A Call to Faithfulness

God laid it on my heart to speak for a moment about faithfulness, about being faithful to the Lord, about being faithful in our lives—being faithful. And that goes along with the idea that even if you have very little left in life, your calling is to be faithful.

There will be many times when you will have no strength. Honestly, in the situations of life, you will not have even a wisp or the tiniest bit left; you have run out of gas, and the only thing you can smell is that there used to be gas in the tank, but that is all. You will be like an athlete, a marathon runner who is running a marathon and reaches mile 25.5, with half a mile left to run, and all his strength is already gone. And what does he do? He musters his courage, does not give up, and even if he has to drag himself, he reaches the finish line because he has made a commitment of honor; he finds strength where he has none and finishes the race.

There are moments in life when we cannot even depend—brothers and sisters, let me tell you this—on an awareness of God’s presence. Although God is there, there are situations in life when you will sometimes feel so tired, so burdened, so overwhelmed by the pressure of what you are going through that even when you cry out, you will not feel God’s presence.

But you know what? In those moments, you simply have to say, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” and take that step, because you have been called to be faithful. And God will give you the strength at that moment to complete what you have begun, because we cannot depend on emotions.

A son or daughter of God does not depend on emotions, but on principles. Because many times the devil will come and whisper to you, “Jump, throw yourself down, do this, do that,” and the sensation you feel will be so strong that if you yield to the pressure of emotion or appetite, or whatever it may be, you are lost. But we, the children of God, learn to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, by the principles of the Gospel.

And I believe that Christian maturity is measured not by the chills you get—although there are moments for chills in the life of a child of God—but simply by this: God said it, and I have to do it, and that is all. And you reach the finish line because you are a faithful man or woman.

For me, faithfulness is the child of God’s safeguard. It is that card, that last card you play in your Christian journey. When everything else fails you and you have access to nothing else, you have that card: I have been called to be faithful; I am a faithful man. You are a man or woman of honor in the spirit; you are a prince in God’s army, and a prince or princess in God’s army does not soil himself or herself, because that position demands high standards.

And so there is that call to faithfulness in every situation in life: in your work, your marriage, your finances, your commitments, and when you give your word. When everything else fails, you must be certain in your heart that you will be faithful; you cannot depend on circumstances. I love faithful people.

This morning, what confirmed it for me… because I was debating whether to speak about this or stick to the sermon I had planned, which I think was quite good and which I hope to share with you at some point—but as I say, sometimes you have to learn that God may tell you, “No, save that and let it earn interest. Preach it later, but right now I want this in particular.”

So I want to share with you this idea of faithfulness, of God’s call to His people to be faithful. This may not be the kind of sermon that lends itself to many cries of “Glory to God! Hallelujah!” But it is rice and beans with a little piece of well-seasoned meat, and it will give you strength for your life.

Because I believe pastoral preaching is very different from evangelistic preaching and other kinds of preaching. A pastor is like a mother who has to make three meals a day for her children and sometimes for her husband as well, and so she has to be consistent. Sometimes she gives them spaghetti with just a whiff of meat, and that is all—and that is fine, because what you want is nutritious food for your children.

So I want to speak to you about faithfulness and being faithful, and I am going to move along because, although this topic has not been prepared, it has so many ramifications. I wondered, what text could I use as a starting point for this call to faithfulness? And Ruth immediately came to mind. Ruth was a faithful woman; of all the examples of faithfulness in the Bible, Ruth stands out to me.

You remember the story of Ruth. Scripture brings her into focus at the moment when Ruth, her mother-in-law Naomi, and her sister-in-law Orpah are—I picture them at a crossroads, with no one else around. One road leads this way, another leads that way, and another comes from over there. And the three of them are standing right in the middle of that crossroads, talking.

Naomi, the mother-in-law of these two young women, has lost her husband and is a widow. And both Orpah and Ruth have lost their husbands, Naomi’s sons. Three widowed women with little future, bereft of prospects and facing some major decisions.

Naomi was a noble woman, and instead of clinging to her daughters-in-law and living off them, she told them, “You know what, girls? You are still young; my time has already passed.” Incidentally, she thought God had abandoned her. “So go make your own way. Leave me; I’ll manage however I can,” as the Dominican version of the Bible puts it.

