Today I wanted to specifically talk about a quality we need to have to reach our loved ones with the gospel and that is faithfulness. As I was thinking about what it means to be faithful, I thought about a movie I'd seen a few years ago. It was a movie based on a true story about a man and his dog. Every morning, the man and his dog would walk to the train station where the man would get on the train to go to work. The dog would go home, but at exactly the same time every afternoon, he would return to the train station to meet his master coming home from work. One afternoon, the man did not come home on the afternoon train as he died of a heart attack. The dog faithfully waited at the station for his master to arrive home until the day of his own death. Wow, that’s one faithful dog!
One of God’s characteristics is that He is faithful: Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;” (hívséges in the Hungarian describes God as faithful). Even when man fails to be faithful, God is always faithful.
Let’s take a look at one woman in the Bible and see how she showed faithfulness?
Turn to 1 Samuel 1.
This is the account of Hannah. We’re going to look at this passage in a bit, but I would like to first give you a summary of the account here. Hannah was one of two wives of Elkanah; the other was Peninnah who had children, but Hannah had none. She was so sad that she could not have children and Peninnah did not treat her kindly because of it. But even though she had no children, the Bible says Elkanah’s loved her. He loved her to the point that it bothered him that she would cry because she did not have children.
Every year, the family would make a trip to worship God in Shiloh (about a 25 mile/40 km walk). While there, Hannah went to pray at the temple for a son. She vowed to the Lord if He would give her a son (a son that would be fit to serve in the tabernacle), she would give him back to the Lord. She prayed so hard that the priest, Eli, thought she was drunk. She did not tell the priest what was troubling her, only that she was pouring out her heart to the Lord. 1 Samuel 1:17 “Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him” She went away not sad anymore, went home with her husband, and sometime after, Samuel was born. His name meant “I have asked him of the Lord.” Samuel grew up to be a prophet of the Lord (1 Samuel 3:19-20) as well as the last judge of Israel, anointing the first two of Israel's kings.
So now let’s take a closer look at how Hannah was faithful.
I have here 4 things that Hannah was faithful in:
Faithful in Prayer 1 Samuel 1:10-12
There is a word I want you to notice in verse 12, and that is the word “continued”. She continued praying before the Lord.
To continue can also be defined as to not quit, or to remain. Hannah took all her sorrow and heartache over not having a child to the Lord.
We should also be faithful in prayer. Colossians 4:2 ”Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;”
One of my friends got saved when she was 7 years old. From the time she was 7 until aged 16, she prayed that her father would get saved. She would have long debates with him over why he needed to accept Christ as Saviour, but he refused to accept. She prayed faithfully for his salvation for those nine years. If she had not been willing to pray for him faithfully, he may have never accepted Christ. But he did. He died eleven years ago. My friend says she looking forward to speaking to her daddy again when she gets to heaven. We need to be willing to faithfully pray for those we know who are lost. Think of our lost loved ones as in a vast ocean and we are in a boat beside them. They are frantically trying to stay afloat. We are in the boat with a life preserver. If we do not throw them the life preserver, they will most likely drown. Think of praying for our lost loved ones as throwing out that life preserver. It is such a simple thing to do. Prayer grants us access to the very One who created the world!
2) Faithful in Worship 1 Samuel 1:3, 19
In verse three, it says Elkanah went out of his city yearly to worship in Shiloh which was the custom of the day.
In verse nine, Hannah has gone with Elkanah to Shiloh
In verse 19, it says speaking of Hannah and Elkanah, that they rose up in the morning early and worshipped before the Lord before they returned home.
In verse 21, after Samuel is born, when it was time to return to Shiloh for worship, Elkanah is faithful to go to Shiloh while Hannah nurses and cares for Samuel. When he is weaned, she makes the trip with Elkanah again, this time to bring Samuel to dedicate him to the Lord as she had vowed.
So Hannah and her husband were faithful to worship the Lord in the way that was the custom in their time. But what is worship for us today?
A good definition of worship can be found in Psalms 29:2 “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” Worship is giving Him the honour He deserves for who He is and what He has done. It is done on an individual basis, within each heart.
