"Faithful Unto Death: Understanding God's Faithfulness" by Bill Dayton

death. Appreciated Charles' lesson last week to help us

understand that there's plenty of others out there who we

can look to and to help us in our faith.

But tonight we're going kind of in a different direction.

When I think of faithfulness,

well, you define that. How would you define

what it means to be faithful? Give me some answers.

You know this, come on.

What does it mean to be faithful? Okay, obedience.

Okay, anybody else?

Okay, walking in the light.

Becoming more and more obviously like our Savior,

who is obviously faithful.

Tonight we're looking at a concept that

I think is very important for us when we think of our faithfulness,

and that deals with the faithfulness of God.

He is the foundation of our faith.

If you can imagine being without him in the world,

not having him as your Father, not having Jesus as

your Savior, what kind of faith

would you have? There'd be nothing,

wouldn't there? I mean, you can have faith knowing maybe your car is going to

start in the morning and deal with all those superficial things in life,

but when it comes down to what life really is The

life God gives us. We need

to have that faith.

1 Corinthians 1:4-9,

1 Corinthians 1:4–9

follow along with me if you would. Paul here

is writing to the church at Corinth, and he says, I thank my God

always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ

Jesus. That you were enriched in everything by

Him, and in all utterance and all knowledge,

even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,

so that you— so that you come short in no

gift, eagerly awaiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus

Christ, who will also confirm you to the end,

that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And look at verse 9, God is

faithful. God is faithful, by whom you

were called into the fellowship of His Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord.

So when you think of where we're headed,

I've kind of put this together as 5 different pillars,

5 different ways we can focus.

On the faithfulness of God. And you can add to this list, and I hope

that you do. I just kind of thought of, of what it might look

like as far as God is concerned.

You know, you can look at faithfulness as

commitment, loyalty,

perseverance, sacrifice,

discipline. There's so many different words to describe

the ability to follow with something to the end, and that's what we're looking

at in this series— being faithful until

death. When we're given new opportunities,

we, we are so excited about that, aren't we?

We were so excited. We have enthusiasm,

new relationships. So many things can happen.

But as we talked about even in our devotional, when life gets tough,

when life is not going the way we want to,

overwhelming obstacles come our way,

the Bible speaks of God's faithfulness,

and that's where we need to anchor.

It's interesting to me that the Bible speaks

of God's faithfulness well before it does ours.

And I'm thankful for that. Our faithfulness

is a response to the faithfulness God consistently

shows towards His people. Psalm 31:23

Psalms 31:23

says, the Lord preserves the faithful. 1 John 1:9,

1 John 1:9

He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and

to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Revelation 2:10,

Revelation 2:10

which is really the the anchor of what we're looking at,

remaining faithful until death to receive the crown. Remember that

verse because we're going to end with that. And in

19:11 of Revelation, it says that our,

um, Jesus is called faithful and true.

So there's going to be times in our life— we'll get to this in a

moment— there are going to be times in our life when Our

faith is going to be tested. There's no doubt about that.

I don't know if you've ever asked this question,

and I'm guilty of it: where is God?

Where is he? There have been times,

I suppose, in all of our life— lives that

we've asked that question. Maybe you haven't. I wasn't raised in

the church. Tomorrow I celebrate my 46th rebirthday

of being in the Lord. I spent a lot of years

outside of the Lord, and a lot of times I asked that question,

if there's a God, where is he?

A couple had 2 little boys.

Ages 8 and 10, so you can imagine where this is going. They were

very mischievous. There was nothing they

could do without getting in trouble. If anything

was ever stolen, the parents knew exactly what

happened. Well, they heard of this preacher who

had quite a successful way of dealing

with children like this. And so they took the

children to— well, they took one child and they were going to take

the other one to the preacher to see what he could do.

And he was a big guy, a huge man, and he had a very

booming voice. So the 8-year-old comes in

first and he sits him down and

he asks him a question, where is God?

Where is God? The boy didn't have any

idea what to do. He just kind of sat there and his jaw hit

the ground and his eyes were wide open, but he didn't respond to

that. And so the preacher repeated the question with

a sterner tone, where is God?

Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. Well,

the preacher one more time, you know, 3 times and you're out, right? He asked

him one more time, even a louder voice,

where is God?

The boy bolted from the room, ran directly

home, and flew into a closet. He slammed

the door behind him. And when his older brother found him in the

closet, he looked at him and said, what in the world is

going on? Well, the younger brother

just kind of looked at him gasping for breath, and he says,

brother, we're in big trouble this time. God is missing,

and we think he thinks we did it.

