We are so glad to have been here this week, and the Lord has been faithful to us. We are very thankful for the saints in Toronto for inviting us to this time. We know that, for many of them, it is quite a planning ordeal and a time-consuming venture. I think it was worthwhile.
We are very thankful for Jim and the messages he brought, for those who led the workshops in the afternoon, and for the whole package of us being together for these times—for those who led the dorm devotions and everything. It is the Body of Christ that we are experiencing as we are together for these days. Very thankful for all of that.
We have received many things and some rich treasures. I begin by thinking of Paul, just before he went to be with the Lord. He said:
I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have entrusted to Him
until the day of His return.
Then, two verses later, he said to Timothy, “Now, Timothy, guard, through the Holy Spirit within you, the treasure entrusted to you.”
For some of you, you may not realize it because you are just going through life at this moment, but you have been receiving treasures regarding our precious Lord in these days. Guard them. They become of more value with each year of your life.
We have tried to convey this high thought. The Scripture at the bottom of the page says, “Those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful,” as you see from Revelation 17. It is when Jesus is coming back with those who have been faithful and have been raptured into His presence.
This is a penultimate moment in the history of the whole universe that we are looking at, and it is very high. The saints in Toronto pray about what the topic is, and they always pull some high concept. It is beyond what adults understand. So this has been our theme.
We could have taken it and talked about the end times and the whole thing, because it certainly has to do with it. But rather, both Jim and I have tried, in our own confusing way, to break down these three words: the called, the chosen, and the faithful.
As you can see by the pictures here, we tried to represent our calling as those mountains. We climb from peak to peak. We ascend in our calling—our on-high calling, our heavenly calling. We ascend upward in holiness and in all of those things.
We tried to convey being chosen by the stars in the sky. We are chosen for an eternal destiny, for celestial appointments, for great things to happen, you see.
Now, as you can see tonight, we have chosen to picture being faithful as walking through the valley and the pathway that the Lord has set for you—to walk by faith and not by sight. This is why these three pictures.
We thank You again, Lord Jesus, for the treasure that You are to our hearts. Thank You, Lord, that even this evening, as we are together and worshiping, saints are beginning to express their love for You, and they are being chosen.
How wonderful it is that we can say amen to all of those testimonies in prayer and worship tonight. Now we ask, Lord, would You help us by Your Spirit? Quicken us, Lord, from the length of this day. Refresh our bodies. Make our hearts alert to hear what You would say to us regarding being faithful unto You.
We place this time in Your hands, thanking You for everybody who is here. May everyone have an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Well, there you are down there, pointed to with the red arrow, way down in that little pathway there. Watch out—you are going to fall off into the precipice. It is just you and a bunch of people walking down there. That is being faithful.
To make your calling and choosing sure, we talked about the matter of calling. One day in time and space, at a certain point in your life, we heard the heavenly calling: “Come unto Me,” that call to salvation. We responded to it.
When we responded to it, we began to ascend the calling mountain—although this is actually Mount Everest, but I do not think many of you would try that one. We looked at the various places on the upward climb toward glory: called into His eternal glory, called into His kingdom, called into service, called into the church, called to be holy, called to fellowship—all of these things so noble, so high.
As we were climbing in our calling—climbing Calling Mountain—we begin to see the stars. There is something tremendous about God’s plan for us. His chosen plan takes us past earth and time and brings us into an eternal destiny as wide and broad as the stars.
As we get hold of something of the size of God, we are in awe of His size. Suddenly, He kicks back and says, “My choosing of you is also larger than you could possibly think.” Our God is a huge God.
One part of it that you and I are going to have to get used to—and actually, it is a scary part—is that His heart is so big. He loves you with a fearsome love. James says that He is jealous for your spirit.
He watches everything you do, not to say, “You are not doing that right,” but because He is jealous for you—jealous with a love, a possessive love. You have no idea, but you are going to find out.
He does not leave you alone easily, you know. You can say, “Well, I am going to walk out on the Lord.” Fine. See what He thinks about that.
When you try to walk out on the Lord, you walk in a path and it circles you right back around to Him. You say, “Wait a minute. I thought I was walking away.” Ah, yes—Calling Mountain.
We begin to see glory, and then, of course, we realize in this wonderful choosing that His love chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. What a tremendous concept. We realize that we were chosen, that He always had His eye on us, even though we did not know it until we were called to salvation.
