The Rewards Of Faithfulness

Heavenly Father, glad to be here tonight.

I'm winding up on top because of your word and your spirit.

I have ears to hear what the spirit is teaching me tonight.

I'm teachable, I don't know everything, but I've got ears to hear and I will be a doer of the word in Jesus' name, amen.

Matthew 24.

And verse 42.

And then also we're gonna look at 1 Corinthians, chapter four.

Matthew 24,.

Jesus is speaking all in red in my Bible, verse 42.

Watch, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come, but know this that if the good men of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

Therefore, bid ye also ready, for, in such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh, who then is a faithful and wise servant whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them meat in due season.

Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.

Verily, I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart my Lord delayeth his coming and shall begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken.

The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder and upon him his portion with the hypocrites, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth".

And then, 1 Corinthians, chapter four, verse two, paul is writing and he says moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful, that a man be found faithful.

So tonight I just wanted to share a message entitled rewards for faithfulness.

Rewards for faithfulness.

God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him or even serve him.

I think you could substitute that word and Jesus, of course, as our example.

He was faithful.

In Revelation 1911, he is called faithful and true.

He's the faithful and true witness.

In another passage of that Revelation, hebrews 3.6,.

Jesus was faithful as a son over his own house.

Whose house are we?

We're his house.

He's faithful over us.

And so here in Matthew 24, this whole chapter is, they ask him at the beginning of the chapter you know what will be the signs of your coming, and that word coming is the Greek word perusia or perusea, however you want to say it, which means his glorious appearance, say his final, his coming again.

What will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the age?

And then, one of the first things Jesus told him, he says take heed that you be not deceived.

Bake, take heed.

So we're living in that time where deception is just pouring out of every crevice of Washington.

I mean, it's everywhere.

It's on television.

You can't even watch the news.

There's no such thing as news.

There's a narrative.

It's made up.

Everything is fake and narrative.

There's no real news.

There's real.

Even Fox is just degenerated.

Now that the old man gave it over to his liberal sons, I mean, they've just about ruined it.

There's only you got Hannity and you got Tucker Carlson, and the evening is pretty good.

It's pretty good.

Sometimes I throw rocks at it, but still it's pretty good.

But the rest of it is almost worthless and that's been a kind of a mainstay for a long time.

And this is what's the erosion of truth, see.

And so Jesus said take heed, take heed that you be not deceived.

And so then on down, he gets into specifics and then he wraps up this and he's, he's, he's, you know, preaching to his disciples, getting them ready for it.

He's about, he's about to leave, he's about to go to the cross, but this is important.

This is the last part of his ministry, and so he's sharing with them some important things, and so, in the context of all of what he shared with about the end times, he exhorted them about how important it was to be faithful servants.

Just think, judas heard every bit of this.

Judas will never be able to say, in the great white throne judgment when he appears, you know, every all the dead are going to appear in that great white.

That's not the judgment of the church, that's going to be all.

Everybody's not saved.

I mean people that got eaten by a shark and there's nothing left of them in the ocean are going to get raised up, and everybody I mean the Bible says that.

I mean they're going to come from the deep, it's going to come from everywhere.

They're going to all line up and be judged, and Judas will not be able to say well, nobody told me.

No, jesus himself told you, and you elected not to be faithful and so.

But there's rewards.

And so he exhorted them to be faithful over three broad areas.

When you kind of dissect, we're going to teach a little bit and kind of dissect.

Okay, let's dissect this and get something out of it.

And I'm preaching to faithful people.

You're here on Sunday night.

That's faithful Praise God.

So the first one is verse 42.

Watch, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord death comes.

So the first way to be faithful is faithful in prayer.

To watch.

The word watch means to be aware, to be vigilant, to be over your personal life, your family life, your church, you know, your, your America, your government.

Be aware, watch in prayer.

Watch and be aware, though I mean, there's one thing to pray, it's another thing to be aware.

It's amazing how people are not aware of what's going on.

