BEING FAITHFUL IN A
FAITHLESS WORLD
The Invisible War - Part 6
09-22-13
Sermon
Jesus:
“When I, the Son of Man, return, how many will I find on earth who have
faith?” Luke 18:8 (NLT)
GOD IS
LOOKING for faithful people
“For the eyes of the Lord search back and forth across the whole earth, looking
for people whose hearts are perfect toward him, so that he can show his
great power in helping them.” 2
Chron. 16:9 (LB)
FAITHFUL PEOPLE ____________________________________________________
“Everyone
talks about how faithful he is, but it is difficult to find someone who
really is!” Prov. 20:6
“God looks down from
heaven at the children of man to see if a single one is wise and one seeks God. But all have proven faithless,
all have been corrupted, and not one of them always does right.” Psalm
53:2-3
FAITHFULNESS
_______________________________________________________
“Every child of God can
defeat the world, and it is our faith that gives us this victory. No one can defeat the world without
having faith in Jesus as the Son of God.”
1 John 5:4-5 (CEV)
“A faithful man will be richly
blessed.” Prov. 28:20
HOW CAN I BE
FAITHFUL TO GOD?
1. God uses little things to test ___________________________________________
“Whoever
is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones, and whoever is dishonest in
small matters will be dishonest in large ones.” Luke 16:10
“And if you have not
been faithful with that which belongs to someone else, who will give you
what belongs to you?”
Luke 16:12
2. God uses my talents to test ____________________________________________
“Each
one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully
administering God's grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10
“Now
it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”
1 Cor. 4:2 (NIV)
3. God uses tough times to ___________________________________________
“This is why we never give up.
Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite
small and won't last very long, but they will produce for us an immeasurably
great glory that will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now;
rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to
come will last forever!”
2 Cor. 4:16-18 (NLT)
“Don't
get tired of doing what’s right. You
WILL be rewarded when the time is right, if you don't give up.” Galatians
6:9
4. God uses shortages to test ___________________________________________
Jesus:
“I tell you, use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends for
eternity. In this way, your
generosity stores up a reward
for you in heaven.… BUT if you are unfaithful with your worldly
wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?... You
cannot serve both God and money.”
Luke 16:9-14 (NLT)
5. Faithful people bring ______________________________________________
“Some
men brought to Jesus a paralytic friend, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he
said to the paralyzed man, ‘Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven.’” Matthew 9:2
“The
things you’ve learned from me in the presence of many witnesses you are to entrust
to other faithful people who will also be qualified to pass it on to others.” 2
Tim. 2:2
“Peter, Satan has asked
to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith will not
completely fail. So after you
have repented and turned to me again, strengthen and build up the faith of
your brothers.” Luke
22:31-32 (LB)
BEING FAITHFUL IN A FAITHLESS WORLD
The Invisible War - Part 6
09-22-13
Sermon
Everything in this
world is focused on keeping you from living by faith. That’s why today in this series I want us to look at being
faithful in a faithless world.
In Luke 18 Jesus
said this “When I, the Son of Man,
return, [and Jesus is coming back one day] how many will I find on earth who have faith?” Why is it so important to have faith?
The Bible tells us
three things about the importance of faith.
The Bible tells us that SLIDE 1: God is
looking for faithful people.
God is physically,
visibly, actively, taking the initiative to look for faithful people that he
can bless. God is looking for
people that he can bless, and what he looks for is people with faith. 2 Chronicles 16:9 says “For the eyes of the Lord search back and
forth across the whole earth, looking for people whose hearts are perfect
toward him, so that he can show his great power in helping them.”
God is looking for
people to use. And if you get
usable he will use you. If you get
blessable he will bless your socks off!
God says I will use you if you will be usable. God is looking for people, faithful people that he can
use.
The second thing the Bible teaches is
that SLIDE 2: faithful people are hard to find.
They’re actually
quite rare. People who trust God
with all their heart and soul and mind and strength are actually quite
rare. Faithful people are hard to
find.