Here is where we pick up the story. Look at what happens between these women. Ruth 1:14 says:

“…They lifted up their voices and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law…”

She said, “Okay, dear, God bless you. See you soon. Bye.” And she went off to look for her next husband somewhere out there. She had a right to do that; she did nothing wrong. She had a right to live, and her mother-in-law had invited her to go make her own way. So she left. She took life’s conventional road. But look at what Naomi said: she notices that Ruth is suddenly still standing there. They watch Orpah’s figure disappear over the horizon, while Ruth stays glued to her mother-in-law. And Naomi said to her:

“…Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; go back after her…” Go seek your own destiny too, Ruth. Do not worry; do what you have to do. And Ruth replied with these immortal and deeply poetic words:

“…Ruth answered, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn away from you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, and add even more, if anything but death separates the two of us…’

Wow! That is a fitting word in this case. Naomi was left speechless. She saw her daughter-in-law’s determination, and when Naomi saw that she was so resolved to go with her, she said no more. She saw that Ruth was stuck to her like a limpet and would not let go, and she said, “Well, if I tear her off, she is going to take a piece of flesh with her, so I had better leave her alone.” She said, “Okay, daughter, let’s move forward; you and I will work this out together.”

And God blessed them greatly. These two women formed a partnership of mutual support and entered Naomi’s former hometown, and God blessed Ruth so greatly that Ruth became the wife of a very prosperous man and also became something like the great-great-grandmother of King David.

David came from the lineage of this woman who, in fact, was not even Jewish; she was a pagan, from a pagan nation. She even became an ancestor of the Savior of humanity, Christ Jesus. Wow! Wouldn’t you like to have that in your lineage? An ancestor of Christ Jesus, Savior of humanity. Why? Because faithful people generally prevail and are blessed at the end of the processes they go through; things work out for them. Because sometimes life zigzags; life is not a straight line from zero to a thousand. Life has moments of difficulty; sometimes you lose and sometimes you win. You move forward; sometimes you have to step back a little. But if you hold on, you reach the finish line and you are blessed, whether you are a man or a woman.

That is what many young people sometimes do not understand, what many people in the world do not understand. When some problems arise in life, they immediately give up and throw in the towel. And so, for many people, life is a series of failures, and when they grow old, they have built nothing, because every time adversity enters their lives, they give up and throw everything away. Then they have to start building all over again when they say, “Okay, well, my tantrum has passed; now I’m going to start again.” But what happened? You lost time, you lost opportunities, you did not cultivate relationships, you did not learn things. And sometimes the same thing happens with a career.

Many people begin a career, but it does not go as well as they expected during the first six months, and suddenly they go from wanting to be a nurse to wanting to be a veterinarian, an investor, or whatever else. They do not stick with it. Some people go through life moving from one thing to another, from one friendship to another. They are like the locusts of the Middle East, which devastate one land, leave it barren, and then move on to another green place to eat some more. And that is how some people behave.

There are people in life who treat friendships that way. They spend six months, eight months, ten months with a friend, calling her and calling her; they see each other, eat together, go to the park, and even sleep in the same bed—behaving themselves, I hope. And once the friendship becomes boring, they leave her and go looking for fresh meat to begin another friendship. Their life is a series of… there is no consistency, no continuity, because once the friendship becomes boring and there is little left to talk about because they already know all each other’s secrets, another friend comes along who is more interesting and more promising, and they run after that friend. They never learn to be a good friend. And when they reach old age, they do not have three or four good friends about whom they can say, “I have spent and lived my life with these people. We have cried together, fought, reconciled, and we are friends and companions for life.” Why? Because every process in life has its highs and lows.

Life is difficult by nature. Friendships and relationships are like trees that bloom in the spring; then fall comes and they lose their leaves, and in winter they are dry and bare. But spring returns, the flowers return once again, and so do the fruits—and we are like that. There is a time for celebration, and that is life. Life has its seasons of winter, and it has its seasons of spring and summer as well.

You have to know how many summers you have gone through in your life, how many autumns, how many winters you have gone through. What sustains me in winter is knowing that one of these days I will see the first little leaves on the trees. When the snow comes up to my knees and I have to come to church on Sunday morning to preach, and it is raining and that cold bites you, you say, “Hey, but I know April is somewhere ahead, even if it is two months away.” And I am going to hold on; I am going to wait.