They just listened to Facebook.

They get there.

A lot of people are shocking.

Their news is Facebook news.

You can't believe any of it.

It's lie.

It's a lie.

They censure people.

They haven't discovered me yet.

I'm waiting for the day they discover me.

I haven't said anything, just really blatantly, I'm going to, but yeah, it's coming.

You know, just wait, just wait, we're gonna have a poll.

No, we're not gonna have.

We're no polls here, all right.

So in Israel, we do pray over Israel.

They've been kind of on the back burner because, as I said this morning, our hair is on fire here in America.

We've got to pay attention to what's going on right now.

We can't be diverted.

You know, israel.

I'm praying for Israel but I mean, you know I haven't gotten all involved in their peace deal with the UAE.

We're divided.

Some Christians are upset that I'm reading and other Christians are just so glad I don't know which take to go.

I mean, you could go either way, I could make an argument, so I decided to put that on the hold right now.

It's not, it's not gonna happen.

You know, the end of the world is not gonna happen next week.

Let's get this election satisfied.

Let it get it.

Let's get by and go to the next thing after that, because there'll be some more things after that.

Right, amen.

So be faithful in prayer.

Watching means praying, all right.

Number two in verse 45,.

Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant?

When is whom is Lord to have made ruler over his household?

To give them meat and do season?

So the household.

There is just another word for the church be faithful in your giving and your finances.

Malachi, chapter three, says bring all the tithe into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house.

So when you're faithful in tithing and giving over the church, there's meat in the house for you.

When you come to the church, there's meat there for you.

You're gonna have supernatural hearing that will allow you to hear what I didn't even say.

I believe I've had that happen.

I've had people come up and tell me after the service, oh, you know, when you said this, this and this and I didn't say this, this and this that I remembered, but they heard me say it.

Well, you know, when you're tithing and giving and you've taken on your responsibility to take care of this church and make sure it's financially stable, you're gonna get what you need to get here, whether I say it or not Supernatural hearing.

And then when you don't, you have supernatural hearing in the other direction.

You hear things and you think I said something bad about you.

I had a lady one time that left the church because I was preaching on the Jezebel spirit and she said you looked at me every time that you said Jezebel and of course I didn't get to talk to her.

I got this nasty letter, you know, and I thought well, lady, you don't even qualify to be Jezebel.

You don't know enough to be Jezebel spirit.

You gotta be kind of cunning and sharp.

She wasn't either one of those.

She has a bell All right.

So faithful in giving and finances, giving meat to the household.

And think about Matthew 25, you know the parables of the talents.

You know God is a capitalist.

In the very next chapter he's talking about giving the talents according to their several ability.

And then he judged them on how much profit they make.

And the guy that got 10, he was a pretty talented guy.

He got 10 or got five, and so he multiplied the five.

He got a 100% return and doubled it, doubled his money.

Well done now, good and faithful servant.

And then the guy that had, you know, three, and he doubled his.

And the guy that had one buried his in the backyard.

You, wicked and unprofitable servant, take the talent from the guy that had one and give it to the guy that had 10.

Well, lord, he had 10.

You know they didn't understand God's economy, but I'm gonna tell you something People that take care of their finances are gonna get blessed, amen.

Thank you for two omis and three grunts.

But that impacts the church when you tithe on a big profit.

We've got business people in the church when they do a business deal, they bring the tithe of that business deal into this church and it blesses the church, you know, and they could be sit there, retired.

They could be retired and not do a thing, but no, they're out there and they're still got their money working, their talent working.

They're still doing things and the church benefits, the church benefits.

Are you with me now?

All right, so faithful in giving and finances.

And so then the third area that we're supposed to be faithful over is faithful in the local church.

And again, verse 45 is talking about the local church, his house.

Verse 49, this wicked evil servant is smiting his fellow servants.

So that's other church members.

See, that's people that you're serving together.

And suddenly, now you've been a certain way and now you've turned away.

In fact you started taking.

