Who You Say I Am | I Am Faithful (March 10th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

If you would get your Bibles now and turn them open to uh Ephesians uh chapter one.

Now, as we move forward in our uh series today, what we're really doing through this is building an identity, right?

Brick by brick, according to who God says that you and I are in this in the scriptures, right?

That's exactly what we're doing.

Now, why is it so important that we do this?

Right?

Why is it so crucial that we would spend you know eight weeks looking at Ephesians chapter one and unpacking this and all of that?

Why?

Well, it's because there are countless voices out there clamoring clamoring for your attention, all trying to tell you who you are.

Have you noticed that?

Have you noticed that there are voices out there?

Some of it is just in advertising, right?

Every ad that you see out there, every ad that goes across your TV screen or on your phone is not just selling you a product, it is selling you an identity.

Right?

You notice when you watch uh you know a fancy car commercial and stuff, it's always there's like this like mid-house in the background, and everyone's super classy, and like you, you know, you can have all of this if you would buy our you know, blank brand of vehicles.

It's an identity thing for you.

So this happens in advertising.

There's also you know, other people telling us who we are.

Those are some of the voices, and people are trying to, you know, you've had people that you know are trying to communicate uh an identity to you that you should grab onto and and hold on to.

Now, I don't know if if you're single in the room and and we were all single at one point, those of us who were married, maybe maybe you you know felt this from time to time from people, or you still feel this from time to time, where you know you kind of you're you're made to feel as though you haven't arrived yet as a person because you're not dating somebody, you're not in a relationship with somebody, you're not married yet.

You know, and they're like, you know, just hang in there.

You know, it'll happen.

Pretty soon, you'll go from second class to first class, you know.

I I believe it's going to happen.

And what's happening in there in that moment?

It's it's their identity that's flawed, right?

They believe that you don't matter as much unless you are married or in a relationship, and they are now projecting that on you.

So the voices are coming from outside, certainly, but also the voices are coming from within.

Hopefully, it's just one voice coming from within.

Right?

And I love how uh Paul Tripp uh put this, and I've said this before: no one is more uh influential in your life because no one speaks to you more than you do.

And so you're hearing these other voices, you're seeing these advertisements, it's the relationships and the people that you're with.

It might be a boss or a coworker trying to tell you who you are, and now you're starting to tell you've bought into that, and you're telling yourself that you're a failure, that that you're a success, that you need this, that, and the other thing in order to matter as a person.

And you're building yourself this identity and these the identities that these voices, you know, often whisper, but sometimes, let's be honest, it seems to shout at us.

Uh, on one level, they they they kind of seem good.

Right?

Uh at the very least, they seem kind of harmless.

Like, what's the big deal if I, you know, kind of link myself to this thing and this becomes kind of who I am?

Maybe it it goes beyond harmless to even feeling somewhat empowering.

Right?

I have a vehicle and now I feel you know an expensive vehicle or an expensive look, and now I I feel more powerful, and I maybe these things, these identities, even feel fulfilling.

But over time, what you start to realize is that they they actually have the opposite effect.

Have you seen this before?

Have you felt that?

Right?

They're actually they're actually poisoned to your soul, these voices, these competing identities, and they create nothing but problems for you and I uh over time in terms of our sense of peace.

Right?

Do you feel like I just want peace, and I keep I keep chasing after these identities, and I feel less and less peace.

We you know, they create problems for our joy and our sense of purpose in life, and even affect the relationships and community that we're in.

Okay, so for this series, what we're committed to doing here is you know simultaneously, you know, pinpointing those false identities that you and I so easily and naturally you know hitch our wagons to and and we try to make them our own and all of that.

We're we're doing that, but but we're also also examining and and learning to by grace embrace what our true identities are according to God in his word.

All right, well, we need help for this, certainly.

I know I do, and so why don't you join me as we seek the Lord in prayer and ask him to do a work, God.

We come before you today and and Lord, we are uh we're all wanderers.

Lord, we all wander after other identities, ones that are easy, one that kind of have cheap thrills at the beginning, Lord, and we often don't realize that they end up kind of poisoning us, our sense of joy and peace and and and all of it, God.

I pray that you would do a work by your Holy Spirit today in your church, Lord.