And brothers and sisters, only faithful people can come to enjoy the fruits of life. Faithful people. But as I tell you, when it is winter and you look at the trees sometimes, you say, “It is impossible for that tree to bear fruit again.” Nevertheless, it bears fruit again. And that is how it happens: there will be situations in your life when you will say, “I am not getting back up from this one.” But as the song said, if you give your praise to the Lord during that time, that praise will cause the leaves to sprout again. And you have to remain there.

And the Bible says again and again that it is important for God’s servants to be faithful. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 4, the apostle Paul says:

“…Thus, let people regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God…”

Paul says, see to it that the people who know us understand that we occupy a very exalted position in the world. We are ambassadors of Christ Jesus, we are servants of Jesus Christ, and we administer the mysteries of God. That is wonderful.

Do you know that you are a steward of the mysteries of the universe? How? When you praise—how mysterious praise is, how mysterious! If you begin to analyze praise, spiritual warfare, prayer, salvation by faith, Christ’s death on the cross, His resurrection, and His coming in the clouds—those are mysteries. The fact that God prepared Jesus from eternity to die for us on the cross of Calvary so that we might be saved—that is a mystery, and we administer those things. The church is the one that handles those truths, proclaims them, and interprets them, as I am doing right now up here. We are stewards.

In other words, you occupy an extremely exalted position by virtue of being a follower of Christ Jesus and someone who knows and proclaims the Word of God. But look, then, at what it says here—and this is what matters. It says:

“…Moreover—in other words, all right, but you know what?—it is required of stewards that each one be found faithful…”

Why? Because a steward has to be faithful. If you entrust someone with administering something for you—your money, your house, your profession, or whatever it may be—that person had better be faithful; in other words, trustworthy, so that you can place your finances in that person’s hands and know that they will not mismanage them.

So God has given you something very powerful; you occupy a very high place in the Kingdom of God and in the world, and God expects you to be steadfast, trustworthy, and faithful. And a faithful person, as I tell you, is not a person who operates by emotions. A faithful person is a person of principles, a person who, even if offered the world, if that offer does not accord with his principles, says, “No matter how brightly it shines and no matter how much my eyes follow after it, that does not belong to me, it is not mine, and I am not going to touch it.”

And that faithfulness—because, as I tell you, brothers and sisters, in the charismatic, Pentecostal world, with which I identify and with which this church identifies, there is often a dependence on the glitter of things, on emotion. I believe in emotions, in manifestation, and I have spoken here about the manifestation of the active presence of God, but you know what? Many times, over the course of thousands of preaching sessions and services, every now and then a service will not have the same sparkle that we had this afternoon, for example.

I have been with this church for 28 years, 26 or 27 of them as pastor, and so many things have happened in that time. There are Sundays when you can almost touch the glory of God; there are other Sundays when, look, we hit a double or a single. And because of that, are you going to go home thinking, “Oh, the presence of God was not there; we failed in our purpose. Oh, how terrible! What is going to happen? Is the church going to fall apart?” No. You simply say, “Glory to God; that was what God wanted.” We worshiped the Lord. We proclaimed His Word, we tithed and gave offerings, we tithed and gave offerings, and you go home. Glory to God. You administered the mysteries of the Lord; things will be better next Sunday, and you spend your life serving the Lord. And whether there is thunder and lightning, glory to God.

But if that day’s experience was not as glorious as last Sunday’s, you are a soldier: you keep reporting to the house of God, you keep worshiping the Lord, you keep glorifying His name. Many times God is glorified more in those people who praise Him like that—sometimes simply, but out of obedience and steadfastness—than in people who depend on the pastor to give them chills, to get down on his knees and stand on his head, and to perform maneuvers so that the people will feel the presence of the Lord even when it is not there—they will drag it in by any means necessary. But no. I believe that the people of God are a steadfast people.

And I was speaking with the brothers and sisters; I devoted a lot of time to marriage because one of the places where a person must be faithful is in marriage. And being faithful means that when you marry someone—that is why a ceremony has been devised—you say to that person there, and you make a confession that says, “In sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty, in everything life gives and in everything it takes away, you will be faithful to each other until death parts you.”

And of course, when you are getting married, you are 20 or 24 years old, fresh and full of dreams, and it is very easy to say, “Until death parts you.” But you do not know everything that awaits you during that time. I have said that sometimes, instead of people dressing in elegant, expensive clothing on their wedding day, I would like them to dress in overalls, mechanic’s pants, and a belt with a hammer, a measuring tape, and a pair of pliers, because marriage is work. It is a blessing, glory to God; it is the glory of God on earth, because everything God does is good, but it also requires effort and work.

