Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning!

We are continuing our sermon series 9 Fruit 1 Flavor on the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Gal 5:22-23.

The the Fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience kindness, goodness, FAITHFULNESS.

What is faithfulness?

Faithfulness speaks of dependability and reliability..

… We sometimes speak of our car being faithful…Pam’s family had an old Mercedes that they used to call the tank… because it was old kept on going.

We speak of friend being faithful… we talk about being faithful in marriage…Faithfulness can be applied to many things…

The word Faithful has some implications.

Faithful implies predicability… that you can count on someone or something… It’s predictable because faithfulness has patterns of behavior or modes of operation ... you can set you clock to faithfulness..

For example..

In the Yellowstone National Park has the geyser called “Old Faithful” The reason why it is called Old Faithful is because of its highly predictable geothermal feature… every 44-125 minutes it erupts and has been doing this since 2000...

If you go to Wyomi to visit Yellowstone there is high probability you are going to see an eruption.

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Faithfulness also implies having Substance Or being grounded..

Someone who is faithful …Knows what they believe really believe, whom they really love, and what they are ultimately committed to.

Faithfulness knows what you want to live for and what you’re willing to die for.

To be honest We all desire Faithfulness..We are attracted to Faithfulness…

We desire in our marriages, in our Friendships in our Relationships… When we Employ someone … we are looking for the quality Faithfulness… we wanting someone who is going to be commited--- that are going to show up on time… do there job with excellence… going to be loyal and reliable…We desire it in our coworkers… We desire faithfulness in our churches..

John Wesley said, “Give me a hundred men who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world.

I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; and such alone will overthrow the kingdom of Satan and build up the Kingdom of God on earth.”

Paul commended Faithfulness — He often mentioned.. loyal faithfulness when he greeted people… For example the book of Colossians begins with a greeting.. “Faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.”

Paul spoke of his travel companions Timothy, Epaphras, Onesimus“faithful brothers”

Faithfulness is a big deal in scripture..

Jesus was concerned about Faith.. in the parable of the persistent widow.. who goes day by day to find justice from the judge.. initially he ignored her plea.…

her persistence pays.. Jesus went it comes to those who seek his face day and night their faith is going to pay off… the issue is Faithfulness

Where does Faithfulness Come from?

Faithfulness is another Divine Attribute of God…Faithfulness is closely related to his goodness…last week told the parable of the talents from Matt 25:14-23 and when the master came home He said to the two servants who had doubled their investment… Jesus says Well done good and faithful servant…

Both Faithfulness and Goodness Speaks to God’s Character and Actions…God is unchanging in his nature… He is always good, and he is always faithful… Faithful speaks to ethics the way that he respond to men and especially His people..

Do have one of those songs that you hear and you fight back tears?

… there is a couple of them…

One of those songs for me is the Hymn “Great is thy Faithfulness.”

This Hymn was written by Thomas Chisholm who went through many ups and downs including health challenges and unemployment… Thomas had been a Christian for nearly 30 years before he wrote the song… the Hymn was relatively unknown until George Beverly Shea started singing it at the Billy Graham Crusades… The Hymn was inspired by a chapter that was close to Thomas Chisholm… From the book of

Lamentations 3

Gods steadfast love is constant… never seizing and his mercies never come to an end.

How many times have people let you down?

… and to be honest sooner or later we will disappoint someone else.. listen to what A.W. Tozer said in the knowledge of the Holy…

“Men become unfaithful out of desire, fear, weakness, loss of interest, or because of some strong influence from without.

Obviously none of these forces can affect God in any way....”

But God will never disappoint, deceive, or disillusion us..

He is perfect and just in all his ways..The reason His Great in the Faithfulness department..

His Faithfulness is

1.

Infinite -

2.Established

3.Incomparable

4.Unfailing

5.Everlasting

7.Unconditional

8.Worthy of our Trust

Paul said to Timothy — that even if we are Faithless… he remains faithful....

Faithfulness is both a Fruit and Gift of the spirit… there Fruit of Faithfulness that comes from abiding in Christ… There are circumstances where we need help with our faith...

There are times when we are like those who said Lord I believe help me with my unbelief.. well that’s the gift of Faith…

Faithfulness…

T/s There are many examples of men and woman that lived by faith and were faithful… But one example towers above the rest and that is the Faithfulness of Moses…..