You thought, well, the Lord's not coming.

I've been hearing this all my life he not coming anytime soon.

I'm just gonna do my own thing.

I'm gonna try to do business here in the church and try to get a few customers.

I'm gonna try to cheat some people.

I've got some investments.

You know, they had that big preacher here in town that got convicted.

I mean, he's a Wharton School, but I won't mention his name, but if I did you'd heard of him.

But he got involved in these and selling illegal securities.

He sold illegal securities to his church members and made a big pot full of money.

I mean he was a very prominent guy and he's you know.

I mean, listen, this is crazy, what's going on right now Crazy.

And so he took advantage of his church people and sold them investments.

It was a Ponzi scheme and that's going on a lot of time.

I know another guy the pastor wasn't involved.

He was victimized, but I mean he had a guy in his church and he was man.

He was putting money in the preacher's hands and he was paying money into the.

It was all the results of tithing off of a Ponzi scheme.

It was millions of dollars.

A guy left town and took him two years to find him.

He was in Europe or something, living it up on all the money that he cheated people out of and had given the ministry an airplane and the feds come and took the airplane away from the preacher and he was in the church because it was done.

Gotten with ill gotten gang.

Are you with me now, man?

I mean this stuff is going on and I mean, it's been going on and so this is what he's talking about.

That evil servant shall say to his heart my Lord delayeth his coming, shall begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken.

So now he's backslid.

He's not even serving God now anymore.

He's not even living right.

They're off in sin.

And so you need to be faithful.

And Jesus is talking to his disciples.

He's not talking to just anybody, he's talking to his disciples.

And he's talking about these three areas where you have to guard against being unfaithful.

Everybody say I'm guarding my faithfulness.

So we have rewards, rewards, and aren't you glad God is a reward.

You know he is a rewarder of those who diligently serve him, love him, seek him.

He rewards.

He's a rewarder.

I tell you just, can't out give God.

I tell you, you, just when you serve God and when you obey God, the blessings are amazing.

And it's not just.

You know, I like what.

Brother Hagin, I think in fact I think Aretha read that wrote that book.

She wrote a book here.

She was Brother Hagin's wife all those years and she just talked about payday that didn't come on, always come on Friday.

Payday doesn't always come on Friday, but payday comes.

I mean, when you serve God, you can expect he will reward you.

It's just not like it is in the world where we go and get our.

You know back, way back when, I mean, I was a home builder, so Friday was payday for my subs, so I sat in my.

I had a garage that was my office.

So I had a two eight wooden door that I had nailed to a cleat on the side of the garage wall, which was just studs.

There was no sheet rock in the garage, just open studs.

And I had one old, scrawny two by four under one.

I didn't even have two legs.

I had one leg on the day.

That was my desk and I had a phone jack and I plugged in a big old, heavy, one of those big old timey phones dial phone.

That was my phone, that was my office.

And on Friday I sat there with my checkbook and my metal chair and I invited everyone to come through the rollup garage door and come before me and sit down in a metal chair while they gave me their bill.

And I looked at their bill and said you didn't do all of this, give me a break.

I'm cutting this a third off of this I'm cutting.

I had to everyone of them.

They'd always, you know, they'd always want more than they had coming, you know.

Well, I want to draw on my cleanup job.

My cleanup job is where maybe they got a cleanup job.

It's worth $300.

Well, that doesn't hadn't done even half of it.

It's just, I just drove by the thing and it's just junk everywhere.

They hadn't cleaned it up yet.

Well, I'm gonna get it this afternoon.

I just well, I can't pay you in advance.

We just had that all the whole time.

My glorious office, men, what an office, anyway.

So praise God.

I don't even know where that went, but anyway, it's a rewards for faithfulness.

God is a rewarder.

I mean, it's payday comes, and their payday came on Friday.

It wasn't over as good as they thought it would be.

Amen, all right.

Verse 45, rewards for faithfulness.