Marriage has everything; it is a journey that will contain many different things, and if you do not arm yourself with the awareness that this is for faithful people, that this is not for cowards, then if you give up, as Mexicans say, at the first crisis, problem, fight, bitter experience, disagreement, discouragement, or whatever else arises in marriage, you will spend your whole life going from branch to branch like a monkey, and you will not develop character, faithfulness, or trustworthiness. I believe that in marriage a man or a woman says to his or her spouse, husband, or wife, “I am going to be your friend, and today I make a covenant—I enter into covenant with you. And even if old age and sickness come, and we fight and are wrong and make mistakes and step on each other’s toes and say things to each other that we should not have said, and there are wounds, I will love you, I will forgive you, you will forgive me, and we will make it—even if we are limping—but we will enter the Kingdom of God together.”

That is why many people do not get married, because they begin to think, “Oh, what if tomorrow I no longer feel excited about my wife? What if there is another woman out there whom I like, or another man? Then I do not want this anymore…” Brothers and sisters, marriage will have everything: there will be temptations, there will be mistakes, there will be offenses, there will be illnesses; but throughout that whole journey, the Bible says that you must be faithful. You must take your husband or wife by the hand, be a good spouse and a good friend, and go through the processes of life together. There will be moments when the bedroom will be glorious, cannons will sound, little angels will sing, and flares will light up the bedroom; and there will be other days when it was fine—you give each other a little kiss, lie down to sleep, express your love to each other, and another day the flares and cannon blasts will come, and glory to God. But that is how it is. And one must understand that this is married life; in 25, 30, or 40 years of married life, if God gives that to a couple, there is a bit of everything.

And do you know one of the things that often poses the greatest threat to marriage, as it does to any other venture in life? It is not so much when the devil arrives with his entire demonic army and throws himself upon you, and you know that the fire of hell is blowing over your life. In those moments your adrenaline surges, you cry out to the Lord, and you become a giant, a Deborah, and defeat the hosts of hell, because you know that you are at war. But that is not the most dangerous moment in marriage or in serving the Lord. The most dangerous moments are when boredom and ordinariness come; it is the matter of day-to-day life.

Sometimes I see brothers and sisters who come to church and are so happy and enthusiastic about the church. They say, “Pastor, this is the best church in the world,” and sometimes I am not quite enthusiastic enough to say to them, “Amen, sister.” “No one is getting me out of here,” they say. And while I greet them and see them on Sunday and encourage them—glory to God—and the people are happy that they are new to the church and the ministry and celebrate them, when six or eight months have passed and they are already part of the congregation, and there are other brothers and sisters who need to be greeted, encouraged, and welcomed, and now they are simply expected to get down to the business of being a church member, to serve, to come, and to be there because they made a covenant with a congregation, do you know what happens? Their enthusiasm begins to wane; it no longer gives them chills.

Then they have to come on Sunday, get dressed, lay out their clothes on Saturday night, get the children ready, and arrive at church; and the following Sunday they will have to do the same thing all over again, and they will have to serve in the children’s ministry, and sometimes there will be problems and the ministry leaders will pull each other’s hair, and the glory of God will not be as evident as it was the previous Sunday. But no—you made a vow, and you must be faithful, so you come, and the following Sunday you come again.

I am blessed by people—and this is not designed as a veiled jab at anyone. I tell people that there are churches one must leave to escape with one’s life. There are churches with bad doctrine, bad administration, emotional and spiritual abuse, and exploitation of the people; many terrible things happen, and I believe that in such a case, yes, you should, as I say, flee for your life and find a place where you can…

But if you have a good congregation where there is a good Word, a good program, integrity in ministry, brothers and sisters who love God, opportunities to serve and learn and for your children to grow, why would you go looking for a younger, plumper, more promising little woman and leave the wife of your youth to go somewhere else?

That happens in marriage. The years come, the years pass, and we are no longer as muscular and well-defined as we were at 20. Many things head south or fill out a little more, or whatever; and if you begin to look lustfully at the one who is younger and more promising and look upon the other with contempt, you will not last, and you will miss out on a great blessing. Because in the lives of God’s children, one must allow time for the blessing God has stored away—sometimes in very humble wrappings—to reveal itself. And sometimes we must exchange our physical appetites for the final wine, which in God is better than the first.

