If there was one word that would represent your character, your nature, one word that would summarize what you stand for in life, what one word would you choose?
Many when asked have said happy, some said influential. Others said successful. But what Jesus would say to us is well done my good and faithful servant. If there is one word that should stand above the rest, I believe we should strive to be faithful.
Today, we’re gonna look at the theme of faithfulness. And the reason we’re deciding before we have to choose in the moment with our emotions to be faithful, because we’re never accidentally going to be consistently faithful. There is no way that day in and day out, week in, week out, year in, year out, that we will consistently be faithful without being intentional. The reason we find it difficult to be faithful is, call it what it is, the course of our life is toward what’s easy. The course of our life is heading toward what is convenient and being faithful, especially faithful to God and what is right, is rarely easy. It’s often hard. It comes with a cost, but it’s always worth it.
Habakkuk 2:4 NLT Look at the proud. They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.
Unfortunately, I am often the proud. I’m often the one who thinks I can do it on my own. I’m often the one who tries to be good enough. I’m often the one who tries to be self sufficient. Look at the proud, scripture says, “They trust in themselves and their lives are crooked.” So I am intentionally deciding not to be proud, but to be righteous because the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. Now that raises a question. What does it mean to be faithful?
If you do a word study on Jesus talking about the word faithful, you will see that he had three different categories and only three categories, whenever he talked about faithfulness. He talked about faithfulness and how you treat people. He talked about faithfulness and you steward resources. And he talked about faithfulness and how you respond to God. So heres what we’re going to do.
• The first thing, we’re gonna pre-determine that every encounter is an opportunity to add worth. We’re going to see people with a 10 on their forehead and they aren’t living up to that 10 then we’re going to add value to their lives so they are a 10. We don’t give up on adding value to people. We’re faithful in our relationships.
• Our second decision is this. Every resource is an opportunity to multiply because Jesus defines faithfulness as how we steward what he gives us. God gives you an ugly yard and you make it a better yard. That’s faithfulness. God gives you a beater of a car and you have the cleanest beater on the road. God gives you a body and you do the best you can with what God’s given you. It is faithfulness to God when you multiply resources. we are passionate about stewarding resources well, so that when you give, we manage to create room so we can lead the way with irrational generosity, because we truly believe it’s more blessed to give than receive.
It’s God honoring to multiply and steward what he’s given you. And Jesus says that is faithful.
- The third decision is this, that every prompting, is an opportunity to obey God. Because every time Jesus talked about faithfulness, he talked about how you treat people, how you steward resources and how you respond to God. I love Acts chapter 20:22 when Paul, he was really happy where he was. I think it was in Ephesus and he had this emotional farewell and he said, and now compelled by the spirit, the words in the Greek are Deo ho num. That means to be wrapped up like bound with chords. He’s like I’m being drawn to this and being, being compelled by the spirit. He said, I’m going to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it. I don’t know the details. I just know that I’m being drawn. When you follow Jesus, he will prompt you. He will compel you and faithfulness is responding, even when you don’t know what will happen.
You have no idea what God might do when you follow a prompting. This is faithfulness. The spiritual principle is this, obedience is our responsibility, outcome is God’s. This is faithfulness.
Because every time Jesus talked about faithfulness, he talked about how you treat people, how you steward resources and how you respond to God. Don’t underestimate what God will do through a lifetime of faithfulness.
Honest