The Bible say in
Proverbs 20:6 “Everyone talks about how
faithful he is, but it is difficult to find someone who really is!” A lot of people talk the talk but they
don’t really trust God. They don’t
really believe God. They trust in
their credit card. They’re
trusting everything else. They say
they believe in God but they don’t really trust him when it comes to their
finances, their health, their job or these other things.
Psalm 53 says this SLIDE
3: “God looks down from heaven at the
children of man to see if a single one is wise and seeks God. But all of them have proven faithless,
[Circle “faithless.”] all have been corrupted, and not one of
them always does right.” Faithful
people are hard to find. God’s
looking for people to bless but he can’t find people who are blessable, who are
going to live by faith.
The third thing the Bible says is this: SLIDE
4: Faithfulness is the key to blessing, to victory.
It’s the key to
victory in your life over all of the problems in your life. And it’s the key to blessing in your
life – just being a faithful man, a faithful woman. The Bible says this in 1 John 5, SLIDE 5: “Every child of God can defeat the world,
[Remember we’re in this battle called the invisible war.] and it is our faith [circle “faith”] that gives us the victory.
[That’s how you’re going to overcome your problems. Not by intelligence, not by money, not
by creativity. But it is by your
faith you’re going to be able to overcome difficulties, distress, despair and
things like that. Every child of
God can defeat the world. It is
our faith that gives us this victory.] No one can defeat the world without
having faith in Jesus as the Son of God.”
The Bible says in
Proverbs 28:20 “A faithful man will be
richly blessed.” As your
pastor, I pray that God will bless your life. I want God’s blessing on your life. I want you to have physical blessing,
financial blessing, emotional blessing.
I want you to have spiritual blessing. I want you to have relational and vocational, mental… I want every area of your life – social
– to be blessed. It’ll be like
this: “A faithful man will be richly
blessed.” I want your life to
be richly blessed.
But in order for
you to have that blessing you’re going to have to learn faithfulness. You’re going to have to learn how God
tests it and you’re going to have to learn how God grows it. So let’s look at the six tests of
faithfulness and how God uses these things in your life to grow your faith so
that then he can bless you.
1.
The Bible tells us that SLIDE 6: God uses little things to test your
integrity.
God uses little
things to test your integrity. We
think it’s the big things in life that create a leader. No. The big crises in life reveal
leadership but leadership is built not in the big things of life, it’s built in
the small things of life. That’s
where integrity shows up – in the stuff that nobody sees, in the stuff behind
the scenes. In the small, unseen,
unspectacular, moral choices of life where you do the right thing, but nobody’s
ever going to see it. God tests
your integrity in the little things.
And faithfulness requires integrity. Faithful people reveal their integrity in the small, unseen
and the unnoticed acts that nobody ever knows about.
Luke 16:10 Jesus
says this, “Whoever is faithful in small
matters will be faithful in large ones, and whoever is dishonest in small
matters will be dishonest in large ones.” What is he saying here?
He’s saying SLIDE 7: your public
blessing is determined by your private integrity. (go to blank after a while)
Every time a
politician has a scandal you can always count on his defenders to come out and
say this: It really shouldn’t matter what a guy’s private life is like.” Have you ever heard that one? It really shouldn’t matter what a guy
does in his private life. It doesn’t
have anything to do with him as a leader.
No, It has everything to do with him as a
leader! Because if a man lies to
his wife, he’ll lie to his constituents.
Believe me! If he’ll lie to
his best friend that he said, ‘til death do us part, and be dishonest, and
he’ll reject and cheat on her, he will cheat on you, voter! Count on it!
Your public
blessing as a person comes from your private integrity that nobody will ever
see. God uses little things to
test your integrity.
Not only that, but
notice the next verse. Jesus says
this, “And if you have not been faithful
with that which belongs to someone else, who will give you what belongs to
you?” He’s talking here about
the concept of apprenticeship.
That before God gives you something he will often loan it to you. He’ll often see how you work with something
that belongs to someone else.
For many centuries
the only way you learned a job skill was you became an apprentice in somebody
else’s job. If you wanted to learn
to be a shoemaker, you apprenticed to a shoemaker who mentored you. If you wanted to be a mechanic, you
apprenticed to a mechanic; and you worked in his mechanic shop before you got
your own. The problem today is we
have many people going out and starting things and they’d never apprenticed
under anybody else and they get in all kinds of trouble. He says before you get your own you
need to serve somebody else.
