Walking in the Spirit: Part 10 Faithfulness

Not to mention that of the kids can head out, but then also my mom and filled me in that Murray called her late last night. And there was another member of her family that she's lost and Marie has had quite a few losses in her family this last year. I think it's Five or six people that have passed in her family in the last year. So just continue to remember her and all that. She's dealing with with that.

As we continue on in our series, you know, we're kind of blending our fruit. I guess we could say right now because we're continuing on in our fruit of the spirit, but we're also tying it in with some of the themes of Advent that are common for this time of the year. In our fruit of the spirit. Today is faithfulness. And like I said, our Advent series for the day's, you heard the Henry say is hope. You know, we can remain faithful in our Pursuit Of God because of the hope we have in Jesus Christ and what he accomplished on the cross. And you know this, I thought about these two themes this week. I thought, you know. How can you remain faithful to anything? If you've lost hope?

And for us as Believers, you know, what is the source of Our Hope? And that's what we're going to take a look at today. But you never going to start off by talking about faithfulness. Your faithfulness is that. Manifestation of the fruit of the spirit that kind of deals with loyalty and trustworthiness.

That's talking about, you know, how faithful. Do you believe that God really is? How faithful do you believe that Jesus was? And it's Their faithfulness. That allows us intern to have faithfulness.

Jeremiah declared in Lamentations chapter 3. Verses 22 and 23. The Lord's. Loving kindness has indeed, never cease for his compassion. Never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. He's referring to the faithfulness of God, to the people of Israel.

And, you know, because Jesus was faithful, we read in Philippians, chapter 2 verses 7 and 9, that Jesus emptied himself. Taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance. As a man. He humbled himself. By becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also God, highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.

The main part of that passage that I want to focus on this morning, as we think about faithfulness is the second part of verse 8 there.

You know, what? We're going to look at is this time when Jesus showed his faithfulness to God by being willing to step down out of the Heavenly Realms into this world. The help live out. God's plan. Does he know Jesus show the world when he did that that he was willing to? Be obedient to what God was asking of him even to the point of death.

And sometimes I think we overlooked the significant impact of Jesus's obedience and the impact that it has on our redemption in the Redemption of all Fallen mankind. In Romans, 5:19, you know, we're reminded that through The Obedience of one. The many will be made righteous.

I found a quote from Ralph Martin that observe something. I had never really thought about with this passage. He writes. His obedience is a sure token of his DD and Authority. For only a Divine being can accept death. As obedience for ordinary men. It is a necessity. He'll have his father as his Destiny and he did so because of his love. I love which was directed both to his father's, redeeming purpose and equally to the world in which he came. I come to do. I will reread in Hebrews 10 7, that verse was the motto. Text of Jesus's entire life.

You know, I never really thought of that aspect of Jesus dying on the cross of choosing to die of being an act of obedience. You like that author points out, you know? Death isn't an option for us. We can't decide. Yeah, I want to die or no. I don't want to. The Jesus could. He had that power. He had that Authority. Jesus were merely human then. We know, somewhere short of that ultimate sacrifice. He would have said, that's enough. I'm done. I've given enough, it doesn't have to go that far.

But his perfect submission. Took him all the way to death because he knew that was the father's. Will he knew it was a part of God's plan. You know, even when he was praying and Agony in the garden in Matthew 26:39, where it says, my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, even Jesus praying that he's acknowledging.

That avoiding the crucifixion may not be possible. Because he knows that's a part of God's plan. And it continues on. You see that in the rest of that verse where Jesus prays yet. Not as I will, but as you will,

He knows what he wants what he wants to do isn't as important as God's ultimate purpose.

Commitment to God's will was his will. That was what Jesus wanted?

And we have to understand the importance of that that the father didn't force death. Upon Jesus. It was the father's will, but it was also the Suns will to perfectly obey what the father wanted. Jesus had a free choice, if he didn't have a free choice, then it wouldn't have been an act of obedience. It wouldn't have been an act of an innocent person. Sacrificing them self. Of that perfect spotless lamb, that's why it had to happen that way. You know, Jesus declared himself in John 10:18. No one has taken my life away from me. Jesus said, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from my father.