In our temporal life here on this earth, we still live under the sun, with all of its daily duties and everything. But we also live in eternal dimensions, in the heavenlies—no longer just under the sun, like all unbelievers do, but now also in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus.
We looked at this wonderful verse yesterday:
If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above,
where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things that are above,
not on the things that are upon the earth.
The Lord begins to explain to us what all of these starry, eternal concepts are: glory, rewards, eternal destiny, sonship, and so on. Being chosen by God is not being chosen just to be some little nobody. You are chosen by the King of kings and Lord of lords. That which you are chosen to is tremendous.
We see that God has already set the wheels in motion to finish what He began. We know this wonderful verse, starting in Romans 8:28:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good,
even to them that are called according to His purpose.
Then Paul gives us a progression of God’s working in our lives:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained
to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Now notice: predestination, as Calvinism talks about it, is something completely different. What Scripture means by predestination is this: you have a destiny already charted out, and that destiny is that you are going to be conformed to the image of Jesus.
This verse is just saying that you have been determined. God says, “You are going to look like Jesus.” That is your predestination.
And whom He foreordained, them He also called:
and whom He called, them He also justified:
and whom He justified, them He also glorified.
Before creation ever was, you were foreknown and predestined. Then, on earth, you are called at a point in time and justified by the precious blood of Jesus during time. For eternity, you are glorified. This is God’s plan. He has the wheels set in motion.
If you realize that God works all things together for good, what does that really mean? Is everything God does designed to make you happy? No. But God works all things together toward your glorification and toward His glorification, because they happen to coincide perfectly.
When all things are done, you will be glorious, and He will be glorious. That is what He is working on right now. Tremendous work is going on right now by the Spirit. Having called you, He has justified you, He is sanctifying you, and He is getting ready to glorify you. The wheels are in motion.
God has provided everything to get us from grace to glory—from grace, when we first got saved, to glory. I use this verse in 2 Peter 1:
Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
to them that have obtained a like precious faith with us
in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
seeing that His divine power hath granted unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness.
Everything you need for life and godliness, He has granted to us through the true knowledge of Him who called you by His own glory and excellence. The Lord has already provided everything necessary for life and godliness in your life. There is nothing missing if you will just take hold of these things.
So praise God—it is all done. It is over; in the bag. We are called, we are chosen. Let us go home.
No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait just a minute. We cannot go home yet. There is something for us to do, of course: faithful. Uh-oh.
We need the whole glory sandwich. You know how the glory sandwich is made up? Of course, there are two pieces of bread called called and chosen grain. But where is the beef? Where is the faithfulness, with a little secret something sauce?
The sandwich is not complete yet. God has done His part. God has called; God has chosen. Where is your part? Where is the beef? Oh boy—faithfulness.
Without faith, the Bible says, it is impossible to please God. You can feel the hammer coming down right now, can’t you? That is why the church looks like a lopsided sandwich.
Many are called; few are chosen. Why is that thing all mixed up there? What is missing in the middle? Many are called. God calls many. Why are so few chosen? Because they do not exercise faith and respond to God’s calling.
Nothing is wrong with God’s transmitter; something is wrong with their receiver.
Faith—one of the three biggies. What are the other two biggies? Hope and love. Our Christian lives have these three dynamics: living faith, hope, and love.
Now listen: I know that you and I want to get to a place where we do not have to exercise faith; we can just exercise what we know. “I just do what I know.” God says, “No, I want you to do something you do not know.” “Oh, I am not so comfortable with that.”
Faith is one of the biggies. We are to live by faith, not by sight. Now we are getting into trouble.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you this word: faithfulness. I see people getting edgy in their seats. Some people cross their legs and kick them back and forth like a dog that is being scratched.
Oh no, the word “faithfulness” comes up, and immediately a big cloud goes over us. “Oh no, faithfulness. I will never have it. I will never be there.” Uh-oh, what is going on?
We worked you up about the calling—climbing Calling Mountain. We worked you up about the stars, and you have a star out there with your name on it in the chosen business. Now we are down to the real stuff. You knew the hammer was going to drop, right? Faithfulness.
I want to take a realistic view of faithfulness. There are a couple of things we want to notice right off. This is the verse we are studying, Revelation 17:14. We have to be frank about this: it is talking about overcomers.
These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them,
for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings;
and they also shall overcome that are with Him,
called and chosen and faithful.
This is the American Standard Version, which is probably the most literal version we have in English. It says not only that the Lamb overcame the enemy, but those who are called, chosen, and faithful overcame the enemy.
