FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
FAITHFULNESS
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 10, 1986
GALATIANS 5:22-25, REVELATIONS 1:9-20, REVELATION 2:8-11
His name was Willam. He was born in the Netherlands in 1853. Willam was a failure. By the time he was 25 years old, Willam had already been an art dealer, a language teacher, and a bookseller, and he’d failed at all of these. He’d fallen in love many times, but no one had ever fallen in love with him. Life wasn’t going very well for Willam but above all else. Willam wanted to be an evangelist. He loved Jesus Christ and he wanted to be a preacher of the gospel, so he enrolled in a theological school when he was 25 years old and 1878, and he was turned down. So Willam resolved that he would be a nonordained preacher of the gospel, and he went to Brussels in Belgium where he studied with a missionary society, they decided to appoint him, pastor of a small church in a small town in the coal fields of southern Belgium. They offered him an adequate salary and Willam went, and he won the hearts of the people. When there was a coal mining accident, it was Willam who worked harder than anybody else to bandage those who were wounded and to nurse those who were sick, and as the months passed, he fed the poor and he clothed them, and he even scraped up the slag to provide fuel for heat in the wintertime. On Sunday mornings, the people jammed that little church to hear that unassuming man preached the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. But then an officer, an official with the missionary society, came to the coal fields of Southern Belgium and he found Willam living in a shack clothed in rags, and he said, Willam, what are you doing with your salary? Willam said, “Well, I’ve been giving it away to the poor.” The officer said, “Who told you to do that?” Willam said, “I believe Jesus wanted me to.” The officer said, “You look worse than the people you’re trying to minister to. It’ll take the missionary society 10 years to repair the image of the clergy you’ve created here in southern Belgium.” Willam was fired. Once again, a failure, and he knew he would not be a preacher again because he was not only non-ordained, but he was now no longer sanctioned, and he knew it was unlikely that he ever would be.
Three weeks later, he was sitting on a log. He saw a coal miner, an old man bending over with a heavy sack of coal on his back. Willam took out an old envelope and he took out a pencil and he began to try to draw this coal miner, and Willam discovered that he loved to draw. That was the beginning of a whole new career for Willam. He became an artist, and in a five-year period, Willam painted more than 500 oil paintings, but Willam was a failure as an artist. In the years of his life, he only sold one painting, and as the years passed, he began to have seizures, but people did not understand epilepsy at that time, Willam was accused of being demon-possessed. Willam was lonely. He was distraught. He was frustrated, and finally, in the year 1890, at the age of 37, Willam committed suicide taking his own life. Today, Willam is famous. He is considered one of the greatest painters in the history of the world. His full name was Vincent Willam van Gogh, and historians do not know what to do with the life of Vincent Willem van Gogh. Historians do not know how to evaluate his life. Some consider him a frustrated Christian Saint. Others consider him a deeply neurotic man with a deeply troubled spirit and a man given to excesses in his behavior, but it’s really not history that must evaluate the life of Van Gogh. It is Jesus Christ to whom all judgment has been given. The Bible says, “He is destined to judge the living and the dead.”
Willam called himself a Christian and he will one day appear before the judgment seat the bema, a seat of Jesus Christ. And it is Christ who will judge his life and he will judge him for his faithfulness or his lack of it. And what’s true of Willam is also true of each and every one of us who take the name of Jesus Christ. One day we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and Jesus Christ will evaluate our faithfulness or our lack of it
Concerning faithfulness, this morning I have two teachings. The first teaching is this, A faithful person is a person who is trustworthy—a person who is worthy of God’s trust—loyal unto God.