First, verse 45, who, then, is a faithful, wise servant whom his Lord shall have made ruler over his household.

He's ruler too.

So we're highly prized and commended by God.

Highly prized, everybody.

Say highly prized, I mean when you're faithful, god make you ruler.

He loves you, he wants to give you more responsibility and you're highly prized, you know.

Proverbs 20, verse six says a lot of people, you know.

I'll just paraphrase Proverbs 26,.

You know people talk a lot about themselves, but a faithful man who can find One version says a faithful man is one in a million.

So God prized his faithfulness.

He will elevate a faithful person, he will promote faithfulness, he will reward faithfulness.

In the next chapter, matthew 25, the parable of the talents, what did he say?

What did he say to the ones that went out and double their money?

He said well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of the Lord.

He rewarded them, he committed them and rewarded them, amen.

So he highly prized and commends faithfulness.

And then, in verse 46, blessed is that servant whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.

Blessed.

Everybody say blessed, I'm blessed.

See, you're blessed when you're faithful.

You're one of the blessed ones.

You know, legally we're all blessed.

We're all blessed because Christ took our curse.

He was, you know, he took our curse right, galatians 3, 13.

And so he took our curse, so we can be blessed.

And so that's the legal side.

But then there is the experiential or the functional side of blessing.

You have the legal side of redemption and you have the functional or the, where the rubber meets the road, the actual performance of blessing, and that's for people that are faithful.

Faithfulness will manifest the God's blessing.

I'm telling you one of the greatest, one of the greatest is longevity long life for people that are faithful, long life.

And then of course there's health, and that there's finances and all that.

There's a lot of things that are dependent.

Our finances are really held by other people.

So even though you're faithful, maybe your blessing is held up.

I've had that happen lots and lots of times in my life.

I mean, that's why payday doesn't always come on Friday.

Payday will come, but it sometimes is held up because money is in the hands of this world and even in the hands of people, and they don't.

They're not always just, and so sometimes it takes a while for God to find somebody willing to pay you your due, but God always finds them.

I said God always finds them.

Just be patient, take the long view.

See, take the long view.

Don't be short-sighted about things.

I mean, just because your financial blessings interrupted a little while, I tell you, god will make a way for you.

You made a way for me for many years.

So God calls us blessed when we're faithful.

And then the last one in verse 47, verse 47, very last, saying to you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

So there's a promotion, you know.

I just like to think about what's gonna happen.

After all, you know, we go up to heaven, we have the marriage supper, the lamb, you know, and we have the final judgment and all the people that are wicked are thrown into the lake of fire, and then we get off into eternity.

In eternity, faithful people like us are gonna rule and reign over a lot of things.

That way, we can't even picture the kind of promotion, the kind of blessing that we will have all the time the joy, the lack of any kind of pressure, the lack of any kind of difficulty.

The devil will be gone.

There will be no devil.

This is after the thousand years, you know, after a thousand years he's gonna come back up.

He's gonna have a temporary little war and everything.

We're gonna get the hic, we're gonna get the.

We're gonna get to smash him yet again.

Just, he's a glutton for punishment.

Just think of it.

He's gonna be in the bottomless pit for a thousand years.

That's not good enough.

No, he needs to be in the lake of fire.

Sure enough he's gonna get there.

We're gonna make sure We'll all be there.

We'll all be there and then we will have so much so we'll be so busy ruling and reigning for all the eons of time.

Eternity, eternity is a long time.

I said eternity is a long time.

I know y'all don't ever think like that, but I think like that, especially right now, when everything is so fouled up everywhere you look, everywhere you look.

It's so crazy, but it's not gonna stay that way.

We become ruler over all these goods and that is permanent.

That's not just for a while, that's permanent.

The thing is, you know, this world is not permanent, it's.

This world is temporary.

It's so easy to get fixated on this world, but where we're headed is gonna be eternal.

I mean whatever we wind up with is eternal.

I mean eternal Glory to God.

Come on, let's lift our hands right now.

Praise God, all right.

