Fruits of the Spirit, Part 3

If you remember back, either when you first came into the truth, or if you grew up in the church, there's still a point that there's some point in your life that this really begins to get real. And you begin to seek baptism, and you have this increase in your faith. You begin to understand the Bible in a level, in ways that you never understood before. You begin to see God's involvement in your life, you begin to pray more, and you know that God is answering prayers, God's involved, and you have this sort of rush, an increase in your faith. And then you come along, you start obeying, God calls you into the body of Christ, He calls you into the church, and you begin to grow, and things go on.

And sometimes when your prayers aren't answered all the way you thought they would be, or you have problems, or tragedies of life that you never thought you would have, and then there's just the everyday grind. I mean, you know, it's the job problems, the financial problems, and the health problems, and the family problems, and the conflicts with people, and the conflicts that you have to deal with with each other, even in the church that we have to deal with. And these things just pile up, and pile up, and pile up, and after a while, that faith that you thought nothing could shake begins to sort of weaken. I mean, I've been in the church longer, longer, longer, I should have more and more faith. And yet, it seems like on a regular basis, there's some crisis of faith. How come I keep having these crises? It seems like I should be a mature Christian now, and I should always just trust God, and everything works out, but that's not the way life is. And we struggle with this. One of the difficulties we face in life is the lifelong journey of remaining faithful. We're going to talk about faith today, because it's one of the fruits of God's Spirit. But we're going to talk about not just having faith, or just having belief in God, but what it means to remain faithful. Let's go to Galatians 5, because to remain faithful, and that's how it's translated here in English. This is the Greek word faith, but most translations, because of the context, do not translate this word simply as faith. Verse 22, For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, love, suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We've gone through self-control, where we've talked about how we have to learn to control our actions, control our emotions, control our habits with the help of God's Spirit. And we have to participate in that. We've talked about things we have to do as part of our interaction with God's Spirit. But we learn self-control by learning God's control. Of course, God has total self-control. We went through neatness, that there is a humility before God we have to have that is so profound that it affects the way we treat other people. It gives us a patience. It gives us a calmness of Spirit. And I've talked to lots of people and said, I really struggle with that one now that I know what it means. And I said, oh, I do too. The calmness of Spirit, because we are in this humble relationship with God. So we have to participate in that relationship so that God's Spirit can work in us so that we can have that calmness of Spirit. Aren't you glad that God has a calmness of Spirit? He never acts out of control. He never loses it. Whether it's anger or frustration or all these negative emotions, that never happens with Him. Everything is always a calmness of Spirit, even when He's angry. It's measured because of that.

And now we get to faithfulness. When our faith wanes, we begin to think that God isn't with us. He has abandoned us. Things aren't working out the way we thought. We have all these burdens and things that we're carrying. And it seems like maybe God isn't involved in our lives like He used to be. And when that happens, we lose faithfulness towards God. Faithfulness has to do with being loyal, it has to be with being devoted, dependable. In other words, we are loyalty to God, that we are faithful. We remain faithful. Think about how we use the word faithful in marriage. You know, I have a faithful husband. I know he's not going to go out and commit adultery.

And, you know, a faithful husband is going to do that for 50 years or whatever longer you're married to. Now, that doesn't mean a long line. Sometimes a man or a woman will break the marriage vows in one way or another, maybe commit an adultery. But if they repent and the marriage is saved, what happens? They remain faithful. So, this lapse in being faithful, it's damage. It doesn't mean the relationship can't be repaired. The same way with God. As we go through this, we're going to see that we have these struggles with faith. What we're learning is, and what God is building in us, is the ability to remain faithful to God. In the crises, in the problems, you know, remaining faithful when everything is perfect is not hard. Remaining faithful when it's difficult, that's where it really becomes reality.

So, in this third of these fruits of the Spirit, faithfulness is something you and I can do on our own. You know, the Bible talks about how we bring faith to God. If we do not have faith, we cannot then respond to God. We have to have faith. We have to believe that He is. We have to believe that He's the rewarder of those who obey Him. I mean, you think about the definitions of faith in the Scripture. We have to trust Him.

Faithfulness, though, is continuing to do that throughout difficult times.

It is remaining faithful, loyal, dependable. So, the word itself, the way it's used here, means there has to be times where you struggle with your faithfulness.