When we are talking about faithful, we are talking about something highly prized—something that enables somebody to overcome. This is no small matter. You guys chose the verse.
The second thing is that this word faithful has very much to do with rewards. When Jesus is talking about rewards in the kingdom of heaven, He mentions this word faithful in these two passages. Both have to do with the coming of the kingdom.
Who then is the faithful and wise servant,
whom his lord hath set over his household,
to give them their food in due season?
In Matthew 25:23, His master says:
Well done, good and faithful servant;
thou hast been faithful over a few things,
I will set thee over many things:
enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
He says, “Look, I gave you some money, you used it well, and you brought back twice as much as I gave you. Well done, good and faithful.” Rewards have to do with faithfulness. I do not want to reduce the value of this in any way.
Thirdly, the martyrs in the Bible are also called faithful. In Revelation 2:13, to the church in Pergamum, there was a man named Antipas:
I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is;
and thou holdest fast My name,
and didst not deny My faith,
even in the days of Antipas My witness, My faithful one,
who was killed among you, where Satan dwelleth.
Martyrs were faithful even unto death. This particular man, according to church tradition, Antipas was burned in a wooden bowl used for sacrifice in Pergamum. They burned him alive in that bowl.
Faithfulness is a highly prized valuation from God. The called, chosen, and faithful overcame the world, the flesh, and the devil. That is quite a victory. They served the Lord diligently in their calling, and they remained faithful over a period of time. That is what faithful means: faith over a period of time.
As Paul says in 2 Timothy, just before he goes to be with the Lord:
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the course,
I have kept the faith.
Faithful—it is a prize. It is wonderful when somebody is called a faithful servant.
Seeing the noble goal of faithfulness, this is our goal. Brothers and sisters, you know you are called, and I think you know you are chosen. The Lord loves you. These things are coming into your understanding, and you are grasping how wonderful your calling and your chosenness are.
I want you to have this desire to grasp faithfulness as well. The first thing is to realize the path to this goal.
2 Peter 1:10 is very important in this regard:
Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence
to make your calling and election sure.
Election is the same thing as being chosen. Be diligent to make your calling and election sure.
What does it mean to make your calling and election sure? It means to make it solid. Make your calling and chosenness certain. Make it manifest, so that even others can see your calling and your being chosen. It is clearly seen by everyone. That is what it means to make your calling and choosing sure.
Now, the same verse tells you how to make your calling and election sure:
Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence
to make your calling and election sure:
for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble:
for thus shall be richly supplied unto you
the entrance into the eternal kingdom
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Listen: if you practice, you will not stumble. Do not worry about stumbling. Do not worry about not being faithful. If you will practice, you will not stumble.
There is something to practice. It is really a daily practice—making little decisions to believe and obey. Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart. How do you find this valuation at the end: “Well done, good and faithful servant”? It starts today, practicing obedience to Him.
This chart has all this stuff: God’s way and man’s way; working faith and dead faith; God’s will and doing your own thing; obedient and disobedient; spiritual growth and being content to be a babe; living godly and living in pleasure.
It is showing that there are decisions that make your calling and choosing sure. The more you decide by faith, the more certain are your calling and your choosing.
What does Peter specifically mean by “practice these things”? For that, we have to go to the rest of the passage in 2 Peter 1:5-7:
Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence,
in your faith supply virtue;
and in your virtue knowledge;
and in your knowledge self-control;
and in your self-control patience;
and in your patience godliness;
and in your godliness brotherly kindness;
and in your brotherly kindness love.
There is a list there of things that you need to be adding to your life. Listen to what he says in 2 Peter 1:8:
For if these things are yours and abound,
they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful
unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is what we are talking about, if you want to boil it down simply. He gave you that list, but I want to make it simple. The question is: Are you increasing in the Lord? Is there growth in the Lord?
That is the key. You will not stumble if you are growing in the Lord—if you are taking His grace, obeying His Word, and living by faith day by day in little ways. Practicing, increasing, adding to—we are talking about somebody who is in ascendancy, increasing in spiritual life.
Listen, dear child of God: if you are increasing in your spiritual life, never worry that you will not be counted faithful. That increase is the key Peter is talking about. It keeps us faithful. We are increasing; the Lord is adding more of Himself; it is making you stronger; your calling and election are becoming more sure.
Here it is: Faithful means a daily walk of faith by the grace of God. It is that simple.
