Join Rick Hughes on a journey through the central themes of faithfulness as outlined in the scriptures, particularly in Corinthians. This episode of The Flatline challenges listeners to examine their fidelity to their faith amidst adversity and their trustworthiness in the eyes of God. Through insightful passages, Rick emphasizes the importance of being reliable stewards of the gospel and how it reflects God’s unwavering faithfulness to us.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It won’t be long, 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and all is done without any type of manipulation or solicitation because we’re not here trying to hustle you for money. We’re here to give you information. Information that will help you orient and adjust to the plan of God. If you’re indeed interested, and if you’re not, well, then have a nice day. Move on down the road and do what you want to do. But I can tell you one thing. You can be on your own. You don’t want to do that. God has a wonderful plan for your life, a wonderful way for you to live, a way with no stress in your soul, no worry, no fear, no anxiety, no anger. It’s a wonderful life. It’s called the Christian life. And if you learn how the flatline operates, if you learn those 10 problem-solving devices in your life, And you can apply them to those circumstances and you can live and stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. I wish I could see who’s listening. I don’t have a clue. I know we’re playing in over 100 cities today across America. But I don’t know where you are, if you’re at home or if you’re in your car. If you’re listening or not listening, we have no way of knowing. So I pray, I study, I prepare, I pray, and I come to the recording studio. I record these messages for you, and hopefully God will use them in your life to encourage you and motivate you. Today we want to talk about being faithful, being faithful. A lot of people talk to me about that. Are you a faithful believer? Let’s start off by looking at 1 Corinthians 4, chapter 4, verse 2. Paul made this statement to the church at Corinth. He said, Moreover, it’s required in stewards that a man be found faithful, that a man be found faithful. In 1 Corinthians 4, 17, Paul wrote these words. For this cause have I sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord. Prepositional phrase, in the Lord, in the kurios. That’s a wonderful thing for God to say he’s faithful. And I wonder if God can say that to you and to me. Are we faithful? In this particular letter to the Corinthians, Paul is addressing a controversy in Corinth. And that was a division of the church. His main concern was the faithful communication of the scriptures or the letters of what he wrote. They didn’t have a Bible like you and I have, but they had the communication of the scriptures that he wrote to them and the letters he wrote to them. And he wanted those retaught and retaught accurately. So he also warned the church about judging other people in verse five of 1 Corinthians 4, verse five. And he warned them about their pride in verse six and seven. But he used himself and the other apostles as examples in verses 9 and 10 of 1 Corinthians chapter 4. And he described his physical abuse as an indication of his faithfulness and his obedience in verse 11 through 13 of chapter 4, 1 Corinthians. And he challenged them to follow the example that he left for them in verses 15 through 16 of chapter 4, 1 Corinthians. The faithfulness of Paul, or the word fidelity, the fidelity of Paul is an example to each one of us because faithfulness is a genuine attribute of the mature believer’s life. as well as an attribute of our god who’s very faithful listen to this lamentation 3 22 it is of the lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not they are new every morning great is thy faithfulness yes he is our god is a faithful god and expects the same fidelity out of us In 2 Timothy 2, verse 13, if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, because he cannot deny himself. What does that mean? It means he’s trustworthy. When you give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, when you accept him as your savior, God doesn’t take it back. He’s not going to abandon you. There may even come a time in your life where you don’t even believe you did it. You may say, I know I accepted Christ when I was young, but I don’t believe that anymore. Listen to the verse. If we believe not, yet he abides faithful because he cannot deny himself. What does that mean? It means when you enter the royal family of God, you become a child of God. And for God to kick you out, he’d have to kick his own children out. He’s not going to kick you out. You are royal family. You may get under discipline, and he may encourage you to rebound and recover from your sin, but he’s not going to disown you. If we believe not, he still abides faithful. In 1 John 1, 9, we find another word about faithful where we use this one every day in the rebound technique. That’s the first problem-solving device every Christian has to learn. