Faithfulness Enduring
Notes
Transcript
Enduring Faithfulness
John Bunyan proclaimed the Gospel in England in the early 1600’s.
At that time you had to have a license to preach from the State church.
Because Bunyan was not Episcopal and Faithfulness to Gospel in prison -
Wife and blind daughter? at home.
4 children - the oldest girl blind, in prison for 12 years because he refused to stop preaching the Gospel.
-During which time he wrote Pilgrims Progress.
Daniel Marshal - Faithfulness to the Gospel, Augusta constable saved.
I. What is Faithfulness?
Faithfulness Meaning:
Being steadfast to Christ’s calling.
Being constant in moving toward the goal.
Regular in your responsibility
Doing what you promised.
Even when you don’t feel like it - When you are hurt, bored, tired - you do what you say.
Faithfulness is: enduring, steady, firm, sure, resolute, devoted, dependable, unwavering
Our culture doesn’t celebrate faithful.
We don’t yell out.
Oh look, he was faithful he did what he was supposed to do.
Oh look, he did his job.
Faithful is hard to make a video our meme out of.
Faithfulness is hard to capture in just one moment, because it is made up of many different moments of steadiness and little victories.
In fact some would say that from an entertainment standpoint, faithfulness is boring.
When faithfulness is missing - it wreaks havock on relationships.
-Organizations cannot be built with lack of faithfulness.
-Teams fall apart when they are short on faithfulness.
-Friendships weaken without faithfulness
-Children are underdeveloped with parents that are not faithful.
-Your relationship with God
The number 1 predictor of a child being in poverty is not their education, but them being in a 1 parent home.
BUT with faithfulness:
...
Your relationship with God deepens.
Your love for Jesus become more powerful.
Your faith in God grows like an oak.
Your hearts thirst for eternal things is quenched.
Your hunger for your maker is satisfied.
Transition - One of the most faithful figures in the Bible was the great Prophet Samuel.
Can we simply admit that being faithful for many of us is difficult.
We are better in short bursts.
Faithfulness is also something that produces the greatest amount of influence and change.
Transition - The first point of faithfulness we see today is Hannah, Samuel’s mother Hannah
Faithful in surrender.
Hannah was a God follower.
-She was married & childless
-In Bible times many people assumed this was considered a curse from God. You had done something wrong.
-To make it worse, a woman’s worth and identity was found in having children.
-She was deeply struggling.
-She felt cheated in life.
-During her yearly pilgrimage to the Tabernacle she makes a vow to God.
vs. 11 (Read)
-Shortly after the vow she made to God she became pregnant.
- After giving birth to Samuel and weaning him, she brought Samuel back to the Tabernacle.
-Look at what Hannah said to the priest at the Tabernacle.
Read 1:27-28
Hannah gave him to God. She surrendered her only Son to Him.
Hannah was faithful in her surrender.
The most precious thing in her life.
What defined a large part of her identity as a woman.
She willingly surrendered to God.
Hannah had no way of knowing that her son would become one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the old testament.
She did not know that hundreds of thousands of lives would spiritually be affected by this act of surrender.
Your act of surrender has a spiritually multiplying effect.
John 12:24
She held Samuel with an open hand.
She did not control. She allowed God to have what was most precious to her.
Her desire died & God’s purpose lived.
Thousands were effected by Samuel’s because of Hannah’s Faithful surrender.
Application - We all have challenges of surrender.
-What in your life is it difficult to keep an open hand to?
-What do you tend to white knuckle on to?
-Is it a relationship? Your fear? Control? Your plans? Your time? Money? Other’s opinion of you?
And surrender is challenging.
-You surrender something and then we snatch it back.
When you are faithful to surrender you are planting a seed in the ground.
You are asking God to honor it and to multiply your giving.
Example Robertson McQuilkin
My freshman hear of college, I let before first light for Bible college.
I was one of the first freshman to arrive on campus.
I got my dorm key and began unpacking.
Up walked a man I had met before.
He was a hero of my dad’s, Robert Mcquilken.
He shook my hand introduced ourselves.
He helped me unload and move my gear into the 2nd story dorm room.
He was the president of the university.
He came to welcome arriving freshmen and help them move in.
-What I didn’t know is that his wife had been diagnosed a year or two before with Alzheimer’s and was slipping very quickly.
-She was beginning to needing more care, someone to stay with her full time.
-Dr. McQuilkin, had a full time ministry at the university.
He wrote academic and ministry books.
He traveled and spoke.
He was very invested in missions
He looked to his peers for wisdom.
-He was told. Place your wife in a nursing facility so you can continue in ministry. x2.
-He said, “No” I made a promise to the Lord & to my wife that I will keep.
-I will surrender my career, my notoriety, and influence to be faithful to my wife.
-He resigned as president to keep be faithful to his wife and to the Lord.
Application -
If you are a Christ follower, you are the bride of Christ. You have made a covenant with Jesus the groom. This covenant was sealed by faith in His blood shed for you.
-Just as Christ has surrendered Himself to the Cross for your salvation.
