For those of you who were here last week, I have some good
news. Obviously you can tell my voice
is doing much better, but it was actually a really rough week.
I decided I wanted to get stronger, increase my one Rep
Maxes at CrossFit, so I started a steroid cycle the other day.
Thank you. That was a joke.
Well, that was truth, but part of it.
No, you see, I have a history of pneumonia, have had pneumonia
full blown pneumonia a couple times, walking pneumonia a
couple times. So once I get sick, you would
literally think I'm dying. It sounds absolutely horrible
when I start coughing. So I have been to the doctor so
many times over the years just to make sure my lungs are clear.
So the other day I went, they said OK, no you're good, but
hey, this is pretty bad so we're going to put you on a steroid.
So just took my last one of those this morning.
So I will now be returning to a weekend version of me no longer
on the steroids, but hopefully this morning I can get through
this without entering into a coughing fit.
If I do, my apologies. It'll be weird for both of us in
1983. Jonathan Cain wrote these words
on a napkin. Hwy. run into the midnight sun.
Wheels go round and round. You're on my mind.
Restless hearts sleep alone tonight.
Sending all my love along the wire.
They say that the road ain't no place to start a family.
Right down the line. It's been you and me loving a
music man Ain't always what it's supposed to be.
Oh girl, you stand by me. I'm forever yours faithfully.
Yes. Somebody sing it.
Thank you. I was going to attempt to sing
it, but I don't have that this morning.
Jonathan's desire with these lyrics was to express
faithfulness to his wife. Sure he was, he was on the road,
but his heart was back home with his wife.
Ironically, they divorced shortly after Journey released
this hit song. So what does it mean to be
faithful? To have this fruit of the spirit
of faithfulness as we begin, I want to make sure we understand
what we're dealing with. And there are three primary uses
of the word faith in Scripture. So I want to walk through those
first real quick. The first category of faith is
probably our most natural understanding of the word faith,
and this is belief in the gospel message.
This is belief in the gospel message.
We talk about placing your faith in Christ, trusting in him alone
for salvation, trusting him to deliver us from the power of sin
in this life and then from the penalty and presence of sin in
the next life. We've committed ourselves to
Christ as Savior and and Lord. In Romans 51, Paul writes.
Therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We're no longer enemies of God because of the faith that we've
exercised in Jesus redeeming work on the cross.
So that's belief in the gospel message.
Second, the second version of faith or category of faith is is
the basic content of the Christian message.
Jude 3 refers to the faith that was once for all delivered to
the Saints in Galatians as Paul was giving a bit of a history
lesson on his life and recounting the churches, the
early churches hearing about him.
He said of the early church in Galatians 123, he says they only
were hearing it said he who used to persecute us is now preaching
the faith. He's preaching the faith he once
tried to destroy the people. I've heard reports of this man
Paul, and they were astonished because obviously his reputation
wasn't good since since he was known to be somebody who tried
to destroy the Christian faith, he wanted to destroy the content
of the Christian message. The third category for faith is
found in the fruits of the spirits, and this is of course
where we will focus our time this morning in the context of
the work of the Holy Spirit does in the life of a believer.
Here's the definition Faithfulness is the quality of
being true, trustworthy, and reliable in all one's dealings
with others. Faithfulness is the quality of
being true, trustworthy, and reliable in all of 1's dealings
with others. For those who.
Paul used this word in his instructions to Timothy
concerning appointing church leaders and he says this about
these church leaders and what you have heard from me in the
presence of many witnesses and trust to faithful men who will
also be able to teach others. These were these were men who
would who were faithful they were they were true.
They were reliable in their dealings with others and for
those who are called to serve as leaders of God's people.
Now as then faithfulness should be a defining quality of their
character. Can you trust them?
Are are they reliable? Are they, are they faithful to
what God has called them to? You see, faithfulness is far
more important than than success or recognition or popularity.
Now where does our own faithfulness comes from?
Of course, our faithfulness comes from God's faithfulness,
just as we've done each week as we've looked at each of these
fruits, we look at this quality exhibited in God's character,
God's faithfulness. His faithfulness is the source
of our own faithfulness. We can't produce it on our own.
Just like with all these virtues, we need the Holy Spirit
to produce these in US. Thinking back a few months ago
to Exodus 34 when when God was introducing himself to Moses,
most of you are here, but just as a reminder is said in Exodus
34, six 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.
This is how God introduces himself.
This is his character. He says, this is who I am.
That last word is a met. I'm getting fancy here.