To struggle with that relationship with God.

You and I bring faith to the table, wee wee little bit.

Faithfulness, to remain faithful in this spiritual journey of a lifetime, can only happen with God's help. You and I cannot remain faithful on our own to God.

Even remaining faithful to God takes His Spirit in us. You can't do it on your own. I can't do it on my own.

So, as we submit to God's Spirit, we will learn faithfulness.

Let's look at an example of faithfulness in the book of Exodus.

We know in Exodus 20, God came down on Mount Sinai.

The people heard a voice they heard. They saw thunder and lightning. They knew God was there.

There was no lack of faith among the Israelites.

They believed God was there.

They wanted to do everything He said.

After He gave the Ten Commandments, they said, we will do them.

They had this enormous experience of faith coming face to face with God.

Then we have in Exodus 24, an interesting Exodus 24. Exodus 24.

And verse 9.

Then Moses went up, also Aaron, they dabbed in a by-whoo, and seventy of the elders of Israel. I want you to notice that Moses is here and Aaron is here.

And the seventy elders of Israel. This is a fairly large group of people.

And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under His feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone.

And it was like the very heavens in His clarity.

But on the nobles of the children of Israel, He did not lay His hand, so they saw God, and they ate, and they drank.

Now, this is a very privileged group of people.

They came before, they went up on the mountain, and they saw God.

At least, it was probably a vision of God. It wasn't even literally a state, or they would have died.

But it's all a vision of God.

Now, that's a real faith builder, isn't it?

Believe me, when they came down from that mountain, they had faith.

But remaining faithful is staying loyal to God, not when you're eating and drinking in a banquet with Him, which is what they were doing.

That's what He does when it seems like He's not there. That's when it gets tough.

That's when it gets tough.

So, at that point, there was no problem with their faith.

But let's go on just a little later, because God now calls Moses up to the mountain, and He disappears.

Joshua goes up partway with Him, and He says, you have to stay here.

And Joshua stays on the mountain.

And days go by, and weeks go by.

And Moses is gone, and Joshua is gone.

So we go to Exodus 32. Exodus 32.

Verse 1.

Now, you know the story. It was good to rehearse it.

Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us gods that shall go before us.

As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

Weeks went by, and they're just sitting there.

But remember, they're sitting before Mount Sinai.

There's still a cloud covering Sinai, and it was from that cloud that God spoke to them.

He was still there. They still knew He was there.

But they said, you know, we need something to give us focus here in our worship. Moses is gone. We have no physical leader.

You know, that guy who helped him, Joshua, he's gone too.

All we have is Aaron. Now, remember, the thing here, we're comparing Aaron to Joshua.

Aaron was there at this banquet with God.

He was there.

He had faith. He had faith. He had an enormous faith of experience. He probably didn't sleep at night for days.

Wow! We were there.

We saw this vision of God.

He was just... He was amazing. His wife probably said, okay, I've heard it a hundred times here. No, you shouldn't have seen it.

And there was food laid out for us.

He was so good.

He's better than Anna.

And now he's dealt a problem as a leader that he doesn't know what to do with.

And he's so used to Moses giving him instructions.

He doesn't know what to do. And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in your ears, of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. And you know the story.

He built them an altar.

He lost... He was not faithful even though he believed in God. And when we're talking about faithfulness here, we're not talking about giving up your belief in God.

We're talking about remaining faithful when it seems like God isn't involved anymore.

Aaron believed God wasn't involved anymore.

Somehow the distance between him and God now was so great, even though God was at the top of the mountain.

Because Moses was gone, he didn't know what to do. So he gave in and created an idol which God had forbidden.

Now what's interesting in this story, we have an example of someone who lost his faith and become unfaithful. He still believed in God. That's what's important.

He didn't say, well, the God who brought us out of Egypt is dead. He didn't believe that. In fact, in verse... Let's see where it is here.

Verse 5, So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. To Yahweh is the word there.

He didn't give up the worship of God. He just said, Well, we need something to give us focus here, so we'll build an idol.

He wasn't being faithful to God, even though he still believed in God. He declared a feast day, a holy day, to God. He didn't have the power or authority to do that, but he did it.