Okay, enough of the stories, right?

5 pillars. If you could add to this list

What would you add? We can see the ever-presence of God and ever-knowing

of God and ever-powerful of God, his honesty,

his absoluteness, which kind of goes along with

honesty, truthfulness. What would you add to that list?

Anything?

Steadfastness. That's a good one. I wish I would have put that one down.

But put— please do. Steadfastness. Any others?

Loving. That's a good one.

Love. Mercy.

I'm waiting for another one. Faithful.

Unchanging. Compassionate.

He is a God of— begins with a G— grace.

I love that one. Without that, we'd all be in trouble.

A God of grace.

Omnipresent, omnipotent,

omni— excuse me, omniscient, omnipotent,

omnipresent, honest, and absolute. And again, you can add

to that. Let's look at the

first one here. I hope I got this right now. Okay. The 5 pillars of

God's faithfulness. Omniscient— he is ever-knowing. Hebrews 4:13

Hebrews 4:13

says nothing in all creation is hidden from

God's sight. Kind of goes along with Hebrews, doesn't it?

Nothing is hidden. So there's honesty here.

There's no pretending to

God or trying to hide from him. David tried

it. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it.

There is decisions that are made when we think of his all-knowing.

Does it reflect the kind of person you want to be rather

than only what other people see?

Think about that. Then there's comfort.

When you're confused or worried, believe that God knows

the whole situation, and that ought to give

us reassurance.

And then you come to his ever-powerful being

that he is, omnipotent.

Ephesians 3:20 says, to him who is able to do exceedingly

Ephesians 3:20

and abundantly more than I could ever dream or imagine.

That has been my favorite verse for 40 years of my

tenure of preaching. Even before that,

I love that verse. It really says it all about God.

He's able— just the first few words.

I'm not, especially when it comes to remaining

faithful until death without him. It's not going

to happen. So, so we want to invite God

into our ordinary decisions. We want to

invite him into our relationships, into our struggles,

difficult moments. He wants to hear about those

things, not just the good times.

Well, how do we deal with that? How about praying,

asking God for wisdom? Strength, patience, and guidance,

trusting Him in all difficulties instead of

carrying your burdens. What's the Bible tell us to do?

Give them to Him. Matthew 11:28-30, and there's

Matthew 11:28–30

so many other different passages that help us to understand about that.

How about practicing love and forgiveness,

showing kindness and patience and compassion,

those things that you would already express in grace

to others. Omnipresent,

He's ever-present. Psalm 139:7-10,

Psalms 139:7–10

David says, where can I escape Your Spirit?

Where can I go? Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I go to heaven— finish it.

You're there. If I make my bed in Sheol,

You are there.

It's a good thing to begin your day with God, is it not?

It's also a good thing to end your day with Him,

and then everywhere in between. You know, before we

check our phone and get on social media and starting our activities,

It's so important for us to take a moment and pray,

thanking God for the day, thanking him for the breath that you have that

morning, guiding your thoughts, guiding your words and

your actions. And we might ask, are those consistent with

what God teaches me about love and

honesty and forgiveness and doing what is right?

And then you come to the 4th pillar, being honest.

He is ever truthful. Hebrews 6:18,

Hebrews 6:18

God gave a promise and an oath for 2 unchangeable

things that cannot change. Number one, God— or

because God cannot lie, and giving strong

encouragement to people who run to him for

safety. There's times in our life when we

think of this pillar, this honesty that

surrounds God for who he is, it ought to

relieve us of the burden of overthinking.

Have you ever done that? Have you thought yourself right out

of a situation? I remember a movie one time

where the actor said, whatever you're thinking, rethink it.

That might be a good motto for us. Maybe there's

times we need to rethink it to figure out what everything is going on,

and more than that, to trust him for his answers.

Freedom to be completely honest.

You can't not be honest with God.

You can do that with others, you can try,

but you can't do it with him. You've got to be honest.

He knows, he knows what's going on in your

life. He still offers truth and love.

And then of course, a solid anchor in times of difficulty and crisis

when situations feel like we read in the parable

of the of building our house on the rock or the sinking sand,

the promise of God remains as solid.

And then the last one,

absolute, never ever

changing. Malachi 3:6,

Malachi 3:6

God's character stays constant.

And that is why I pray that we find safety.

Trusting him during change.

Relationships have a way of changing.