I pray that we would see that uh the identity that you uh give us, that you bestow upon us, is the only one uh worth clinging to, Lord.

It is the only one that is strong, it is the only one that doesn't leak oil.

God, I pray that you would continue to teach us these things as we open up your word and give us a great love for Jesus Christ in the process, Lord.

We want to glorify and honor you in all of this.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, Ephesians uh 1, verse 1.

Uh why don't you read it uh along with me here right now?

It says this uh Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, okay, to the saints or the or the Christians, he's writing to the Christians there who are in Ephesus, the church that was there.

And then here it is, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

That's the part that we're really gonna go after here today.

Now, whereas uh last week we did, you know, kind of an intro message, an overview of the first 14 verses of Ephesians chapter uh one, and and we were looking at you know what our identity is according to those verses here, and and starting to realize, you know, in the scriptures how we see there in that in those verses how many times it says who we are in Christ or in him.

And we went through that, a kind of 30,000-foot level, and so uh today we're gonna begin our uh deeper dive into each of those components.

And so uh here it is, really quite simple.

One verse, one point.

Okay, can we handle that?

One verse, one point.

Here it is.

In Christ I am faithful.

Right, there it is.

This is who you are if you are a follower of Jesus.

Now, in my pocket here, I'm trying to find it here.

Here it is.

Uh, I've got uh just a regular, regular loony, right?

Just a regular old uh coin.

Now I I show you this because to properly uh digest that you and I in Christ are faithful, it requires understanding kind of the two sides uh to the coin here uh when it comes to this.

Okay, the two components or the two you know truths that that you and I need to recognize and keep in mind, keep uh in front of us at the exact same time.

Remember, I referred to this concept a little bit uh last week.

If we think of just one side of the coin but not the other, we always get ourselves uh into trouble.

And so we need to see uh both sides of the coin there, okay, that you and I are faithful in Christ Jesus, as our verse told us there and says there, is to know that as a Christian, faithful is my status and faithful is my practice.

Now we're gonna get this up on the screen there for you.

There it is.

And uh you might want to jot this down.

Now we're gonna unpack this a little bit here today.

And actually we've got a lot, it's one point, but we've got a lot of things on the screen.

If you're a note taker, you're in heaven here today.

Uh we've got that for you.

Or if you like to take pictures of that, because you don't like to write, I totally get you a hundred percent.

But here's this, okay?

That that, first of all, faithful is my status, okay, it means that it's my standing, okay?

It's my it's my position in God's eyes, and therefore it is my identity.

Okay, the instant that you trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

Okay, for me, when that happened to me, I was I was eight years old.

Okay, I was at church, I was uh in our kids' program that we have, and uh and a traveling puppet ministry came to our church.

True story, okay.

I know the 80s were weird, right?

But a traveling puppet ministry came to my church, they they proclaimed the gospel, and I remember one of the elders in our church, he was there afterwards for response time.

He came to me and my little brother, we were standing there, he's like, Hey, you got guys, and he he taught us the gospel, he helped us understand what the gospel was.

He said, Would you guys want to confess your sins and invite Christ to be your Savior?

I remember right there in that moment, being like, Yeah, absolutely.

And I and I and I knew because I had gone to church my whole life and realized, yeah, I've got I've got sin in my life, and I knew that I needed uh Christ as Lord.

So listen, think about that.

That's my story, but think about that for you.

You know, your testimony and and and what was it?

What was the day?

You might not remember the exact date or whatever.

Hopefully it wasn't the 80s, because again, those were strange times for uh all of us as the church, but whatever it was for you, think about that there.

The moment that you give your life to the Lord Jesus, he declares that you are now faithful.

You're now faithful right there in that moment.

Right?

In the sense that that Christ's pristine record of faithfulness displayed through his life and his death and his resurrection, all of that gets gets transferred, as we've talked about before.

All of that gets gets applied to you now.

Right?

It gets transferred to your account, if you will.

Kind of like a like an e-transfer.

Let's get these illustrations here into the 21st century, right?

But listen, that's what happens.

It gets transferred to you.

It's it's it's your status now.

That's that's the only way that God sees you.

That you are faithful.

That's that's the one side of the coin, right?