As a pastor I
apprenticed under other ministries before I was given my own ministry. I served as a youth leader under another
guy’s ministry in my home church.
I served as a camp counselor and program director under somebody else’s
ministry. I served as an assistant
to a Director of Christian Education in a large church. I did all these things before God gave
me my own ministry. I had to
learn, I had to prove myself in the small things first.
So God, number one,
uses little things to test my integrity.
2.
And second, very important, SLIDE 8: God uses my talents to test my
unselfishness.
God uses my talents
to test my unselfishness. You have
to decide in life who or what you’re going to live for. You’ve really got two
choices in life. You’re either going
to, A, live for yourself, a self-centered miserly life. Or, B, you’re going to live for
something greater than yourself, which I highly suggest – the kingdom of God;
live for Jesus Christ. You’re
going to live for yourself or you’re going to live for something bigger than
yourself.
Faithful people
don’t live for themselves. They
realize that the talents God gave them are not for their own benefit; but
they’re to make the world a better place.
Do you realize
this? When God made you he gave
you all kinds of gifts, all kinds of talents, all kinds of abilities. He gave you a SLIDE 9: shape,
your Spiritual gifts, your Heart, your Abilities, your Personality, and your
Experiences. (go to blank
after a while) These five things make you you. And God made you you. There’s nobody
like you in the whole world and he wants you to be you for his glory.
God shaped you to
serve him. How do you serve
God? There’s only one way to serve
God – by serving other people. On
this planet you cannot serve God directly because you can’t see him. So the only way you can serve God is by
Fserving others. When you serve
others you are serving God. And
God shaped you to serve him.
Faithful people
realize that their talents are not for their benefit. You know those talents you’ve got? They weren’t given for your sake. You were given the abilities you’ve got to help other
people. If I don’t use my gifts, my talents, you get cheated. If you don’t use the gifts and talents
that God gave you, I get cheated.
God made us all
different so that everything in the world gets done. If we all liked to do the same thing there would be a whole
lot left undone. So God made us
all like to do different things.
Those things that
God gave you are not for your benefit.
They are given as a stewardship and God is watching you to see if you
use what he gave you effectively on earth. If you use it effectively on earth he’s going to give you
more responsibility in heaven.
There’s a whole lot of teaching on this in Scripture. Jesus told many parables about it, that
God is studying your faithfulness.
Have you ever
thought about why didn’t God just save us and take us to heaven? Why does he put us here on a broken
planet for eighty years or ninety years or whatever? He put you here because life is a test and life is a trust
and life is a temporary assignment.
He’s watching to see if you are faithful with what he gave you here on
earth to bless other people, he’s going to give you greater rewards, greater
responsibility, greater roles in heaven.
This is a test.
The Bible says this
in 1 Peter 4 SLIDE 10:“Each one should
use whatever gifts he has received… to serve others, faithfully [circle
“faithfully”] faithfully administering [you’re
a manager and you’re a manager of the talents that you’ve been given.] God’s grace in its various forms.” God gave you talents and he’s
watching to see if you’re faithful with them. (go to blank in a while)
One of the
principles we know is if you don’t use it, you lose it. Talent is like a muscle. If you use muscle, it gets
stronger. If you don’t use your
muscle, you lose your muscle.
If you don’t use
your talent because of fear or laziness or anything like that, God will take it
away and give it to somebody else.
If I take my talent, if I use my talents wisely, God will increase my
talents. And I’ll get better at
it. Because God gives to people
who use what he gives them effectively.
“Now it is required that those who have been given a
trust must prove faithful.” That’s what we’re talking about today. God is watching to see, do I use my
time, my money, my influence. Do I
use my intelligence? Do I use my
brain wisely? Then he’s going to
give you more. Whatever I use
wisely God will give me more of.
The third test is….
3.
SLIDE 11: God uses tough times to teach me persistence.
The difference
between faithful people and unfaithful people is unfaithful people give up at
the first sign of difficulty.
