all that you do. You’ll be amazed at what God will do when you come to church to worship.
Being a faithful Christian is centered in worshiping God.
We have faith in God when we…
· trust God’s promises.
Abraham was faithful because he trusted God’s promise. God told Abraham to leave the land he knew as home. God promised to give him a land that would belong to his family forever. Abraham left the land of Ur because he knew God would keep his promise.
Centuries later, Moses was faithful because he believed in God’s promise to free the Israelites and take them to the land God promised to Abraham.
Centuries later, the people of God were in exile because they chose to worship the gods of other peoples. The prophets proclaimed messages of hope. Isaiah was faithful to God because he knew God would send his Messiah to deliver his people form their sins.
Centuries later, in his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul wrote, “When the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children (4:4-5 NLT).
The Bible is filled with the promises of God:
* forgiveness for sin
* strength when we are weak
* comfort when we are grieved
* hope when we are filled with despair
* joy when we are sad
And the list goes on and on.
Being a faithful Christian is trusting God to keep his promises.
We have faith in God when we…
· serve one another in the little things of life.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus said, “Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won’t be faithful in large ones.” (Luke 16:10 NLT)
Dr. Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, gave this example of serving Christ in the little things.
To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others…to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom -- I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.
We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a stack $l00 bills and laying it on the table—“Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.” But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l00 bills for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. We listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying, ’Get lost.’ We go to a committee meeting. We give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually, giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at time.
It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul."
(Copied from www.sermonillustrations.com)
Faith in God creates within us the capacity for…
· being dependable.
· being honest.
· being trustworthy.
· being firm.
· being stabile.
In his book, God Came Near, Max Lucado tells the story of Norman Geisler who went to a Vacation Bible School because some neighborhood children invited him. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week a bus driver faithfully picked him up. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Christ. What if that bus driver had given up on Geisler at 395? What if the bus driver had said, "This kid is going nowhere spiritually, why waste any more time on him?"
Max Lucado, God Came Near, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 133.
We are faithful to God and each other when our lives are lived in faith in God.
Invitation
God wants us to known as people of faith. Are you a faithful person?
Becoming a faithful person begins with a relationship with Jesus. Do you know him? Is he your Savior? Is he your Lord?
