Faithful as God is Faithful

I like songs like that that make it personal. God's been good to me. It's another chorus we sing that one time said, "You don't know like I know what he's done for me." Of course, you don't know, but you've got that same testimony. I I don't know what all God has done in your life. We hear sometimes testimonies and we know, well, this is what happened when they got saved. But you know, day to day, God is faithful, isn't he? And there's so much that we just don't testify about, you know, but we go through a situation. We go and we just say, "Lord, I need you." And he's there and he helps and and you don't think about testifying about that, but it's there because he's a faithful God that walks beside us. And and because of that, we can truly sing that God, you've been good to me. Amen. God, you've been good to me. If you feel that way, why don't you just lift a hand and give him another thanksgiving? So thankful, Lord, for all that you have done. Every time you've been there, Lord, every time we've called upon you and you have answered, that you have worked, that you walk beside in Jesus' name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

We're going to look to his word this morning. I'm going to read for an opening text from second Timothy chapter 2 and read the first three verses there. Second Timothy chapter 2 and the first three verses. God's been good to us as we just sang. I mentioned as in my comments there about his faithfulness. That's going to be the title of this lesson. As faithful as God is faithful. So from 2 Timothy 2:1, "Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, that same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul made this statement. He said, "Moreover, it is found, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." We don't use that term a whole lot, a steward when we think of a steward, particularly in in the same relationship that they did in in the Bible times, but a steward was basically an overseer of a household. They took care of all the the business things. Immediately the one that comes to mind is Joseph where he was in Piper's house. And Piper said, "You take care of everything." And said Pterer didn't know, you know, who paid when the bills were paid. He didn't know who who bought the groceries. Didn't know. He just knew that Joseph, you take care of it all. So he stewarded Joe Piper's belongings in his household. And so Paul said, 'If you're going to do that, if you're going to be a steward, and he said, 'We are stewards of the things of God. God has entrusted stuff to us, he's entrusted us with the gospel. He's entrusted us with with representing him to this world. He's given us many things and he said, "I give those to you to steward to to handle in the right way." And Paul said, if you're going to do that, if you're going to be that steward, you be have to be faithful. In fact, it's required in a steward to be faithful. If you're not faithful, you're probably not going to be a steward for very long. If you're mishandling the owner's money, if you're mishandling what his possessions and what he is doing and you're not faithful to doing your duty, well, I I forgot to pay the light bill. Sorry. I'll take care of that tomorrow. You know, he he's not going to keep you around long. So, you got to be faithful. And so when we think of the things of God, we must be faithful to him in everything that we do. God's looking for faithful people that faithfully serve him, that faithfully walk beside him, that faithfully represent him to the world.

There are many characteristic traits that a Christian exhibits and we we're talking about those in this this series of lesson. We talked last, brother Carden talked last week about being a disciple and what it means to to walk beside the Lord and carry the cross of Jesus Christ. And the Bible makes it very clear that faithfulness is essential in our walk with God. You know, here's the thing about faithfulness. There's usually very little glamour in faithfully doing your job, is there? You show up every morning, punch the clock, you do your job. You come in, you do your job. If you don't work, you you're home and you do your job. You you get up and do whatever is necessary to run that household. Wherever there is faithful and there's there's not a lot of reward, it doesn't seem with faithfulness, at least not, you know, this is what you were expected to do. You were expected to come to work. You were expected to do this job. You were expected to pay that bill. You were expected to do those things. And so, when we're faithful, there's there's not a lot of fanfare. you just came and you did your job. Kind of like I I'm I'm kind of thinking just through my mind now about a football game. You know, the people that get all the glory are the ones that make the touchdowns that do the long run that throw the ball and then you got all the people that come in for defense and you know, their job is just to make sure nobody gets through the line faithfully doing their job. And at the end of the game, they don't say, "You're the most valuable pro player because three times you kept the quarterback from getting sacked." I've never seen them give that person an award for most valuable player. But yet, without them, without them being faithful, it all would fall apart, right? And so, it's not the fanfare at the start of the race that produces a win. Jesus said it this way, "He that endures to the end shall be saved." That word endure means to abide firm, to stay in position. The person that stays doing what they need to be doing. And he said that person is the one that crosses the finish line that receives the prize.