I'm putting Hebrew and Greek words up on the screen now.
So for those of you who want to see what these things look like,
there you go. That is the Hebrew word emet.
It is read from right to left. Now, emet can obviously be
translated as faithfulness, but it's actually also related to
the word Amen. And Amen is a transliteration of
the Hebrew word Amen and is a way to say that's truth or
that's right. But you see, faith isn't simply
theoretical. It also has to do with stability
and reliability. When Moses needed needed help
holding up his hands over over the battle against the
Amalekites, her and Aaron came up to him, put a rock under him
and they propped his hands up so that his hands are said to be
Emet. They were stable, they were
steady. When Emet is used to describe
people, that describes their reliability and and their
trustworthiness. When Moses appointed leaders in
Israel, they were to be people of Emet, people who are
trustworthy and who wouldn't take bribes or distort justice.
And then we come to the New Testament.
We also get a glimpse of God's faithfulness and 1st
Thessalonians 524 He who calls you is faithful.
He will surely do it. The word used here to describe
God is pissed off and it means faithful or reliable.
So when we take these words into consideration, we get the full
picture of who God is. God is truth.
He's steady, He's unwavering, He's He's reliable, He's
trustworthy and faithful. And it's with this understanding
that the Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly call God a rock.
He is a rock. He doesn't change and he's
always consistent in his character, even when we
ourselves may be prone to changing and and fluctuating
passions. As we learn to depend more on
him, we too become a met. We become stable, we become
steady, we become faithful and reliable.
So this morning we're going to look at 5 examples, 5 persons in
scripture who who displayed this reliability and faithfulness.
The first person we look at this morning is Onissimus, and what
we learn from Anissimus is that faithfulness is characteristic
of the transformed Christian. Faithfulness is characteristic
of the transformed Christian. Who was Anissimus?
He, like the three other names on this list, is fairly obscure.
His name only occurs 3 times in all of Scripture.
He had been enslaved to a gentleman named Philemon and and
Paul had written a letter to short letter to Philemon.
Many of you are aware of that, but Nissimus was a Roman slave
who somehow managed to escape from Philemon in Colossae and he
fled all the way back to Rome. Now, it's believed that in order
to finance his trip all the way back to Rome, he likely stole
from Philemon in order to make that 1200 mile journey back to
Rome. Once in Rome though, you see,
Onissimus came under the influence of Paul's ministry and
he was subsequently converted to the Christian faith.
Naturally, Paul started discipling Onissimus and helping
him grow in the faith and as an Ismus group, Paul desired to to
send him back to Colossae to to Philemon.
Now the goal wasn't necessarily to send an Ismus back to be a
slave, but the goal was to send an Ismus back to be a partner in
the ministry. And Paul says a forgiving
brother in Christ. Paul then wrote to the Colossian
church and he sends this letter to the church with Taichakis in
Colossians 4/8 through 9. Paul says I have sent him that
is Taichakis to you for this very purpose, that you may know
how we are and that he may encourage your hearts.
And with him, Onissimus, our faithful and beloved brother,
who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that has
taken place here. Sure, as a messenger, part of
Onissimus task was to tell the Colossians how Paul was doing.
But Onissimus wasn't simply a messenger.
Paul says he's a faithful and beloved brother, just like the
Colossians are. Onissimus had been unfaithful to
his master, Philemon. He'd stolen from him and left.
But now he'd become a follower of Christ, and he'd been
transformed by his new master, Jesus Christ.
So how did this happen? When Jesus enters the heart of
the Christian, when we choose to place our faith in Jesus, the
Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts home and and he
becomes the interior decorator, if you will.
As he moves in, he starts to rearrange everything.
Sometimes that means the furniture.
Oh, it's been there a long time. It has to go.
The walls need to be repainted. The closets have to be cleaned
out. The Holy Spirit takes over and
he transforms our lives so that our lives look more like him.
But you see, sin wants to keep us from surrendering every
aspect of our hearts to God. Sin keeps demanding rents of us
and and it'll keep us from faithfulness if we allow it to
stay and we aren't trying to root it out of our lives.
When we, like Onissimus, commit to rooting out that sin, then
we're transformed by the power of the Spirit working in us and
we become faithful to the cause and work of Christ.
Faithfulness LED Philemon to free Onissimus, and faithfulness
works in Onissimus, eventually leading him to his seems pastor
the church at Ephesus. Christ working in Onissimus made
him a faithful brother to Paul. So faithfulness is a
characteristic of someone who is accepted Jesus Christ.