So important that we understand that, right?

You if you know Jesus right now, you're faithful.

It's who you are.

Faithful is your identity.

Okay, the second part of that sentence there, that faithful is my practice, means that because Jesus has has died and and risen for me, because he paid the debt that my sins have just racked up, because Jesus has forgiven me and and restored me to right fellowship again with God Almighty, because of all of that, I now live motivated, I live faithfully for him.

Right now, I want to.

This comes from the heart.

There's there's desire attached to that.

It's it's anchored to what Jesus Christ has done for me and and who he declares me to be.

It's my practice now in everyday life.

It's how I live, it's how I operate and function.

Hey, you and I, I seek to be faithful in my obedience to him as I follow him in all of his ways for all of my days.

Right?

That's that's the other side of the coin, right?

We gotta get, we gotta get both of those, both of those locked in.

Now you may be thinking, well, why?

Why do we have why is it so important that we understand both of those?

Well, well, listen, it's because when you and I fail, when I fail to recognize that faithful is my status, okay?

It's it's declared by God, it's applied to me by grace.

It is my identity now.

When I fail to grasp that, I instinctively try to attain or achieve that status, my identity, through my practice.

Does that make sense?

We've got that up on the screen there for you.

Okay, here are some ways that this plays out for us as Christians.

Okay, because so many of us we don't really have the first clue who God says we are, right?

Or we know it, but it's in a real surfacey sense where we could probably get some, you know, the the the answers right on a test if we were given a test, but but it hasn't sunk down deep.

The absorption rate isn't real good.

Because so many Christians don't have a real great handle on who God says that we are, okay, in this case, that we are faithful in Christ Jesus, because we don't believe that very deeply in our hearts, we naturally try to make ourselves faithful through our performance and through our practice.

Okay, so many of us, I don't know if this is true for you, but so many of us playing that just that exhausting and ultimately fruitless game of legalistic religion.

Right?

Just religiosity, where I'm playing the I go to church game, but it's but but my heart's not engaged.

Right?

Where it's like, you know, look at me go, God.

Like, look what I've done this week.

Look at my my record of faithfulness.

I I read my Bible most of the time.

I I I prayed some prayers.

You know, I I I served faithfully and I was I was kind to people and you know, all of that.

I and through all of it, what's going on under the surface is we're trying to say, God, God approve of me.

Approve of me because of what I am doing or because of what I have done.

Look how faithful I am, all the while actually growing more and more insecure about our status in God's eyes, because why?

Well, because we all know deep down that we're just not faithful enough.

Right?

We know that and we feel so uncomfortable about that.

We know that you know that maybe today I've been faithful, but I don't know if I will be tomorrow, and and and so I, you know, I better try even harder, or you know, I wasn't faithful, you know, Monday to Saturday through the week, and so I've got to make up for that by by being extra faithful today.

And it's like this hamster wheel, this exhausting game that we play that's it doesn't bless us, it doesn't fill us with joy, it ultimately just makes us miserable and again insecure, right?

We be we become discouraged, we become weary, so so restless.

And we play that legalism game, we failed to realize that God has already said through the gospel, but the moment that you received him, he's he's saying right there, I approve of you.

You've got that full bore.

All of my approval is yours.

You're faithful now.

That that that's your status.

Right?

And not because of the good things that you've managed to do some or most of the time, not because of the sin that you've been able to avoid through most of your life.

It's because of what my son did, it's because of what he's done for you.

But listen, that's where a lot of professing Christians are at.

That's how we live our lives.

Where we don't realize our amazing, incredible, awesome status that that Christ and that God declares through Christ.

And so what ends up happening is our practice just goes haywire trying to earn the very things that that's already been given.

Of course, another ramification of the insecurity that comes from not knowing our status and our identity, and that we are we are faithful in Christ Jesus, is that we we desperately look for security in the world's value system.

And that becomes our practice, and that becomes our life pursuit, and that's why so many professing Christians just look like the world.

We just plunge ourselves headlong into things like the world's version of happiness.

What is the world telling you you need to be happy?

Well, we just believe it and we go after it.

So many of us are doing that.

It's about success.

If I'm successful, I will be happy.