Circumstances and situations that we go through have a

way of changing, but God's character,

who he is, remains constant.

Rely on his promises instead of basing your faith

on how you feel. What's the problem with

that one? I should maybe be asking more questions here, but what's

the problem with that one, basing your faith on how you feel?

Is there a problem with that? Yeah,

it's going to change. You feel the same thing or

have the same mind every day? It's kind

of like, uh, Groundhog Day, isn't it? You wake up and

the alarm clock goes off and here you go again.

It's a cool movie, it's a good movie. Being consistent.

God is faithful and dependable. All he

asks of us is to be ourself.

That's all he asks. Just be yourself. You're a

child of God. We are to change the world.

We have the good news. We've got the best news,

and that's what they need. And then of course,

finding peace when life is uncertain.

What will happen? God's nature,

his goodness and faithfulness never

change. Never change.

So we need to focus on

the everlasting faithfulness of

God. I put some other ones down here that I didn't put,

but all you've got to do is go through the book of Psalms and you'll

find plenty, plenty of verses. Deuteronomy 7:9,

Deuteronomy 7:9

Know that the Lord your God is God,

the faithful God who keeps His gracious

covenant for 1,000 generations.

How far is that? How long is that?

And for those who love Him and keep His commands.

Psalm 12:1, I know there's some up there, but I've also got some Psalms.

Psalms 12:1

Faithfulness has diminished among people,

but that contrasts the very character of God. Psalm 33:4,

Psalms 33:4

all His work is done, everything that He does is

done in faithfulness. Psalm 36:5,

Psalms 36:5

God's faithfulness reaches to the

heavens. Psalm 89:1-2,

Psalms 89:1–2

In other verses in that Psalm, His faithfulness is proclaimed

throughout generations, and it is praised among heavenly

beings. Who would that be? Even His

angels do that. He's surrounded.

He is surrounded by faithfulness. Psalm 92:2,

Psalms 92:2

His faithfulness is proclaimed by night.

Psalm 105, his faithfulness endures to

all generations.

Lamentations 3:23,

Lamentations 3:23

great is your faithfulness. We have a song, I believe, a hymn that we sing

that expresses that. 1 Thessalonians 5:24,

1 Thessalonians 5:24

the one who calls you is faithful.

And he will do it. 2 Timothy 2:13,

2 Timothy 2:13

if we are faithless, he remains faithful,

for he cannot deny himself. 1 Peter 4:19,

1 Peter 4:19

so then those who suffer according to God's

will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator

and continue to do good.

How, or why, I suppose we should ask,

why can we rest in God's faithfulness?

Someone want to answer that? How can we do that?

I don't want this to be a full lecture because I'll probably run

out of time. How can we do that? Why, why can

we rest in God's faithfulness? Just— okay, He can't lie.

He's not going to lie. He can't do it. It goes against His nature.

Okay, He always does what He says. Are there times that we're

not going to perhaps like that when

He kind of interrupts our life the way we want to

live? We have our own definition, do we not,

of faithfulness? What we think is faithful and what

he thinks.

Anything else? There was a lady back

in California and she'd say to me, oh, Sister Laura,

she'd say, you don't want to get a whooping from the Lord.

There you go. What she said was saying was that there are times when the

Lord Yes.

Okay, good.

That's all good. Why does God—

Psalm 31, just get— by the way, Psalm 31:23,

Psalms 31:23

it It says, the Lord preserves the faithful.

Why? Why does He preserve the faithful

versus perhaps the unfaithful?

For His name's sake? They trust Him?

Has your trust in Him ever waned?

Have there been times when your faith wasn't as strong? As it

should have been? If you can, if you

can answer that in the affirmative, please see me after class.

Or not affirmative, I guess, if you've never had that problem,

because it's a problem, brother.

Very good. That's a good

one. Good.

Yeah, someone once counted— I don't know who it was— someone once counted

in the Bible how many times it says fear not or don't be afraid.

They said 365 times. Isn't that interesting?

Isn't that interesting? Every day,

every day we can find a verse that helps

us understand that.

Isaiah 25:1 that's on the screen is amazing.

Isaiah 25:1

O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt

You. I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things.

Your counsels of old are faithfulness and

Psalm— or excuse me, Matthew 25:33,

Matthew 25:33

Jesus says, well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful over little. Enter into the

joy of the Lord. If there's any words

I want to hear, on Judgment Day are

those. Enter into the joy of the

Lord. I don't want to hear, and I don't want you to hear,

or you don't want anybody else to hear, depart from me,

I never knew you. That would be horrible.