You hear somebody speak who has been a Christian for a long time, and you wonder, “How did they ever get to know all that kind of stuff that Jim knows? How did he get to that spot?” One day at a time. He read his Bible.
There is no magic. There is no quick way. There is no instant Christian growth. It is a daily walk by faith.
You may see the stars of your choosing and be climbing the mountain of your calling, but the road to glory is in the valley—walking by faith, not by sight, on a day-by-day basis.
We may have a wonderful time here at Ancaster, but when you go back home, you are living in the valley day by day by faith, not by sight. You do not see glory stars. You do not see mountain peaks to climb. You have a day ahead, and the Lord is speaking to you about something. Will you hear Him? Will you obey?
This is where faithfulness takes root.
Everybody’s route is different. From grace to glory is unique for everyone. You start out on Grace’s Freeway. Uh-oh, watch out—the devil will rob you of your joy of life. Happy Highway is a wonderful place. Watch out. You come to this place: there is Broadway, and there is the narrow pathway.
At that point, the Lord says:
Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.
You realize, “I must go the narrow pathway.” And so there you go.
But watch out: Give-Up Gulch. Oh no, Temptation Hairpin. You almost lost it into Lusty Valley. I am not telling you that this is not dangerous stuff down in the valley. Forget it—up on the mountaintop there is all snow, nice clean snow. You are down in the valley here, you see.
Watch out—you got to a certain place and got a little bit of pride. You are up on that pinnacle with the devil saying, “Hey, jump off and show everybody how good you are.” Watch out for Pride’s Pinnacle; it has taken many people down off the road.
Then, “Oh, do not be offended.” “No, no, no. I know that guy did you bad.” Watch out for Dead Man’s Curve. Watch out—Carnal Comfort is in the way. That is your drive—I mean, that is your walk.
Everybody has different valleys and different turns because everybody has different weaknesses, and therefore different temptations. Everybody has different secret somethings that this walk on earth is going to produce.
The Lord takes you through your valley at the pace He knows you can be victorious.
When you run into a temptation or something that seems too much for you, the Lord has brought you there because you can overcome it. He would not send you to some place that would overwhelm you. If you stay on the path as He leads you day by day, walking by faith and not by sight, you will find increase in your life.
You will find that you are attaining certain things in your life. It is not as if you always notice the increase. You cannot stand up to the wall every day, draw another pencil mark, and say that you are a little higher, because much of the increase is in character—things like patience and such things.
On mountaintops, we see our chosen glory. Praise God for mountaintop experiences. But it is walking through the valley that we learn faithfulness.
We are going to look at the two sides of faith becoming faithfulness. Faith with a track record is faithfulness. Faith that has walked down the road a little while is faithful—full of faith.
We are going to look at two aspects of faithfulness. The first is our exercise of faith. Just like Old Faithful: it sprays up at the same time, the same number of minutes apart. It is right on the clock.
Exercising faith is the exercise of your blood-bought free will to pursue God. Ladies and gentlemen, because you have been saved by the precious blood of Jesus, you have been, for the first time in your life, truly free to make free-will decisions.
You are no longer a slave to the enemy. You are no longer a slave to your lusts. You have a free will now to decide what to do.
Here is what you can do:
Present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Present yourself to God. Take that free will and do what He wants you to do. “Here I am, God. I am free to do whatever I want, and I want to serve You.” Wonderful. You are exercising your free will, and you are exercising it to pursue God.
It is in the running of the race, as mentioned in Hebrews 12:
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses,
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.
Everybody has things that bother them and sins that beset them. You can lay them aside if you will run your race looking unto Jesus. You now have the freedom to take off those weights and run the race with Jesus. What a wonderful faith this is.
If we could see our life as running with Jesus, being enabled by Jesus—this is the first aspect of faith: the free exercise of will. We say, “With my free will, I decide for God.”
In many little ways, you should really do that. When you go to the next Sunday meeting at your church, your natural inclination may be, “I am not going to do anything. I am just going to sit here, and I cannot wait for this to get over.” That is your natural person. As long as you are alive, you will feel that way.
But instead, you say, “Wait a minute. I am a free-will person, I am born again, and I love Jesus Christ with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.”
“I am not going to be passive. I am going to engage in this service and see if there is some way I can add a song or add a prayer during this time. I am not going to be passive. I could be passive. I am free to be passive, but I decide not to be passive. I am going to be a worshiper.”
You just made a good decision.