And many times, in those years of maturity when we have shared sorrows together, cried together, grown old together, lost hair together, lost muscle together, seen each other in a hospital bed wearing an ugly, unattractive little gown, gotten up and seen the crust there on the mouth of your beloved Prince Charming…

But you have held on, and the years have passed, and that has given your love true texture, depth, and richness instead of that cheap, superficial puppy love of youngsters who, at 14, believe they are going to live for all eternity. Love that has passed through tribulations, brokenness, tragedies, and losses and remains standing tall—that love brings glory to God and beautifies the men and women who take part in it, like Ruth and Naomi. Yes, they had their times. How must they have celebrated the weddings of Ruth and Orpah? With great enthusiasm and dreams about what awaited them. A couple wants to have children, and they have children, and things happen.

This morning I was saying that there was a couple here whom we accompanied to their baby girl’s funeral; she was stillborn at six months, almost seven months, and we were there at the baby’s funeral. We officiated, and that mother’s heart was broken; but both of them were here this Sunday, sitting there like two lovebirds holding hands and worshiping the Lord in the morning service. They could have been at home railing against God and saying, “Ah, You abandoned me,” and so on. No. They were here like soldiers, faithfully reporting to their God, who decided to give them something they did not expect; but if they hold on, who knows whether God may give them the desires of their hearts in a way better than the first.

Because when you kiss God’s hand even though it slaps you, God says, “That is My child; I am going to bless him because he was faithful to Me.” When God took away from David the child born to him and Bathsheba, even though David bled and threw himself on the floor and did not bathe, and fasted and asked God not to take his son away, God told him, “No, I am going to take him.” And do you know what David did?

When they told him that his son… he realized it—they did not even dare tell him; from the servants’ whispering, he realized that his son had died—he did this: he got up, went to the bathroom, turned on the shower—I do not know whether they had showers in those days, but he poured water over himself—soaped himself up, made himself presentable, shaved, since he had not shaved for several days, and ordered a hamburger with cheese and bacon on top, along with some lettuce and French fries. He ate it with the full appetite of someone who had not eaten for three days, and his servants looked at him and said, “Hey, we cannot understand this man. When his son was dying, he was lying on the floor.”

And they asked him, “How can you do that, David? While your son was still alive, you were depressed and crying out to God, and now that he has died, you bathe and dress and say, ‘Let us get on with life.’ How can that be?” David said, “Look, do you know why? Because while my son was alive, there was still hope that God might let me keep him; but now that he is dead, I know that one day I will go to him. He will not come to me, but I will go to him. So now we have to live; we have to move forward.”

And that happens, brothers and sisters. At times we have counseled brothers and sisters who have lost their homes, sometimes even lost their marriages, lost a loved one, lost their health, or lost their dreams for one reason or another. Life has taken something away from them; God has allowed it to happen to them. What are they going to do? The street out there is cold without God. No one can live without God. We have to say, “Father, where shall I go, if You alone have the words of eternal life? So I am going to stay here until You give me an answer, heal me, restore me, and give me an explanation that I can understand. In the meantime, I will keep moving forward; and if You do not give me the answer, even then I will serve You and love You.”

Job said, “Though He slay me, I will serve Him; I will worship Him.” Those are the people God blesses in life: faithful people—people faithful in their marriages, people faithful in their churches, people faithful in friendship, people faithful in their work. Look, if you leave your job because the boss looked at you the wrong way or was in a bad mood and said something to you, so you go looking for another job, you will never succeed in any job. If you leave your job because it became difficult, because there was a stretch with a great deal of work and they were exploiting you and you did not like it, or because the work became boring, and you go from job to job, you will never amount to anything. In life, one must make a vow, a covenant, and remain steadfast, because sometimes the seasons pass, spring comes, better things come, and those hard times are over.

We have to be people who last. This morning I was telling the brothers and sisters about those little 45-rpm records, the small ones, which I am told used to exist; I have not seen them, but they tell me they are out there. I saw them in a museum here at the Boston Museum of Science. And there are many Christians who are like those little 45-rpm records: short-lived. They last a minute or two at most. And if things get tough, they run away from whatever it may be—marriage, friendship, work, finances, whatever. No, God wants us to be like the 33-rpm ones, which I am also told used to exist. I have not seen them, but they are out there. Some of you have seen them; I can see you nodding—the long-playing records, LPs. They have about six pieces of music on them.