None of us can say that can we that we have the authority to choose to lay down or life, which we could do that part Maybe? But we don't have the authority to pick it back up again.

Once we lay it down, that's it. It's over with, it's done. You know, Jesus was commanded by the father but not forced. It was because that he was loved in the flesh that he became the perfect example of God's love the perfect example of what God was wanting without a toning sacrifice. The perfect example of what he himself declared in John 15:13 where he said greater love. Has no one than this to lay down his life. For his friends.

You know, Jesus was obedient because of his love for the father because of his desire to see the father's will carried out, but he was also obedient because of his love for mankind.

if we move on to the second part of that verse, Philippians chapter 2 verse 8. It says even death on a cross.

You know, my kind of wonder why it says even death on a cross, you know, there are many ways that Christ could have been killed. You know, if you look at the ways that many of the disciples were martyred, you know, he could have been beheaded like John, the Baptist was or he could have been stoned or hanged in a different way or many many different ways. The other murders were treated but he was destined for not just any type of death, but death on a cross. And there's a lot of significant to that. Your crucifixion is perhaps one of the most cruel, excruciating, Lee painful, and shameful ways. Of being executed that has ever been conceived. Yeah, they aren't exactly sure, who originally came up with the idea. But they know it was either the Persians or the Phoenicians that started the practice of crucifixion. And then the Romans worked on it. And I guess you could say perfected it. as a means of execution, but It was only reserved for slaves or the lowest of criminals are those who were seen as ebony enemies of the state because it was actually a Roman law that no Roman citizen could be treated in this way. They couldn't be executed that way because it was just too shameful. It didn't matter how horrible the crimes. They might have committed, might be a Roman citizen couldn't be treated that way. And for Jews, the reason that they considered it to be so shameful was because they considered it to be a form of hanging. And this was significant, because the Jews saw those who were hung to be cursed by God. They got that from Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 23, where it says, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God's curse. So that's why they saw it as such a shameful death. You know, that's why they struggled with this idea of a crucified Messiah. That was just an unsurmountable. Mountain that they just couldn't get over. It was a block to them of believing that Jesus could be the Messiah cuz surely the Messiah couldn't die. Such a disgraceful def.

Peter even struggled with it cuz he couldn't even conceive of the idea of the Messiah, being able to be, put to death much less than such a shameful way. Because the curse in Deuteronomy, 2123 to the Jews, it meant being outside of God's covenant being outside of his family, being unable to receive God's blessing. So surely there was no way that this could happen to the Messiah. So for many of them, that was how They couldn't get over the idea that Jesus can't be the Messiah, because there's no way our Messiah could die that way. But what they were missing was they were missing the fact that Jesus bore the curse for believers to bring them to God.

Because in God's perfect plan, the crucifixion of his son was not just acceptable. It was mandatory. It's what had to happen as Paul explains in Galatians. 3:13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us for it is written. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. He's referring back to that Deuteronomy Passage.

Saying, yeah, we know that is Jew said. There's a curse there, but Jesus took that curse for us. Peter declares, in 1st Peter, 2:24. He himself, bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by his wounds. You were healed.

You know, in God's infinite, wisdom death on a cross, was the only way of redemption for fallen sinful and condemned mankind.

And you know, if you think about all of the Old Testament sacrifice is, I don't know what any of you think when you read through some of those parts of the Old Testament and read about all the sacrifices. But as I was reading some commentaries, this weekend 1 commentary said that he imagined that by the end of the day, Some of those priests had to look like they worked in a butcher shop. With all of the animals they were slaughtering and placing them on the Altar and you know the blood and he's like, there's no way they couldn't get any of that on their robes. had to be a bloody sight, but He said. The same thing happened with the Lamb of God. His blood had to be shed and his blood took the place of all those. Is in that passage, when it talks about the curse of the law, the curse of the law was the fact that, you know, God put the wall in place so that man could figure out. Did they couldn't do it all? You know all these sacrifices all these rituals all these things. They had to follow. It was all done for the point that they would come to it and realize we can't fulfill all this on our own. We can't do it on our own. We can achieve that righteousness that God wants. But they thought they could, they thought they did and that's why Jesus had to die on the cross was so that that penalty that curse could be paid for all of us.