Faithful people keep on keeping on. Faithful people are determined. Faithful people are diligent. Faithful people are persistent. Faithful people don’t know how to quit. You know how a little acorn becomes an
oak tree? An oak tree is just an
acorn that refused to give up. An
oak tree was once a nut that just stood its ground!
You just never give
up. You are never a failure until
you quit and it’s always too soon to quit. God uses tough times to test my persistence.
Are you going
through tough times right now?
This verse is for you. 2
Corinthians 4 “This is why we never give
up. Though our bodies are dying,
our spirits are being renewed every day.
For our present troubles are quite small and they won’t last very long,
but they will produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last
forever! [When you’re going
through tough times you’re growing in character. So he says…] So we
don’t look at the troubles we can see right now; [in other words we don’t
keep our eyes on the problem.] rather, we
look forward to what we have not yet seen. [the reward for persevering] For the troubles we see will soon be over,
but the joys to come will last forever!”
There’s something
that God is more interested in than what you do. SLIDE 12: God is more
interested in who you are than what you do. He’s more interested in what you’re becoming than what’s
happening to you. And God often
allows trials, troubles, tribulations, problems, in your life to teach you
diligence, determination and character.
That problem you’re going through right now? This is a test!
It’s a test of your faith.
It’s a test of your faithfulness.
Will you continue to serve God even when life sucks? It’s easy to serve God when things are
going great. Will you still serve
God in tough times?
If you’re going
through a tough time right now – almost everybody is – the next verse is one you
need to memorize. Put a star by
it. Go home and write it down on a
card and memorize it this week for encouragement. Galatians 6:9 SLIDE 13: “Don’t
get tired of doing what is right.
You will [circle “will”, not might] be rewarded when the time is right, if you don’t give up.”
You need to
memorize that verse because God uses tough times to test your persistence.
4. The fourth thing that you need to
understand is that SLIDE 14: God uses shortages to test my generosity. (go to
blank in a while)
Faithful people are
generous when they don’t have it to give.
Follow me on this: Anybody can be generous when you’ve got a
surplus. I can be generous with my
time when I’ve got a lot of extra time.
I can be generous with my money when I’ve got a lot of extra money. I can be generous with my energy when
I’ve got extra energy to spend. I
can be generous with health when I’ve got a lot of extra health to give. It’s when I don’t have enough for me, I
don’t have enough time for me, I don’t have enough energy for me, I don’t have
enough money for me, I don’t have enough talent for me, and I give it away to
help others, God says “This is test.
And I’m watching you to see if you are faithful. Will you be faithful and will you trust
me?”
A great example of
this in the Bible is the story of the church in Macedonia. Macedonia was an area of Greece. Alexander the Great was from Macedonia. His father was Phillip of
Macedonia. There’s a church in
this place called Macedonia, in Greece.
And there’s another church in Greece called the Corinthians – Corinth is
a city in Greece. Paul writes a
letter to the church at Corinth and he’s bragging on the church in Macedonia
for them being generous in the middle of their shortages. He says those people over there in
Macedonia; they’re going through this enormous recession. “They have been going
through severe trouble. They’ve
been going through very hard times.
And out of their extreme poverty [these people are flat broke] has flowed extreme generosity and
overwhelming joy.”
What’s he talking
about? He says those people over
there, they are hurting like crazy.
But they gave a huge offering to help the church down in Jerusalem
that’s starving right now. Out of
their poverty came generosity. He
said God’s watching that. They are
being faithful.
Did you know that
the number one test, the acid test of your faith in your life is your
finances? Not anything else but
it’s your finances. Why? Because we spend most of our time
thinking about, making, worrying about, spending, investing, and saving
money. It’s the acid test of how
much do I trust God – my finances.
In fact Jesus said
it like this... “I tell you, use worldly wealth
[your worldly resources. That’s
your time, your money, your energy, everything. Use your worldly resources…] to benefit others and to make friends for eternity. [In other words to help get people into
heaven – finance ministries and missions.] In
this way, your generosity stores up a reward for you in heaven… [He says when
you help other people with whatever you’ve got, you’re storing up rewards for
you in heaven.] But if you are unfaithful [there’s that
word] with your worldly wealth, [you
just spend it all on yourself] who will
trust you with the true riches of heaven?