God does not force you to be a worshiper. You can come and sit on your hands. Everybody else can sing, and you can lip it. You can poke your friend, text them, or do something. Are you texting during the meetings? Years ago, they used to pass papers around. Are you texting? Are you twittering? I caught you.
No, I do not see anybody doing that. Okay.
That is number one: exercise your free will. You have a free will. You do not have to be like the old negative guy you used to be. “Yes, I am going to study my Bible. I know God wants me to study. Yes, I am going to do it by faith.”
You do not look at your Bible and say, “Oh, that Bible is so beautiful. I just love the cover.” You have to open it. Now there is that old black-and-white lettering in there. Are you in love with black-and-white lettering? Well, yes, you are. You have a free will to be in love with the Word of God.
Exercise, exercise. You have been set free to exercise. Now you have to decide what to do with the freedom He has won for you. Exercise it for God.
Number two: faith is choosing God over whatever. Remember, faith is not walking on water; faith is choosing to walk to Jesus. Faith has an object, and it is Him. I put my faith in Him. That is the primary matter we choose to do with our free will.
Regarding our own faithfulness, it is a walk initiated by the heart, not the mind. As we have already mentioned several times, Paul says:
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
We do not always see glorious things or mountain peaks. We do not always feel God. We do not wake up every morning and hear God saying, “Hello, Dana. Dana. I have been waiting for you.”
If somebody here hears God’s voice every morning, I have a nice little hospital back in New York.
But you walk by faith. You read the Bible. Sometimes it speaks to you; sometimes you read a portion and say, “What?” You do not always get something, but you walk by faith, and later on God may tell you about it.
Do not forget this: Hebrews 11:6 says:
And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto Him;
for he that cometh to God must believe that He is,
and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him.
When God called you, you broke into another realm. You broke into the fourth dimension, and now you have to exercise your life in the fourth dimension—where He speaks and you obey, where you do things when there is no outward command but there is an inward call.
This walking by faith pleases God. When one of His children does not see but obeys, because they move by the faith in their heart, God says, “I am pleased with that. I like that.”
Are you living by faith? God loves that. You believe it. Why? Because you believe God is. “Well, where do you see Him?” I do not see God here tonight, but do you believe in Him? Good. Do you believe He is a rewarder of those who walk by faith? Amen? All right, good. Walk.
It is a walk initiated in the heart, not just the mind. If you walk the rest of your life by your mind, you are going to say, “Okay, now let us see. What is the job that is best for me? The job that makes the most money and means I have to do the least work?”
Then you try to work out who you are supposed to marry according to your mind. What a mess you get into. The heart is supposed to lead you in these things.
Number three: the exercise of faith is an ennobling fight. One of the ways the Lord really works on your character is that you have to fight the good fight of faith. That is exactly what Paul tells Timothy:
Fight the good fight of the faith,
lay hold on the life eternal,
whereunto thou wast called.
You were called and given eternal life. Now take hold of that life. Live by that life. Do not live by your life; live by His life.
In Ephesians 6:
Withal taking up the shield of faith,
wherewith ye shall be able to quench
all the fiery darts of the evil one.
When you become a Christian, the enemy is going to go after you. But there is an ennobling fight here, and faith fights the good fight of faith. Oh, how you are built in that process. What a wonderful thing.
Now let us look at His faithfulness, because it is part of the package of becoming faithful. God’s faithfulness is our keeping. Listen, there is a guarantee I want you to understand: God is always faithful.
He put the rainbow out. He cannot help being faithful.
Listen to what it says in 2 Timothy 2:13:
If we are faithless, He abideth faithful;
for He cannot deny Himself.
If you become a scoundrel, He has to remain faithful. He cannot deny Himself.
Paul put it in Romans 3:
What then? if some were without faith,
shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God?
God forbid.
What our brother shared this morning was really precious when he was doing the marriage-vow things. I saw some of you getting ready to propose to people just with that one message.
Here is the deal: God’s side of the marriage vows remains in effect because He is faithful. Better or worse, sickness and health, faithful or unfaithful—He is always faithful.
It is something you learn to come home to when you have been unfaithful. You find that He has not changed the agreement at all because of His new covenant and because of what Jesus did for you. He remains faithful even through your unfaithfulness. His faithfulness is part of His very nature.
Secondly, if He calls you—and for you, He has called almost everybody in this room, I am sure—then He commits everything to fulfilling that call. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5:24. Write down this Scripture. Wake up the person next to you so they can write down this one Scripture:
Faithful is He that calleth you,
who will also do it.