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That’s the faithfulness of God. When you name a sin to God, He will forgive you and cleanse you of that. And I know you’re saying, I can’t remember all of my sins. Nobody can. But he says, it says, and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What does that mean? That even means the one you don’t remember. So when you go to the Father, You use the rebound technique of 1 John 1, 9, and you admit a sin. He’s faithful to cleanse you of that sin and to put you back in fellowship. Your sins have been cleansed in your position, but we’re talking now about your experience that quenches and grieves the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 10, 13, there is no temptation taken you such as is common to man. Hang on to your hat now, listen, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you’re able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape so that you may be able to bear it. I was talking to a dear friend today who has a tremendous business, and that business is facing some adversity, and I said, look, God is faithful. He’s not going to throw you under the bus. He’s not going to abandon you. You may look like things are impossible, like the Jews when they came to the Red Sea. It looked like it was impossible. It looked like they were going to die, but they didn’t. God was faithful to deliver them. The Greek word for faithful is the word pistos, P-I-S-T-O-S. It comes from the word pistos, which is faith. And it means he’s reliable or he’s dependable. So the question that we have to ask ourselves is this, can God trust us? Are we reliable? Or are we trustworthy? Are we faithful individuals? God has entrusted us with something, and that’s the message of the truth, the gospel message. He gave it to us. We know about it. We know how to tell people not to go to hell. We know how to tell them how they can have eternal life. But the question is, are we faithful to give that message to those that we meet? Are we timid about it? Do we back off about it? There’s nothing wrong with asking a simple question. If you die today, would you go to heaven? That’s a simple question, and you’re not invading anyone’s privacy if you ask them that question. And they may say, well, I’m not sure. And that’s an opportunity for you to tell them how they can be sure, how they can know for a fact. He that believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. He that believeth not, the wrath of God abides on him forever. So the Greek word pistos, faithful, is what we must be. If I quote Monsa’s Bible Dictionary, here’s what it says. To be faithful in the book of Revelation is to refuse to compromise the Christian faith, even in the face of persecution or martyrdom. And that’s a question you have to ask yourself. If you faced persecution, potentially martyrdom, would you refuse to compromise your Christian faith? Are you faithful? Faithfulness is listed as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22. Where the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such thing, there is no law. So part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to give you the strength through the filling of the Holy Spirit to remain faithful. But when you quench the Holy Spirit and when you grieve the Holy Spirit, most likely you lose your fidelity and you do not remain faithful. But the lifestyle of the mature believer must demonstrate this faithfulness. The lifestyle of the mature believer must demonstrate trustworthiness and reliability and obviously complete integrity. And this is simply a reflection of God’s wonderful essence to us. In Exodus 34, six, the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, the Lord is the Lord God. He is compassionate, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and in truth. Listen, that’s what we must be. This is us. We must be compassionate. We must be merciful. We must be slow to anger and abound in faithfulness and in truth. Here’s some principles I want you to remember about faithfulness. One, the faithful believer is marked by obedience motivated by personal love for God. 1 John 5, 3, for this is the love of God, this is it, now listen, here it is, that we keep his mandates and they are not a burden. If you love God, you will obey God. That’s a faithful believer. What motivates you to obey God is your love for God. Two, the faithful believer will advance to spiritual maturity by learning and applying the word of God in a consistent manner in his life. In 2 Timothy 2.15, the Bible says, be diligent. Diligent, what does that mean? That’s the Greek word spoudazo. It means to make an effort. Make an effort to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately dividing the word of truth. So God wants you to be diligent, to be faithful. This shame it talks about, so that we don’t have to be ashamed, that comes at the judgment seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3, 10 through 15. And this is when our works are evaluated, whether they’re divine good or human good. And all human good is burned up as if it’s wood, hay, and stubble. So point three, the unfaithful believer wants all the gifts from God, but refuses to honor and obey the giver. And that’s a great principle. Do you love the gifts more than the giver? Because the giver says, I’m willing to give you the gifts, but I’d like for you to be faithful. Point four, All faithfulness in the human realm resides, first of all, in the soul, in the mentality of the soul, in what you think. Because faithfulness is a mental attitude. It’s a mental attitude to something in which you love, something that you respect, something that you admire or recognize as authority. And if you do that with God and you’re faithful, then that’s your mental attitude. Faithfulness is your mental attitude first and then your physical action second. In regards to personal sin, if we are faithful to confess that sin, that’s if we do it, then he’s faithful to forgive our sin. He doesn’t compromise his integrity when he forgives us since he knew our sin in eternity past and he imputed every one of them to Christ Jesus. Remember the Bible said, he that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God through him. So you’re not shocking God when you confess sin. He already knew about it in eternity past. He knew every sin you would ever commit, even the sins you got coming up in the future. And that’s why he provided a way for you to be cleansed by using 1 John 1, 9 as a Christian. The worst thing you can do as a believer is to be unfaithful to use that verse. So to try to make your sins up to God. Promise God you’re never going to do it again or go on some kind of tangent. I won’t do that ever again, God, I promise. And that’s wrong. You