Why? Because he had lost his faith, and he could not stay faithful. He still believed. And that's why faith is more than belief. To remain faithful, you have to trust.

To remain faithful, you have to trust.

Aaron had lost his trust in God, and he didn't know what to do.

Joshua, on the other hand, did not. Joshua stayed up on the mountain and didn't have anything to eat for weeks on end.

Except maybe he might have taken a little food with him, a little water, but believe it, he didn't take enough for the time period he was up there.

Joshua remained faithful. He did not give up.

He stayed focused. He trusted. Even though he was going through a trial also. This was different than Aaron's, because Joshua was all alone. That's what I find interesting. Joshua was all alone. Moses didn't come. He stuck there on the side of a mountain, because he told Moses he'd stayed till he came back.

So his is all alone. Totally different trial, but he had to remain faithful. Aaron, on the other hand, had to face a different kind of trial. It was both trials of faithfulness. They both believed in God.

They did not doubt the existence of God or that God was there. It was his involvement.

Why do we have this problem remaining faithful?

Well, let's talk a minute about... and help us work us through this. What is the opposite of faith?

Now, a lot of times we say, well, that's easy. The opposite of faith is unbelief. No, unbelief is the opposite of belief. Remember, both Aaron and Joshua believed in God.

It was not a lack of belief that led Aaron to be unfaithful. It was a lack of trust.

It was a lack of trust.

It is a lack of trust in God that leads us to be unfaithful.

It is a lack of trust in God.

So, what happens to us emotionally when we have a lack of trust in God? Because this is real important. Why do we have so much difficulty trusting God?

I look back at the times of my life where I've had difficulty trusting God, and it always comes down... there might be different issues, but it always comes down to one core problem. Okay? Different issues, but one core problem.

In Genesis 20, we have a story of the Father of the Faithful, Abraham.

But what's amazing, when we go through the story of Abraham, God just doesn't record all the places where He remained faithful. He records the places where He didn't.

He struggled with His faithfulness. It wasn't that He did not believe in God.

Abraham never gave up his belief in God.

But staying faithful to God by obeying Him became very difficult at times. And what we have in chapter 20 of Genesis is that Abraham goes to visit a neighboring...

nation, and a bimalek is the king, and he looks at his wife and says, you know, every place we go, every... you know, Christian, remember, he's the king of a pneumatic tribe. When Abraham goes places... it's not like when you go visit Murfreesboro. Nobody knows who any of them we are. I mean, we walk in there and go anyplace. When Abraham went someplace, everybody knew he was, because there were hundreds and hundreds of people that went with him.

Maybe thousands. He was an entire tribe. Children and adults and servants and their wives and their children and animals. Even if you had thousands and thousands of animals, you could see Abraham coming. A cloud of dust. And probably when he got close enough, you could smell Abraham. Not Abraham himself, but you could smell his tribe coming. And all these sheeps and goats. You ever get around goats? Man. And so you could smell them.

When he showed up, every king, whether it was a nomadic tribe that he was passing through, or the city-states, or even Egypt. When he went to Egypt, we know at another place, Pharaoh took darkness. Oh, a king has arrived. The leader of a tribe, a nomadic tribe, has arrived. And every place that he went, he said, you are the most beautiful woman anybody's ever seen, Sarah. And every place you go, they're going to want you. And probably some king is going to say, Whoa, I got him here. I'll just kill him and take his wife.

So what Abraham said is, since you're my half-sister, well, just tell everybody you're my sister and not my wife. Well, they tell half a lie, because she was half a sister. So they go in there, and Abimelech says, Whoa, is that one gorgeous woman? Who is she? Oh, that's Abraham's sister. Well, go get her. First thing he knows, you know, she's whisked off to the palace, and she's being prepared to become the bride of Abimelech. The problem with Abraham at this point is he's not remaining faithful to God.

Does he believe in God? Yes. But he's not being faithful. He's been dishonest. And why? And this really tells us something. Let's go to verse 10. Genesis 20. Genesis 20. So Abimelech calls him in, because God comes to Abimelech and says, I'm going to kill you for what you're about to do. Genesis says, I thought it was his sister. Abimelech said to Abraham, what did you have in view? Did you have done this thing? What in the world were you thinking?

