Faithfulness (Part 2 of 2)

Welcome to Truth for Life where we're studying the fruit of the spirit and today, Alistair Begg is focusing on faithfulness. God calls us as believers to be faithful, but even our best efforts fall short of his holy standard. We'll learn today how true faithfulness is cultivated and how we can put it into practice. We're in Galatians chapter 5.

Stephen Curtis Chapman, in his day, wrote a little song that went, My Redeemer is faithful and true, Everything he has said he will do, And every morning his mercies are new, My Redeemer is faithful and true. Why is it that you believe that you will continue to the end? You've professed faith in Jesus Christ. You come through wanderings. You realize yourself to be a sinful soul. And what is it that gives you confidence that you will finally breast the tape, that you will finish the race, that you will complete the fight?

What is it? It's the faithfulness of Christ. His faithfulness.

Because he has promised to bring to completion the good work that he has begun within us. In fact, when you read of the majesty of it in Romans chapter 8, when Paul writes, he actually uses glorified in the past tense. But glorification is still ahead of us. No, he says, those whom he justified, those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. But wait a minute, I'm not glorified. No, but it's in the past tense.

Why? Because it's absolutely certain on account of his faithfulness. What are you gonna do in the face of temptation? Trust in his faithfulness. He is faithful so that he will not cause you to be tempted beyond that which you are able but will with the temptation provide a way of escape.

What was God doing? Manifesting his faithfulness. Now, that brings us finally to the application of this in terms of each of our lives. So if it is grounded in the character of God, if it is exemplified in the person and work of the Son of God, then this fruit, as we've been seeing, is produced in the lives of his children. And in particular, we're thinking faithfulness.

How wonderfully striking is this? We live in a culture that is comfortable—comfortable with unkept promises. Our society is quite happy with broken vows, tolerates—we might even say it points—promotes unfaithfulness.

If it doesn't work to tell the truth, then tell lies. That's the environment in which we live. And it is against that kind of dark background that we are, as Paul says to the Philippians, to shine as lights in the darkness by holding forth the Word of life. That doesn't mean walking around with a huge, big Bible and waving it all the time. You may choose to do that if you choose. That's fine.

That's entirely up to you. But it means that we hold forth the Word of life as life is seen in our lives. Faithfulness in an unfaithful world. Joy in a gloomy world. Patience in an impatient world.

And so on. And the work that God produces within us is in order that we might then commend the gospel, make it attractive, to a world that doesn't get this—to a world that has gone in an entirely different direction. We don't sing this as a baptismal hymn, but it is a good one. O Jesus, I have promised to serve you to the end. You promised to save me if I come to you.

I took you at your word. You have promised to keep me to the very end of the race. I have promised to serve you to the end. In other words, your faithfulness to me, in me, is then through me. And it all ultimately redounds to your praise, to your glory, and to your honor. Because the people who know me, including myself, know that by nature I'm not that faithful. I'm not that joyful.

I'm certainly not that patient. The fact of the matter is, it is all grace from start to finish. That's why when we saw last time in Barnabas the good man, the goodness of Barnabas, who he's dispatched from Jerusalem to Antioch to see what's going on in the church, Luke says that when he got there and he saw the grace of God at work, he was glad, and he exhorted them to do what? To remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

He says, I can see that God is at work within your community. I'm delighted by this, and so my exhortation to you is remain faithful. Don't quit.

Keep going. Steadfast purpose. Standing by a purpose, firm, true, heeding God's command, onward then, the faithful few, all hail to Daniel's band. Dare to be a Daniel.

Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm, and dare to make it known. Dare to establish faithfulness in your zingleness, faithfulness to God and to his Word and to his people, faithful to the people of God, so that we do not neglect the gathering of ourselves together, because we realize that part of the reason for our gathering together is in order that the means of grace might be granted to us, that we might become increasingly faithful.

There's actually no limit to the places that we can apply this, but let me just go through one or two. Essentially, faithfulness, the fruit of faithfulness, will be revealed in the entire fabric of our Christian lives—either its presence or its absence—so that what we are by grace, by means of regeneration, we are now to become by the work of sanctification in every part, so that spiritually healthy believers grow in faithfulness. Grow in faithfulness.

We say to our children, Wow, look, you're really grown! Look how long your legs are! Look how long your hair is!

Look at how this has happened! Well, we can quantify these things in relationship to our own Christian life. Are we growing?

And growing how? Growing in godliness, growing in faithfulness? Now, let me just apply it, because we only have a few minutes.

So let me just say one or two things. I mentioned singleness, so let's stick with singleness for a moment. Because we often start immediately into marriage, and not everybody's married, or not everybody will be married, and so on. But what about in living a single life? Well, one of the challenges that seem to be in singleness in these days is the constant emphasis on whether you are, quote, in a relationship.

Right? I hear people saying, Are you in a relationship at the moment? And if you're not, then somehow or another it's as if you have developed a third leg or something. Is it like, Well, no, I'm not.