“I am calling you to be holy,” and then He equips you with everything necessary to be holy. He commits Himself to it. He does not just say, “Okay, hey, I call you. Be holy. Good luck.”
He puts everything at your disposal. Do you need angels to guard you in your ways? He will send them. He is committed. He is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23 says:
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not;
for He is faithful that promised.
Hold on. Hold on—He is faithful. He will not let you down. If He calls you to do something, it may be a tremendous task. It may involve a lot of cost and a lot of patience. But if He has called you to do something, He will come through and provide what is necessary for there to be victory and fruit in that situation.
Number three: if you are sorely tempted and helpless, come to Him and He will keep you. Do you see what we are calling His faithfulness? Our keeping. He is our Keeper.
Early in Jesus’ prayer in John 17, Jesus was talking to the Father and said, “Father, I have been with these disciples, and I have shown them who You are.” One of the things Jesus said was this:
Those whom Thou hast given Me I have kept.
Jesus was a keeper of the disciples. Otherwise, they would have just gone left and right and who knows where. But Jesus kept the disciples that God had given Him, and Jesus keeps those disciples who are called and who come to Him.
When you go through temptations, there is no temptation taking you but such as is common to man. We are all tempted by things, but God is faithful. That is what I want you to know.
God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able;
but will with the temptation make also the way of escape,
that ye may be able to endure it.
If you are tempted, come to Him. He is your Keeper. He will keep you from that temptation or give you a way of escape.
But the Lord is faithful,
who shall establish you, and guard you from the evil one.
Not all of you feel as though you have been attacked by the evil one, but some of you have been. This is a precious promise when you know you are under attack: the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
Number four: when you stumble and fall, He is faithful to recover all who come back. When the prodigal son turned around and came back, did the father say, “Sorry, I am not going to take you back”? No.
The Father still had His side of the covenant: “This is my son. He was dead, but now he is alive. This is my son. You will always be my son.”
Whether it is as simple as confession of sins in 1 John 1:9:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That means He will not hold it against you. If we confess our sins, God does not say, “Well, let me think about it. As I recall, this is the two hundred and fourteenth time you have come with the same sin. Yes, I have been keeping a record. I am going to think on it for a couple of days. You go down to the prison. Maybe I will forgive you this time.”
No.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You guys are still young, so you do not know what it is like when you become part of the million-pardon club.
But I am telling you, as a frequent flyer, it is downright shameful that I have to ask the Lord to forgive me for things that have been going on for years. I keep doing it, and I keep asking forgiveness.
You know what? I am sure glad the word faithful is bigger than my word goofus. He still forgives me. Can you believe it? I am part of the million-pardon club.
Isaiah 44:22 says:
I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions,
and, as a cloud, thy sins:
return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee.
I do not know if you are seeing the secret: His faithfulness becoming our faithfulness. There is a secret there. Do you see it?
Calling—that is His part, right? He calls us. Choosing—His part. He chooses us. Faithfulness is His part.
“Wait a minute. I thought it was our faithfulness.”
Well, you know what, dude? We will find out that our faithfulness is in His faithfulness. We find that all we have to do is come to Him, and He is faithful. This is a secret. Do not tell.
Everybody who ever has been, and everybody in that gang who comes back with Jesus and overcomes the enemy in those last days—if you ask them, “Are you faithful?” they will all say, “He is faithful.”
Why do they do that? Is it because they learned not to take credit for something? No, it is because they know the truth. How could I ever have been faithful? It is impossible. But you know what? He was faithful.
“I went through a turn in the woods where I almost lost it, and He pulled me back. He is faithful.” This is a testimony. Everybody has been through the mill, you see.
The secret of our faithfulness is God’s faithfulness. All He needs is a little faith, and faith is exercised by coming to Him.
I do not know if you caught that in all those Scriptures: when you are tempted or when you have fallen, come to Me. Do you have enough faith just to come to Me?
Forget about thinking about starting all over again. Forget about thinking about going back up to the peak. Come to Me, and I will help you and restore you to get you going.
All you need is a little faith—mustard-seed faith. He who is faithful in very little can become faithful in the end. He will keep any faith-er faithful. Are you a faith-er?
I realize we did not have that English word, so I have added it to the vocabulary. Please put it in your dictionary, okay? On your computer. A faith-er is somebody who exercises faith.
