Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Any time you make a decision, you want to know what success will look like.

How do you decide which stock to pick?

The one that seems like it’ll be worth the most money when you retire.

How do you decide which brand of peanut butter to buy?

The one that’s gonna taste best.

Which core seminar to attend?

The one with the coolest teacher, right?

[Get the class to give examples of decisions they made this past week.

What was the goal they had in mind when they made that decision?]

Every decision has a particular measure of success in mind.

What are we trying to accomplish?

But what is that for a Christian?

That’s what we’ll be talking about today.

In short, we make decisions with the aim of being faithful.

And that has massive ramifications on why and how we make decisions.

What we’re going to do today is see first where this idea of faithfulness emerges from Scripture.

Then we’ll look at the freedoms and responsibility that faithfulness brings to our decision-making.

First: what is faithfulness according to the Bible?

1.

What is Faithfulness?

Let’s get to this question by starting with some review from last week.

Last week we looked at some of the things that the Bible says are God’s will for our lives.

Does anyone remember any of those?

(for us to obey—; for us to be holy—; for Christ to be exalted—)

We talked about how frustrating it is that all of these have to do with boring things like developing character and maturity rather than the really important decisions in life like who should I marry or what job should I take.

And we finished with a quote from Kevin DeYoung about how messed up our priorities are when we think this way.

Simply put, God’s will is your growth in Christlikeness.

God promises to work all things together for our good that we might be conformed to the image of his Son.

And the degree to which this sounds like a lame promise is the degree to which we prefer the stones and scorpions of this world to the true bread from heaven.

God never assures us of health, success, or ease.

But He promises us something even better: He promises to make us loving, pure and humble like Christ.

In short, God’s will is that you and I get happy and holy in Jesus.

The aspect of God’s will that he’s chosen to reveal to us is stuff like “obey Jesus” and “be holy” and “become like Christ.”

Why does he seem to think that is so important?

Because in Scripture, it seems that God cares way more about who you are than what you do.

Let me repeat that again because it’s important and more significant than we might think at first.

God cares way more about who you are than what you do.

Let me explain.

What is God’s great aim for the universe?

[to show off his glory.]

Why is that good?

[because it’s why he made us; he’s the most excellent, satisfying, joy-giving being in all the universe.

It would be unloving and wrong to point ultimately to anything but him.]

God made you, and he redeemed you…to show off his glory.

How does he do that?

Well, this brings us to a great paradox of the Christian life: he shows off his work through your work.

Take a look at on your handout:

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…”

That’s our work.

“Work out your own salvation.”

“…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Who ultimately gets the credit?

The one who sent his son to free you from the bonds of sin.

The one who gave you a new heart.

The one who is recreating your desires.

The one who aids you by his Spirit and guides you by his word.

It’s ultimately his work that we see as you become more holy, so he’s the one who gets the glory.

God is the master sculptor, and he is creating in you a masterpiece to show off his power and goodness and glory.

That means that everything you do has value in two ways.

It has value because of what it accomplishes, and it has value because your decision to do it says something about God.

I’ll give you an example.

Let’s say you’re an LA on the Hill.

(Legislative Assistant, that is.)

You work hard all night to help a complex piece of legislation get through, keeping your cool when other people are freaking out, not getting offended when people say mean things to you.

How does that show off God’s glory?

Well, there’s the substance of what’s been accomplished.

You’ve had a small hand in passing what you hope is a good law.

And if it is a good law, it shows off God’s glory by improving government.

Good government points to a good God.

After all, God invented government.

But there’s also the manner in which you accomplished it.

You worked hard because you saw yourself ultimately working for Jesus, not your boss.

You treated others out of self-giving love rather than self-serving obligation, which can be pretty counter-cultural in politics.

That displays the new life that Jesus has been building in you since the day you were saved.

Your work is showing off his work.

Now, when we gather forever around God’s throne, I think we’ll be praising God for both those things.

The substance of your work and the way your work showed off his work.

But based on where the thrust of Scripture seems to land, I think that the second will often prove more important.

Retracing this line of thought: In the Bible, God’s main goal in everything is to show off his glory.

As a result, he’s more interested in what he’s doing in you than what you actually accomplish in a temporal sense.

So your work matters mainly because of how it shows off his work in you.

Let’s take a look at Jesus’ parable of the talents in to see how all this relates to the concept of faithfulness.

We won’t spend time reading the whole parable, but I’ll summarize it.

Before he goes on a long journey, a master entrusts money of different amounts to three different servants.

The first to put the money to work and make more money.

The third buries the money.

All three give what they have to the master at the end of the parable.

The first two servants are rewarded.

But when the third servant comes up, Jesus gives the story a twist.

24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

Here you have what is yours.’

26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant!

You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?

27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.

28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.

29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance.

But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

What did the unfaithful servant do that was lazy and wicked?