Enter in. That's what we're all looking for.

We want to be with him. And the faithful have gone on.

John 16:33, again, in this life you will have trials and

John 16:33

tribulations, but be of good cheer because I've

overcome it. Anything we go through in life,

anything, you've got to understand that Jesus

went through. Because if he didn't, he couldn't be

our high priest. He knows.

1 Corinthians 1:9, as we read, God is faithful.

1 Corinthians 1:9

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, no temptation

1 Corinthians 10:13

has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But here it is again,

God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're

able, but with the temptation, with the

temptation will also make the way of escape that you're

able to bear.

It. I don't know about you, but when I'm tempted— and I've had that problem—

I just want it gone. Don't you? Just get it out of my life.

But God says, no, I'm going to use that temptation to

teach you something. You're going to be stronger

in your faith. And that's an important situation.

2 Timothy, we're going to use this towards the end

too, but we'll read it now. 2 Timothy 4,

you know these verses, 6 through 8. Paul is ready to

give it up. He knows he's going to die.

He knows where he's going. And he says, for I'm already being

poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure

is at hand. I've fought the good fight,

I've finished the race, and here it comes.

I've kept the faith. How many times have you heard that slogan

said? Keep the faith. Keep the faith. All is

well. It's easy to say.

It's easy to say.

Finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness,

which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day,

but not to me only. But all those who

love His appearing. Do you love the appearing of

the Lord? Are you waiting for Him to come back and take us home?

Hebrews 3:2, Jesus was faithful.

Hebrews 3:2

1 John 1:9, as we said, I think, He's faithful and just

1 John 1:9

to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from

all unrighteousness. 1 John 5:13,

1 John 5:13

these things are written that you may know— there's a present future

tense there, by the way— that you may know that you have eternal life.

We're looking forward to being with him, but John says you've

got it now. That's in your possession.

And that's what a way to look at it. And then of course

Revelation 2:10, be faithful until death, and Jesus

Revelation 2:10

called faithful and true.

You can add to this list because it has

to be one that we could never find enough.

Hebrews 11 is filled with people,

but people throughout the Bible, Old Testament,

New Testament, We think of Job,

examples of those whose faith was shaken

by difficult circumstances. His faith was

tested. What happened to Job? Not only his faith was

tested, what else happened to him in the first couple

chapters? Okay, his children

are gone. His health is gone.

Was he pretty rich? Did he have a lot of wealth? What happened

to that? Gone. Was he a man of integrity?

A blameless man before God? Isn't that what it says in the first

couple verses? What happened to that?

He didn't see it. That was gone in

a very short period. And one thing Job did that

perhaps we all do at times, we ask God why instead

of who.

Why? We've got to remember who God

is. And when you get to the end of the book and

everything is restored to him double-fold, He says

these words in verse 5 of chapter 42,

now my eyes have seen you.

I've heard, but now my eyes see you.

Noah, he trusted God despite having

no visible evidence of the coming flood. It didn't even

rain on the earth.

He built the ark because God commanded to, to the exact dimensions

that he gave him. Genesis 6.

Abraham. Abraham is known as

who? The father of our faith.

The father of our faith. Did he have his moments?

Did he have his fears that led him to

say Sarah was his sister? Rather than trusting God's

protection, in Genesis 12 he lied to Pharaoh.

In Genesis 20 he lied to Abimelech.

He did it twice.

Twice. Sarah struggled

to believe that God would give her a child, and what did she

do? She laughed. Thought that was

Funny. Moses, overwhelmed by his calling,

what did he do? When God told him to do what

he needed to do, what did Moses do? I can't speak.

All right, here comes the excuses, right?

Excuses, excuses, you hear them every day.

Reasons. How did God deal with that? He finally told

him to what? Get going.

The Israelites, God's people,

repeatedly dealt with fear and hardship,

caused them to doubt God, despising— or despite

witnessing his power. How many times did they witness his power?

The Red Sea crossing was just one of them.

Giving them food and clothing that didn't

wear out for 40 years,

and they still didn't believe.

David, many of his Psalms, as we've already looked

at, express the periods of fear and doubt and loneliness

and questioning. Yet he was a man,

what? After God's own heart. It's interesting,

Acts tells us that instead of a psalm,

but he trusted in God.

Elijah, a great

spiritual victory that he had. What happened after that victory?

