The Advantages of Faithfulness

ROMANS 1-4: What Makes a Man a Believer

The Advantages of Faithfulness

Rough Transcript

Khayree Pender

Khayree Pender:

Hello, Man in the Mirror. I’m Khayree Pender. Today we’ll be coming from Romans, the third chapter, verses 1 through 8. “Then, what’s the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the ceremony of circumcision? Yes, there are great benefits. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God. True, some of them were unfaithful, but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean that God will be unfaithful?” Of course not. Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the scripture says about him, ‘You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court.’

‘But,’ some might say ‘our sins serve as good purpose for it helps people to see the righteousness God is. Isn’t it unfair then for him to punish us?’ This is merely a point of view from humans. Of course not. If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world? ;But,’ someone might still argue, ‘how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness, but brings him more glory?’ And some people even slander us by claiming that we say,’The more we sin, the better it is!’ Those who say such things deserve to be condemned.”

So today, Romans chapter three, verses one through eight. And our title today is The Advantage of Faithfulness. The Advantage of Faithfulness. And when we look at the word faithful, which just simply means loyal, constant, steadfast, true to the facts or original. The Big Idea, the Big Idea. What are the benefits of being faithful? What are the benefits of being faithful? We’ve all been tasked in our lives or on a daily basis as well, just being faithful to certain things. Some things we don’t have a choice with but being faithful to certain things, and if we aren’t faithful to them, then there’s consequences. There’s some roads that we’ve even gone down ourselves saying that these are certain things that we want to pinpoint or even be faithful to because we will find out the benefits of being faithful to it.

When we look at this scripture, verses one through three, it says this, “Then what’s the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in a ceremony of circumcision? Yes, there are great benefits. First of all, the Jews were trusted with the whole revelation of God.” Now, as we begin to look at this, we look at the scripture, which poses a question and I love when it starts with questions, asking, “What’s the advantage?” What’s the advantage of it? Is there advantage? Surely, there is an advantage which brings us to our first point or bubble, and that’s the covenant.

THE COVENANT

We have a covenant. When we begin to look between, back then, not going too far to the history aspect of it, the Jews and the Gentiles and the lineage as well, shows that the Jews had a covenant. And it comes into with circumcision that takes us down a whole ‘nother path, but a covenant. And a covenant is an agreement or something that’s adhered by.

And even in this, it shows us as well, a great quote by Edwin Lewis Cole says this, it says, “Your faithfulness makes you trustworthy to God.” And let’s think about it. It tells us here in this first couple of verses. It says, or even the first couple of verses, verse two says, “Yes, there are benefits. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God.” The whole word, they were entrusted with it. So, your faithfullness brings out the trust, trustworthiness to God, being entrusted with things. Let’s think about it. If you ever had to lend or loan something to someone to let them hold it, or even in a position or place like that, based on the level that it is, your trustworthiness and your faithfulness aligns with saying, “Am I really going to invest in something or allowing someone to take part of something as well?”

Because when we think about faithfulness, we really want to make sure that the person would adhere to those things. Being faithful, I don’t have to trust or call you or figure out if you’re going to be there or do certain things, but it speaks for you. Your faithfulness speaks for you. Certain times when our actions, we won’t even have to do certain things because our faithfulness will speak for us as well. And it says, “True, some of them were unfaithful, but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful?” And then, I love how verse four comes, but I don’t want to go too far. But it says this, “True, some of them were unfaithful, but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful?” And that’s another thing to say it, because even though when we’re dealing with faithfulness in this aspect, it asks us a question.

Normally, when somebody doesn’t uphold their end of the bargain, the next person makes them pull out or away from what it was that they were connected with. But it says this, “So if they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful as well?” So, I have a question I want to ask you. I want to ask this question. Have you ever abandoned a post or a position to entertain your own desire? Have you ever done that? When we think about covenant, when we’re talking about covenant, having a position, having a place, just like the Jews had as well, they were trusted with the whole revelation. But, if you were ever unfaithful, and it asks that question, have you ever abandoned a post or a position to entertain your own desires is the question. I want to ask that. It’s time for us to really take a little time to think about that.