There is an old story, and I’m sure that many of you have heard it told many years ago by Grant Teff, who was the coach of the football team at Baylor University. The story is allegedly true though it’s hard to believe. Baylor University had a bad year. They’d only won three games and they’d lost eight games and it was hard for Grant Teff, and so he decided that summer he was just going to get away from it all. He decided to take a hunting trip with his assistant coach. They went in Grant Teff’s pickup truck. They’d made arrangements with a farmer to hunt on that farmer’s land. When they arrived at the farm, the assistant coach stayed in the pickup truck and Grant Teff went to the farmer’s door, and said he was really looking forward to hunting, and the farmer said, “Well, coach Teff, I just want to tell you, I just love Baylor University. I love that football team. I know it was a hard year, but I believe in you and I think you’re a great coach and I think your assistant coaches are great, and I know you’re going to turn the program around and I know next year’s going to be a great year” The coach said, “Well, thank you very much and we’re sure looking forward to getting a little hunting in.” The farmer said, “Well, glad to have you use my land, but you know, there’s one thing I’d like you to do for me.” He said, “You see that old mule out there? That mule is not only old but it’s diseased and very, very ill and needs someone to put it out of its misery, and I just don’t have the heart to do it because I love that old mule, and I wondered if you’d shoot that mule for me.”
The coach said, “Oh sir, I can’t shoot your mule.” The farmer said, “Oh, please, I just can’t bring myself to do it.” so Coach Teff said, “All right,” and as he was walking back to the pickup truck, he thought he decided he’d play a little practical joke on the assistant coach. He opened the door and looked in, he said, “Boy, am I mad.” The assistant coach said, “Well, what’s wrong?” He said “I’ve never had anyone talk to me like that farmer did. You can’t believe what he said to me.” He said, “He hated Baylor University, he hated our football team. He said we didn’t deserve to be called the Bears. He said we’re teddy bears. He said I was the worst coach in the nation today, and all my assistant coaches are horrible, and the university is an embarrassment to the nation!” “I’m so mad, I tell you what I’m going to do.” The assistant coach said, “What?” Coach Teff said, “See that mule over there? I’m going to shoot that farmer’s mule.”
The assistant coach was just stunned as Coach Teff took his rifle out of the pickup truck and he lined up his sights, and having taken aim, he took one shot and the mule dropped to the ground. Coach Teff went to get back in the pickup truck and suddenly he heard two shots, he was starting to look over to see the assistant coach jumping back into the truck and he said, “Coach, let’s get out of here! I just shot two of his cows.”
Now, whatever else that assistant coach was he was loyal. He was loyal, and he was trustworthy. He was faithful to his coach, and of course, it is the will of our Lord Jesus Christ that we would be loyal to Him no matter what the circumstances. Now, no matter how overwhelming the odds seem that we would be faithful to Him, we would be found trustworthy. And there is no one in all the universe more worthy of our faithfulness than the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s nothing more worthy of our commitment than the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
I was reading this past week about the city of Pompeii. A Roman city near the Bay of Naples, the city of Pompei was a resort city. Wealthy Romans from all over the empire would come to Pompeii and the city was known for its wine and for its food and for its art, and for its architecture. A city of great wealth. Twenty thousand inhabitants, but that city was destroyed in a single day on August 24th, AD. 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted in a massive volcanic explosion, Vesuvius not only destroyed Pompeii but also preserved it. The volcanic ash preserved perfectly the beautiful buildings and structures, and also many of the bodies. Archeologists have found some of the bodies covered with hard shells of volcanic ash. The bodies inside of these hard shells have decayed, dust to dust, but these archeologists are able to open the shells and pour plaster in them and make exact replicas of the people who died, including their facial expressions, in the moment of death. They found 2,000 such bodies in and about Pompeii and two-fifths of the city remains to be unearthed.
Most of these bodies, men, women, and children, were found in the process of fleeing from the city, but they found one body that was different. One body that wasn’t running away. It was the body of the Roman Sentinel, and they found that body at the gate of the city, at the guard post. This Roman sentinel remained at his station. He did not move. Faithful unto death. And on his face, they saw an expression of firm resolve, loyal to the empire, loyal to Rome. The earth shook and the volcanic ash enveloped him, and he stood firmly, loyal to his emperor. And that Roman sentinel is kind of both tragic and heroic. Tragic because he probably wasn’t particularly smart. There’s no evidence that he served any purpose by remaining at that gate, but heroic because he was faithful. Heroic because he was loyal to his emperor and to his kingdom. He was loyal to an earthly kingdom, loyal to a temporary kingdom, a kingdom that continued in some form for almost 1,000 years on Earth. As Christians, we are called to be loyal and trustworthy to an eternal kingdom and a heavenly one. Nothing is more worthy of our commitment than this kingdom of Jesus Christ, and Christ would have us faithful to our families for his namesake, faithful in our careers, faithful in our stewardship, in our finances, and faithful in our use of the gospel. because the gospel has been given to us as a sacred trust. “Go ye into all the world.”