And so I'm encouraging us today to be faithful in what we do. And I know sometimes particularly as Pentecostals, you know, we're all about the experience. And there's nothing wrong with that because there's nothing like the experience of the Holy Ghost in our lives. The time we come together, the times we worship and the times we praise and the things that happen and the glory of God comes in. But you got to be faithful on Monday morning and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, serving God every day of the week and living for him.

And so in Paul's second letter to Timothy, it's probably one of the last letters that Paul wrote. And no doubt Paul had endured many things in his life. We can read about some of those in the book of Acts. And and he wanted to encourage Timothy. Timothy, you must keep the faith. You must keep believing. You must keep doing what you know is right. And and the opening chapter gives us some purpose in Paul's writing the letter in 2 Timothy 15. He said, 'When I call to remembrance the unfeigned, not faked, not forced faith that is in you, just a pure faith. I believe in God and I'm living for him. He said, when I recall that faith that is in you, he said, I understand it first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Ununice, and I am convinced that it's in you also. And so he saw this. Paul was convinced not only the faith that Timothy expressed but also in the faithfulness with which Timothy lived his life and those two things go hand in hand. True faith is always expressed in faithfulness. So much so that you can almost interchange them in almost any scripture you read. They come from the same root word. Faith is is that expression of belief, but faithfulness is not only just a mental saying, I believe this, but I believe it so much that I'm gonna follow it and I'm going to live in it. And as a third generation Christian, Timothy knew what it meant to be faithful. He had seen it in his grandmother. He had seen it in his mother. And now he was living that life himself, being faithful to the things of God.

And then next Paul gives him an ad an admonition to to not give up. He said, "Hold fast the form of sound words which has heard of me in faith and in love which is in Christ Jesus." So hold fast to those things. And here the form of sound words we could say hold fast to the faith. Faith is also used in our Bibles when it has athe' in front of it, an article in front of it. keep the faith or be strong in the faith. It's talking about our belief systems. And he said, "So hold fast this form of sound words. Have faith in it. Continue. But not only that, but you have to keep doing it." Because he said, "The good thing which is committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost." the things God has committed to us. The things God has placed in our lives. He said it is up to us to keep that to be faithful in that. Words like hold fast and keep. They they speak of faithfulness. And so Timothy was encouraged to be faithful to the doctrine that he had received in Paul. Those words, but not only that, but also to be faithful in living out that doctrine. as Jesus would say, he that hears these words of mine and doeth them is faithful in them. And then finally, Paul told Timothy in first Timothy, 2 Timothy 1:15, he said that there were many who were no longer faithful. He said this, "Thou knowest that all they which are in Asia have turn been in Asia be turned away from me." So they were no longer faithful to God and faithful to Paul. they were turning from him to other things. And and so it's with that in mind when Paul looks at them and he said, I know that what was in you, hold fast to it because some have left it.

Some have turned from me. And so then he begins chapter 2, thou therefore, okay, they've turned away, but you, Timothy, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. That says a couple things. Paul was saying, first off, they've turned away. But you, Timothy, you you're strong. You have to be strong. Continue to be strong. But I like how he phrased that. He said, "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." How do you be strong in grace? You can't add more grace.

You can't create grace. God gives the grace. And so he's saying, Timothy, because of the grace of God that is given to you, you're able to be strong. If you continue to follow and you continue to live in that grace and accept it, you can make it. You can be strong. So early in its existence, the church faced a delusion of its beliefs. It happened very very quickly. Even after the last 30 40 years, the first 30 40 years of of the church, false doctrine beame to begin to come in.