God wants Christians who last. I love those couples who have gone through storms and difficulties and are still there holding hands, sometimes squeezing each other’s hands a little too tightly, but holding on nonetheless, because that is life, brothers and sisters. Life is not for cowards. If no one has written a song about that, they ought to write one with that title: “Life Is Not for Cowards.”

I tell people that pastoring is not for cowards; ministry is not for cowards. No, Christ said, “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” As I was saying, sometimes the only thing—I ask the musicians to come up here, please—the only thing that will save you when you cannot hear the voices of the little angels, when your heart has no reserves even to love God, believe God, or believe God’s promises, when you do not even have the desire to turn to the Word of God—because sometimes people are so depressed that when they open the Word of God, it tastes like sand to them—when the entire platform beneath you collapses, the only thing that will sustain you is that promise you have made to yourself to reach the end, because you know that God is faithful and that God is good, and that even if you do not see it in your life, spring will come and the blessing will come.

We have to be like the writer of Habakkuk: though the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the sheep are taken from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls—in other words, though the whole world is falling to pieces, and I cannot see what I need anywhere, and it seems that everything has been a lie and that all my dreams have been a fiction—nevertheless, it says, I will rejoice in the Lord; nevertheless, I will rejoice in the Lord and take joy in the God of my salvation.

You know the times that lie ahead for humanity; there are intimations of a financial crisis. I know that difficult things are coming for humanity. A drought may possibly come; perhaps it will not, but it is very possible. Difficult times are coming. I have promised myself that even if the fig tree does not blossom, I will nevertheless rejoice in the Lord. Even if I am nothing but bones, I am going to reach Canaan worshiping my God.

I ask the Lord, renew me and strengthen me, because I want to be faithful to you; I want to be a man of my word, and I want to be a trustworthy man. And I want our church to be distinguished as a church of people who last, so that people will say, “There are people of character there; there are trustworthy people there; there the Word of God is embodied in hardworking, honest people, good friends, good teachers, good husbands and wives, trustworthy parents.” May we be the best workers in the City of Boston, so that people will want to snatch us up for their businesses because we are people who give eight hours of work for eight hours of pay.

People whose word can be trusted, people you can turn your back on and know that you do not have to worry, because they are faithful people; they are honest people. That is what matters most to me. Paul says that one day tongues will cease; there will be no more prophecies because they will not be necessary—everything will already have been fulfilled. There will be no need for gifts of healing because there will be no sickness. And the only thing that will remain is love; it is the character of the children of God.

I tell you, I love prophecies, I love tongues, I love manifestations of the power of God, I love healing, I love the exuberant commotion of exalted worship, I love the celebration of the Spirit; but when none of that is there, I still know that my God is on his throne. And I am going to serve him come rain, thunder, or wind, and I want to be that way in my marriage, in my fatherhood, as a friend, as a pastor, and in every dimension of my life. I do not want to leave behind a pile of half-eaten pieces of meat just to grab another piece. No, I am going to eat that piece until I have even crushed the bones. And then I will eat another piece.

A person who follows things through, who works at them—that is how you always stand on solid ground and become an admirable, respectable person who represents the Kingdom of God and the character of Jesus Christ well. I believe Jesus was like that. God certainly is like that. He has not grown weary. He gave his word. He committed himself to a people, and those people have betrayed him twenty thousand times, but he remains faithful. He says, “Even if everyone betrays me, I remain faithful. I do not forget my covenants,” because God is… the character of God, and it is the character of the God you serve, and you have to represent your God well. So you have to make a commitment: “I am going to be faithful. Before being anointed, I am going to be faithful.” Do you understand?

Before anything else, I want people to regard me as a faithful man, a faithful woman, a faithful young person; I want my teachers to know that they can depend on me. When I give my word, I keep it. If I have an obligation, I pay what I owe. And such people are admirable and respectable; they win the hearts of others and are a credit to the Gospel. When they speak, people pay attention and take what they say seriously, because they know that their currency is backed by gold that is there behind it and that it is worth what it claims to be worth—faithful people.

Wouldn’t you like to be regarded as faithful? By God and by people. Let us make a commitment this afternoon. Let us stand right now, and in any area of your life where the enemy is whispering to you, “Run away, flee, find something better, another, more promising garden,” say, “No. I am going to work this garden, and my goal will be to turn this garden, which is a little dry, into a flourishing garden again. I am going to work it instead of going off in search of another garden.”