One day Christ is coming back, and He would find us faithful that we were good stewards of that gospel, that we took the love of Christ to a world of hatred, “light in the darkness.”
Many of you have heard of Polycarp. He was the bishop of Smyrna in the second century after Christ—one of the most famous Christians in those ears of the early church, Polycarp was martyred. He was martyred on Saturday, February 23rd AD 155. When the Roman soldiers came for him, he offered them a meal and he asked if they would give him a one-hour prayer. This they granted, and they ate at Polycarp’s house while he prayed. And then they took him for execution. When he was brought before the authorities, it was demanded that he renounced Christ. Polycarp said, “80 and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong. I will not blasphemy my king who saved me.” They took him into the arena to execute him in the presence of the masses, and because he was so old, the people had pity on him, and they did not want him to die. The pro council said, “Polycarp renounce Jesus Christ and say, Caesar is Lord, and you shall live. I warn you. I have wild beasts.” And Polycarp said, “Call for them.”
The pro council threatened him with burning at the stake. Polycarp said, “You threatened with a fire that burns quickly and as soon quenched fear of the fire of God’s everlasting judgment.” And in the end, Polycarp said, “Do what you will” and they took his life, and he was proud to share the cup of Christ.
You think of the message of Jesus Christ to the church at Smyrna, our passage of scripture for today When Jesus Christ gave one message to Christians living in Smyrna who are being persecuted, He said, “Be faithful under death and I’ll give you the crown of life “Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna was faithful under death, and sometimes I think it’s more difficult to be faithful today in our time in the world in which we live than perhaps it was in the days of Polycarp. We live in a world of confusion. It’s not easy to be a Christian in our time. Sex and drugs are merely recreational. Money is God. Many of the saints, many Christians are being worn down through philosophies of selfishness. It’s not easy to be faithful in this day and age.
The Apostle Paul had a message for the Christians at Philippi. He said, “Be innocent and blameless children of God without spot or blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among which you shine as light in the world holding fast. The word of truth that in the day of Christ, I may be proud that I did not labor in vain, that I did not serve in vain.” The faithfulness, the trustworthiness that he called, called them to he also sought in his home in his own life. Now, as you know, at the close of his life, Paul said, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race; I have kept the faith and henceforth. There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge shall award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”
It’d be a great thing if at the close of your life and at the close of my life we could say,” I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race and I have kept the faith. It’d be greater still to hear Jesus Christ say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful over little, and I’ll set you over much. Enter into the joy of Your Master.” A faithful person is a trustworthy one.
There’s a second and final message this morning concerning faithfulness. And it is this, a faithful person is not only trustworthy, but a faithful person is trusting. A faithful person is not only worthy of God’s trust, but a faithful person is one who is able to trust God. If you don’t trust God, it’s not possible for you to be faithful to Him.
As reading something written by Dr. Robert Barker, who’s a psychologist and marriage counselor. Through his years of experience, he’s encountered many strange and perhaps humorous circumstances in his marriage counseling. He’s observed that people do strange things when they don’t trust their marriage partner. Tales of one man who thought his wife was not faithful. He thought she was having an affair, and so he got into the wife’s trunk of the car, and he decided to go with her and see where she was going. She was going to the grocery store. This was Chicago in the dead of winter, a horrible blizzard. The wife decided she didn’t want to drive home in the bad weather, so she called a friend with a four-wheel drive and she went home with a friend. The husband was there in the trunk. He knew how to open the trunk from the inside, but it was so cold, the trunk froze. Fortunately, he had told a friend what he was going to do and they found him just in the nick of time. He was unconscious and near death.
Dr. Barker tells a wife who thought her husband was unfaithful, thought he was having an affair, and she went to his place of work and they’re in the parking lot right outside her husband’s office she saw this brand-new sports car, just like the sports car she always wanted, and she knew that somehow that car belonged to the other woman. So, she went and got an ax and she just began to shred that car and she knocked the windows in and she beat the hood in and the fenders in, and she ripped up the upholstery, and then she went into the office to confront her husband and the other woman. She was amazed to see that the husband was all alone and that he had at long last bought the car for her that she had always wanted. She had managed to trash her own car.