And as early as Paul's letters, we see him writing about these. And these are only 30, 40 years after the resurrection, Peter warns us in second Peter 2. He said, "But there were false prophets also among the people." And he was talking there probably about Old Testament there were false prophets. He said, "Even as there should be false teachers among you." So he gives this warning. They will privy they will privately bring in damnable heresies. So they will bring in false doctrines. They will deny the Lord that brought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

He said and many are going to follow their own pernitious ways. And he said by reason of whom the truth shall be evil spoken of. So he gives this warning and we see this happening particularly in the later letters in the New Testament and then in the the literature that was written shortly after the apostles passed off the scene. this changing of the doctrine and false things coming in and and things changing. And so Paul is giving Timothy instructions. Guard against that. Be faithful to the faith.

Be faithful to the things that you have been taught. It's no accident that what Paul said as a bull work against false doctrine was very simply faithfulness. Keep doing what you're doing, doing what you know is right. And so in verse two, he said, 'In the things which you have heard of me among many witnesses, here's what you need to do. Commit thou to faithful men. Faithful men. It can be said that Paul that he lived what he preached. We see that in in the New Testament.

We can also see that he saw that characteristic in Timothy. And he so he tells Timothy, Timothy, you've lived this life. You've been faithful. You've seen it in me. you learned it from me and now you are continuing in that. And so he tells them that what you need to do is take that message and commit it to others who are faithful. Remember, there's a lesson for us today that we must learn is faithfulness. Whatever we do for the Lord, whether we're ministering in song, if we're teaching, if we're preaching, if we're just living it out, if we have a prayer life, if we're if we're witnessing, whatever it does, if we are not faithful to it, it will have little effect, faithfulness to God.

And so he said, "Look out men who are faithful. Look for people who you see that that you know are going to carry the football that you know are going to be faithful to do what they're asked to do and take those and commit this same thing that I've taught you to them. And then he said hold fast those form of sound words that you have heard of me. Hold on to the things that I have told you. Now in chapter two he said that in verse one.

In chapter 2, he says, "The things that you have heard of me in by among many witnesses." Why do we come to a Sunday school, a Christian education class, a whatever, a time to hear the word of the Lord? Why do we do that? Because we need to hear the word of God and be faithful to that word of God. And he said, 'The things that you have heard among me o of of me among many witnesses, the things that you've heard over and over, we're faithfully providing the word.

And that word should cause you to faithfully live in that word. That's why I always like to acknowledge on a Sunday morning, it's good to see the faithful saints of God. Many of you, you you've heard this stuff. You've heard the Bible taught over and over and over. I've been teaching this class for close to 25 years. And some of you have been here the whole time. You've heard a lot of things over and over and over. And before that, Bishop taught it for for years.

And before that, Brother Ralph Buouie taught for a while along with him and and others. You've heard this word of God. And at some point, you say, "Well, why do we need to hear it again?" Well, we need to be faithful to the word of God. We need to stir it up in our minds. We need to know it. Paul asked us in Romans. He said, "How shall they call on him who they not believed? How shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard?" How are you going to hear without a preacher or one that proclaims it?

How are they going to preach without they've been sent? And then he said, "So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." Now, I said earlier, faith and faithfulness go hand in hand. And you can't have one without the other. U when you truly believe you have faith in the word of God, you will faithfully live it out. And so then faith comes by hearing. Well, faithfulness comes by hearing the word of God. That's why we're here today, right? To hear his word.

Paul was always faithful to his message. He encountered many who tried to sway him away from it, but time and again he defended the doctrine. And no one could dissuade Paul from the truth he had received. He had heard it and he he knew it. In fact, he told of one in instance in Galatians in Galatians 2. He said, "False Christians were brought in. They slipped in as spies to learn about the freedom Jesus Christ gives us." And then he said this in verse 40, "But we did not give into them for a moment so that the truth of the good news of the gospel would always be yours." He said, "They might have tried to dissuade.

They might have tried to change. They might have opposed me, but I didn't give in for one moment. What he was saying, I was faithful to the gospel message. I was faithful to the life that I am living for Jesus Christ. Whether the opposition came from pagans, Jewish brethren, those who called themselves Christian, Paul was never going to back down. He said, "I am going to be faithful to this." I pray that we have that in our spirit. what I've heard from a child, the things that I grew up in, this plan of salvation, this way of living a a separated life to God, this knowing who Jesus is, all these things that we have heard, be faithful to it.