What was your viewpoint here? So what we would say today, What were you thinking? Did you think this was your sister, not stand up? Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you stop me? God's going to kill me because of this. Then Abraham said, because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife.

But she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife. And it came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said to her, this is your kindness that you should do for me. That's where you go.

Save me. He is my brother. He did this because he was afraid. They will take her and they will kill me. At the core of the reason we don't trust God is because we are afraid. It is fear. We believe in God. We can even believe what he says. There is a difference in believing what he says and doing what he says.

So faith and faithfulness. Faithfulness is the ability to stay loyal to God over the long run when the times are hard, when you still believe in Him, but it doesn't seem like He is there. It doesn't seem like He is interacting. It doesn't seem like He is answering your prayers. But you remain faithful anyways. In this case, God did step in and help Abraham. One thing that is encouraging about faithfulness is that Abraham is the father of the faithful. Abraham's faith is what we look at and say, we need to have that kind of faith when we come to God.

But when you look at the story of Abraham, you see that his faith faltered at times. And whatever it did, what did God do? God used the situation to teach him more faith. So Abraham brings his faith to the table, and God says, that's not enough to get you through a lifetime. So I'm going to have to build faithfulness in you. So we come to God with this little bit of faith, and God gives us His Spirit.

And then He spends a lifetime teaching us how to be faithful. What's encouraging is, it took a lifetime to teach Abraham that. If it took a lifetime to teach Abraham that, it's going to take a lifetime to teach you and me that. So when we struggle with faithfulness, remember, yeah, this is a long journey. And God's going to be working with us every step of the way to create in us the ability to be faithful so that we can respond even when we're afraid. And fear is such a major issue. Let's look at some situations in the Bible where fear is an issue in faith.

The first one, the first situation we're going to look at teaches us that one of the problems we have is that we fear that God will fulfill His promises because we want lives with no difficulties or problems. So we fear that if I obey God, I'll have difficulties and problems. Of course, if you don't obey God, you're going to have difficulties and problems. But we don't usually think that through. So we fear that God won't do what He says. He won't fulfill His promises. I mean, doesn't God promise us health? Then why do I have health problems? Doesn't God promise us prosperity? Why am I without a job and they're kicking me out of my house? Doesn't God promise us a good life?

Well, why did I have a child die or a spouse that died? This isn't in God's promises. So we fear God won't really carry out what He says because there are times when it seems like He's not. And we now have to remain faithful.

We believe in God. You know, one of the places where we see this is in Deuteronomy 1. Deuteronomy 1. And Moses here is telling the ancient Israelites, He's reminding them of what happened the first time they came up to the Promised Land. Because this is the second time they're before the Promised Land. He says, first time your fathers and your mothers did not go into the Promised Land. They died out in the desert because they sent in twelve spies. They came back and said, it's great. Or two of them said, it's great God has given it to us.

And ten of them said, these problems are so great, God's not going to fulfill His problems. God's not going to do what He said. He said He would give us this land. And there's people there that are big and we're short. We're small. You know, we're going to go fight the NFL. You know, it's like we're fighting the NFL and the NBA combined together. We're all little short people. We can't go beat them. And so God's not going to fulfill that promise.

You know, we thought we were going to go in here and fight a bunch of midgets or something. No! So God's not going to fulfill His promise. Notice what He says then in verse 26 of Deuteronomy 1. So this is Moses reiterating that story. He says, "'Nevertheless, you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord, and you complained in your tents and said, "'Because the Lord hates us.'" God has to hate me to let this happen in my life.

You know, if we're not careful, we can judge other people that way, too. God must allow this to happen to you because you're really bad. I was actually talking to someone a couple months ago, it wasn't from this area, that said that they had had a child die, and they had people come up to them and say, "'I'm praying for you to find out why you're so evil that God would allow your child to die.'" God must hate you because He's not in your life.

I thought, wow, I wonder what happened because that person probably had some terrible things happen to them in their lives. But this is how we do sometimes. Well, God hates me. Just bad things happen to me. God must hate me. He's abandoned me. He doesn't want me. Or this wouldn't happen. Have you ever thought that way? God must hate me. I must be thrown out. He must throw me away.

I must have no use to Him anymore because this is happening to me. Because the Lord hates us. He has brought us out of the land in Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.

Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying that people are greater and taller than we. The cities are greater and fortified up to Heavens. Moreover, we have seen the sons of Anakin there. Moses says, and I said to them, do not be terrified or afraid of them. The Lord your God goes before you. He will fight for you according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes. He destroyed the Egyptian army. These people are nothing compared to the Egyptian army. But they were so afraid. Their conclusion was, God must hate us. God is no longer with us.

They believed in God, by the way. They didn't say, well, this proves God doesn't exist. What did they say? This proves God hates us. This proves God doesn't really care. And now what are we going to do? We're on our own. And we can't go fight those people. Well, that's the truth. They couldn't. The Israelites were over matched here. They couldn't go fight those people. They had to have the faith to say, God exists and God will fulfill His promises.

The boy sure didn't seem like he was going to at the time. This is what we get sometimes. Moses is to be so afraid. It is God who will have to do this. In your life and my life, there are times we have to go to God and say, and you've heard me say this before, but you have to go before God and say, I can't do this.

I can't. I don't have the power to do this. And God says, ah! You finally figured it out. And He will then, as we submit, He will give us the ability as we submit to do it. Now, you have to submit. The Israelites still had to pick up their swords and march into Canaan. They still had to pick up their swords and march into the Canaan.

But God was going to go with them. We will always have fear. When we measure life by the size of the greatness of the obstacles, we will find faith when we measure life by the greatness of God. Understand that. We will always have fear when we measure life by the bigness of the problems we face. We can only have faith and remain faithful when we measure life by the greatness of God.

Even when we say, God's not going to fulfill that promise. Because sometimes we misunderstand promises. God doesn't promise to keep us all alive until Christ comes back. What if Christ doesn't come back for 50 years? I won't be here. And yet all my life I believed I'm going to get to see Christ coming back because I'm going to be alive. What if that... but see, He didn't promise me that. That's what I wanted.

So it's sort of a hope I have. But you know, I never promised that. And in the meantime, I have to face that. That, hey, God says, no, you're not going to be alive when Christ returns. I'll resurrect you then. Well, you didn't fulfill your promise. I never promised you that. It is fear that keeps us from following God, not trusting God, when it seems like the promises aren't being fulfilled.

A second example... And this... we really have to understand this one, because this happens more often than we really realize. We fear that God won't give us what we really want. We're not faithful because that's not what I want. Here's what I want. I prayed and asked God for it. But, you know, I'm really... I just feel with fear God's not going to give me what I want. I really wanted this new job.

I prayed about it. I fasted about it. I'd ask everybody else to pray about it. But I fear God's not going to give it to me. I mean, how many times have we seen someone leave the church as a young person, marry somebody, then everybody says, oh, that marriage isn't going to work.

And three years later, they're divorced, and the young person's life is devastated, and it all came down to, I did not trust in God enough to give me a mate. And I wanted a mate. I wanted to get married. And I was afraid God wasn't going to give me what I wanted. I looked around in the church and thought, but I don't want any of these guys.

I want this guy, or I want this girl. This is the girl I want. And I said, nah, nah, that's not a good one. Nope, that's what I want. So we live in this fear that God's not going to give us what we want.

I mean, think about the parable of the talents. Remember Matthew 25? The person who got the one talent comes back when the business owner gives you the talent leaves, comes back and says, what are you telling the one talent? He says, nothing. I knew you weren't fair, so I hid my talent, and here it is. You get back exactly what you got because you just weren't going to be fair. And a lot of times we live in fear that God's going to be fair when fairness isn't something He always promises us either, but we live in this fear, and the result is we hide what He's given to us.

We don't use what He's given to us. And so we just hide it. We bury ourselves. Instead of letting God do what He wants to do, nope, nope, nope. Because what I wanted, I wanted to marry a woman that was 5'2", blonde, blue-eyed, could play the guitar, and you gave me this woman. And God says, oh, I'm glad, because that woman would have ruined your life. Or you would have ruined hers. But you gave me this woman.

Yeah, man. Do you know God's answer is, boy, do I do good work. And our answer is, but no, no, no, no, that's not what I wanted. And we live in this fear. So we don't believe God's involved. Mr. Prince and I were talking about before service is how it's funny to look back on your life once you reach a certain age and you say, oh, God had to be involved here, here, here, here.