You cannot serve both God and money.”
Did you know that
God says I use money to test how much I’m going to be able to trust you in
heaven? He says if I can’t trust
you with material wealth in this world, I’m not going to trust you with the
true riches of heaven in eternity.
This is a test.
Money management is
not just a good idea – staying out of debt, investing wisely, giving liberally,
sharing generously. That’s not
just a good idea. It is a spiritual
test and God says if you’re not faithful in how you handle your finances on
earth I’m not going to trust you with true spiritual blessing in heaven. It’s a test.
There are two other
ways that God tests your faithfulness.
When you pass these tests he pours out blessings on your life.
5.
SLIDE 15: Faithful people bring friends to Jesus.
God is watching
you. And faithful people, faithful people share their faith. Faithful people bring others into the
faith. If I don’t share my faith,
I am being unfaithful.
A good example of
this is the four guys in the Bible who had a friend who was paralyzed. They had the faith to think, if we
could just get our friend to Jesus, Jesus would heal the guy and then our
friend would be well. They had
faith if they would get their friend to Jesus, he’d be healed.
The story is told
in Matthew 9. It says SLIDE 16: “Some men brought to Jesus a paralytic
friend, [a paralyzed man, a paralyzed friend] lying on a mat. [He
couldn’t even get to Jesus. He was
paralyzed.] When Jesus saw their faith, [circle
“their faith”] he said to the paralyzed
man, ‘Take heart son! Your sins
are forgiven.’” I didn’t print
the rest of the verse. The rest of
the verse says “Take your mat and go
home.” And the guy was instantly healed.
Jesus heals the
guy. According to that verse did
Jesus heal the guy because of the sick man’s faith or because of the friends’
faith? The friends. It says when Jesus saw their faith… you guys have enough faith,
if you could get your paralyzed friend to me, I’d save him. On the basis of their faith, not the guy who was sick, but by their faith he healed
the man.
Listen very
closely. You have friends that are
paralyzed and can’t get to Jesus.
You have friends who are paralyzed by guilt and they can’t get to Jesus. They’re paralyzed by doubt and they
can’t get to Jesus. They’re
paralyzed by fear. They’re
paralyzed by worry. They’re
paralyzed by insecurity. And they
can’t get to Jesus. The only way
they’re going to get to Jesus is you’re going to have to bring them. And if you have enough faith to bring
them to Jesus they will get saved.
But they’re not going to get saved, they’re not going to be healed,
their life isn’t going to turn around, until you have enough faith to bring
them to Jesus.
When God looks out
and he sees people bringing people to him he not only heals those people, he
blesses the person who brought them.
If you want the blessing of God on your business, if you want the
blessing of God on your family, if you want the blessing of God on your life,
just start bringing friends to Jesus.
And if you bring your friends to Jesus, God says that’s the kind of
person I’m looking for. They are
faithful. And God blesses
faithfulness. Do you want God’s
blessing on any area of your life?
Just start bringing your friends to Jesus and you watch what
happens. God will do things in
your life, your finances, your health, your business you could not
imagine. Faithful people bring
friends to Jesus.
One last principle…
6.
SLIDE 17: Faithful people build the faith of others.
When God sees your
faithfulness he blesses you.
Building the faith of others is called mentoring or discipling. It’s simply encouraging somebody in the
faith who is younger in the faith than you.
Everybody in life
needs a Paul and everybody needs a Timothy. What’s a Paul?
That’s somebody who is older than you who can kind of encourage you and
be a coach to you spiritually and just be here praying for you. Everybody needs a Paul. And everybody needs a Timothy. That’s somebody who’s not been a
Christian as long as you. Maybe
you’ve only been a Christian one week longer. But they can be your Timothy. You need to be mentoring somebody younger than you.
You don’t need to
be a hundred steps ahead of that person.
Because they can’t see you.
You only need to be one step ahead. If you start helping other people in their faith
you’re going to find God blessing your socks off. Faithful people build the faith of others.
God has called
every Christian to do this. 2
Timothy 2:2 says – Paul is talking to Timothy – SLIDE 18: “The things you’ve learned from me [Timothy] in the presence of many witnesses you are to entrust to other faithful
people [there’s that word “faithful”] who
will also be qualified to pass it on to others.”