Perhaps I invited you to my home as an honoured guest. I want to honour you, so I cook up a grand feast. I bake up a loaf of fresh, warm bread. Then I cook a delicious roast. I make a nice garden salad. For dessert, I have some warm, apple pie. When it is all cooked, I put all the food on a plate and wait for you to arrive. Soon, my tummy starts to rumble. I say, “well, maybe my guest will not notice if I eat some of the food.” I take a few bites of the bread, the roast, the salad, and even the apple pie. Now, the plate is only half full. Soon you come to my house and I say, “Look! I wanted to honour you so I made you a delicious meal.” Then I hand you the plate of half-eaten food. You do not want my leftovers, and neither does God. He wants all of us. Mark 12:30 says, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” We should not give God our leftovers, but always give Him our best. Psalms 111:1 “Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.” God may not want our whole apple pie, but He does want our whole heart.
3) Faithful in the Word 1 Samuel 2:1-10
In Hannah's prayer of praise and thanksgiving, she quotes scripture.
2:2 “There is none beside thee” - Deuteronomy 4:35 “Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him.”
2:2 “Neither is there any rock like our God” - Deuteronomy 32:4, 30, 31 “He is the Rock”
2:6 “The Lord killeth and maketh alive,” Deuteronomy 32:39
2:7 “The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich” Deuteronomy 8:17
2:8 “for the pillar’s of the earth are the Lord’s and he hath set the world upon them.” - Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Hannah hid God’s word in her heart. When she was praying to God in praise and thanksgiving, God’s word just poured out from what she had already known about Him through the Word.
We need to be faithful to read the Bible too. Psalms 119:105 says “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Just as a lamp will light the path ahead of us, reading the Bible will help us know where to take the next step.
What if do we do if we read the Bible and have difficulty understanding something? Do we just give up and say “oh well, I tried.”
An old farmer lived on a farm in the mountains with his young grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading his Bible. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to imitate him in every way he could.
One day the grandson asked, "Grandpa! I try to read the Bible just like you but I don't understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bible do?"
The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal into the stove and replied, "Please take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water."
The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house.
The grandfather laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little faster next time," and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again.
This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket instead.
The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough," and he went out the door to watch the boy try again.
At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water would leak out before he got back to the house. The boy again dipped the basket into river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of breath, he said,
"See Grandpa, it's useless!"
"So you think it is useless?"
The old man said, "Look at the basket."
The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean, inside and out.
"Son, that's what happens when you read the Bible. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you will be changed, inside and out. That is the work of Jesus in our lives."
Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.]
Even when we have difficulty understanding something, we need to be faithful to read God’s Word and pray that He would reveal what He wants us to learn from it. Being faithful to attend church will help us understand the Bible better. As the preacher preaches the word, God will reveal himself more and more to us. Before we became missionaries to Hungary, we were in our home church every time the doors were open. There was never a question of where we would be when Sunday came around. We'd be in church. When Wednesday mid week service came, we'd be there. Special services, workdays, missions conference, etc. so Being faithful to church will help us be faithful in the Word.
4) Faithful in Giving 1 Samuel 1:26-28, 2:19
We see Hannah was faithful in giving. Just as Hannah did, we can give to the Lord. Hannah gave to the Lord what she had promised Him- The very son she had prayed for. And you know what? God blessed her with five more children after Samuel- three sons and two daughters! We can not out give God.
She also gave praise to the Lord. In verse 2:1, she rejoices in the Lord. We need to remember to praise and give thanks to the Lord.
What else can we give to the Lord? We can give Him, our tithes and offerings. Remember the widow in Mark 12:41-44? Two mites was an amount smaller than any coin we have today, but Jesus said she gave more than the others because she gave all she had. The Lord has blessed us with much. We should be faithful to give back to Him.
We can give Him our time. “Only one life, but it soon will be passed. Only what we do for Christ will last.” So much of what we spend our time and energy on will have no eternal value (Matthew 6:19-20).
We can also give to others. In verse 2:19, we see that Hannah gave Samuel a coat every year. In Acts 20:35, it says it is more blessed to give than to receive. When we give our time to others, they can see how much we care about them and perhaps open doors to reach them with the gospel.
So there you have it: four ways that we can be faithful in!
Prayer, Worship, Word, and Giving
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