He will keep any trust-er trustworthy. Look at this beautiful picture. It says, “Trust in the Lord,” and it quotes Psalm 125:
They that trust in the Lord
are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved,
but abideth for ever.
Of course, the Bible is talking about Mount Zion in Jerusalem. This is Zion National Park, but other than that, the point is still the same.
This is where Paul, whom I quoted at the beginning, says at the end of his life:
I know Him whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that He is able to guard
that which I have committed unto Him against that day.
He is able to keep that which I have entrusted to Him against that day.
Jeremiah 17:7 says:
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,
and whose trust the Lord is.
There is a difference there. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and who entrusts the Lord. Whenever anything comes up, he goes to his trust. His trust is the Lord.
Faithfulness and trust are sisters—kissing cousins—pretty much the same thing. How are we going to be faithful? I entrust to the Lord what He has given me to do, and He keeps it. Ah, wonderful, wonderful mystery.
A few questions, just to confirm God’s faithfulness. We have seen many in the Bible mess up and fail. Here is the question: did God not receive any one of them who came back?
Some of you have already thought of Esau. He came back, but God would not give him the inheritance, right? But it was his father—it was because he had already lost it by default. God gave Esau plenty.
But anybody who came back to God, He never threw them out. Wasted people, wasted lives—they came back, and God did not throw them out. God is faithful.
From 2 Timothy 1:12:
I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that He is able to guard
that which I have committed unto Him against that day.
Is Paul counting on his faithfulness to keep himself faithful, or on God’s faithfulness? He is able to keep.
Third question: were any of the called, chosen, and faithful in Revelation singing, “Great is my faithfulness”? Did you ever hear that song in heaven?
What can we say? We need to give ourselves to the Lord, put ourselves in His arms. He says, “Be faithful, My son.” You say, “Lord, I will be faithful in Your faithfulness.” You hold on to Him.
I have an illustration. I do not know if you will understand it or if it applies, but here it is.
I have a son who lives in North Carolina. He has four children in his family, and one of the children—second in the bunch—is an autistic girl. I remember when that autistic girl was six years old.
She does not speak verbally. Even now, at thirteen, she hardly speaks anything. She lives in a world by herself, blocked off from relating to other people. Autism is a real heartbreak for those who love and wish they could relate more.
For myself, she loves me to scratch her back, so she comes over, I scratch her back, and she runs away.
When she was six years old, we went to the beach. First time—oceans, breaking waves. We went with the four kids, plunked our chairs down, and the next thing you know, they were in the sand digging. The four kids were having fun.
They would go in about knee-high and jump on little things that would float around. The waves would come busting in, but they were small waves and everything.
I did that as long as I could bear it. My back was breaking. So I said, “Hey, I am going out into the deep.” I went out there where I love to go. I love to jump waves, and they had some nice ones.
You have to go past this little sandbar. Then you get some waves five or six feet high. I was jumping and having a big time. Of course, the current was taking me down—dragging me southward on that particular occasion.
I had been out there fifteen minutes when I looked and noticed Emily, my autistic granddaughter. The family was over there, but she was standing on the beach opposite me. She was kicking her feet up and down and doing this with her eyes.
I jumped more waves, looked again, and she was still there. I could not believe it.
I went into the shore. When I got there right by the shore, she took my hands and started walking right into the deep. We got in about waist-high, and she jumped up on me and clutched me with a death grip.
You know what? She laughed, and we jumped waves for an hour and a half.
The other three grandchildren do not trust me. They think I am going to say, “Okay, here you go. Whoop.”
But this autistic little Emily knew all she had to do was trust her grandpa. She was the faithful surfer that day. We jumped waves. She was blue and shaking. I tried to go in, and she started screaming. I finally dragged her in; she was screaming the whole way.
The next day, when I got to the beach, she was standing by the water, going like this. I found a bond with my grandchild. But she found faithfulness by me holding her.
She went out there, but she could not go out there alone. She knew who to call, I guess. She found the biggest guy she could find. “Hey, there is a walrus. Woo, woo.” So there I was, Grandpa Walrus.
She was right there—an hour and a half jumping waves. Some waves would smash us in the face. Some would curl over the top of us. It made no difference as long as I was there. When I was not there, she would not go beyond her knees.
What is faithfulness to you? Do you think it is some kind of big bravado? I will tell you what it is: you jump into the arms of Jesus and say, “Lord, if You are asking me to go there, I am afraid. You take me there.” But be willing to go.