Our next person that we're going to look at this morning is
Lydia. Lydia teaches us that
faithfulness is essential for spiritual development.
Faithfulness is essential for spiritual development for us to
grow. Acts 1614 says one who heard us
was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of
purple goods who was a worshipper of God.
The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by
Paul. Lydia was a business woman and
and she sold purple clothing. This is noteworthy because
clothing made of purple material was quite expensive.
So since purple was expensive, this meant that she would have
had a rich clientele and she herself likely would have been a
woman of a means. She may also have been the first
Christian on the continent of Europe.
Then verse 15 continues, And after she was baptized in her
household as well, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to
be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.
And she prevailed on us. Lydia had a strong desire to be
discipled in the Christian faith.
So she begged Paul and Silas come, stay, stay at my home and
teach me more. She wanted them to know that she
met the criteria to be discipled.
She said, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, then
come to my house and stay. She's saying, hey, I've
demonstrated the sincerity of my faith with with my life.
You can see that I'm faithful. So please come teach me.
Lydia wanted to grow in the faith and and she knew
faithfulness was necessary for this growth to happen.
Doctor Howard Hendricks is one of the most famous Bible
teachers of all time. He was a professor at Dallas
Theological Seminary for more than 60 years.
Do we have any DTS people in the room?
I don't think we do. Has anybody met Doctor
Hendricks? Have you?
Doesn't surprise me. He's an outstanding man.
Throughout his time there. It's DTS.
He was able to disciple upper management, CEO types,
professional athletes and other notable leaders in the church
like Chuck Swindolla, Tony Evans, Joseph Stoll, Chip Ingram
and Doctor David Jeremiah. So he is influenced Christianity
significantly in the 60 years that he was ministering at
Dallas Theological Seminary. Now, due to the rigor of his
schedule, he had one very significant stipulation.
Gentlemen, if I'm going to invest myself into you, and I
can hear his voice, that unique voice that he had, I would try
to imitate it, but it would probably cause a coughing fit.
Gentlemen, if I'm going to invest myself into you, then I
expect you here at 5:00 AM on the morning in question, 5:00
AM. I have a very important meeting
at 5:00 AM and it is not with anybody, it is with my pillow.
But due to the rigor of his schedule, 5:00 AM was it.
You are to be here. You are not to be late.
You are not to miss. If you aren't here, then you'd
better be in the hospital or else at the morgue.
Don't call in sick. Crawl in sick sounds pretty
hardcore. He was a serious guy, but he was
absolutely loved. Some of these executives would
rearrange schedules and take red eye flights from business trips
just to be there at 5:00 AM in order to be discipled by
Professor Hendricks. He demanded faithfulness from
his disciples, but that's because his his faithful mentees
knew what it meant. To be discipled by Doctor
Hendricks. The biblical standard hasn't
changed, but the problem is that the 21st century church is
gradually lowering the bar when it comes to spiritual
development. In the last two years, Gallup
polls have determined that 30% of Americans regularly attend
worship services, but less than 10% of those are deeply
committed Christians. If we take that to be
representative of this this room, then only 1/3 of the
people in here are committed and faithful to Christ.
Now I'm hoping that we skew those numbers a bit towards the
positive, but you get the picture.
Commitment and faithfulness are part and parcel to being a
follower of Christ. Some questions to consider.
Are you faithful in your worship attendance?
Are you faithful in your relationship with God?
Are you diligent to make time for Him each day so that you can
grow in Him? If everybody in the body, if
everybody's faithfulness looks like yours, what would that look
like? Lydia had a desire for spiritual
growth, and this was demonstrated by her faithful
life. Next, you know this guy Paul.
Paul teaches us that faithfulness is required for
ministry. Faithfulness is required for
ministry. I heard about an unemployed
pastor who said I can tell you one thing, I'm faithful.
I am not a quitter. I pastored 3 churches and stayed
with all three until they died. He may have been faithful in his
ministry, but I'm not sure if it was the Holy Spirit's working in
him or if it was his own will that was working in those
congregations. One thing he did have right,
though, is that faithfulness is essential to ministry.
Paul wrote to Timothy in First Timothy 112.
I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord,
because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service.
Paul was grateful that because he'd been faithful to Christ,
God had given him the opportunity to serve on behalf
of the name of Jesus. Now, sometimes when we talk
about servants in the ministry, we talk about fat Christians.
Lest you be offended, fat Christians are faithful,
available, and teachable. That is what fat Christians are.
Faithful, available, and teachable.