probably will do it again because you have a sin nature. So point six, since the day you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have been given opportunities to provide or prove your appreciation for God’s grace. by obeying his mandates. And in regards to personal sin, listen carefully, we face a dual test. Can we avoid the sin that so easily affects us, or will we faithfully admit our sin when it occurs? That’s the test. Are you gonna do it? And if you do it, will you confess it? And God doesn’t give you an okay to go ahead and sin. That’s not what I’m saying. But he knows you have a sinful nature. He knows you have lust patterns and trends. And you’re still alive. You’re still here because he’s made provision where you can be cleansed from your sin. His faithfulness to you and your faithfulness to him is to try to avoid that sin. So, point seven, one of the biggest areas of failure can be found in 1 Peter, chapter two, verse one. Here’s the words. Therefore, lay aside all malice, lay aside all deceit, lay aside all hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. Put that aside. Now, the word malice, kakia, is the Greek word, means wickedness or the intent to do harm to an individual to hurt them. lay aside the desire to hurt somebody and lay aside all deceit no loss all fraud all sin of misleading or misrepresenting yourself to be something you’re not or lying to somebody about something and uh lay aside all hypocrisy acting like one way when you secretly live another way Lay aside all envy, which is jealousy. Lay aside all evil speaking, which is katalalia, and that’s your maligning or slandering another individual. That’s some big sins right there. Lay aside malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. So if you’re a faithful believer, you’ve got to learn to avoid these types of sins along with any other weakness or any other trend of your sinful nature. So being faithful to God, now listen carefully, It does not mean you will never commit any sin whatsoever. In 1 John 1.8, the Bible says this, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Peter, our apostle Peter, failed our Lord on the night of his arrest. Moses failed our Lord at the second test of Meribah. David failed our Lord with Bathsheba. And you and I have failed the Lord as well. Nobody’s perfect. We all have a sin nature. And we all have to be faithful to confess our sin when we fail. So in spite of our best efforts, we’re going to fail as well because you know we have that sin nature. But if we don’t recover from the sin, that’s the lack of faithfulness in our life. You know what Satan loves to do? He loves to introduce you to guilt. He loves to make you feel sorry for your sins. He loves to make you go sit in a corner and suck your thumb and say, oh, if I was really a Christian, I wouldn’t have done that. Yes, you would. Yes, you did. The issue is not do you feel guilty that you did it. The issue is you would not have committed the sin to start with if you didn’t want to, but rather will you be faithful to admit the sin and recover from the sin so that your spiritual life doesn’t stall out. That’s why God gave you that recovery process. You know, he knows your weaknesses and mine, he knows that. 2 Corinthians 12, nine, and he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. That’s what Paul said, God said to Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Therefore, most gladly, I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So God’s grace is available in our weaknesses. He knows our weaknesses. How does he know that? How does he know what we’re thinking? Well listen to Jeremiah 17 10. I the Lord search the heart and I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doing. So God can read your mind. That’s the omniscience of God. He knows what you’re thinking. You can’t pull the wool over God’s eyes. You can’t deceive God. He knows what you’re like. And the faithful believer, the believer that I’m talking about, will recover from his failures, not try to hide it, not try to lie about it, and definitely not be discouraged when he fails. Don’t get full of guilt. Don’t have a pity party and go sit in the corner and think, oh, me, if I was really saved, I wouldn’t have done that. Yes, you are saved, and yes, you did that. Confess that sin, get up, and move on. Your faithfulness to God demands you respect God. In Revelation 4.11, you are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and they were created. So faithfulness demands respect. Do you respect the God that you claim you love? Do you respect the God that saved you? That’s a very important issue. Do you respect God? Faithfulness demands respect, Revelation 4.11. In 1 Corinthians 10.31, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, here comes the respect for God now. Do all for the glory of God. And in Psalm 86.12, I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all of my heart, and I will glorify your name forevermore. That’s your faithfulness, to respect your God and to glorify Him. Our Lord Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The Bible tells us that. I hate to shock you, but He’s not your buddy. When you use His name, show respect. When you pray to the Father, show respect. In 1 Timothy 1.17, now to the King eternal. immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. That’s respect. That’s your respect. You have a heavenly Father, and you have a Savior, the anointed Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he’s not your buddy, and he should not be treated as your buddy, but as your Lord and your King. So a faithful believer is respectful. Respectful. Here’s another thing. A faithful believer is merciful. Merciful. In Luke 6, 36, therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful. God wants you to show mercy. In Matthew 5, 7, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Are you merciful? Is that you? The faithful believer is also a thankful believer. Not only is he merciful, not only is he faithful, but he’s also thankful. Thankful for what? In First Chronicles 1634, oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good. For his mercy, we studied that last week, his mercy endures forever. Are you thankful for God’s mercy? He who knew no sin was made sin for you, are you thankful for that? That Christ took your place, that you don’t have to go to the cross? He did it instead of you? In 1 Thessalonians 5, 18, in everything, talking about being thankful now, listen, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Now that’s important that you understand, in everything, not just in the things you like, but also in the things you don’t like. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. God doesn’t make mistakes. Whenever it comes into your life, he’s aware of it. He knows about it. And your job is to thank him because his plan is perfect. We are not perfect. We may not understand the plan. We may not know it all, but he is absolutely perfect. and he doesn’t make a mistake. So in everything, be thankful. That’s the faithfulness of a believer. A believer who’s faithful is merciful. A believer who is faithful is thankful. And that believer uses that thankfulness as a measure of his capacity for happiness. You’re supposed to be happy. God designed you to be happy. That’s what the whole thing is about. He doesn’t want you to be unhappy. And your thankfulness, when you have that thankfulness, it includes your tranquility or relaxed mental attitude where you have contentment and you have capacity for life. What a wonderful way to live, having thankfulness for everything, whatever comes into your life, not griping, not complaining, not groaning, not having a pity party, woe is me, I can’t do this, and this happened, that happened. Be thankful. Be thankful. I mean, I could give some silly illustrations, but think of the things that have happened to you and you were not thankful about them. You griped about it. You complained about it. You fumed about it. And you think God didn’t know about your lack of faithfulness? Because it says here we’re supposed to thank him for everything. Thankfulness is best seen in our gratitude or in our appreciation for what God has done for us. in our life and in our circumstances. He’s not throwing us under the bus. He hasn’t abandoned us. It’s all right there for us. What a wonderful thing it is. So if you’re not thankful for what you do have, you will always complain of what you don’t have. You hear me? If you’re not thankful for what you do have, you will always complain about what you do not have. So in conclusion, before we review it a little bit, The faithful believer should be respectful of God, merciful towards others, thankful to God for all things, never doubting, never complaining, always full of appreciation for what God has done. Remember Colossians 3 verse 2, set your mind on things above, not just on the earthly things. So you have to learn to think in a different dimension, in a different realm. You don’t belong here. You’re just passing through. The Bible says you’re a sojourner. This is not your home. Now that you’ve accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have an eternal destiny. The Lord Jesus Christ told the disciples, I’m going to prepare a place for you so that where I am, you may be also. So he hasn’t abandoned you. This is not the end of the road. You’re not stuck here forever. But the idea is that while you are here, while you are in the human realm, that you learn God’s word, apply God’s word, glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by replicating his life, replicating the way that he thinks. That’s why the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. That’s the thankfulness we’re looking for. The believer who’s actually thankful for the word, for the scripture, the believer who’s thankful for a well-qualified pastor that can teach him the word, and the believer who’s faithful to always name his sin quickly when he commits them. Not a believer who’s perfect, because if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 1 John 1.8. But a believer who knows he’s a flawed individual, a believer who knows how to recover, and a believer who knows how to advance. You know, when I played football at the University of Alabama, I got blocked. I got knocked down, but I didn’t stay on the ground. I got up, dusted myself off, and went back into the huddle, tried not to get blocked the next time. We’re all going to fail. We’re all going to make mistakes, but God is faithful. He’s not going to throw us under the bus. He’s not going to abandon us. He’s not going to leave us. He still loves you. The question is, are you faithful to love him back? Do you obey him? Because if you love him, you will obey him. 1 John 5 tells us that. And that’s the proof that you love God, that you obey him. What a wonderful message to study today. Our faithfulness, motivated by the faithfulness of God. I hope it’s encouraged you, and I hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, host of the Flatline Radio Show. You can always go to our website, rickhughesministries.org, and order any of our books. We have lots of books that have been available, printed free of charge, especially the book dealing with Christian problem-solving that shows you all 10 problem-solving devices. and a book that we’ve written for young people called Life’s Toughest Years. And we especially have that book on God’s grace and aging for people like you and me that are getting older. God’s grace and aging. If you don’t have it, go to the website and order it, and we’ll get it out to you immediately free of charge. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for being with me today, wherever you are, and thank God for giving me the privilege to bring you The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