That is faithfulness. It is not our faithfulness; it is really His faithfulness.
Do you not know He is wanting us to say, “Please, will You help me?” He says, “I have just the resources for you. I will give you a word to encourage you, whatever it is.”
Faithfulness begins today. Faithfulness begins one step at a time. Faithfulness begins with the consecration of our life.
Here is the amazing thing about consecration. From Romans 12:1-2, we present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto the Lord. When you present yourself to the Lord, He keeps you.
I wish you would do that every day. If you would consecrate yourself—body, soul, and spirit—to the Lord for the day, He will keep you. He is a Keeper. He is a good Keeper, but He wants your permission. That is why consecration is so important.
For some of you, I know there has been spiritual progression and increase in your life, and you are on your way from faith to faithfulness. For some of you, perhaps you have been too dependent upon yourself, perhaps not so obedient to His heavenly calling. But today is a good day. We can start all over again.
I would like us to have a prayer and a moment of commitment here before we end tonight. Could you just bow your heads?
Lord, I look through the Scriptures, and most of the time where it is talking about faithfulness, it says God is faithful. There are a couple of times where people are called faithful, but that was only in the light of Your mercies and Your keeping.
We come to You, Lord: the called, the chosen, the faithful. Lord, all we can do is dance in the sand, hold out our arms, and ask You to take us where You want us to go. You want us to live by faith and not by sight. We are so prone to wanting to live by sight and the comforts of it.
Lord, we are willing to go if it is You who will take us there.
We pray for everybody here, that our lives would be on the altar of sacrifice, that You might be able to keep us from falling, keep us from temptation, and keep us from the evil one.
Lord, we want to present ourselves to You. You are the only One we can trust. We want to trust in You and have You be our trust.
Lord, we come to You tonight, presenting ourselves fresh and anew, one hundred percent, that You might keep us, use us, and teach us how to go from grace to glory through faith.
Now, if you feel the need in your own personal life to lay your life upon the altar tonight, and you want to do this as standing before God in faith, then I want you to stand up where you are.
You are saying, “Lord, I want to consecrate myself, give myself entirely to You.” I am asking you to stand up where you are sitting right now. Stand up before the Lord and say, “Lord, I am Your offering tonight.”
I know that some of you are already there, and you are the Lord’s. He is your trust. We will wait just another second. There are some people standing. We are so thankful.
Just keep praying. Pray for yourself: “Lord, what would You have me to do?” This is not showtime. It is a time of consecration.
Oh Lord, do take the hearts of everybody who is here tonight. You see deep inside, that there be offerings made that change destinies, that bring us to glory, that fulfill Your calling, that teach us faithfulness. Oh Lord, we pray.
Lord, I thank You for those who are standing up here tonight. It does not matter how new or old we are in the Lord. If we need that new commitment before You, Lord, we come to You tonight and make it.
Lord, we do love You. Sometimes that gets hidden in our hearts. We get so busy and active and sometimes doubting. But Lord, at this very moment, we stand and say, “Lord, You are the One that we love with our mind, heart, soul, and strength.”
We want to give ourselves to You for Your keeping, Lord. We want to be faithful to You by grace. We ask that You help us, and help us come into all that You have for us—not just partial, but one hundred percent—knowing all of the glories and all of the callings that You have laid ahead for us in our lives.
We commit these ones who are standing before You, and those who are seated but are truly consecrated and love You with all their hearts. Praise God. Thank You, Lord, that we can live with saints who truly love and desire to follow You.
Bless those who stood, and bless those who are seated who really love You and are pressing forward. Lead us up on Calling Mountain. Lead us into all Your glory. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Dear Lord, we want to thank You and praise You once again. Lord, You alone are the faithful One; there is no other. There is nothing else in this world. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Lord, we praise You for who You are. We thank You that You are a God of love. Thank You that You are patient and merciful with us. Even in this matter of being faithful, Lord, You are the One who is faithful.
Lord, You are looking for ones who would just turn to You, who would just come to You. Tonight, Lord, You have heard our prayers and You see our hearts. There are many ones in here who have the desire to commit themselves to You.
Lord, we pray that You would take these hearts and really have Your way with each and every one of us.
Lord, may we be faithful to You by Your enabling—by what You have done on the cross and by what You are doing with the Spirit in us daily. Lord, we lift up each and every one here. May You have the glory and honor and praise. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not.
Great is Thy faithfulness,
Great is Thy faithfulness;
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.