Episode 63 - A Call To Faithfulness On The Road

I want you to imagine for a moment that you're

pulling a seventy foot rig over the grape vine in California,

or maybe you're fighting across the wind in the plains

in Nebraska. You've got forty tons behind you and you've

got a deadline ahead of you. You know better than

anyone that you take your off road just for a

few seconds, you let your focus drift. Disaster is only

a heart beat away. In the trucking world, we talk

a lot about reliability, talk about a truck that starts

every morning, a driver who delivers on time. But today

I want to talk to you about a word that

goes much deeper than reliability. I want to talk to

you about a word that sits at the very heart

of the Gospel. That word is faithfulness, the Bible says

in Lamentations three twenty two to twenty three. Because of

the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his

compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is

your faithfulness. Today I'm looking out at men and women

who spend their lives in a cab, moving the lifeblood

of this station. You're the backbone of our economy. But

I also know that the road is a lonely place.

I know that when the sun goes down and you're

parked at a truck stop five hundred miles from home,

the silence and that sleeper birth can be deafening. So

in that silence that the greatest battles of your life

are fought. In that silence where your faithfulness is tested. See,

God isn't just looking for people who can drive a

straight line on the interstate. He's looking for men and

women who will walk a straight line in their souls.

He's looking for faithfulness. But what does it mean to

be faithful? Too many people today faithfulness is an old

fashioned idea. We live in a throwaway society. Breaks we

toss it. The contract is inconvenient, we break it. And tragically,

if a marriage gets difficult, many people walk away from it.

But God says a faithfulness is the very mark of

a person who knows Jesus Christ. However, we have a problem.

Every one of us in this listening today, and every

driver listening to my voice has a log book that

doesn't quite add up. We've all taken detours we weren't

supposed to take. We've all been unfaithful. I want to

speak very plainly to you today, just as I would

be sitting across from each other at a dinner with

a cup of coffee. There are many types of unfaithfulness

that can break life faster than a jack knife on

an icy bridge. First, there's the faithfulness of the mind.

I know that of the temptations of the road. I

know that in many of these truck stops, and certainly

on that smartphone you carry in your pocket, there's a

siren call. I'm talking about the trap of pornography. You

might think it's a private thing. You might think it's

just me and this cab, it's not hurting anyone. But

the Bible says when a man sews it, so he

read pornography is a lie. It promises intimacy but delivers isolation.

It promises satisfaction that leaves you empty and ashamed. It's

the betrayal of the wife you left at home, or

more importantly, it's the betrayal of the God who created you.

It rots the soul and breaks the fellowship between you

and your creator. Then there's the unfaithfulness of addiction. Some

of you are running on more than just diesel and caffeine.

You're leaning on a bottle to them the loneliness. You're

leaning on pills to keep you moving or to help

you crash, become a slave to substance. And you're being

unfaithful to the body that God gave you as a temple.

You're being unfaithful to the family that depends on you

to come home safe and sound. And let's be honest

that there is the unfaithfulness of the heart. We can

be faithful by the world standards. We don't cheat, we

don't steal, but our hearts are a thousand miles away

from God. We put our career, our truck, or our

money into place where Jesus Christ ought to be. The

Bible warns us in Proverbs twenty six, many a man

claims to have unfailing love, A faithful man who can

find here to tell you today that you cannot be

truly faithful on your own strength. You tried, you made

years New Year's resolutions, you promised your wife. You stop

looking at those sites you've promised yourself. You put the

bottle down, but you found the engine of your will

is broken. You don't have the horsepower to overcome the

sin in your life. But I have good news for you.

While we were yet sinners, while we were unfaithful, while

we were lost on the back roads to nowhere, Christ

died for us. God is the only one who's perfectly faithful.

He's the dispatcher who never makes a mistake. He's the

mechanic who can take a life has been totaled by

sin and make it brand new. Jesus Christ that can

come to give you a set of rules to follow.