Or entertainment or pleasure at all costs, it's the pursuit of material gain, it's trying to secure man's approval.

These practices become our identity.

People get it.

When we drink in exactly who God says we are, and we begin to find our our identity and our security in that, those those worldly pursuits, those those worldly values, that whole system, it begins to crumble for us in our hearts.

Right, which again affects the way that we live, it affects our practice.

It's been so amazing to talk to a bunch of you, even recently, and to just hear what the Lord is doing in your life has has been incredible.

Some of you, it's been amazing.

Some of you have have the story of like, I had it all.

I had everything that the world offers.

And and I sought to find an identity in it, and I became so so insecure, and and I be and I became so worn out and exhausted by all of it.

And and then Christ broke into my heart and and He He saved me from sin.

He's given me a new identity now, and it's amazing to see how the practice of your life is completely 180.

And it's even to the point where you're like, I don't even want all those other things that I used to want.

Right?

That the pursuit of fame and money and power and whatever it might be, I pfft I don't want, I just just give me Jesus, that's all I want.

Now listen, to grow stronger in our belief, right, and and get that locked into our hearts, you know, where where we actually know that that faithful is my status now, and I don't have to chase after that and try and make it work out myself, but just rest in the reality that Jesus has already done it, he already declares me all of that.

To get stronger in this area, I think means that it's probably pretty important that we know just some of the specifics of how Christ was faithful.

Right?

Good for us to kind of look into this and explore the scriptures just a little bit.

How was he faithful?

In what ways was Jesus Christ faithful on my behalf?

We're gonna ask that very question, and we got seven things here.

How is Jesus faithful?

Now, again, I don't think these are necessarily exhaustive.

Some of them are quite general, some of them probably overlap a little bit, but they're good and helpful to us.

Here's the first one.

He came to do his father's will.

He was perfectly faithful in this.

I love John 6.38.

It's on the screen, so you don't have to flip to it.

It says this for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

I love that Jesus, he came so surrendered to his father's will.

He's like, I am here to accomplish my father's will.

It's not about me, it's not about somebody else's game plan.

I came to accomplish my father's will.

He's faithful.

He's faithful in that.

Here's a second one.

He obeyed his earthly parents.

It's pretty incredible that he did that, right?

Can you imagine it?

It's it's it's this is God we're talking about.

Submitting to imperfect human parents.

That's pretty amazing.

Luke chapter 2, verse 51 uh tells us this.

Luke 2:51

It says there that he uh went down with them, he went with his parents and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.

You see that?

And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

He was submissive, he obeyed his earthly parents.

He was he was the only child to ever do that perfectly.

All it takes is looking at our own kids, you know, like, yeah, it's that's not them.

Right?

He was faithful.

Here's how else he was faithful.

Third thing, he was victorious over temptation.

Victorious, Hebrews 4 verse 15 says this for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 4:15

Without sin.

Completely victorious.

Never fudged on that for uh even a moment.

It's not up there, but Matthew 4, uh verses 1 to 11 uh gives us the the story there.

Of how Jesus stood strong when Satan tempted him in the wilderness.

He was faithful in this and victorious over all temptation.

Fourth one here.

He was faithful to declare the good news.

He declared the good news.

Mark chapter 1 says this in verses 14 and 15.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

It says, Now after John, it's John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the gospel.

I love that he was faithful to declare the good news.

He wasn't declaring some prosperity gospel.

He wasn't declaring a gospel of works, so to speak.

He declared the good news.

He declared that it is time to repent, to turn from sin and turn back to God.

He declared the good news.

Here's the fifth one.

He obeyed his heavenly father.

This is absolutely related to the first one.

He came to do his father's will.

He obeyed his heavenly father.

I love Philippians 2, verse 8.

Philippians 2:8

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient.

There's the word, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He obeyed his heavenly father perfectly.

He was faithful, even when it was excruciatingly difficult.

He was faithful to endure the cross for us.

Can you imagine if he didn't do that?

Can you imagine if as as he was being nailed to that, he's like, no, no, this is too much to go through.

Check, please, right?

He didn't do that though.

He faithfully obeyed.

He paid the price for sin.

And this is what was accomplished through that, the sixth one.

He provided salvation to those who believe.

He was absolutely faithful in this.