Notice in that
verse there are four generations.
Paul says I helped build up your faith, now you’re to find somebody
who’s faithful and help build up their faith, who they will turn around and
build up the faith of others. Four
generations in one verse. This is
called mentoring. It’s called discipling.
Don’t you wish when
you were in your twenties, and you’re a young guy, if you had had an older guy
who was a Christian who said, I don’t know a whole lot but let’s get together
for coffee once a month and we’ll just talk and I’ll pray for you. If you need some help in your business
I don’t know a whole lot but I can tell you what I know. You need some help in your family, your
marriage? I can tell you what not to do.
That’s
mentoring. It’s wise to learn from
experience; it’s wiser to learn from the experience and mistakes of
others. I don’t have time to learn
it all myself.
You don’t have to
be perfect to be a mentor. If you
did, there would be no mentors.
There are no perfect mentors.
Everybody’s flawed.
It’s interesting to
me that when God chose the leader of the church, the person he chose out of all
his twelve disciples was the greatest failure. He chose Peter.
The guy who denied Jesus three times is the guy Jesus chose to be the
leader of the first church and to preach on the day of Pentecost and three
thousand people were saved. God
loves to use losers. He doesn’t
use the perfect winners. He loves
to use losers. And he chose the
biggest loser to be the leader.
Who can better
understand somebody going through a bankruptcy than somebody who’s been through
bankruptcy? Somebody who’s had
problems with their kids than somebody who has had problems with their
kids? Somebody who’s going through
cancer than somebody who went through cancer? Somebody who’s struggling with drugs than somebody who
struggled with drugs?
Don’t waste your
hurts! Use them to help the next
generation. And God will use them.
Here’s what Jesus
said to Peter, Luke 22. This is
before Peter denied Jesus three times.
Jesus knew he was going to do it and he said this, “Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for
you that your faith will not completely fail. [He said, Peter, I already know you’re going to fail. But I’ve already prayed for you and I
know you’re going to come out of it.]
So after you have repented and
come back to me, [after you’ve blown it and you’ve come back to me] strengthen and build up the faith of your
brothers.” In other words he’s
saying be a mentor.
Prayer:
Lord, I know Father you’re looking for
faithful people to use. You’re
looking for faithful people to bless.
I know people of real faith are hard to find. Yet you have said faithfulness is the key to blessing. It is the key to victory. And that a faithful man, a faithful
woman will be richly blessed. I
want these people in our family to be richly blessed. So help us to respond to the six tests of faith the way that
we ought to respond.
Now you pray. In your heart, pray this: Dear God,
please use the little things in my life to grow my integrity, the stuff that
nobody sees. Help me to be
faithful in that which isn’t my own so that you can give me my own. And God, use my talents to grow my unselfishness. Help me to realize that my giftedness,
my abilities are not for my benefit but to make the world a better place and to
help others. Lord, the tough times
I’m going through I’m going to ask you to use them to grow my persistence. Help me to not give up. Help me to keep on keeping on. Help me to not look at the problem but
the reward in heaven for growing in character. And Lord, the stuff that I lack, that I’ve got a shortage of
in my life, I’m going to ask you to help me to grow in generosity through the
shortages of my life; to be generous when I can’t afford it – with my time,
with my praise. Help me to be
generous in affirming others, to be generous with my money. Help me to be generous with my love. Help me to be generous not with
criticism but with praise. I want
to learn to be generous in every area.
I want to obey your vision and expect your provision. I want to do what you tell me to do and
then watch you make up the difference.
I want to be generous so that you can be generous to me so I can be more
generous. Where I have a need,
help me plant a seed. And when there’s
a delay between the seed and the harvest, help me to realize that you are
still, you’re still testing my
faith. Lord, I want your blessing
on my family, on my business, on my life.
Help me to faithfully bring other friends to the faith. To bring my friends to Jesus who are
paralyzed and don’t have enough faith on their own to come to you. And help me to build the faith of
others. It scares me to death but
I’m willing to be a mentor. I ask
you to help me to be a faithful person so that you can bless me. In your name. Amen.
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