Let me show you a truth found within a parable of Jesus: The "Faithfulness Principal".
Matthew 25:21 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’
The principal Jesus is teaching in this parable is that God rewards the good and faithful servant. Faithfulness in a few things leads to responsibility and rulership over more things.
Do you want responsibility? God wants to bless you with it. But He wants you to prove yourself with faithfulness in a few things before He gives you more things.
Think of a train. Our church meets on the second floor of a building and on the ground floor is a train station known as GO Transit. The GO train consistently picks up passengers on that platform based on a planned schedule. That requires discipline to keep up with. What good is a train which never shows up on time, or does not show up at all? You will get very few passengers that way. But a faithful train means MORE passengers will come to trust in and rely on that train over time. The same is true in our lives, especially as leaders in the church. We must prove ourselves as dependable based on God's schedule.
We are to be good and faithful servants.
Goodness ONLY comes from God. Only God is good. (Mat 19:17; Mar 10:18; Luk 18:19)
And God sent His Perfect sinless Son, Jesus Christ. In order for us to be saved from the wrath of God to come, we must be washed in the blood of Jesus and forgiven by Him for our sins. We don't work for it, we cannot earn our way to heaven. Jesus did all the work that was necessary for our salvation already. Now we just need to call on Jesus and believe He died for our sins and that God raised Him from the dead. Call Jesus Lord and then obey Him.
After being saved by grace (not works), we then practice right living from a regenerated spirit in the Holy Spirit. Faithfulness comes from consistently applying your efforts and time to the things of the Lord, where-ever He calls you. In order to hear God's Call, you must KNOW Him. You must have RELATIONSHIP to Him. Religion does not cut it. Only a living relationship to God through Christ will enable you to have the spiritual EARS to HEAR the Spirit of God calling you.
That is what it means, in essense to be a "good and faithful" servant. Our goodness comes from God alone, not ourselves. There is nothing good in ourselves. But when Christ enters us, we are covered and cleansed and made "good" by His grace!
And our faithfulness is the result of a Holy Spirit-empowered life... a new nature given to us by Christ! (2 Cor. 5:17)
Within this parable is the truth of faithfulness, or as I am calling it, the "Faithfulness Principal". Faithfulness leads to MORE. It is not the other way on. God does not reward you with MORE, then expect you to start practicing faithfulness. No. God instead gives you a little, and then lets you practice consistent responsibly stewardship (faithfulness).
God WANTS TO GIVE YOU MORE!!!
He loves to give His born-again children more blessings, more rewards, and more responsibility. But it must be on HIS TERMS, using His Faithfulness Principal.
This faithfulness principal is true not just for eternity, where we get an eternal reward, but it works in this life too, over a period of time. Listen to Jesus' response to Peter's statement:
Mark 10: 28-31
28 Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.”
29 So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s,
30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.
31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
So by forsaking yourself and the world, and following Jesus faithfully, you get rewards and responsibilities both NOW (in your present life) and in ETERNITY.
Just don't overlook the fact that Jesus says that the NOW rewards of serving Him will also come with persecutions. And also remember that when we are promoted in this life or the next, we should accept it with HUMILITY because Jesus says many who are first shall be last and many who are last shall be first. So keep yourself humble before Jesus and His family.
I got MORE responsibility (as a youth pastor first and then as an assistant pastor) because of faithfulness. God graciously empowered me.
The BIBLICAL PRINCIPAL is this: Faithfulness Results In More Responsibility. Some people look at my faithful attendance in church and say I'm consistent because I am a pastor. No... I am sorry, but no. If I was not faithful FIRST, I would never have become a pastor at all! I follow Jesus' pattern. My life is an example of it. The Faithfulness Principal is true!
I am an assistant pastor today BECAUSE I am faithful (by the Lord's Grace). Pastoring came only after I was proven faithful for 4 years at the same church, with consistent attendance and genuine, consistent evidence of Christian lifestyle and practice.
SO, needless to say, In order to be faithful you have to be ALL IN. There is no such thing as half-hearted faithfulness. God is only interested in WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS.
And whole-heartedness leads to consistency in all things.
Consistency in prayer. Consistency in worship. Consistency in the Word. Consistency in obedience to the Spirit. Consistency in relationship to Jesus (Christianity is not merely a set of religious rules. It is a relationship). Consistency to God's family, the local church.
It always begins with faithfulness to the Lord's Call. And it doesn't happen over night.