Because there are certain spiritual things that happened in your life that didn't come out of a vacuum. They happened because things happened over 20 years. They had to get you to some point, and you think, well, I didn't do that. How did I get to this point where this spiritual thing is happening in my life? Well, God had to do a lot to get you there. All along the way, you're fearful that God's not doing anything.

That's you not getting what you want. Also, when you get old enough, you realize something, thank you, God, for not always giving me what I want. Thank you. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, man, that would have ruined my life. God doesn't give us everything we want, but we live in fear, then. And so then we're not faithful because of it. A fourth or a third way is that we fear stepping out on faith because we really don't trust God's purpose.

We don't trust God's purpose. In other words, God here has His purpose, but it's not mine. And I've had conversations with people many, many times over the years who are struggling because, well, I don't know. God's purpose for me is this, this, and this, but that's not what I want to do with my life. I want to do something different with my life.

And I really want to get this degree and become a doctor, but I'll have to work on Saturdays, you know, because I'm getting this doctorate in mathematics or whatever, and I'm going to have to work on Saturdays. But, you know, that's what I want to do with my life. I don't believe it up in God's purpose, so I can't remain faithful.

And I've had discussions with people saying, well, I will get baptized as soon as I retire because I don't want to give up my career. Why? Well, what would I do? Once again, it's fear. It's fear that I will give up what I want, and God's purpose isn't that good. So if I wait, I can get my cake and eat it too. I can have my purpose and God's purpose. And the problem is, if you get hit by a car the next day, what's happened? What is God's purpose? Okay, God's purpose is better than ours. But that's hard, so we live in fear.

We live in fear. Now, having faithfulness doesn't mean that you will never experience fear. Faithfulness, remember, a bimoulek, I mean Abraham with a bimoulek. After a while, Abraham wasn't this fearful. When God finally told him to sacrifice his son, Abraham would have suffered fear, but he conquered his fear.

Why? He had learned how to be faithful. It was a time, it was something God asked him, and it didn't make sense, but he trusted God so much, in spite of his fear, in spite of his anguish, he was going to do it. Notice, God didn't ask him to do that 20 years earlier. First thing God said to do was, I want you to move. Well, start with something simple here. Move. Oh, okay.

Where do you want me to go? Canaan, where's that? Ask one of the traders that, you know, he'll give you a little map, show you how to get there. Move. Okay. He didn't ask him to sacrifice his son. First thing he asked him was to move. He built, maybe he had enough faith that God could interact with him. But faithfulness was developed. It takes God's Spirit, it takes help, it takes learning, as all these fruits do.

Let's look at an example here about how we can, I mean, we always, we have fear, but it's God's Spirit that helps us. Look at Nehemiah chapter 2. Nehemiah chapter 2.

Verse 1. So Nehemiah is the cupbearer for the king. Now, that's an interesting job because one of the things the cupbearer did was the cupbearer was privy to all kinds of things that went on in the palace. Cupbearers were one of the most trusted men in the palace. And the reason why is you were there whenever the king wanted anything. So you were there when he heard, you were in private meetings. But to be the cupbearer, you had to do something else in ancient times. Because one of the easiest ways to kill a king was poisoning. So the cupbearer had to drink first and then the king watched him to see if he would die. So you talk about stressful job. None of us. You think you have a stressful job, think of Nehemiah. Every morning, I hope nobody, you know, poisoned the king's orange juice today. And you go in and the king, you get to serve the king and he looks at you and you say, Yes, sire, and you take a big gulp and you set it there and he looks at you. Okay, thank you for the orange juice, Nehemiah. This is what you do. Job security, too. There was nobody fighting for his job. He had total job security. I want to be the guy that gets poisoned. So there's total job security here. So Nehemiah, but he's a captive. He's a slave. Verse 1, they came to pass in the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes when wine was before him. This is of course one of the great Persian kings. He took the wine and gave it to the king. Though I'd never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, Why is your face sad since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. He says, Look, I've been around you a long time, Nehemiah. You're always a very happy, very positive person, you know, and you're not sick. I know when you're sick. He says, You're just depressed. You're really sad. And you know, you... the cupbearers can become like friends, you know, to the... to the king. The one guy you can talk to is the cupbearer. You know, I mean, the guy's putting his life on the line 20 times a day for you every time he gets up in a drink. So, yeah, you know, I can talk to you. Nehemiah, we can talk, right? So I became... Now, here's what's so interesting. So I became dreadfully afraid. Nehemiah suffered fear because he thought, well, if I tell the king what's really bothering me, he could kill me. He could take this as an insult. And what he says, the king could take as an insult. So it's not a lack of fear. Being faithful is receiving help from God to deal with the fear. It's receiving God's help to deal with the fear. And that God will do the right outcomes. You know, we just don't trust God's outcomes. We don't trust His purpose. So I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, may the king live forever? Why should my face not be sad? Oh, of course I'm sad. Let me tell you why. When the city, the place of my father's tomb lies waste and his gates are burned with fire. Wow! He's scared to death. But he says to him, the reason I'm sad is because the Persian Empire has destroyed my nation and my hometown. Now, it's just as easy for arteserxes to say, kill this man. You worthless scum. How dare you say that to me? This is a powerful thing to say to the most powerful man in the world. And because of the relationship that God was developing here between Nehemiah and arteserxes, God's of all this.