These are the types of people that that we want in ministry.
Has the person proven themselves to be faithful in living for
Christ day in and day out? Have they made themselves
available to serve or is there response each time you ask them
to get involved? Oh no I'm sorry I'm busy that
afternoon. I need to go home and give the
cat a bath. Thank you for laughing, that was
a joke. Are they teachable?
Does this person want to grow? I would just like to say we've
never given our cats baths. They do that every day on their
own, so we don't have to do that.
It's really kind of nice. Anyways.
Do they have a desire to learn more and to be coached along the
way? Do they want to grow?
If someone's fat, then then they are perfect for ministry.
They're perfect for leadership and serving.
First Corinthians 4/2 reads. Moreover, it is required of
stewards that they be found faithful.
The steward is someone who has been entrusted with care over
God's resources. And here Paul says this person
needs to be faithful. Faithfulness isn't optional,
it's mandatory. Doesn't matter how intelligent
you are, how talented and gifted you are, or how charismatic your
personality is. If you weren't faithful, then
you can't be depended on. Most of us are familiar with the
operatic tenor name Luciano Pavarotti.
He was considered one of the greatest operatic tenors of all
time. Over the years, he had a number
of singing contracts with the Chicago Lyric Opera House.
However, he proved to be extremely unreliable and
cancelled 26 out of 41 scheduled performances.
The final straw was a season opening performance that he
cancelled less than two weeks before rehearsals were supposed
to start. You don't do that in the opera
world. The Chicago Lyric Opera House
had had enough and they banned Pavarotti for life.
If you're not reliable, if you don't do what you say you're
going to do, then your ministry potential won't be what it could
be if you were faithful. So let's step out of the
ministry context for a moment and consider what does it look
like to be stewards with our lives?
The first category where we need to be stewards is with our time.
We need to steward our time well.
Ephesians 5 verses 15 through 17 reads.
Look carefully then, how you walk.
Not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time
because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish,
but understand what the will of the Lord is.
What do you do with your time? Do you use it well or do you
whittle it away? Unfortunately, our phones have
become major distractions. There's Facebook X Instagram,
Snapchat, Amazon even. I know how it can be so easy to
lose so much time on Amazon. You start shopping for
something. The next thing you know that
carts full of like 10 items, right?
Nobody's going to agree. I know all these apps can
consume your day if you're not careful.
Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, YouTube, whatever your favorite streaming
service is. Do you spend a lot of time
bingeing shows? I can honestly say we do not
binge shows. I don't have the patience for
that. I like to watch something and
then leave it. We have never binged shows in
our home. It's great.
Makes me feel like I'm a little bit in control of this, right?
I don't know if we have any gamers in the room, but this is
another area that can consume hours of our time.
All our hobbies, all our forms of entertainment must be kept in
check. We need to have control over
over these areas rather than allowing them to control us.
So Paul tells the Ephesians, be careful how you use your time
because the days are evil. I don't know about you, but I
don't normally think of the day. Thank you God for this new day.
This day is evil. No, that's not generally how we
look at the day, right? But no, the day is looking to
chew you up and spit you out if you're not careful.
So how are you navigating your use of the day?
Verse 17 said not using our time well is foolishness.
So steward your day well and you'll be in a better place.
So we need to steward our time well.
We also need to be stewards with our abilities and gifts.
Stewards with our abilities and gifts.
First Peter 410 through 11 reads as each has received a gift.
Use it to serve one another as good.
Stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks
oracles of God. Whoever serves as one who serves
by the strength that God supplies in order that in
everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
For years I thought this thing that was growing inside of me, I
had somebody tell me 15 years or so ago that I need to be
preaching. I, I kind of kept kicking that
can down the road, but I would take all the opportunities I
could get to fill the pulpit when I was at Cornerstone.
And, and as I did this, the gift kind of began to grow in me.
Now, when we want to know God's will for our lives, one of the
factors that we consider is what does the body have to say?
Does the body confirm that gift? Each time I would feel the
pulpit, God would speak to me as the body would confirm what I
already knew in my heart. Someday God would Take Me Out of
the worship world and make me a full time preacher as a steward
of this gift God has placed in me.
Now I get the privilege of using this gift to serve Pleasant View
each and every week for years, perhaps even decades to come.
Just to be clear, that is my goal.
My goal is to be here. A long time.
Pastor Ed was told he would retire here.
Maybe I'll retire here. That would be 20 something
years. I don't know.
But I don't even know what retirement looks like.
Really. Like, I don't know.
