Main Idea: Refusing to give in when wanting to give up is evidence of the Spirit’s faithfulness.

I recently read a book on the battle of Waterloo that occurred between the British and French armies on July 18, 1815. I had always heard about the famous battle where French Emperor Napoleon was defeated by the British general Wellington but knew nothing about it. The battle occurred as Napoleon’s army was seeking to capture the city of Brussels, Belgium. The British sought to block his advance at the small village of Waterloo.

On the road to Waterloo there was a farmhouse called Hougoumont, which a small force of British soldiers had occupied. That farmhouse stood between Wellington’s defense and Napoleon’s attack. Beginning at 11:30 on the morning of June 18 the French began their assault on the farmhouse. There were approximately 2,600 British troops being opposed by 13,000 French soldiers. The struggle to seize the farmhouse lasted throughout the day as assault after assault was repelled by the small British force.

At one point a French detachment tried to enter the farmhouse by attacking the huge doors with axes. Nine British soldiers managed to close the door each time it was about to collapse. At last the doors were closed and the French soldiers were repelled. That farmhouse became the focal point of the victory for Wellington and it was said that "the success of the battle turned upon the closing of the gates at Hougoumont." Amazing, isn’t it, that nine men who didn’t give up when they no doubt wanted to give in closed a door that resulted in the change of history? They were faithful!

It makes you wonder how many things would be different in our lives if we had shown faithfulness at critical times. It is often the small things that can turn a defeat into a victory. Faithfulness, refusing to give in when you want to give up, no matter how small, may very well be the key that changes our destiny. Faithfulness, we’ll discover today, is one of the evidences that the Holy Spirit is in control of a believer’s life. Paul said in Galatians 5:22, "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness…." Faithfulness is what we are going to talk about today. What I want us to see is that refusing to give in when we want to give up is evidence of the Spirit’s faithfulness.

What is faithfulness? The word comes from the word that is the same for faith and it means trustworthiness, reliability, confidence or assurance. I like the way Bill Hybels describes it, "Faithfulness means you stick to a commitment after the shine wears off. Faithfulness means you keep your word even though complications arise and promise-keeping costs you more than you thought it would. Faithfulness means you keep saying no, a thousand times if you must, to the temptation of cutting a corner and taking the easy way out. Faithfulness means you keep working through relational problems rather than disposing of the relationship like yesterday’s trash. Faithfulness means you see a project through to the bitter end. Faithfulness means you refuse to jump ship even when the waves of adversity are splashing over the decks of your marriage, your relationship with your children, your vocation, your ministry, or your relationship with others. Faithfulness means you stay true to your relationship with Jesus Christ no matter what it costs you." (Bill Hybels, Living the Supernatural Life, p. 44) Faithfulness means you refuse to give up when you want to give in.

This morning I want us to examine this statement about faithfulness by asking: What are the things that make us want to give up in our faithfulness to God and what are the things that enable us to refuse to give in to the temptation to give up. One thing to realize is that while faithfulness and the last fruit of the Spirit, self-control, are similar, there is a distinction. Faithfulness implies a prior claim on our life. We are faithful to someone or something. Self-control is the inner discipline to halt the things that would erode our faithfulness. They both work together but faithfulness is more purposeful or intentional. Just because you show up for work every day doesn’t always mean you are faithful to your employer. Just because you don’t have an affair doesn’t always mean you are faithful to your spouse. Just because you show up for church every week doesn’t always mean you do it out of faithfulness to God. Faithfulness is more than your habit; it is your heart’s devotion.

What are the things that make you want to give up being faithful as a believer in Jesus Christ? I believe there are some hints of things that we find in this one verse from Revelation 2:13. The context of this verse is that it is from the words of Jesus to the church located in the city of Pergamum. Pergamum was on the western edge of what we know as Turkey today. It was a huge city at this time with a library that housed over one million volumes. It was a vital center of government and pagan worship filled with fabulous temples to the gods of Rome and ancient Greece.

In the huge city there was a church, a small band of believers who struggled to be a witness to the light of Jesus Christ in the darkness of the world around them. Jesus, speaking through John the Apostle, commends them for their unique faithfulness in spite of the pressures that could easily overwhelm them. They were faithful to Christ in all the circumstances that would try to weaken and assault their commitment to him, especially when one of their own was killed because of his witness for Christ.

When I look at this verse, I see some similarities between the things that made them want to give up and the things that make us want to quit. Jesus said, "I know you live in the city where that great throne of Satan is located and yet you have remained loyal to me." This reminds me of the daily pressures that you and I face continually that just make us want to give up. Day in and day out these people were assaulted continually in a spiritual battle. Each hour of their life they were opposed by those who despised their faith. Doesn’t the constant, daily struggle to be faithful to Christ begin to wear you down? It’s not some huge thing; it’s just the daily resistance that gets to us. Yet these people refused to give in and remained faithful.

Jesus chooses one example as the culmination of their faithfulness when he says, "And you refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you by Satan’s followers." Now we have no other information as to the identity of Antipas other than this. For the Lord Jesus to have noted him by name tells us that his witness and resistance were exemplary. Can you imagine the crisis this man’s death created in the church? Suddenly this group of Christ followers were face to face with the reality that all they had believed was being given the ultimate test: Would they be faithful or would they give up? The crisis moments of our lives have a way of testing our faithfulness. The daily pressures are hard enough but when the crisis comes we wonder, "Is it worth it?" These believers faced their crisis moment, refused to give in and remained faithful.