No. What's the Christian's perspective on this? Well, see, the inference is that your identity as a single is directly tied to the presence or absence of, quotes, a relationship. But the Christian understands that our identity is not tied to that or that it is tied to the unique relationship, which is ours with the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that the benefits of singleness in terms of a measure of freedom, the opportunities of friendship, the privileges of being generous both with our time and with our resources, then become an expression of God's faithfulness both to us and through us. General Gordon of Khartoum, whom I'm sure you all remember from school, died in about 1885, I think it was, trying to fix Khartoum. He didn't manage it. But he was single till the end of his life. And he received a note from one of his friends announcing his engagement. General Gordon wrote to his friend, quotes, A man who is not married cannot know his faults. A man's wife is his faithful looking glass. She will tell him his faults. Therefore I say to you, marry. Till a man is married, he is a selfish fellow, however he may not wish to be. To me, aged and having gone through much trouble, it seems that to marry in this way is the best thing a man should do.

And it is one which I recommend all my friends to do. Gentlemen, start your engines. Do you know how many ladies there are in this congregation who are beautiful both on the inside and the outside? And some of you fellows, I don't have a clue what has happened to you.

I have no idea. I cannot relate to it in any shape or fashion. And neither could General Gordon of Khartoum. So if you won't listen to me, listen to him. You say, but he never married. That's right. He said, no one would have me.

And, of course, he may have been right. Faithfulness and singleness. Faithfulness in the context of marriage.

Again, a whole series is possible here, isn't it? What does faithfulness look like in marriage? Well, it's promises, isn't it?

The promises of the marriage vows are vows. They're not expressions of how you're feeling on any given day, for better or for worse. Richer, poorer. Some of us are here this morning, and frankly, it's worse.

We signed up for worse. Some of us are here this morning. We decided that our husband is no longer the strikingly handsome fellow that he used to be. He makes horrible noises in the night, and he's just sort of begun to annoy me intensely, you know? Well, if you listen to our culture, you'll go to the exercise club, you'll find somebody there.

Hang around the office, there'll probably be somebody else. Of course. No. Faithfulness in marriage is fidelity—physical, mental, emotional, unequivocal. Sex to be enjoyed with and only with your spouse. Anything before that, outside of that, or beyond that, in any shape or fashion, is entirely opposed to the faithfulness that God demands and provides in the authority of his Word. Faithfulness in the responsibilities of parenting and in the responsibilities of being a child. Our children's futures are directly tied to our faithfulness in this regard. Read the book of Proverbs. It comes again and again.

That is not to say that there is an automatic guarantee that if we do this, then that will be. Some parents have done a wonderful job, and yet they'll tell me from time to time that this individual has no interest apparently at all for the time being. Remember, God has some of his children on a very long leash. And if you find yourself in that kind of context, let me tell you what you need to be faithful to your kids. Let them know that the door is always open.

Let them know that the mat that is outside the front door has one word on it, and the one word is, welcome. And when we start to consider the possibility from the flip side of saying about our aging parents, you know, she's losing it, really, you know. Cut it out. That's your mom. Well, he's a bit of a daughterer now.

He may be, but that's your dad. Faithfulness from the parent to the child, from the child to the parent. Faithfulness in singleness in marriage, in parenting, and in being a child. Faithfulness in our everyday vocation, known for our reliability, known for our honesty, for our consistency. Faithful as an employer to pay decent wages, faithful as an employee to work the full forty hours or whatever it might be.

Faithfulness, so that people would say, You know what? She's fantastic. There's only one word to describe her. She's faithful. You know, she's always faithful. He's always faithful. If he says he's returning the call, he returns the call. If he says he'll meet you, he'll meet you. He doesn't fudge it, he doesn't equivocate, he doesn't say, Well, let me see, I'll text you. He doesn't say, Well, maybe I could get back to you or let me see, when in fact there's nothing he needs to see.

It's just his way of saying, Mm-mm-mm-mm. Faithful. It's tough, isn't it?

These studies—and I'll say more about this tonight—these studies have been horrible, in one sense, haven't they? You know, because we started out saying, Well, this would make the gospel attractive. Yes. But have you discovered, like me, that it has shown you for what you are, that the fruit here seems to be… We're having to look really, really hard. I think it's in there.

Yeah, give me a trowel, would you? Yeah, I think… Yeah, there's… Yeah, wait a minute. Yes. Oh, yes.

It's there. Faithfulness this week. Do you know what it's like spending a whole week studying faithfulness? You gotta sit reading your Bible. You find yourself saying, Lord, how do we get to this?

Then I realized I know how you do it. You start by acknowledging the fact that you're unfaithful. You start by acknowledging the fact that by nature you're untrue to these things. It's what we say when we say, before we preach, make the book live to me, O Lord, show me myself and show me my Savior. So he shows me myself, and then I said, You know, I need a Savior.