Romans 10, verse 9.

Romans 10:9

It says, Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

He was faithful.

To provide a way for you and I to have our sins forgiven, have our sins washed clean, to be uh to be brought into a relationship with the God of creation.

Listen, I can only imagine, again, in a room this size, I don't know every single person, I don't know every single person's story, but I can imagine some of you need to hear that today.

You need to recognize that Jesus went to the cross, and that if you would believe that, if you would confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that that actually happened, that that happened for you.

It says that you will be saved.

You will be.

Right?

It's a promise.

Would you humble yourself?

Would you confess your brokenness?

Would you confess your sin?

Would you do that before your God?

When you do that, you invite Christ to be your Savior.

Your life will be so different after that.

You will be restored with your Heavenly Father.

Listen, that right there, that's the message our church is all about.

That's the message our church rallies around every single Sunday.

Every time we gather together, every throughout the week, whatever it is, that's the message.

We're all a bunch of broken and wounded people because of our sin.

Our sin is against God, but God is a gracious God, a merciful God.

God knew that when we couldn't fix our sin, he would do it for us.

He did it by sending his son Jesus.

That's the message we continue to herald and proclaim and come back to.

That's the message that changes hearts.

Receive Christ today.

He was faithful to do that on your behalf.

Here's the last thing.

He fulfilled the Messianic prophecies.

Amazing to think that Christ was faithful to do that.

I'll just pick one of them here.

This is actually the passage that we're going to be going through at Easter, Isaiah 53, and I'll look at verse 5 here, but it says this but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

The amazing thing about that is that we see Jesus fulfill that prophecy right there around 700 years later in the Gospels.

Another example of him fulfilling a prophecy is found in Matthew chapter 21, uh, verse 4.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

Jesus had just told his disciples to go and find the colt.

Remember, find the donkey and bring it to me.

This is for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And it says there in Matthew 21, verse 4, this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.

Matthew 21:4

Now, which prophet?

Well, that's that's Zechariah.

We find it in Zechariah 9, verse 9.

Zechariah 9:9

Jesus was faithful to fulfill not just these two, but actually over 300 Old Testament prophecies.

300?

Again, through his life, his death, and his resurrection.

I mean, when you and I, again, this isn't, this isn't exhaustive, but when you and I take even just a little bit of time there to kind of go through those seven things and look at the specifics of just how Jesus was faithful and and that by faith, his faithful record of perfection is now applied to you.

And you know, this is who you are, this is your status now, this is the the grid through which God looks at you.

It's through Jesus.

I mean, man, what a what a boost of God confidence that is to our identities.

Do you feel that kind of just just like being poured into your mind and into your heart?

I mean, in such a way that nothing else ever could be.

Nothing else will give you that kind of security and fill you with that confidence.

How how silly does it kind of make us feel in that moment to know that we've spent so much time chasing after the world's values?

Right?

Just hoping that, you know, they'll they'll fill me, they'll tell me who who I am, they'll make me sleep well at night, they'll give me the joy that I so desperately crave.

It's so foolish.

Right?

They're so worthless.

The identity that we have in God through Jesus Christ is so strong and so good.

And as we get that identity piece locked down in our hearts and in our minds, where we understand it and we believe it, okay, it then motivates us to live faithfully in terms of our practice.

Okay, then we want to.

Our daily lives of just holiness and obedience and surrender to Him.

Now maybe thinking, well, okay, what does that look like then for me?

How does a Christian operating out of a strong understanding of our God-given identity, that we are faithful in Christ Jesus?

How does a Christian operating that way?

How does a Christian live?

What does their life look like?

We've got for you here four characteristics of a faithful Christian.

Now I was reading this this week from Shane Eidelman.

He's a pastor.

I thought it was great and I wanted to commend it to you.

Here are the four things.

This is what the first or one characteristic of a faithful Christian is that holiness is a priority.

As a Christian who lives faithfully, you will make holiness a priority.

1 Peter 1, verse 15 says, But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.

1 Peter 1:15

Right?

As you understand your identity and that you are faithful in Christ Jesus, you will make the pursuit of holiness a passion and a priority for you.

You won't cast it off to the side.

You won't give it attention only when you start to feel the wheels wobble on your spiritual walk.