He tells of a wife whose husband was unfaithful, whose husband was having an affair, and she was distraught and despondent, and she decided to take her own life, jumping out of the fourth floor. She jumped out the window, and by some incredible coincidence, her husband was walking down below. She landed on her husband, and she survived, but her husband didn’t, and perhaps that’s justice.
But the whole point that Dr. Robert Barker was trying to make is that when people don’t trust their mate, when people don’t trust their mate, they do strange things. They bail out. When people don’t trust their mate, they themselves are not faithful. If you don’t trust your mate, you’re not trustworthy to your mate. The Bible says that as Christians, we’re married to Jesus Christ. We who believe in Jesus Christ and Lord and Savior are called the bride of Christ. Christ wants us to trust, Him, and if we don’t trust Him, we’re going to do strange things. If we don’t trust Him, we’re never going to be faithful to Him. He wants us to trust His provision and His protection, and He wants us to trust that His power is available for our every need.
Antiochus IV was the ruler of the Seleucid empire and the king of the Seleucid empire. He had one desire in his life and that desire was to conquer the world. He was a humble man. He wanted to conquer the earth and he had vast armies. And he brought his armies in the year 169 BC—he brought his vast, Seleucid army south from Syria through Palestine along the Mediterranean coast. He was going to conquer Egypt. He was going to conquer the Ptolemaic empire and he took his armies towards the fortress city of Alexandria, and there he would conquer Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VII, called Philometer and Phisen, the sons of Cleopatra. His armies were great, and his armies were strong, and he could have swept over Egypt. Such was the power of the Seleucid empire at that time, but he did not know that Cleopatra of Egypt had sent to Rome for help. Rome had sent a fleet led by a Roman general whose name was Popillus. Popillus was a Roman citizen who had grown up in the city of Rome and he loved the empire, and to that empire, he had sworn his allegiance under death. The emperor of Rome himself had sent Popillus to confront Antiochus before he besieged Egypt. Popillus didn’t have a large army. He had a small fleet. He didn’t have the manpower to resist Antiochus IV, but he went anyway, faithful to Rome, and faithful to the emperor. He came and he brought his fleet to the Mediterranean coast just above the fortress city of Alexandria. There, there was that moment often written about in history books, when Popillus the Roman general, stood before Antiochus IV, King of the Seleucid empire.
In order to understand the situation, you must understand that Antiochus IV was swollen with conceit. He had a massive ego. On his coins, he had put his own image and he’d put the words, “Thayaus Epiphanes” (God Manifest). He had told the world that he was God. He had an insatiable quest for power and conquest. and there he stood with his vast armies behind him and Popillus, the Roman general with a small army, and Popillus drew a line in the sand and he said, “You crossed this line and you must fight me unto death but you’d better know this if you crossed that line, you are at war with Rome and you are at war with all the might of Rome and the emperor of Rome commands you to turn and take your arm’s home and to relinquish all lands that you have previously acquired from Egypt.” It was a horrible moment, I’m sure, a very scary moment for Popillus. But Antiochus Epiphanes, his ego swollen, but nevertheless too wise to fight Rome, turned his army north. He relinquished the land he had acquired, and it was Egypt’s salvation and all because Popillus had been faithful to his empire. We need to understand that Popillus was faithful because he trusted a power greater than himself. He was faithful because he trusted the power of Rome and the authority of the emperor. He had no power. Antiochus IV was stronger, but you see, Popillus knew that the power that he represented was greater than any, and so he was faithful because he trusted.
As a Christian, you must know you are an ambassador, and you represent a power and authority that is greater than any other in all the universe. You represent Jesus Christ and He is the King of Kings and He is Lord of Lords and the kingdom that you represent is eternal and Jesus Christ has all power in heaven and on earth. If you trust that you will be faithful in every circumstance of life. That’s why Jesus said, “All power and heaven on earth has been given to me. Go ye therefore into all the world and make disciples.”