He came to give you a new life. You came

to take the weight of your guilt, a load heavier

than any freight you've ever all, and carry it to

the cross. Tradition is built on one simple, powerful truth.

It's not about the name on the door of the church.

It's about your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's about

whether or not you have surrendered the keys of your

life to him. I want to ask you who's driving

your life today? Are you white knuckling it, trying to

stay on the road on your own power, or or

if you let the Lord take the wheel? You see

faithful It starts with a single decision, starts with repentance.

Repentance is a u turn. It's realizing you're headed the

wrong way, towards addiction, towards us, towards life without God,

and turning around the head towards the light. The Bible

says in the First John one nine, if we confess

our sins, he is faithful and just then we'll forgive

us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Notice

that word faithful. Even when you are at your worst.

God is faithful to his promise. I forgive you if

you come to Him through his son Jesus Christ. Think

of the peace you could have in that cab tonight

if you knew your sins were forgiven. Think of this.

You would have to look away from that screen, or

to pour that bottle down the draain. Knowing that the

spirit of the Living God is writing shotgun with you.

You don't have to be lonely anymore. You don't have

to be a slave to your appetites anymore. But you

must make a choice. You can't straddle the center line.

You're either in God's road or you're on the world road.

In a moment, I'm going to ask you to do something.

I'm going to ask you to make a commitment. I

know we aren't in a cathedral. We're in tent, might

be in a parking lot, might be in a truck,

might be listening to this over the radio. Wherever you are,

that's holy ground. I'm challenging you today to be a

man or woman of faithfulness. We're challenging you to go

home to your spouse and be the person God called

you to be. Challenging you to clean out the trash

in your life, the addictions and the secret sins, and

the start a new log book today, signed by the

blood of Jesus. I want you to pray a prayer

with me in your heart. I want you to say, Lord,

I've been unfaithful, I've taken the wrong terms. I've let

sin take control. But today I believe that Jesus died

for me. I believe he rose again. I'm asking you

to forgive me. I'm handing you the keys take my

life and make it what you want it to be.

The Bible says that when you do that, you become

a new creation. The oldest passed away, Behold the newest come.

I want to see a generation of drivers who are

known not just for their miles, but for their character.

I want people to see you at the loaning doc

and say, there's a man, there's a woman who's faithful,

faithful to their God, faithful to their family, faithful to

the truth. The road is long, the hills are steep,

but you don't have to drive it alone. As I close,

I want to give you an imitation. If you are

tired of the detours, you're tired of the broken promises,

and you want to be made whole. You want to

know for sure that if you were to pull into

that final way station of your life tonight, you would

hear the words well done, good and faithful servant. And

I want you to make that decision for Christ right now.

Don't wait for the next accent. Don't wait until you

get home. Bible says, now is accepted. Time behold. Now

is the day of salvation. Commit your way to the Lord,

trust in him that he will bring you safely home

to a destination where there are no more tears, no

more loneliness, and no more night. May God bless you.

I mean, keep your eyes on the road and your

heart on the cross.

Amen rolling out at midnight, highways, cold and bladdy pictures

on the dashboard, a Bible in the body. I've been

chase and freedom. Down this old inn state, the nevery mile.

I'm riding just another mile the fenny. These wheels keep

turned in my heart, keeching.

To the storms and the empty land.

No man to guide me, but here's those beside me.

I'm running on by hounds for fee. Some roads lead

to know where, some to a better place. I don't

know my tomorrow, but I know maize and breeze. The

lights cut the darkness like his work cuts to my soul.

This life is just a highwady, and I'm ready to roads.

These wheels keep turning, My heart keeps earing.

Through the stormarm andy, empty LANs, no map to cardy.

But his love beside me. I'm on bows of fair

One day, lady's keys down, part this rig, get Heaven's

key chill. Then I'll keep bone rolling, riding these moles

of faith.

These wheels keep turned in my heart, keechingard through the storm,

any emptyings.

No man to God, but his thus be Suning Camra

knowns of.

Eve throaltis by the already to draw.

Amad was a fading