The other one is we already heard this one enter into the joy of the Lord.

We're gonna get to hear that Well done and good and faithful servants Enter into the joy of the Lord.

You know, joy is gonna be a huge room that we never leave.

I mean, we're just gonna be, we're gonna be happy, happy, happy all the time, happy, joyful.

We won't have to fake it like ha ha ha, we won't have to do that anymore.

We've done that and done that and done that.

I know I'm not the only one that have done that.

Laugh, when you don't feel like it.

We'll feel like laughing and we'll laugh.

Enter into the joy of the Lord.

Enter into the joy of the Lord.

What a reward.

And then, in chapter that was chapter 25, the next chapter, verse 21.

And then the last one is verse 28.

And so he's rebuking the wicked and unprofitable servant that hid his talent in the backyard, folded and a napkin and put it up.

And he said well, man, you should have at least put it in the bank.

And you should have at least put it in the bank and made interest on that.

You Suri, what in the world is wrong with you See, fear.

He feared losing it, he feared God would rebuke him and all these things.

Well, it's just gonna happen, just like.

Oh, it wasn't God in the story.

It's not God, but God is.

This is how God thinks.

This is how God thinks about when he gives us something.

We have to do something with what he gives us.

You know, look at the woman with a she had.

Remember the woman that her husband died with no life insurance, right?

And she's got two boys and the creditors are gonna come take her boys.

Now, if that would have happened, she would have wound up starving to death.

She can't work.

She's a woman.

Women did not work outside the home.

Forget that.

This is their culture.

They I mean those boys were gonna support their mama, and now the creditors are gonna take that mama.

So it's a death sentence for her.

And she's crying out to the prophet and said woman, what do you got and what have you got?

What have you got?

She said, well, I don't have anything except a little pot of oil.

So, like God's a little pot of oil.

Well, that pot of oil turned in to everything she needed.

I mean, god multiplied what she had.

She didn't.

Just, if the prophet hadn't motivated her, she would have gone broke and died with a pot of oil sitting in the cupboard.

So whatever you've got is plenty enough for you to be a success.

Put it in God's hands.

See, that's all I'm saying.

Put it in God's hand, get it to work it.

And so when we do that, then God is so excited about that.

And when we don't, he said to this man.

He said take, therefore, the talent verse 28, take what he had.

He had a talent.

Take it from him and give it to the guy that had 10.

So I'm telling you, there's gonna be a wealth transfer in unusual places that we're gonna have in these last days.

It's not gonna happen in heaven, because we don't need talents, we don't need money, we don't need anything in heaven.

Once we get past and get up there.

All of this is talking about now, see, and I believe this, and we've been talking about a transfer of wealth for many years and most of the time we think about from the wicked, you know, from the world, into the church, but it can actually happen from backslidden Christians that were not faithful in what they did.

I don't know how God's gonna do it.

I don't covet anybody's money.

I don't covet what they've got.

I don't even look at it.

But at the same time, god does, and God knows how to get it out of the hands of wicked and unprofitable servants and put it in the hands of those that are faithful.

Come on, let's rejoice a little bit over that one.

We don't covet it, we're not looking for it.

I'm not looking at you.

He was looking right at me when he said that.

No, I wouldn't.

I might've been looking at you, but I didn't.

I wasn't talking about you, kelly, I wasn't talking about you and she didn't think I was either.

All right, let's turn to Luke 17.

And this is something worth looking at here too, talking about the rewards of faithfulness, and Luke 17, verse seven.

So Jesus is teaching his disciples and he's saying but which of you having a servant?

So he's talking about servants again.

And right now I'm gonna talk about what our attitude ought to be.

You know, god's attitude is that he's gonna bless his faithful servants, he is going to reward his faithful servants.

But what about our attitude?

So he's talking about attitude right here.

But which of you having a servant plowing or feeding cattle will say unto him by and by, when he has come from the field, go and sit down to meet.