Don't leave it. Stay there. Timothy had probably acted as a secretary to Paul in many cases. Some of them he uh specifically mentioned some of the epistles that were written by the hand of Timothy. no doubt is probably Paul dictating them and he's putting them down. Timothy knew exactly where Paul stood concerning the doctrine. He didn't question he he didn't have any, you know, well Paul you sure about that? I I don't know is this really what you mean? No doubt he knew what Paul want believed and he knew that Paul had been faithful to the truth throughout these min throughout his ministry.

And so Paul not only says commit those to faithful men who will carry out the work. Just as Paul had committed the gospel to Timothy, he asked Timothy to do the same. Now that's not a New Testament principle. It's a Bible principle. Pastor would would give us this verse from Deuteronomy 6:7, right? Verse 66 and 7. He says, "Here are words of the word. our God. Lord our God is one Lord. He then said, "And these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to thy children. You shall talk about them when you sit in your house. You when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, wherever you are, continue." What is that? That is faithfulness. The things that you have heard, the things that I command you, teach them. It's often said, are only one generation away from extinction. Doesn't have to happen. It's incumbent upon every one of us to faithfully pass the truth, faithfully teach the word of God.

And not only did he say send this to faithful men, but he sent it to those who shall be able to teach others also. So Paul, we we heard Wednesday night for those there about a four generation revival. talk about how we sustain it over four year four generations. Well, Paul's talking about every bit that much. It's in your grandmother, Timothy. It's in your mother. It's in you. You commit it to faithful men. That's number four. And they will teach others also. That's number five. Paul just just envisioned this gospel has to go on.

It's not just enough to pass the baton to the next generation. I think we need to purposely pass it to those who will carry it to the next. Find someone that you can bring along. And we heard that Wednesday night as well. Find that person that you can invest in and say, "You know what? I'm going to teach you and I'm going to show you how to be faithful." Paul seemed to look for those that he could mentor. He called them his sons in the gospel.

He talked about Timothy and Titus and others. and who would specifically he looked for those who would carry the mission forward. Perhaps that was his problem with John Mark after the first uh missionary journey because he saw a lack of faithfulness. They went on a journey and uh started on a missionary journey and John Mark decided, yeah, this is a little too much. I'm I'm leaving. I'm going back home. And Paul probably looked at as well that you just weren't faithful to the task. Fortunately, Mark later became very valuable to Paul and and because mostly because of Barnabas, but Paul realized, he's faithful.

He's important to me. I'm going to invest in him. Also, Jesus talked a lot about faithfulness. He once asked the question, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?" I don't think he just meant, "Will I find a bunch of people that believe that who I am?" Because I know a lot of people that believe in Jesus, they don't live for him. But a lot of people, if you ask, well, you know, who's God? You know, they'll tell you, they'll talk about Jesus.

They may tell you it's the father, son, and holy ghost, but but they'll look at Jesus. They they'll understand to an extent, and they'll have faith. And, you know, they claim, "Yeah, well, I'm a Christian. Do you ever go to church?" No, I don't go to church, but I'm a Christian. I believe that, you know, Christian. When the son of man comes, is he looking for a bunch of people who say, "Yeah, I believe as a god, but I'm living the way I want to live." No, he's looking for faithfulness when he comes.

Will he find those still faithful to his cause? Not only believing, but living in his word. And I'm thankful the answer will be yes. We got a testimony of that today. There's people in here who are faithful. Jesus instructs us in in several different ways about being faithful. He in instructs us to faithfully watch for his soon return. Now that watching involves much more than just waiting passively for him to come back. It's not, you know, we don't get the Holy Ghost and just sit on a pew and say, "Well, I guess he'll be here eventually and and I'll just sit here till he comes." Jesus said this, "Watch therefore," Matthew 24:42.

"For you know not what hour your Lord doth come." telling you when you don't know. But know this, if the goodman of the house, and it's interesting that the parallel he uses there, the the proverb, the analogy, he said, "If the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and he would not have suffered his house to be broken up." So, he would have been looking. He knew the hour. He said, "Okay, I know the thief's coming at 2 am, so I'm going to set my alarm for 1:45.