-As salvation, we have surrendered our lives to Him.
-Is there something in your life that is getting in the way of your covenant with Christ?
-What is pulling you away from your promise to follow, worship, and obey Him?
Transition - We are called to be faithful not only in our promise of surrender, but also in our confrontation of sin.
II. Faithfulness in Confronting Sin
The boy Samuel grew up and became Israel’s first prophet. HE was one of Israel’s greatest prophets.
One of his first assignments was to be the spiritual leader of Israel while nation had its first king - a governing leader.
So, you have a spiritual leader Samuel.
Governing Leader - King Saul
Samuel spoke for God to the King & to the people.
The King ruled over all people including Samuel.
So you basically have 2 leaders. One leader the king can have the 2nd leader the prophet killed if he wants to.
At the beginning of Saul’s reign he was a good king.
-He followed the Lord.
The day came when Samuel would have to confront Saul.
The Philistines gather to fight against Israel.
The Philistines outman Israel. They have 30,000 Chariots.
Israel doesn’t even have swords and spears to fight with.
This is going to be a blood bath.
The Only Way Israel Defeats the Philistines is with God’s help.
Israel needs to sacrifice to the Lord. To seek God’s help.
Only Samuel the prophet can make the sacrifice.
Samuel is running late to the sacrifice.
The Philistines are getting ready for battle.
Saul knows he can’t go into battle without God’s blessing.
He is in a serious predicament.
Saul’s army was getting anxious and starting to leave him.
In Saul’s fear he takes control of the situation.
Saul rationalizes that it is ok for him to take the place of a Prophet.
Saul assumes the position of a Prophet - as the people’s spiritual leader.
In Saul’s desperation he takes the sheep, kills it, and offers it as a burnt offering.
Just as Saul finishes the sacrifice Samuel shows up.
Samuel doesn’t hesitate to immediately confront Saul.
Read verse, I Samuel 13:11-14
When the time came. Samuel is faithful to confront sin.
The 2 reasons Samuel is faithful to this difficult call is
1) Samuel loves God.
2) Samuel loves God’s people.
-Is there a sin in you life that you need to confront?
-Is there wrong being done in your family or work that needs to be address?
Be faithful to God in his calling to deal with sin.
Pause
Both Hannah and Samuel’s faithfulness to God look very different, there is a unifying factor behind both.
-They experienced God’s faithfulness in difficult times.
-When they were faced with difficulty they responded in faithfulness.
-They reflected the faithfulness they experienced from God.
-Their faithfulness was an act of outward act of trust and worship of God.
Transition - What do we know about the faithfulness of God?
IV. God is always faithful.
Read a series of verses
11 The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
Your sinful mistakes do not break the faithfulness of God toward you.
Those sins that you have done that you know hurt God.
That one sin that you have gone back to like a dog is drawn back to rolling in something that has died.
-If you were God, you would have walked away from your countless failures a long time ago.
Why does God leave you? Because Faithful is who God is. It is his character.
Your failure cannot break the faithfulness of God.
If your failure could break the failure of God then there would be something more powerful that God. Your sin is not more powerful than God.
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
The scriptures tell us that God is “ABOUNDING” in faithfulness.
Abounding - More than enough. Your thanksgiving table is abounding with food. God’s faithfulness is abounding with faithfulness and abounding with love. He never gives up on you!!!
Gospel - He was faithful to pay for sins on the cross.
He did not go part of the way. And was only falsely accused.
He did not go half way. And be merely beaten with with the Scourge.
He faithfully went all the way to the cross.
He did not stop in being your faithful sacrifice for sins.
Transition - AND God’s merciful faithfulness to you did not just stop at the cross. It continues today. It never ends.
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
God is faithful
He calls you to be faithful
You can only be faithful by asking the Spirit of God to be faithful through you.
Daniel Marshal
Daniel Marshal planted the first Baptist Church in Georgia in 1772.
While preaching in Georgia he was arrested, because he was preaching without a license to preach.
2 weeks later at Daniel’s trial he was ordered by the court to stop preaching about Jesus.
He refused & said that he must obey God.
A short time later as Daniel Marshal continued to share Jesus the constable (the Sheriff) Samuel Cartlidge came to faith in Jesus and Marshal Baptized him.
A year later the first baptist church was planted in Georgia.
All because, by God’s power, an uneducated man - who was not a good speaker, was faithful to share Jesus.
How has God called you to be faithful?
Is there a faithfulness in surrender you are called to?
Faithfulness in confronting sin in your own life or someone else’s?
For some in this room you need to pick up your Bible and begin to have a daily time with God.
Someone for the first time needs to say Yes to a faithful loving Jesus.
Application/Challenge
Close
1) Faithfulness in Surrender
Samuel’s Hannah - Faithfulness in surrendering the most precious
Mother’s faithfulness in promising and giving Samuel to the Lord.
2) Samuel’s faithfulness -in rebuke (Saul confronting Eli or Saul)
3) Samuel’s faithfulness - in leading in revival
4) Our unfaithfulness
5) The faithfulness of God.