First of all, the king said to me, what do you request? The king said, Nehemiah, what would help this situation? That's not normal. That's not normal for an egomaniac to say this. Well, you slave, but a relationship is important. God had put Nehemiah where he was supposed to be.

This was for God's purpose. Nehemiah could have stayed there, sipped wine for the rest of his life, and had a good life. Until someone tried to poison him, and then he died. But, you know, he lived in a palace, had great food, dressed real nice, didn't have to go out in the cold, or out in the rain. He just stayed with the king. But look at the rest of verse 4, it just tells us why. So I prayed to the God of heaven.

He conquered his fear by praying to God and receiving help from God. And God's purpose now became absolutely real to him. So he says to the king in verse 8, and I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found faith in your sight, I ask if you send me to Judah to the city of my father's tomb, that I may rebuild it.

Well, what God wants here, now you can imagine what Nehemiah is saying here. He wants you to take me as a slave, me as a nobody, me as a guy that is so worthless that every day I'm the one guy who's expendable in the entire palace. I'm the guy who can die every day. That and the guy brings the food, the two of them have to taste everything. So here's the most expendable guy in the entire Persian Empire. And he says, I want you to send me back to where I came from and put me in charge.

And the king said, okay. And he did. But notice, he was scared to death when he's... I mean, I put my life... I mean, I'd rather drink poison to do what he's going to do to me. But why could he do that? He set aside his purpose, which at this point was saving his life. And substitute to God's purpose was, God wants me to go back and build Jerusalem, and I'm standing before the king, and I'm supposed to ask him.

And he did. We are afraid of God's purposes. There's always risk in God's purpose in our lives. There's the sacrifice to fulfill God's purpose in our lives. And it scares us. It scared Deimiah. And it wasn't his fear that was evil. He knew he could not control his fear, so what did he do? He asked God, what is your purpose and give me the strength to do it.

And that's where God's spirit works with us. When we go to God and say, what is your purpose and give me the strength to work through this fear. And we face it. And then one last point. We fear stepping out on faith, because it means to accept immediate suffering for greater blessings. Now, when we get into long suffering, we'll actually go into this in more detail. We fear the short-term suffering, even though sometimes we know we have to do it. Sometimes we know, well, if I do this, I'm going to suffer for it.

I know if I give up Christmas, all my relatives are going to think I'm absolutely crazy. And we don't like it, and we fear it. But we have to believe there's a greater blessing. This isn't just, well, I believe in God's purpose. It's personal. God's purpose brings blessing. God's purpose brings blessing. But sometimes there's sacrifice involved. We look at four situations where the lack of trust in God produces fear.

And fear erodes faith, and it causes us to be unfaithful. The opposite of fear in some ways is that it's a lack of trust based in fear. Now, it can be based in rebellion, but that's a whole other thing. For most of us, our struggles with remaining faithful to God has to do with fear. And the battle of remaining faithful can be discouraging. Since we go to the Scripture, see all these people of God, whether it's Peter or...

I mean, the men are women of God throughout the Scripture, and you'll see them struggling with remaining faithful, struggling with their faith. I've got to keep obeying God, but it looks like God's abandoned me. It looks like God's not listening. And I'm in agony over this. I mean, think of Hannah. I remember I gave this sermon about a year ago on Hannah's prayer.