I'm going to get up. I'm going to be ready, be locked and loaded, and when he walks in, I'll take care of it." He said he would have lock watched. But here's the thing, he doesn't know. And so he said, "Therefore, be ye also ready for such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man comes." We don't know when he's coming. So, how do you how do you work in that economy, in that environment, to know that he's coming, but not know when? Well, the only way you can do it is to be faithful all the time, right?

Well, I don't think he's coming today, so I'm not going to be faithful today, but I'm afraid he might come tomorrow, so tomorrow I'll be faithful. It doesn't work that way because we don't know when he's coming. And he said, that's why. And then he he carries on and he says this Jesus who then is a faithful and wise servant. So he immediately says here's how you watch. You have to be faithful. And then he said blessed is that servant whom the Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.

Doing what? Watching. Looking for his coming. Living faithfully. believing Jesus could come back any moment. He said, "Blessed is that one that is so doing, that is watching, that is faithful." You know, many people start to watch and they grow tired, grow weary of it. I know could look around this crowd, there are people that have heard this message, Jesus is coming for 50 years, 60 years. close to 90 years, you've heard that message. And at some point, it's easy to just say, you know, I don't know.

Second Peter 3, Peter writes, he said, know in this verse, they're going to come some in the last days scoffers. They're going to be walking after their own lust or their own desires, doing what they want to do. And here's what they say. Where's the promise of the coming? Since the fathers fell asleep, nothing's changed. All things continue as the beginning. You know, my grandma told me this. She's gone, gone. My mom talked about it. You know, where's the promise? Watch. Be faithful. Don't give up.

Let the church always be looking for the soon coming of Jesus Christ. Hebrews gives us this promise. Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time unto without sin into salvation. He's coming. Be faithful. But I believe looking and watching include more than just looking and sitting there waiting passively. It it includes proclaiming the truth of his coming. The church that denies his coming. The church that has just put it on the back burner and just Yeah. Okay. Well, we don't want to concentrate on that because we want to concentrate on all these other things down here.

And so, we'll just, you know, we can't just constantly be talking about Jesus coming. But if we do that, we've lost sight of the reality. We'll find itself concentrating more and more on this present world and and we'll be so involved in those kind of things. Some people look at churches now as just a self-help organization. And and some even go so far as to say, well, you know, if if we're just being Christ in the world and we're feeding the poor and we're taking care of this and we're doing that, we can build the kingdom of God here on earth.

And when it's all said and done, then that will be heaven here on earth. It's not going to work that way, church, because evil men and seducers are going to work wax worse worse and worse. And rather than looking for a world to come, they're looking to see what we can accomplish here below. Yes, we should do those things. We should take care of the things the Bible talks about. But we must always remember to be faithful to watch. to watch, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God, our savior Jesus Christ.

That's what we need to be doing. Paul said, "The grace of God that brings salvation is appeared to all men." So, they've all heard of it. They've all seen it. But here's what it does. It teaches us to deny ungodliness, to deny worldly lust or desires, that we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. That sounds like faithfulness to me. That's how he asks us to watch. We also must be faithful in everything we do for the Lord. Sometimes we see the command to be faithful as only pertaining to the things that we deem important.

only the, you know, okay, I'm faithful in my church attendance. I'm faithful in my giving. I'm faithful here, but you know, when I'm on vacation, maybe not so much. Faithfulness involves every aspect of our life. Remember the parable Jesus talked about the talents to illustrate that principle. Here's the thing. In the end, it did not matter what each person received. It didn't matter that one got one talent and one got two and one got five. What mattered was what they did with what they received. What mattered was how they handled what they had been given.

What matters what that they were faithful with what God placed in their hands. And sometimes we get so hung up on well faithfulness for them is different than it is for me. No, in the end it's the same. You may have fewer things and you say, "Well, it's just less important." Maybe it is in your eyes, but it's not in God's. Had the man with five talents buried the five talents, and the man with one worked out and made two, I guarantee you this is what would have happened.