And will not rather say unto him make ready wherewith I may sup and gird thyself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and then afterward thou shall eat and drink?

He had not the way that a servant is treated.

A servant serves the master.

The master sits down first and eats.

And then the servant eats, got it.

That's what Jesus said.

It's in red.

Does he thank that servant because it did the things that were commanded him?

I troll, not.

I love troll.

Do you ever I like?

That's another reason I like the King James.

I like hither, thither and troll.

I like troll, I troll?

I don't think so.

He's not gonna praise him just cause he did what he was supposed to do.

He's not gonna praise him for plowing.

He's not gonna praise him for feeding the cows.

He's not gonna praise him for getting up at four o'clock and milking the cow.

He's not gonna praise him cause he's supposed to do it.

And then, after he does it, he better get in there and get an apron on and cook me some breakfast first.

No, not gonna thank him.

So likewise, ye, when you shall have done all those things which are commanded, you say we are unprofitable servants.

We have done that which was our duty to do.

That's the attitude of a faithful servant.

In other words, we know there's a reward, but we don't have it on our shoulders.

We don't have it on our shoulder.

I'm gonna be rewarded.

I am cooler.

I'm the coolest there is.

I'm better than sliced bread.

I'm handier than a pocket on a shirt.

I am indispensable.

If I leave, this whole place well crater, if I leave, you're gonna really regret it.

No, I won't.

I like what brother Mark said one time to somebody like that in his church was just real hard to deal with, always giving a lot of trouble, and finally got offended about a umpteenth time about something he said I'm gonna tell you what.

I'm leaving, and when I leave it's gonna be a lot different around here.

You're gonna really regret that I was leaving.

And he said look at that bucket of water over there.

Stick your hand in it Now pull your hand out.

Did it matter?

I mean, you know you gotta think about that for a while.

So you stuck your hand in a bucket of water.

We'll still be a bucket of water.

We won't even miss you.

You'll be gone and we'll be glad.

Praise God.

He didn't say that, but that's what he meant.

But no, our attitude and faithfulness is that we are unprofitable servants, that we have done that which is our duty to do.

And so when we go back to first Corinthians, chapter four, paul was teaching the Corinthian church about it's required in servants that they be found faithful.

And then the very next verse, in verse three, he gives his attitude.

But with me, see, I've had to be faithful.

Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

More of it is required of stewards that a man be found faithful, but with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment.

Yeah, I judge not my own self.

I see God as the one that's judging our faithfulness.

It's not anybody else, amen.

And so on our side, our attitude is look, we're doing what's right, doing what's right for us to do.

Thank God for the reward.

I appreciate God, but you know what?

I do it for free, I do it for nothing.

And you have to get to that place where you do anything for God.

You don't have your hand out.

You know, like the little movie Home Alone and the kid goes off to New York by himself and checks into the hotel and he gets the biggest suite in this hotel.

I mean the nightly raid on that room and that movie had to be $2,000 or maybe more than that, a night at least.

You know this is New York, even back in the 90s.

You know, that's the movie where he sees Trump in the lobby.

Remember that that's a little Christmas movie.

Now it's on every Christmas.

So my kid so I've seen it so much that I can just sit there and I can tell him what's next.

And so my smallest grandchildren, they just are amazed that grandpa would know all the steps of this movie and what happens next.

But anyway, so we watch it.

But he got the valet.

He takes, he's got one bag.

He takes the bag up there and he's waiting for the tip.

He's going like this yes, okay, I get it.

The little kid, I get it.

And he pulls out.

He thinks he's going to get a 50 cents or a dollar or something.

He gets him a piece of gum.

He's expecting a tip, but he gets a piece of gum, chewing gum.

Well, we don't have our hand out, do we?

We just listen.

We're just doing what we're supposed to do and we know what the word says.

We know we're going to be rewarded, but we're not in it for the reward, we're in it to serve.

Come on, lift your hands.

The rewards of faithfulness are now.

Amen, did you get anything out of this tonight?

Praise God.