I am going to be a man, a woman, who is faithful to the Lord in every dimension of my life. If my marriage is wavering a little today, I make a vow to renew my marriage. If my faith has been, “I’m leaving, I’m not leaving; I’m staying in the Gospel, I’m not staying,” I say, “No. In the name of Jesus, today I receive new strength. I am going to press on. God is with me; his Word is faithful.”

If there is any area of your life in which you have been wavering right now, I invite you to say in your heart, “Father, I repent and make a vow of faithfulness.” If your character has not been the most trustworthy, repent right now; there are second and third chances. Say, “No, Lord, I am going to reform my character. I cannot live like this—six months clean and four months out on the streets. No, I am a man, a woman of God, so today I commit myself to remaining clean until I die. And even if the devil sometimes offers me all kinds of glass beads, telling me they are jewels, I am not going to buy them from him, because I know what has value in the Kingdom of God.”

I invite you to make a vow of faithfulness in your heart right now, in your spirit. And if you have not yet received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and God has brought you here this afternoon, I also want to give you an opportunity to enter this journey that all of us are on, to invite Christ into your heart, and then, with the Holy Spirit and with his help, commit yourself to reaching the finish line committed to God. And God will even give you the strength to be faithful to him.

I invite you to make your covenant with Christ Jesus right now, to receive him into your heart, embrace him there, and say, “Lord Jesus, I commit myself to the values of your Kingdom. I receive you as my Savior and my Lord. I want to enter this path; this path is worthwhile.”

So I receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. Why not do it in your heart right now? If you want to raise your hand, raise it; I am going to pray for you too. God bless you, sister. Amen. Is there anyone else who would like to invite that Christ, who is upright and faithful, to enter their life and their heart? If there is anyone else, raise your hand; we want to pray for you.

This is your opportunity. It is not emotion; this is like going to the bank with solid money. If anyone else wants to surrender their life to the Lord—and if you want to make a vow of faithfulness, raise your hand this afternoon as well. If you want to say to your wife, your husband, your family, your workplace, “I am going to be a faithful man, a faithful woman,” raise your hand. Ask the Lord to strengthen you in faithfulness—men and women of faithfulness. I want to be a faithful man before God, and here I raise my hand.

I want to honor the name of my God. Help us, Lord, to be faithful to you. We want to be a church of faithfulness; may that be the foundation upon which everything else takes place—a promise that we will reach the end and that you will help us. And when we have done everything, may we stand firm in our position. Give us a church, Father, that honors you—a church of character, a church of integrity, not a church of foam, but a serious, solid church built on the rock. We will build on the rock even if it takes us longer, but we will build on the rock.

I bless your servant, Lord. I bless those who have raised their hands, and I declare the grace of God over their lives. May she walk upon the rock every day of her life, Lord, and may she understand that you are with her, that you are with him even if they do not see you, even if they do not feel you; you will accompany them to the end of their days. I bless their lives, Lord. Any other person, Lord, who has raised a hand—weld this promise into their hearts and help us to be an honorable people for your glory, Lord.

We love that upright Christ and want to imitate him. We declare blessing over your people this afternoon, Lord. Hear our prayer concerning this word that we have declared: may the anointing of faithfulness enter the hearts of your people.

Thank you. Hallelujah! People of God, God says to you, “I am with you. I ask you to be faithful, but do not worry: it does not depend solely on you. Believe that I will be with you until the end of the world, and do your part, and I will do mine. I will neither leave you nor forsake you. I will be with you wherever you go. I will be your counselor, your strengthener, your support when you feel weak. Mysteriously, even if you do not feel it in your flesh, I will be strengthening you. I will give you victory so that you may reach the finish line, because I have committed myself to you. You will reach the finish line,” says the Lord, “but establish this purpose in your life and help me to help you,” says the Lord. Hallelujah!

Father, we receive new strength for our lives this afternoon, Lord. Bless your sons and your daughters, Father; pour out your grace upon us. Bless Pastor Harry Maldonado; thank you for bringing him. Take him to his destination with blessing, Lord, with fresh anointing, Father, and strengthen his ministry there. Give him a word, and give your children who are here, Lord, bread for tomorrow, for this entire week, and for our entire lives.

We love you and celebrate your presence in our lives. In the powerful name of Jesus—and the people of God say, amen. God bless you, my brothers and my sisters. Glory to God. Amen. Amen.