No, everything that you do, you will be considering how can I how can I be a holy Christ follower in this pursuit?

So whether you're thinking through how can I be a, you know, how can I be a godly and a holy employee at work?

How can I have an Instagram account and yet still be a holy Christ follower?

Right?

How can I, you know, go after money and try to save for retirement and and and also have some fun with that and provide for my family?

Like, how can I do all those things, but but do it in a way that a holy, faithful Christian does that?

Holiness will be a priority for you in all areas of life as you grow as a faithful Christian.

Here's the second characteristic of a faithful Christian.

God's word is at the source of authority.

Faithful Christians in practice are ones who look for counsel and we're looking for wisdom and we're looking for advice from God's word.

Right?

I think that's pretty simple.

God's word is the authority, God's word is is the standard.

These are God's words for us.

We have everything that we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him.

How do we know who Christ is?

Not by following feelings, okay?

Not by following Oprah, Dr.

Phil, God's word.

Right?

We we go to that.

We we anchor ourselves to that, although, not the world's wisdom.

Okay, God's word isn't the source of authority.

That's a characteristic for a faithful Christian.

Here's the third one: reliance on God's strength, not man's.

We rely on the Lord, not on man.

Second Corinthians 12, verse 9 says this, my grace is sufficient for you.

2 Corinthians 12:9

For my power is made perfect in weakness.

I wonder how many of us, when we feel weak, we try to make ourselves strong.

We try to tap into the strength that we think we have.

We tap into our abilities, we try to problem solve.

We don't have it.

Some of us don't like that we feel so weak all the time.

God does.

God works it out that way.

Because he wants us to tap into him.

Right?

We're made to rely on him.

Again, I I used to think that growing as a Christ follower just meant that I would feel like, you know, just a sense of like impenetrability constantly.

And I am victorious over everything, and every sin is under my foot, kind of thing.

And that's a my experience is like, no, I just feel more and more weak.

I feel more and more pathetic.

I'm more and more aware of my sinfulness than ever before.

And God's like, good.

It'll make you, it'll humble you, and it'll allow you to lean into me.

It's about God's strength, not man's.

We rely on that.

Here's the fourth one.

Fourth characteristic of a faithful Christian is that we keep God's word despite setbacks.

Setbacks.

They're gonna happen, right?

Faithful Christians cling to the Lord, not if, but when challenges come.

They're gonna come.

It's going to happen.

Listen, it's it's a lot easier to be faithful when life is easy.

But Christians operating from a strong identity in Christ and in the power of the Spirit remain faithful to the Lord even when the going gets tough.

We remain faithful to Him.

We grow more mature in this.

I know my life is difficult, and I know that I'm uncomfortable, and I know this is painful, but I'm not just gonna go after those fleeting pleasures of sin like I used to.

No, I'm gonna remain faithful to the word.

I'm gonna remain faithful to the Lord.

That's the practice of a faithful Christian who has their identity locked down.

Now I know, listen, that some of us here, we're gonna look at these four characteristics and start to get like a little bit, eh, you know, kind of wringing our hands about this, a little bit anxious, you know, and kind of see those things, and we're thinking, oh man, like this isn't me.

Like, I don't have these things in my life, and I got a long way to go before, you know, demonstrating these things well, and they seem to be so foreign to my current way of life.

Well, listen here, as we close things off, I want to leave you with three things to keep in mind as you grow faithful in practice.

Okay, three things to keep in mind, three things to remember.

Here's the first one.

Remember that faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit.

It's a fruit of the spirit.

Some of you, again, are gonna get the gospel thing wrong in this because of your legalistic bent.

You're gonna be like, wow, that's my identity now, and you're gonna immediately try and take the reins over and try and make yourself faithful again.

We talked about that like 10 minutes ago, right?

But we that that's our our our wiring naturally, our wiring naturally is to try and make ourselves faithful, to try and earn something that's been earned for us.

And so we try and we just double down our own strengths and our own abilities.

Remember, faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit.

He he produces that in you.

You're not entirely passive in all of that.

It requires effort, it requires prayer, it requires humbling ourselves, it requires all of those things, absolutely, but but it's a fruit of the spirit.