So, the next thing is this, back to the Big Idea again. What are the benefits of being faithful? What are the benefits? We have the first one, we talk about the covenant. The covenant connects us with the faithfulness and being trustworthy. So, we go to verses four through six. It says this, for the previous question and answers, it says, “Of course not, even if everyone else is a liar, God is true.” That gets me excited. It gives me goosebumps. As the scripture says about him, “You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court.” Verse five says, “But some might say our sinfulness serves as a good purpose for it helps people to see the righteousness God is. Isn’t it unfair then to him to punish us?”

Verse six says, “Of course not. If God were not entirely fair, he would not be qualified to judge the world.” This whole part, I just have to go back through, it gets me so excited because it says this for the previous question, but it says, “Of course not. Even if everyone is a liar, God is true,” when we talk about the faithfulness. So, our Big Idea was: What are the benefits of being faithful? The first point or bubble was the covenant.

THE CASE

The second one is, the case. We’re building the case. We’re building the case and we know that the case is the instance of something particular. So, we’re building the case right now. So we ask it, it says, “Of course not. Even if everyone is a liar God is still true.” So, even in the faithfulness, even when we had a bargain or if we had a position to uphold and we weren’t faithful to it, God is still faithful.

He is still faithful. And here it is, we’re going to talk about the case right here. Let’s talk about the case. It says this, God is true, as the scripture says about him, but here it is, it says, “You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court.” Because in verse five, they’re bringing a point that it won’t uphold in court. It says, “But some might say your sinfulness serves as a purpose for to help us to see the righteous of righteousness of God.” We’re talking about a case. Absolutely not. Just because God is going to be true in everything, whether we’re being faithful to him or not faithful, that he’s going to be consistent and truthful, does not mean that we can just go ahead and just do a wrong because it’s going to uphold and show how good God is.

It doesn’t work that way. That’s the case that we’re talking about. You cannot just take a wrong and say, “Oh, you know what? Even if I’m doing wrong, God is still going to be truthful. And you know what? I’m even helping God in this because by me being wrong and there’s no condemning towards me or anything happening, is showing just how righteous God is.” It doesn’t work that way. You can not just prove your case or your point with that, saying either way that God… even though it’s true… what would make us think in our right mind that this is okay? Let me tell you something. There’s no plea bargain in faithfulness. There’s no plea bargain in faithfulness. You have to go straight forward with it and do it, because the only way to get the results is being faithful. I’ve never seen a partial faithfulness give me the full results that I ever wanted or needed, or that I was looking for.

So, I love it though, even though it tells us this, even if everyone else is a liar, even if everyone isn’t committed, even if everyone else gets off their posts, even if they don’t uphold the word that was given, God is still going to be truthful. That’s what it is. That’s what it’s stating in this place. That God will still be truthful and faithful to what it is. And it also tells us this in verse six, again, it says that, “Of course not. If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world? But someone might still argue, how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him glory?” Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I went all the way into verse seven, but we’ll pause for verse seven before we go on that. But I have a question for you. I want to ask you this, and I stated it in there, do you think there’s a plea bargain for faithfulness? Do you think that there’s a plea bargain for faithfulness?

There’s no plea bargain for faithfulness. There’s no plea bargain for faithfulness. In order to get a full return on you being complete and faithful to what it is that’s positioned or in front of you, you have to be totally and fully committed to what’s in front of you. In the scripture as well, it asks us so what do the Jews have? Is there something different about them? What makes them so different? What difference does it make for them, just because they’re Jews? I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a position or even thinking about younger or earlier childhood, when you’ve probably been tasked with a position to do something and you’re looking at everyone else and saying, “What makes it so different for them? Why don’t they have to do it? What’s so different about them?”

And sometimes those questions will come up and it will question us to look at ourselves. Or even going through life, you may think that you’re given the harder end or standing on the other side of God’s grace at some point in time, and ask that question, “What makes them so different that things can go smooth for them? Why do I have to go through the long course?” But even in the midst of that, we have to understand and know, is still focus on it and state that God is still faithful. He is still faithful. And that’s the great part about it. And in scripture, that’s what they were saying, it exposes his glory, even in my wrong doing his glory is being expressed and shown while faithfulness is being proven and true and shown. But even when I’m doing wrong it’s like he still covers me. His truthfulness is still there.