The guy with one talent in the end would have gotten the five the other guy had because that's what happened to his one talent that he had buried. Jesus to take the talent from the one that was unfaithful and give it to the one that was faithful. It would have worked the reverse way had that been what happened. What we want to hear, well done, thou good and what? Faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. You've been faithful over things that maybe seemed insignificant.

You've been faithful over the little things. And because of that, I will make you ruler over many things. We must learn faithfulness in every area of our life. Long before David faced a Goliath, he'd been faithful in tending his father's sheep. There was no glory in that. There was no one around to see it. There was no long one around. In fact, when David comes to fight Goliath in 1st Samuel 17, Saul said unto them, "You can't fight against this Philistine. You're not able. You're a youth.

You're too young, too small. He's a man of war from his youth. He's bigger than you. He's stronger than you. He knows how to fight." You know what David said? He didn't say, "Yeah, I know that's right." He said, "I kept my father's sheep." Imagine how that sound to a warrior. I can take care of him. I used to take care of sheep. Yeah. He said, "Yeah." And there came a lion and there came a bear and they took a lamb out of the flock and I went after him and I smoked him and I delivered it out of his mouth.

And when he rose up again against me, I caught him by the beard and smoteed him and slew him. your servant slew both the lion and the bear and Goliath's going to be just like one of them because he defied the living God. Something insignificant. It didn't if if David hadn't mentioned it, no one would ever known anything about what happened on that hillside watching sheep. But he was faithful and he understood because he was faithful because he was doing what he had been asked to do.

Faithful to his family, faithful to watching his father's sheep, fa faithful to taking care of those things. Because he was faithful in that, he trusted that God was going to be faithful to him when he stood in front of Goliath. So the things that you look at that look so small, if you are faithful in them, God will take care of the big things when you get there. Facing Goliath was a very public act. Yet facing the lion and the bear most likely occurred when nobody was watching.

And that's what we understand about faithfulness. True faithfulness does not need an audience. In fact, If it's looking for an audience, it's probably not faithful. If I'm looking for someone to see this so they know that yes, that's what I'm doing, right? What are you doing when they're not looking? Are we still being faithful? We don't have time to to really go into it, but Hebrews 11 is what we call the faith chapter. And many wonderful sermons have been preached about it and great things we taught about.

We talk about those heroes of faith. And what's interesting is we often just pull out this chapter. Maybe because Hebrews is kind of deep stuff and we don't like to read the whole thing or maybe don't want to to look at it, but we kind of pull it out of context. What's interesting is Paul had a reason for putting the faith chapter, if you will, in the middle of this letter. The epistle of the Hebrews is to point out to the Christians that they had come into a better way than what they served before those Hebrews, those Jews that had grown up in Judaism.

This is based on a better priesthood, a better sacrifice. The superiority of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on Calvary was better than than offering lambs and goats. It was a better sanctuary, better promises, on and on and on. And yet there were Christians who because of what was going on in their lives and because they were beginning to face persecution begin to fall away and to go back to Judaism. And so Paul writes in Hebrews 10, he said, "You need to draw near with a full assurance heart in full assurance of faith." That's that's the one that yes, I believe.

I'm standing in it. He said, "Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water." And then he said this, "Let us hold fast." That's the faithfulness to your faith. Hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. And he gives us this. For he is faithful that promised. How can we be faithful? Why would we be faithful? It's because he's faithful. Here's what I know. If he said I can make it, if he said that I can be faithful, it's not because he looks at me and said this this guy is able to do it.

No, it's because he's a faithful God and he's going to walk beside me and he is going to be with me and he is going to go alongside of me. Then he gives this warning in in Hebrews chapter 10 and 26. For if we sin after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there's no more sacrifice. There's fearful judgment. And he begins to ask, "How much sor a punishment? If you've trotten underfoot the son of God, if you've counted the blood of the covenant, where which you is sanctified an unholy thing." What he's saying is you've come to something better.