Did he, did he just rest on that victory,

or was he— did he become discouraged for any reason?

Jezebel, they're gonna kill me.

And he hides in a cave. And what's God tell him to do?

Get going. He's gonna tell us the same thing

because again, his faithfulness is

the foundation of ours.

It's got to be that way. Peter,

The impetuous one, putting his sandal

in his mouth all the time, or foot.

When he got out of the boat and said

he would come to Jesus, the only time he sank was when

what? When he took his eyes off

the Lord. The storms of life will handle you,

will hand you that. Because there's going

to be times in our life when the storms come and we take

our eyes and our focus off of the only one who can calm the

storm, and that's Christ.

What about Thomas? We, you know, I, I don't know about you, but I think

sometimes we're kind of rough on Thomas. We call him the Doubting

Thomas. Did you ever read more about his life?

About what happened. You know, just because he didn't realize

who Jesus was or what was going on, or that He came back from the

dead until he touched Him,

the scars, the holes,

he wanted evidence. You know, Hebrews 6:12,

Hebrews 6:12

the Christian Standard Version says, we don't want

you to become lazy. But to imitate

those who through faith and patience inherit

what has been promised. When you read through the book of Hebrews, you see all

the heroes of faith who trusted God, who had faith in God.

Did they receive the promise? Not then.

Moses, all of them didn't receive the promise right

away. It was something that was afar off.

And for us, it's the same way. We have the promise, but it's,

it's not here yet. And when we're all with the Lord in

heaven and with one another, we will truly understand

that. Having your

faith shaken doesn't

mean your story is over.

Please remember that your story is

not over. All of these people,

all of us sitting here tonight, others that we know

in our communities struggle,

but God continues to

work in our life because he faithful.

The stories of those we looked at tonight, plus so many others,

shows us the importance of turning our attention

back to God, especially when

the storms of life are overwhelming.

So God's faithfulness is the foundation of

of ours.

Faithfulness is never going to be easy. Why? Because Satan and sin

make a daily struggle for us. But do

you have the ability to fulfill God's plan for your life?

Yes, we do. How do you do that?

Draw near to God, resist the devil,

and he'll flee from you. Study the Bible.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing

by the Word of God. We know

that verse, don't we? Surround yourself

with God's people. Surround yourself.

When we couple discernment with counting the

cost of commitments, You can be sure that those things

we commit are truly God's

will for us. And because God is faithful,

he will provide us with the necessary strength, time,

and resources to echo,

to resemble his faithfulness.

2 Timothy 4. 6 through 8 one more time.

Paul fought the good fight, he finished the

race, and he kept the faith.

What was waiting for him was the crown of righteousness

that was reserved for him,

but not only to him, but to all who

love his appearing. You couple that verse with

Revelation 2:10. What's it say?

Revelation 2:10

Be faithful unto death to what? To receive

the crown of righteousness.

We all want that. We want that

crown. And I believe every day we're hopefully putting

gems in that crown. Maybe perhaps God gives us gems

that are so valuable because

of his faithfulness, you can't put

a price on them. His love, his compassion,

his mercy, his grace, the way he

puts up with us at times, the way he disciplines us

at times because he loves us. You know,

we can look at discipline in a kind of a negative way, but discipline,

all it means is training, educating.

That's really what it means. We think of discipline as,

you know, taking that child over our knee and give

them a little paddywhack or whatever we might want to do. But I don't know,

today you can get in trouble for doing that, but You know,

about spare the rod, spoil the child.

Um, I've talked a lot tonight and I probably shouldn't have, but any, any comments,

anything? You know, I, all I wanted to do was get across the

faithfulness of God versus ours. But we've got

so many, as Charles brought out last week, so many in our life

perhaps we can look for that, but there's so many in the Bible

that definitely we can relate to.

They were just like us. They're people, common people

dealing with life,

and it can hand you a mess,

but God's already cleaned it up. The blood of

Christ has cleansed us and continues to do so.

Saved by the bell. Let's have a quick prayer.

Father God, as we approach you tonight, we're so thankful for your faithfulness because

it truly is the foundation of our lives. Help us

always to live faithful lives, Father, knowing that the reward

that we have is being with you,

being with your Son, being with all those that we

looked at tonight and so many others that have been faithful

till death. Help us to understand that it might even cause

that for us to be faithful, as it did our brothers

and sisters in the book of Revelation. But we know

that you're with us. It's in Jesus' name we

pray. Amen. Thank you.