Galatians 5, 22 tells us that.

He works in you to produce the kind of faithful living that we've been talking about here.

Remember that.

It's a fruit of the spirit.

Remember this too.

The consistently faithful living is a process.

Okay, it's it's it's a process.

Some of us are like, I want this now.

Right?

I want to like look at these four things and just like automatically, that's me now, for now until eternity.

Right?

We don't realize or we forget that it's a process.

It's a process.

I'm just gonna give you a heads up right now.

It's a process of many failures.

Right?

You're gonna stumble forward with all of this.

You're gonna mess up.

It's a process of continually humbling yourself.

You know, dragging your weary bones to the Lord and being like, God, I need you.

God, forgive me.

Forgive me for being faithless.

Forgive me for going back to my idols.

Forgive me for trying to build up a false identity that's not from the gospel.

It's not who you say I am.

Right?

Big time process.

Failure, humbling yourself, seeking forgiveness, wash, rinse, repeat.

Right?

That's it.

That's sanctification.

It's the rest of your life.

Now, again, over time you should be able to see, over time, you should be able to see the trajectory going up.

Now, listen, you can't, you're not gonna see it in the day-to-day.

You're gonna be like, man, I'm just looking at today, I'm looking at yesterday and this past week, and it just seemed like a tire fire, it seemed like a complete disaster.

But then over time, maybe you're looking back on the last several months or the last year, and you're like, no, you know what?

The Lord actually is stabilizing my heart.

I am starting to believe what He who He says I am.

I'm starting to see some faithful practice developing in my life.

Remember, it's a process.

And the last thing here to keep in mind as you grow in faith, uh grow faithful in your practice, remember that you weren't designed to do this alone.

You weren't.

My fear is that so many of us here today we're gonna take all of this and be like, that's that's that's great.

That's that's really good stuff that I need to think through.

That's great stuff that I need to pray through, just just me and God.

That's something that I need to meditate on.

That's something that I need to process.

That's something that I need to get alone with my Bible.

That's something that I by my you get what I'm saying?

All of that is good, all of that is necessary, all of that is important.

But life is is is created.

God created life to be in community.

He created us to work through these things together.

We as the church, God put us in this room together so that we would help each other as we kind of fail forward and stumble and and make mistakes, help each other grow in faithfulness, in fruitfulness, and all of that together.

Where we encourage each other, where at times you have to call each other out, like, hey man, you're you're you I see that you're not doing this.

You claim to be a Christ follower.

You got baptized in our church, you used to be so so fired up, and I see that kind of that joy leaking out of you now, and you kind of seem miserable, and I see yourself withdrawing, and I see this, you know, you're isolating yourself.

Some of us are so wired that way naturally, anyways.

And we kind of want to be alone, and you weren't designed to be.

Hate to break it to you.

God gave you the church.

And he listen, he didn't put us together so that we would all just be friends.

Church isn't just about, you know, being a bunch of friends, it's about a family.

You're like, oh no, I know what family's all about.

That's messy.

Yep.

Right?

That's the church.

I hope we do make some friends here, but we're a family of broken people who the Lord is using and He's working this all out together in us.

Faithful in Christ Jesus.

Isn't it amazing that that's who God says we are?

That's our status, that's that's our identity.

It's what you and I are becoming in terms of our practice and in terms of how we live in the day-to-day life.

And all of it by grace.

All of it because of the love of God.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we are.

I think we just, you know, you read a couple of short words in one verse, even, and you realize, wow, there's just so much there.

We are faithful in Christ Jesus.

It's amazing to think that those few words can have such meaning.

Those few words can have such a deep impact.

Those those few words can tell us so much.

Lord, I pray that our response here would be to worship.

I pray that our response would be to glory in our Savior, to praise and thank you for your faithfulness, to realize that your perfect record is now how our Father sees us.

That's the lens through which you view us and relate to us, Lord.

That is just amazing.

God, I pray that that would truly have an impact in us here today.

Lord, I pray that as we learn these things, Lord, that our lives would truly change.

Lord, I pray that our our status would in fact impact our practice and that we would live for you.

We would be more useful in your hands.

You would bring us out for your glory in this life.

God, I pray that you would do this.

I pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.