And if you change your mind and you go back the other way, you're basically saying, "Yeah, I don't I don't believe that anymore. I don't need that anymore." So, it's a warning. Don't turn back. Don't go a different way. In fact, he he closes that chapter 10 with this words in 10:35. Cast not away therefore your confidence. Keep believing. Keep having confidence in this way in this gospel message. In other words, be faithful to it because there's a great reward coming from it. He said, 'You have need of patience, and faithfulness and patience go hand in hand.

Have to be patient if you're going to faithfully do things after that you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise for yet a little while. He that shall come will come and he will not tarry. So we know and notice he comes again back to that idea to keep watching because he is going to come as he said he would. And then he says this. Now the just shall live by faith. Live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

I don't think we draw back from the things we know. We draw back from the things we do. For the most part, you can find backslitters, backslitters, backsliders that will say, "Yeah, I I I still believe that stuff. I just don't live it anymore. I still believe." Yeah. Is there one God? Yeah. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe he went to the cross and died for? Yeah, I still believe that. But are you living for him? Well, no. So faith is much more than just saying, "Yes, here's what I believe." But it is living faithfully in that belief.

And so he said the just are going to live by their faith. But if any man draw back, he didn't say they stop believing. He just said they they quit being faithful. My soul shall have no pleasure. But I'm thankful he gives this promise. We are not of them that draw back. But to them that believe to the saving of the soul. I'm thankful for people that still believe. And then he goes into the faith chapter. We don't have time to go through all of that, but I will point out a couple things.

Number one is that faith is an action, not just a belief. Not just, okay, I believe in God, but an action. Here's here's just a quick thing and just run through it. Abel offered sacrifice. He didn't just believe. He offered. Enoch was translated. Noah prepared an ark. Abraham believed. Isaac blessed knowing that God was going to answer those prayers. Joseph gave commandment and God worked through him. Moses not necessarily his faithfulness first faithfulness of his mother. He was hid and God saved him. Moses himself refused and forsook Egypt.

Moses kept the Passover. All of Israel passed through the wilderness and passed through the waters into the promised land. So notice all of these faith were always something they did because they were faithful to do what God required. They obtained the report of that hero of faith. Faithfulness in what we stand, what we believe. And we could go through that book and look. Noah built his ark. Yes, he was faithful work that hundred years building that ark. Abraham was faithful to walk through the promised land even though he never received any of it.

God had promised it and he continued to walk. uh could go on and on. And then it talks about these. It said, "What more shall I say?" There's Gideon and Bareric and Samson, Jeepa and David and Samuel and all the prophets. They subdued kingdoms. They wrought righteousness. They obtained promises, quenched violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Many of these things that they did, that's faith we like to talk about. These are great miraculous things that happen. It's a faith of miracles, a faith of deliverance.

But they were faithful to serve God. They were faithful to follow him. In fact, he goes on and and this is where we really see it. And there were others who were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings and bonds and imprisonment and were stoned and sawn in half and tempted and slain with the sword and they wandered in sheep skins, goat skins, and they were destitute and afflicted and tormented wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and dens of the earth.

That doesn't sound exciting. I like that first list better, don't you? Quench the fire, escaped the sword, made strong. We don't like that second half. But here's the thing. He said, "These all died in faith." These all, in other words, were faithful. Were faithful in what they did. Said they didn't receive the promises. They persuaded, embraced them. They saw them a far off. So they faithfully kept believing God. We're out of time. We can stand. It's apparent what we've been looking at is a life of faithfulness is just that.

It's life, but it's life of a purpose. It's life that says, "I'm going to live for Jesus Christ." Whether we see great victory, whether we see persecution, yet remain faithful. Paul said it this way. continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. So in Hebrews from 10 go through 11 and you go to verse 12 he comes full circle. He says wherefore seeing we are compassed about so great a cloud of witnesses. Lay aside every weight the sin that deset sets you run with patience.

In other words be faithful right and run with patience the race that is set before you looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. running the race, following Jesus is what faithfulness is all about. Let's ask him to help us now. Lord, we're so thankful for your word and the challenge of your word. Pray God that you would help us to live lives that are faithful, that are pleasing to you, not when people are looking, but all the time because you could come at any moment.

And we want to be faithful when you come again in Jesus name. Jesus name. Let's take a break. Amen.