I just find that prayer so amazing. She's just in agony, and God's abandoned her. I'm alone here, and I physically cannot have children. And I have no solution or problem, and this is the way it's going to be the rest of my life.

Unless you do something, unless you do something, I cannot do. You think of all these men and women through the Bible, remaining faithful, sometimes falling down, sometimes getting up. The ones who didn't get up are the ones who get lost. The ones who fall down and get up, God teaches them faithfulness. And remember, you and I can't do this without God's Spirit. It is God's Spirit that helps us learn this. We look at our weaknesses, and we say, well, God's given up on me.

When we should look at our weaknesses and be able to go to God like Nehemiah did, it says, I prayed and said, oh boy, I'm standing before the king. Remember that prayer is in the middle of the discussion.

That's in his head. God helped me to say what I'm supposed to do next. Why are you sad? Because the Persian Empire has destroyed my country and my city, my hometown. Well, what should I do? And it says, he prayed and was like, oh, I didn't expect that. I don't know what Nehemiah expected, but he says his prayer did. Oh God, what am I supposed to say next? And what comes out of his mouth is, I want you to send me back to rebuild the city and put me in charge. I mean, if there was anybody at the court at the time, they had to be, oh, you can probably hear this murmur, oh, is he a dead man?

Right? Instead, our desserts, he said, okay, well, let's get that together. Put some resources together. Let's get you there. I'll miss you. Basically, he tells him he's going to miss it. Because I knew you wouldn't poison me. I knew you'd take one for me. I knew you would die for me, Nehemiah, and I knew you would not poison me. I can trust you. When we look at these things, we see that we fear that God won't fulfill his promises, because we want lies without difficulties and problems.

We fear that God won't give us what we really want. We fear stepping out on faith because we don't trust God's purposes and plan. I have a different plan for my life. We fear because stepping out on faith needs to be willing to accept immediate suffering for a greater blessing.

And we fight this battle. Let's conclude with the Scripture. Remember I said, every one of these fruits of God's Spirit is a character trait of God. So when you get discouraged with faithfulness, you're not being faithful to God, or you feel like he's abandoned you. That discouragement comes over you. First Thessalonians. After I finished this sermon last night, I thought, you know, I'm going to give a sermon on this very...

use this Scripture as a basis for a whole sermon here sometime in the future. Verse 23. This is a blessing, okay? Paul is actually, in the culture of the time, he's giving a blessing on them. It's almost like a prayer in which you're asking God's blessing. And it says, now may the God... See, this is a blessing. This is what God... I'm praying I'm asking God to do this for you.

Now may the God of peace himself, the God of peace, this is 1 Thessalonians 5, 23. May the God of peace... We're going to get to peace, this is one of the fruits of God's Spirit. May He sanctify you. May He make you holy. Sanctify you completely. May He work into you, through you, to make you completely holy. The fruits of God's Spirit is complete holiness. The fruits of God's Spirit is complete holiness. So may the God of peace, who's made peace between you and me through Jesus Christ, make us holy completely.

And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So He shows us the goal is the resurrection. And then the next statement is what I want to zero in. He who calls you is faithful. What we find in the Bible that's so amazing is God's faithfulness. Ancient Israel is going to be resurrected, and He told them why. He said, it's not because of you, you broke the covenant. It's because I won't break the covenant.

Because I am faithful. God made a covenant with you and I. Sometimes we break that covenant. Unless we rebel, God is faithful, even when we're not. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

What will He do? He will make you completely holy. That's the context. That's the blessing. That God, a peace who can make you completely holy through the power of His Spirit. He will remain faithful and do it. And there is the great encouragement. When we lose faith, when we start to lose track of where we are, when we start to feel that God has abandoned us, when we get confused, when we don't understand everything in the Bible, when we have conflict with other people, when we have trouble with financial problems and health problems, and problems with our mates or our children, when we're having all these difficulties and we're separating from God, and we're starting to be unfaithful to God, there's something you can hang on to.

That is, when we look at the fruits of the Spirit, those are the character traits of God. And in spite of us, God is faithful. So we can always get on our knees, ask for that blessing, and He promises us that He will do it.