I need this fruit to be produced in my life. Therefore, in acknowledging my faithlessness, I then come to God and ask him to produce this fruit in my life in increasing measure. You say, But wait a minute, you told us earlier on that we can't become faithful simply by trying, that it is God who produces the fruit.

It is! Well, let me tell you something else. You're not gonna become faithful without trying. You can't become faithful by trying—it is God who produces the fruit—but you won't become faithful without trying.

Does that seem paradoxical? It's one of many. What is the word of Jesus to the church at Smyrna at the end of it all in Revelation? Be faithful even to the point of death.

Be faithful. That's hortatory. Or hortatory, I think, as you say. That is an exhortation.

That is a directive. Be it. Answer, How do I be it? By the work of the Spirit of God within us. But what does it mean to be faithful to the people? Well, when they gather, I'll gather with them. What does it mean to be faithful in worship?

Then when they sing, I will sing the song. What does it mean to be faithful in my home? That if I say, I'll do this, I'll do it, and so on, enabled by the grace of God. Here's the thing that I found—and with this I will stop—here's the thing that I found most encouraging at the end of it all. The reminder that at the end of the day, God will reward faithfulness.

Okay? Equal gifts will not receive equal rewards. The inequality will be not in terms of the gift, which is a gift, but in the use that was made of the gifts. Unequal gifts will receive the rewards that God intends.

You can read that. Jesus makes it perfectly clear. And that's why when you read the Bible, you discover that it is again and again holding up people before us who are faithful people—Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Antipas, Onesimus, Tychicus, and Epaphras. Epaphras to the Colossians, Paul says, and he is a faithful minister of Christ. You want an epitaph?

There's an epitaph. She was faithful. She was absolutely faithful. Faithful to the end.

Ran all the way through the tape. Earlier in the year, I had the privilege of preaching in Stornoway, as you may recall, in the Outer Hebrides. And on that occasion, I went to look for the grave of A.W. Pink and also the grave of Kenneth McRae. Kenneth McRae exercised a strong and effective ministry for many years there in Stornoway. And although Pink had no marker on his grave, McRae's grave appears as it is before you. In addressing a conference in Leicester in 1962, Kenneth McRae shared with the ministers who were present something that had happened to him in his young life, and I want to read it to you as we end.

He's speaking to the people in England. I remember when I was a young Divinity student being unexpectedly called upon to take the services in the congregation in which I used to worship as a small boy. It was also the church in which the great Dr. Kennedy had exercised his ministry.

I felt overwhelmed at the thought throughout the day, and after the evening service felt greatly troubled, depressed, and downcast. I love that. The church officer, a worthy man named Alexander McLean—locally known as Sandy Clunas. Okay, fine. We're looking for Alexander McLean. Oh, you mean Sandy Clunas?

Oh, yeah, I guess, yeah. Anyway, the church officer, a worthy man—don't editorialize, Alistair—the church officer, a worthy man named Alexander McLean, locally known as Sandy Clunas, was waiting for me in the vestry. He was built on a large size and was especially fond of young men. When I came into the vestry, he just put his big arms around me and said, "'Never you mind, my boy. As Mr. Finlayson of Helmsdale used to say, "'It is not well done, good and successful servant, but well done, good and faithful servant.'" What is going to count at the end of the day is not success but faithfulness.

Now, when I read that this week, I said, I gotta go find that photograph of his stone to see what's on there. And there you have it, just above his name. "'Well done, thou good and faithful servant.'" Father, thank you that your character is faithful, that your Son embodies all that that can mean and does mean in humanity, and that the work of the Spirit within the lives of those whom you have redeemed will be increasingly marked by this fruit. Lord, we acknowledge what we are, and we thank you that in embryonic form we see the shoots. But, Lord, pour out your grace and Spirit upon us, we pray, that we might be increasingly marked by your abiding faithfulness, a faithfulness that has stood the test of time over many generations. And we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Grown beyond our wildest expectations, you might not remember reel-to-reel tape, but our earliest programs were captured and produced on reel-to-reel tape. And when we released our first daily broadcast on February 27th of 1995, our program was heard on 31 radio stations, just 31, all of them in the US. Today, Truth for Life is heard on 1900 radio stations, more than 80,000 times every month. And God has made it possible for his word to reach throughout the globe through our website, our mobile app, podcast, YouTube, streaming TV, and more. We'd like to invite you to join with us in praise and prayer this month, thanking God for his faithfulness and his provision for Truth for Life, and asking for his continued blessing. And we recently received a message from a friend of the ministry who is celebrating this anniversary right along with us.

Alistair, it's Kirk Cameron. I am so thankful to God for you and for the faithfulness of your ministry. And I have benefited from it so much, and so is my whole family. We love you, and we're so proud of you. God bless you. We have posted more greetings from friends on our website, along with ministry highlights from the past three decades, in close with the very first message from Alistair that launched our daily program 30 years ago. Visit truthforlife.org slash 30 years. Thanks for studying God's word with us today. Tomorrow we'll find out why gentleness, which is often considered a weak trait, is actually a form of strength. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.