You know, Paul after he reflected on God's divine plan for salvation in the first 11 chapters of Romans. He then exclaims in a Romans 11:33, do the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.

I think that verse always makes a lot of sense because we struggle to understand how God works. Sometimes, don't we?

We're taught that failures bad. We're taught that it can't be used for good. But somehow God, always, manages to turn those types of things around that me. He manages to make it good and turn any situation around to be a part of his divine plan. When so often tested just doesn't make sense.

But here's the thing that I hope I've been getting a crossed as we've been talking about walking in the power of the holy spirit is that when you're walking your life in the power of the holy spirit in all doesn't have to make sense.

You just have to remain faithful to what God is asking you to do. And that's where this faithfulness comes in. And like I said, our faithfulness is based off of God's faithfulness of seeing all the times that we read of in the scripture that he provided for his people that he made impossible situations possible that he worked it all out for the good of his people in. You know, we don't have to see the whole plan.

You're often where we struggled understand is because we think that this plan that we're seeing unfold before us are these circumstances rent? They just don't follow our logic. Well, I have news for you. God's plan doesn't have to follow human logic. It often doesn't it almost never will. It just has to make sense to God. And I'm okay with that. Cuz I know that God is infinitely wiser than me. And that should be a big, amen. Cuz I am glad he is much smarter than I am. Cuz I don't get it. You're all we have to do is remain faithful. And how can we remain faithful? You know, I said, it's beginning. How can we remain faithful if we don't have You know God has provided the Holy Spirit to strengthen us into encourages, you know, and he's provided that Holy Spirit to help guide us as we go through our life and as we try to follow the plan that God has for us, you know, the Holy Spirit keeps giving us little nudges to keep us on on the right path.

You know, sometimes I wish.

The Holy Spirit was a little bit more like showing cattle. I guess I'm thinking about that cuz James is down at Beef Congress. Again, this weekend. Sometimes it'd be nice if the Holy Spirit, just had that chain holder, right? And could just pull us along where we needed to go rather than us wandering. But it doesn't always work that way. But the holy spirit will guide us in the direction that God wants our lives to go. If we're open to that, if we remain faithful in, we can remain faithful because of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. If we know Jesus, we know that he has paid that price for our sins that we aren't cursed anymore because he has paid all of those penalties for every single one of us. All we have to do is accept it. And remain faithful because of Jesus obedience on the cross. We can have hope with allows us to walk in the spirit. Does. He know when God calls us to do something? He never promises. That it will go the way that we should think it should. Do. You know, he never promises, it'll be easy. He doesn't even promise. Sometimes it'll be pleasant.

But if you read God's word, you find out that God does always promised to be faithful to us.

In 1st Thessalonians. 5:24. It says Faithful is he who calls you? And he also will bring it to pass.

you know, sometimes when we start on a journey, it Are big questions. We want to see the whole plan. We want to see everything that's going to happen from this moment in our life till we finally accomplish this goal.

Not the way it works. And I think it's because if we saw all that we were going to have to go through most of the time to get to there. We wouldn't even start. So that's why God doesn't show us the whole thing. But really all we have to remember is that we just have to remain faithful. And as Jesus, did we just have to be ready to be obedient to whatever God's will is?

and to me, that's just such a perfectly in and it just I didn't even think of it when I put my sermon schedule together, but it fits in so. Well with what we come to do with communion today.

You know, is we do communion, you know, Alters usually have it inscribed on them, you know. Do this in remembrance of me.

Well, as we come to do communion today, the thing we need to be remembering.

Is Jesus's willing obedience? His faithfulness to God's plan, his willingness to stick to that plan. No matter what it cost him. Even to the point of death.

Most of us will never have to go to that extreme in our walk with God.

But there will be challenging times. There will be times when it looks like the situation is impossible, and the odds are all against this, in the situation, looks hopeless. But not time is when we need to remember to stay faithful. and to be ready to be obedient to whatever the next step is that God leads us to since we come for communion this.