Moses was Israels greatest Prophet, the greatest lawgiver, greatest historian, the greatest saint..the greatest deliver.. WE are told that Moses was Faithful in all his house....

When you read the life of Moses you find that He had to deal with lots of Challenges as the leader of Israel.

He had catering problems in the wilderness… The people were not satisfied with eating manna in the wilderness.

Numbers 13 People are crumbling… He had Criticism from his own family about his marriage.

Death threats, Mutiny of key leaders.

Yet, in the midst of crisis after crisis, Moses stayed faithful to the job God had given him.

God reckoned he could trust Moses, even under enormous pressure.

That’s why it is God himself who commends Moses for his faithfulness…at the end of Deuteronomy there there is the unparalled epitaph...

The Bible tells us that there was no one like Moses who was Faithful in house of all Israel…

… What was Secret to the Life of Moses?

T/S There are several lessons we learn from the faithfulness of Moses.. the first is that.

1. Faithfulness Celebrates What is!

When was the last time you celebrated.... “what is?”

A lot of times we look at life through this lense of regrets.. what if I had been given that promotion.. .. what could have been… or what if’s…if only I had the opportunity.

What about the beauty of what is?

… … Just gave thanks for what is!

Faithfulness Celebrates what is!.

What I am talking about is celebrating the uniques of who you are and the unique of your life experiences.

There are not two people on the planet that have had the same experiences… you might have grown up in the same house as a simbling.. and still there is uniqueness.

In psalms 139 --- David Celebrates whatis ..

David Marvell’s at how God formed and framed him in the womb of his mother...

David praises God… because he was known in the womb - his frame was not hidden — But he was intricately woven together in secret… yet God saw his unformed substance.. God NumberEd each of David’s day’s.

In the book of of Hebrews… we have this condensed version of his life..

The book of Hebrews is about endurance.

It was written to a group of Christians who were really talking about giving up because they were being persecuted and because of their suffering..

In chapter 11 we are given examples of men and women who have been faithful — and one of those that stands out in the area of faithfulness is Moses… Moses was faithful over all the house of Israel..

Moses Faithfulness begins with the Faith of His parents…

Now, I prefer the way the NIV phrases this verse… because it clarifies that it wasn’t so much the faith of Moses but the faith of his parents that rescued Moses as an infant… the NIV says “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born

The first thing we are presented with is the Faithfulness of Aniram and Jochebed.. who hid Moses for three months.

This was a dark time for Israel..

The oppression of Israel was at its worst…and the Egyptians were threatened by the growing population of their Jewish slaves…

Pharoah had ordered the midwives to kill all Jewish newborn males immediately on Birth (Ex.

1:15–17).

When the mid wives struggled with this edict …The text implies that they feared God more than pharaoh.. so The result was that more extreme and crude measure were taken.

New born babies were tossed into the Nile for food for the crocodiles…

Things were bad…but in th midst of problems

Moses parents Amram and Jochebed were people of faith…They recognized that there was something special about Moses… he was no ordinary child… that there was something beautiful about Moses..

This is apparently a universal feeling… All my kids are the most “beautiful” kids.... ..we’ve all felt our kids are the most beautiful, talented and gifted.... so are yours.. right?

Obviously there was something a little more to Moses than external beauty…in Acts 7:20 .... Stephens sermon he tells us that Moses , “beautiful in the sight of God,” or “well-pleasing to God” (Acts 7:20).

John Calvin comments that “there was some sort of Mark of Excellence (engraved on the boy) of something (extraordinary) to come...

They were faithful because they did something about it.. they risked everything… they had two other children Miram and Aaron to think about but they realized there was something much bigger at stake,,.. Hebrews tells us that by faith His parents did not fear of the kings edict…

Rather that give up.. they hid Moses for three months until it became impossible to keep him hidden any longer....

Jochebed then acted in by faith again when she made an ark our of bulrushes, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, and laid Moses in it by the river-bank.

What happened next was nothing short of miraculous…

Pharaoh’s daughter… discovered Moses in the bulrushes and of cause, her heart melted at the sight of Moses..

She ends up adopting Moses and paying Jochebed to be the surrogate mother to her own child.

God uses Jochebed to nurture Moses faith and give him a sense of his Jewish identity.

Moses was preserved by his parents’ faith.