There is a story, and with this will close. It’s one of my favorite stories. It tells of an 11-year-old boy who in the year 1801 was in a little church in Scotland. He was in the dead of winter. It was very, very cold. And the worship service this Sunday morning, the offering was being taken. This little 11-year-old boy took the offering plate and walked out into the aisle. He set the offering plate on the carpet, and then he stepped onto the offering plate and the usher came up to him and said, “What are you doing?” The little boy said, “I’m giving my whole self to God. That little boy’s name was Robert Moffett, and through the years he proved that he was indeed committed to the kingdom of Christ, “faithful unto death.” He became a missionary to South Africa, truly one of the great missionaries of his time. He studied hard to learn the African dialect and he went to theological school. Then he left his friends and his home, and he went to a foreign land where a few people had gone to live amongst the people he did not know or fully understand. He lived in poverty—very little to eat, very little to wear, oftentimes lonely, oftentimes ill with a disease—and yet he was faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Robert Moffett served there for years, but every seven years he would return to Britain to recharge his batteries, to be among friends, and to renew old acquaintances. In the year 1835, he returned to Britain and he was worn out. His life verse had been from the gospel of John the 15th chapter, the words of Jesus Christ, “I’m the true vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit.” Robert Moffatt trusted that verse, but he felt like his life had been fruitless. He had labored in Africa and very few converts. He was back in England trying to recruit help. He was invited to speak at a church in Scotland. He went there hoping that some people would come back and join him in the cause of Christ in Southern Africa. He spoke that night and he didn’t feel anointed. He didn’t feel God’s power or God’s hand upon him as he spoke in this little church. He labored. He said what he knew he was the Lord wanted him to say, but he didn’t sense God’s presence. When he was done, he felt once again like a failure, and the people walked out. Nobody came up to him and said, “Good job, Bob,” or “That meant a lot to me.”
But he didn’t know that there was somebody up in the choir loft, a young man up by the organ. He had heard every single word Robert Moffett had said that night and the Holy Spirit had come upon that young man, and he had given his whole life to Christ that night. He had resolved that he would go to Africa and served the kingdom of Christ there, and that young man in the choir law that had heard Robert Moffett was David Livingston. David Livingston went to Africa. Robert Moffett served in Africa for the remainder of his life, and God did bear fruit. Many people came to know and love Christ through his life. Incredibly, Livingston went on to marry Robert Moffett’s daughter, and he went to Africa. Twenty-nine thousand miles, Livingston walked over the African continent—1 million square miles he placed on the known maps of the world. He fought the African slave trade, but above all else, he never forgot his primary call, which was to tell people about Jesus Christ, and wherever he went, you’d find natives who had embraced Christ because of David Livingston. On March 19, 1872, when Sir Henry Morrison Stanley met David Livingston in the African interior and begged Livingston to return to Britain because Livingston was old, Livingston refused because he said, “I am not through serving Jesus Christ.” The next day, Livingston wrote in his diary, “My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All. I once again rededicate my whole life to Thee.”
One year later, David Livingston died on April 30, 1873, they found his body kneeling in prayer by an African lake. The day before he died, he had written in his diary the words of Jesus Christ. “Lo, I’m with you always, even to the end of the world.” For David Livingston, that was his life verse. It was that verse that he had quoted to a Glasgow University audience before he went to the mission field, and it was that verse he shouted from the deck of the ship as he disembarked for Africa. “Lo, I’m with you always, even to the close of the age” You see, David Livingston was faithful, and Robert Moffett was faithful—two men, because they trusted the promises of God. Moffitt believed that if he would abide in Christ, he would bear fruit. Livingston believed that Jesus Christ was with him always, even to the close of the age What’s true of them is true of us. If you really believe the promises of God—if you really trust him, you’re going to be faithful.
In Hebrew, chapter 11 are listed the Heroes of the Faith, and they include Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joshua and Rahab and Gideon, and Jephthah, David, and Samuel. They’re Heroes of the Faith because they had faith. They were all faithful because they all trusted the promises of God. Jesus says, “Be faithful under death and I’ll give you the crown of life.” If you believe that, if you really believe he offers the crown of life, eternal life, you’re going to seek to be faithful under death. Let’s pray.