So, the Big Idea, what are the benefits of being faithful? So, the first one we know we have the covenant, that agreement that locks us in. The second bubble we have is the case is going to be won. The case will uphold itself, being connected with the faithfulness and truthfulness. And the third one is, when we look at it, it’s the caution that we have. The caution. So, it gives us the covenant, the case and the caution.

THE CAUTION

So, when we begin to look at the caution, we think about the caution… caution is always a great thing. It prepares us for danger or things that we may walk into. Caution will bring us into a place or show us something that can properly prepare us from hurting ourselves. So, let’s look at the verses seven through eight, and it says this, it says, “But someone might still argue,” even that we saw and shown that he was truthful, “Someone might still argue, how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him glory?”

Let me tell you something, God don’t need any help with his glory being shown. Every day that we wake up, every day that the earth revolves around the sun, every day that the stars still sit high, he doesn’t need any type of help with that. And verse eight says, “And some people may even slander us by claiming that we say the more we sin, the better it is. Those who say such things deserve to be condemned.” Listen, even in this, it helps us. The advantage of the faithfulness gives us caution because we cannot take these mere things and feel as though that we need to help God or that God needs help. But it’s also showing us and saying this, being even that they highlighted that my wrongdoing is helping bring God more glory.

Absolutely not. No way, no how. It gives us the caution. And it says this, some people even may slander us by claiming that we say the more we sin the better it is. Absolutely not. There’s our caution. Here’s in and out the last advantage of being faithful, it’s the caution. The caution says, the more we sin the better it is. Absolutely not. Because after that, it says those who say such things deserves to be condemned. There’s no way that we can link our wrongdoings with God’s faithfulness or gratefulness or glory, that does not mix at all and it gives us the understanding. So, caution is in that place as well, as we begin to look at it. And I have another question that I want to ask. What was a time that God kept his word even when we were unfaithful? What was a time that God kept his word even when we were unfaithful?

That’s a great time to reflect because it didn’t even take me long to even catch a memory or even think about something that I wasn’t faithful to, but God still was faithful to me and kept his glory over me and his protection around me even though I didn’t. God is still faithful. He’s still faithful and will remain faithful during this whole process. What are the benefits of being faithful? We know that we’ll get a full return on the truthfulness and a full return on the results that we desire, but not only this, we also know that our father won’t leave us and he will still be faithful. That doesn’t give us a free pass, a free sin pass, or a free disobedient pass to do what we want because we thinking, “Oh, okay, I have the faithfulness of God and he’ll still cover me.”

We can’t do it. It’s not like us putting gas in our tank to see how much grace and mercy that we have to gauge ourselves on what we do know. Let’s make a conscious effort to stay faithful because God is always staying faithful with us. He will give us the covenant in this. He will make sure we’re secured in our case, and then there’s also a place for caution when we’re dealing with the faithfulness of God. This is good because we’ve probably thought about certain things, I might as well go ahead and do it because I’m not doing right anyway, or that I might as well go ahead and feed my own desires and get my own excitement from it, because that’s what I need. I might as well do those things. But it tells us this, no, it doesn’t make sense. It just don’t mix.

So, there are some advantages of being faithful and we have them. Once again, our Big Idea, what are the benefits of being faithful? We have them here. There’s a lot of security in this. What makes people look different? And just as they had the question, we may have it as well, of other people that’s on this journey called life with us. And we may look at it and say, “What makes them so different?” But they may be looking at us as well and asking what makes us so different? But by us being faithful, locks us in with a better security as well. And we get a greater return and it shows us that there is a return on this for us being faithful.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for blessing us and watching over us and keeping us. God, we know that going through life sometimes we set some standards for ourselves that we may not be faithful to right now, but God, with your power and your strength, we know that we can be connected and we know that the power that lies within you, God, will cover us. Father, we ask that you continue to keep us close. God, we thank you for the love and connected covenant that you have with us right now, Father. We thank you right now, God, for the case, this being one right now, God, and we also thank you for the caution that you prepare for us. Father, we thank you right now, God, for being faithful even when we weren’t faithful. We thank you right now, God, for everything that you’ve done and everything that you will do. We love you, in your name we pray, Jesus. Amen. Amen.