I don't really have a vision for that.
A lot of actually, no, you're right.
I do keep hearing that from people.
Yes. I don't know how I ever,
however, lived, you know, the normal life is like I have so
many things to do now that I'm retired.
Yeah, actually, maybe I'll just stay working.
That's better that way. So how are you stewarding your
time? How are you stewarding your
abilities, your your gifts that God has given you?
Are you sitting on them kicking the can down the road as I did?
I do believe God worked in his perfect timing, though, right?
Because if I'd started looking down that road, I wouldn't be
here right now. And I believe God has brought
brought our stories together for a specific reason.
The fourth person I want to look at is Hanani.
You're like who you really had to pay attention when you were
reading through the Old Testament to know instantly who
Hanani is. He was the he was the prophet,
Nehemiah's brother. The book of Nehemiah details how
oh oh I should back up because I totally skipped over what the
actual point is. Faithfulness is rewarded with
advancement. Faithfulness is rewarded with
advancement. Which is also my opportunity to
take a drink of water. So Hanani shows us that
faithfulness is rewarded with advancement.
He he comes on the scene you see in Nehemiah.
Nehemiah and his construction crew left Babylon with with the
King's permission and the King's authority.
They left Babylon to travel 900 miles to Jerusalem to rebuild
the city walls. And as we enter the scene in
Nehemiah 7A, substantial amount of work has already been done.
Is God worked amazingly through Nehemiah and his crew, This
project suddenly has come to completion.
And Nehemiah 7 one through 2 reads Now when the wall had been
built and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers, the
singers and the Levites had been appointed, I gave my brother
Hanani and Hananiah, the governor of the castle charge
over Jerusalem. For he, Hanani was a more
faithful and God fearing man than many.
He was a more faithful and God fearing man than many.
A new day was dawning for the Jewish people in Jerusalem.
The temple had been rebuilt. The wall had been rebuilt.
Homes were being rebuilt. The Jewish people had spent 70
years in the Babylonian captivity.
But we're now being permitted to return back to their homeland.
And before this, Hanani had only been a messenger.
However, he'd proven himself faithful in that task.
And because of this, and apparently he'd also proven he
was worth his medal, Nehemiah placed him in charge of the huge
Jerusalem gates. His job was to make sure that
the gates were opened and closed on schedule, both in the in the
morning and in the evening. And since he'd been faithful at
what he'd been assigned to do as messenger, he could be trusted
in this new task. And he was promoted to something
more significant. Hanani demonstrated the
principle. Faithfulness is rewarded with
advancements. He proved himself faithful in
the opportunities that were before him.
Which brings us to our points, the need to be faithful in our
opportunities. We need to be faithful in the
opportunities before us in Matthew.
In Matthew 25, Jesus gives us the parable of the talents.
A man was preparing for a journey, and he gives us 3
servants, 5 talents, 2 talents and one talents.
He goes away, He comes back. The man who had received 5
talents, you know the story. He has managed to earn 5 more
talents. The one who received 2 talents,
he also earned back two more talents.
The one who received one talent, he knew his master to be shrewd,
so he went and buried it, didn't even put it in the bank so that
it could earn interest. And the master in response to
the first servants, the master says to that first servants who
had earned back five more talents, he says, well done,
good and faithful servants, you've been faithful over a
little. I will set you over much.
Enter into the joy of your Master.
God is seeking servants who are faithful in the little, in whom
He can entrust to be faithful in much.
When I think about this, I think of my own story.
My time in the ministry started. This may be a little hyperbolic,
but it started where every pastor begins ministry as
Colonel Commode, the church janitor.
That's why I started. I was church janitor.
I don't even know how many years I was janitor.
It actually started in high school.
I started working for the school for the church while I was in
high school. Worked for the church all
through college. Even after I graduated college,
I still was working for a church.
Louvian and I would such a romantic way to spend your time
dating each other, cleaning the church.
She would help me clean on Saturdays.
That was where I started. Then as I entered formally
entered the ministry as worship leader.
It was without pay and as I was faithful, God would continually
give me more. I would be faithful in that.
God would continually give me more and more until I would
eventually become a full time associate and worship pastor
when we were in California. God would continually bless as I
would step out in faith and be faithful to what He had called
me to. By the way, I think this is a
perfect time to tell you that when we moved here from
California. There was a significant,
significant cost that we weighed.
You see, at that time, Chipotle was an hour away.
We said, OK, we can do this. We'll go to Iowa City once a
month, and we can do this just a number of months.