If they were becoming shaky in their faithfulness, what about Antipas? Like I said, we don’t know anything more than what is mentioned here. Yet what a statement! When faced with death he refused to give in to the temptation to save his life by denying his Christ. He refused to compromise. He refused to give in to the call to just take the easy way out. He met the darkest season of his life and was faithful. Daily pressures can become crisis moments and crisis moments can be come our darkest season. It’s more than a moment. It’s a longer period of time when the crisis doesn’t go away but lingers. In those dark seasons we want to give in and wonder if our faithfulness matters. One lone man, named in one sentence in one ancient book, surrounded by sixty-five other books, reminds us that he refused to give in, even in his darkest hour, and was faithful.

If living for Christ daily, crisis moments and our darkest seasons can make us want to give in, throw in the towel and walk away, what is it that can cause us to refuse to give up? Where does the strength to say "yes" come from when what we really want to say is "no." The answer is one word: God. We need to remember that it is the Spirit’s faithfulness that is the evidence that God is in control of our life. Our faithfulness finds its source, not in some superhuman determination to resist, but in God’s supernatural power to enable us to persist. The psalmist said, "For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness to each generation" (Psa. 100:5). We are faithful because God is faithful to us. Beth Moore said, "The degree of our faithfulness is the direct result of our regard for God’s faithfulness."

There are few greater words penned about God’s faithfulness than those of Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:19-24. The context is that the armies of Babylon had at last invaded and destroyed the city of Jerusalem in 597 B.C. For almost 350 years the Hebrew people had convinced themselves that their life, their city, and their temple would never be destroyed and now it was all burned to the ground. They believed they were indestructible but they soon learned otherwise. Jeremiah, having foretold of the very events he now witnessed, took his pen and wrote in shock and sorrow, "The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss" (Lam. 3:19-20). Jeremiah has every reason to give up being faithful to God. He felt utterly and absolutely abandoned. Pain can make us feel just like that. Whether it is daily, a crisis, or a season of darkness, it pierces us so deeply we can’t forget it.

Jeremiah’s next words are his and our strength, for out of the reality of his sorrow he says, "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this…." "Yet"—in spite of all that is telling me to quit-"I still dare to hope,"-I will take the risk and trust – "when I remember this." What does he remember? He clings to one absolute reality: "Great is his faithfulness." God is always faithful to enable us to refuse to give in when we want to give up.

How does he do that? What enables us to refuse to give in? Jeremiah says God is faithful to me daily by supplying me with fresh mercy. He says, "His mercies begin afresh each day" (v. 23). Every single day God offers to us his fresh mercy. That day when you think you can’t do it, you can’t resist, you can’t go on—that day there is fresh mercy just for you to enable you to be faithful. Sometimes it’s not even day to day but hour by hour that we find ourselves in need of his mercy. For all the daily pressures to give up God supplies us with fresh mercy to refuse to give in.

What about the crisis moments? What about those moments when it seems you have stumbled headlong into a place of chaos you never suspected was even there? How can you go on and be faithful? For those moments, there is this: "The unfailing love of the Lord never ends! By his mercies we are kept from complete destruction." In that crisis we all want answers and we want assurance that we are going to survive. We feel the rising resentment toward God that this shouldn’t be us, that we are entitled to something better. Then we hear his words, "My love will never fail you and because I love you I will cause all things, even this crisis, to accomplish my good in your life." In the crisis moments, the unfailing, the unending love of God for us can enable us to refuse to give up when what we really want is to give in.

For daily resistance there is fresh mercy. For crisis moments there is unfailing love. What about our darkest seasons? For our darkest seasons there is lasting hope. Jeremiah says, "I say to myself, "The Lord is my inheritance, therefore, I will hope in him’" (v. 24). Jeremiah is saying that God is the only future where he can put his hope. He has nothing left, nothing physical or tangible. It is all gone. All he has left is God and he says, "I will hope in him." In our darkest seasons everything is stripped away and all that is left is God and we feel like even he has turned his back on us. We want to give in but inside of us we hear the ancient voice of a bewildered disciple named Peter, who when asked by Jesus if he would abandon him said, "Lord, to whom would we go? You alone have the words that give eternal life" (John 6:68). "The Lord is all I’ve got, therefore I will hope in him. I’m not giving in. I refuse to give up because he is my hope."

When we want to give in the Spirit’s faithfulness refuses to give up. Whether it is daily pressures, crisis moments or our darkest season, by his faithfulness we go on. Why? Do you remember I said earlier that faithfulness implied a prior claim on our life? That we would be faithful to something or someone. The reason we go on and remain faithful is because of a prior claim that God has placed on our life. When Jesus Christ said, "Follow me," we said, "Yes." He asked us, commanded us, to follow him without knowing where that following would ultimately lead. We dare to be faithful because he asked us to do it. Deuteronomy 30:11 says, "This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand or perform."

There’s a song that talks about the journey of faithfulness that gets at this one truth about following because he asked us to. It’s called "Up to the Mountain" and the lyrics are:

I went up to the mountain

Because you asked me to

Today, go on to faithfulness! Do it daily! Do it in the crisis! Do it in the darkest season! Do it in the Spirit’s power! Do it all because He asked you to! "Great is his faithfulness."

Sunday, October 15, 2006 a.m.

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org