Me, I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit 19 years ago, that I cannot be a "hermit Christian" any longer. I became a born-again Spirit-filled believer at age 6. My mother led me to the Lord, and I still remember that night. I was also raised in church and taught the Bible by my parents, especially my dad (who has now gone home to rejoice with Jesus). But when my parents stopped attending church in my youth, so did I. But the early memories of confessing my faith as a child in church still live on in my mind quite vividly. And I remember from a young age what a Spirit filled church was like.
Those experiences laid in my heart dormant, but present.
I became a hermit for my teen years. I loved the Lord, but was no longer going to church, no longer getting the spiritual support I so clearly needed from a spiritual family.
1 Peter 5:5 Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”
James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
1 Corinthians 16:16 that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us.
Then, I learned in college the hard way that Christians aren't meant to be alone. I had no elders to be accountable to so I got into some entrapments. God delivered me from them thanks to my natural father being able to hear from the Spirit of God and pray for me and also with me.
So after graduating with a diploma in Applied Photography, and being set free, I got back to my home town. Then God led me to my current church. I just came in off the street, walked into the Tannery Mall (a four-storey multi-use marketplace building) and discovered a church. The door was locked, and there was no service running at that moment. But God impressed me that I should return there for a Sunday service. It said "full gospel Christian Fellowship" in the window. That triggered a memory: I remember years ago asking my dad what kind of Christians we were: he said we are Full Gospel Christians. So even though my parents did not attend (except for a couple of special visits) I do owe it to my parents for raising me right and for arming me with the right understanding of Scripture.
So I did return a couple of weeks later, and started attending on my own every week, in the year 2000. I was a young man at the time, in my 21st year of life.
Eventually, because I kept showing up, the leaders saw potential in me and gave me something to do in the church. Faithfulness breeds opportunity. One thing led to another and I trained and studied under the lead pastor. I was involved in youth ministry in 2001. Later in 2001 I became a Bible teacher, following a lesson plan for adults.
Then in 2003 I was sponsored by my pastor for credentials. I was made into a pastor by my church in 2004. At the time I was "Youth Pastor".
Since then the Lord performed a MIRACLE and PRESERVED me in the Call to Ministry. I endured abandonment and loss over the years. I endured friends walking away. I was the only one in my family to walk this particular ministry path.
It could have been very lonely for me if it wasn't for God's gift in my life. God has gifted me with the ability to always know He is near. I am not worthy on my own, but He never leaves me. That's His awesome GRACE (unmerited favour).
I have never felt that God is absent. Instead, I have this awareness of God's rich presence. God is with me. Thank you Jesus for this precious gift!!
And because of Him, Jesus Christ, I am able to stand. I have no strength on my own. I still fall and faulter and God is always there to lift me up and get me going forward again. Jesus is faithful. I learned faithfulness from Jesus.
So by standing all these years, I have become an Assistant Pastor (since 2012) who teaches adults on Tuesday night services, teaches youth on Sunday mornings, and leads worship with digital piano and voice three times a week. I even train spiritual children in ministry, and they help me on the worship team on Sunday mornings!
I am grateful and humbled that God could use someone so imperfect as me. Yet His blood and Spirit makes me perfectly complete and His process over time makes me mature.
So, almost 19 years later, I am still in the church, and there is NO QUESTION that God has called me and established me. I have proven myself in Christ. Thanks and glory be to God alone for establishing me and keeping me.
You CAN be faithful too as God's principals for Biblical Christian living are not subject to favourtism. You CAN become a pastor if the Lord calls you to it, and you apply yourself. He gives His Spirit freely to those who are born again (John 3:3). By His Spirit, you can do whatever it is that God calls you to do. (1 Cor 7:17)
Faithfulness is what God rewards. Faithfulness in Christ's strength will lead you to your destiny, no matter what it is. It may not be pastoring. It could be some other place or position in the church and marketplace and home. But whatever it is, you need to apply yourself consistently to it, and don't expect grand results or instant change.
Faithfulness is continuing with nothing ever seems to change.
Faithfulness is continuing even when family, lovers or friends abandon you over God's calling.
Faithfulness is continuing because you know God called you to it. Obedience to Christ is key.
If you start answering the call daily, weekly, on a regular basis in obedience to the Holy Spirit, then God CAN and WILL use you too! God rewards faithfulness and anyone off the street can start being faithful, in God's Spirit, for the Holy Spirit has no limits. I am living proof of God's faithfulness principal.
God bless you!
Pastor Curtis
Assistant Pastor
Church On The GO .ca
Feb 3 2019 2:45pm EST