We arrived in February of 2011. By the fall of 2011, God
rewarded our obedience. And there were then at that .2
Chipotle's to be found in the Quad Cities.
You're welcome. So we need to be faithful with
the opportunities given to us. I do hope you know I'm speaking
just in fun. But God does reward obedience.
The last person we want to look at this morning is Antipus.
Antipus shows us faithfulness in our witness.
Antipus was a member of the church at Pergamum.
This was one of the churches John wrote to in the opening
chapters of Revelation, Revelation 2 verse 13, Jesus
says to the church at Pergamum, I know where you dwell, where
Satan's throne is, yet you hold fast my name, and you did not
deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness,
who was killed among you or Satan dwells.
This church was located in a difficult region and was
considered Satan's Thrones, or maybe Satan's headquarters if
you will. Pergamum had temples to Zeus,
Athena, Dionysius, and Asclepius who was the Greek God of
healing, who was symbolized by a serpent on a stick.
On top of this, there were other Pagan temples there, as well as
temples dedicated to worshipping emperors Augustus and Trajan.
This was a very Pagan place. The Christians who live there
faced specific and dreadful challenges to their faith, yet
they did not deny Christ even on fear of death.
They were faithful in their witness and Antipus proved
himself faithful until death. Antipus was faithful until
death. Historic tradition holds that
Antipus had been brought before Caesar and and told to confess.
Caesar is Lord. Antipus responded.
No, Caesar, you aren't Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord.
Caesar's executioners then placed Antipas inside a large
brass bowl that was heated with fire until he was literally
roasted to death. Something I want to highlight
here is Jesus calls Antipas his faithful servants, his faithful
witness. Sorry and witness is actually a
translation of the word Martus, from which we get the word
martyr. However, you see, Martus was
originally understood to refer to someone who testifies to the
existence of someone or, or something.
The word Martus is used numerous times in Scripture to say I
testify to this or I witness to this.
I, I bore witness to this person.
That person is giving evidence or proof as a martyr.
They're giving proof that someone or something exists.
Matthew 1017 through 18 reads Beware of men, for they will
deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues,
and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake
to bear witness before them. And the Gentiles.
Jesus told his followers they would be dragged before kings to
it literally, says Martyr Ray. Oh, that is to testify.
You'll be dragged before them to testify to the life of Jesus.
Now, as Christianity continued to spread throughout the known
world in the 2nd century, persecution began to increase.
And as persecution increased, so did dying for one's faith.
And it was only then, in the 2nd century, that the words Martus
and Martoreo began to refer to someone who died for their
faith. So in a scriptural sense, being
a faithful martyr means to be a faithful witness in our living.
In a scriptural sense, being a martyr is being faithful in our
living. Antipus lived a life that
witnessed to the authenticity and power of Jesus Christ
working in him. Later in Revelation, John wrote
of how believers overcome Satan. He said, Revelation 12/11 They
have conquered him Satan by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony. That is their witness, for they
loved not their lives unto death.
That word is martorious, their witness for Christ.
Their word and lives speak to the power of Christ working in
them to defeat Satan. This is their faithful witness,
faithfulness and living out their witness before others.
The pinnacle of Jesus faithfulness is found in his
sacrificial death on the cross in Mark 1045.
Jesus said even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to
serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
This profound statement encapsulates the sacrificial
nature of Jesus mission on earth.
The cross represents the ultimate act of faithfulness as
Jesus willingly offered himself for the redemption of humanity.
Believers then are called to reflect the sacrificial love
with a faithful life that it aligns with the transformative
power of the cross and and it shares the life saving, life
saving message of the gospel. That is what a faithful life
does. It aligns with the power of the
cross and and it shares the message of the gospel.
Now, faithfulness isn't always easy.
Sometimes it calls for sacrifice, putting others before
ourselves, and giving generously, just as Jesus gave
his life for us. But if we are faithful, we'll
find that it was worth it. Let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. God, we come to you this
morning. Our desire is to live lives that
are that are evidence of the Holy Spirit working in us.
You working in US, Holy Spirit, to to transform us, to bring
about that, that characteristic that that virtue of
faithfulness. May we continually give evidence
of that fruit in our lives. Would you grow in US a desire
for spiritual developments? Would would you grow this
faithfulness in us for ministry? Would would this faithfulness
even lead us to opportunities for promotion and advancements?
As we're obedience to you, May we daily, day in and day out be
living witnesses for you. It's in the power of Jesus name
we pray these things. Amen.