Dennis Tuuri

The sermon scripture again this week is 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8. 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, verses 6-8. “But now when Timotheus came from you unto us and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity and that you have good remembrance of us always desiring greatly to see us and we also to see you. Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith. For now we live if you stand fast in the Lord.”

Heat up here. Oh, heat, heat. Everything. The younger children may be dismissed to go to their Sabbath schools now if their parents would like them to do that.

Our resting stop as we’re in 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8. We’ll spend this week and at least next week still on this passage essentially kind of reminding ourselves of what it is that Timothy brought back a report to Paul, what that report was in terms of why it cheered Paul, and it was a report that they were standing firm in the Lord.

And what we’re trying to talk about today is what that means. We’re using the two words that Timothy brought back the report about them in verse six. That is he refers to their charity or their love and their faith. So faith and love are essential to standing firm in the Lord. Remember that phrase means continuously. It’s not something you achieve once and then stop. It is a life lived by faith and by love.

That is identified in this text and other places as what standing firm in the Lord is all about. We said that various temptations and trials have beset that church and may beset this church from time to time. Hopefully, you’re beginning to condition yourself so that when trials and tribulations come into your life, you rejoice because it’s an opportunity for God to take us and polish us, make us brighter jewels in his hand, sharper swords for the use of the King of Kings as he goes forward conquering all enemies.

But the key to surviving such temptations and trials is to be faithful and to exercise love. Said last week that faithfulness in terms of speech is like the basic blocks, building blocks, the ABCs of the faith. And Roy reminded me this week, you know, when times get tough, it’s the basics and how well you’ve learned them and how well you apply them that will determine whether you stand or fall in the midst of a strong wind.

And there are many winds blowing. I think that the church corporately here in this institution here in this area as well as the church across the world has particular times that are more dangerous. There are more dangerous seas than other seas as God sails his ship of the church through history. And I think right now is a particularly dangerous time for particular churches, the church in Seattle. We’ll be talking more about that later.

Really I covet your prayers. I charge you to pray for that church up there as they’re going through some very dark waters and some very strong trials—nothing that they can’t get through, but it is bumpy going. And this church has some things going on in the context of what we’re doing as well. Chalcedon right now is going through some shaking within the particular community that exists at Chalcedon.

These things we can look at them and our hearts can fail. Or we can look at them and say, “Thank God because the shaking is going on and that which can stand will remain standing and that which can be shaken will be shaken out.” I thought of it as we read responsibly and then sang essentially Psalm 116. It’s an important thing and I guess the reason I chose this particular psalm for this week is that verses 14 and 15 talk about “I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.”

We are called to convocate together and we are charged corporately to participate in particular activities of faith and love for the King and we have a charge really that we are to keep. And when we meet together when we offer ourselves during the offertory time in obedience to the preached word of God, then we really are doing so in the presence of many witnesses and we’re to encourage and exhort one another to faithfulness in these things.

After he says he’ll pay his vow in the presence of the people, their witness, their encouragement, he then says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Well, Hebrews says that normally we don’t have to resist to the point of shedding blood. And in the trials that I’ve mentioned so far, maybe in your particular individual life, the lives of this church, the lives of the church in Seattle, Chalcedon, whatever it is, these trials must be put in perspective.

I don’t see anybody losing limbs. I don’t see anybody having to die or to shed blood. Point of that verse in the context of Psalm 116 is that God’s requirement to exercise faith and love and to walk in obedience to his commands does involve the death of self, the death of the saints, and if necessary, the shedding of our own blood for the sake of the King. And that is precious in God’s sight. That obedience to him that requires or moves us forward into self-sacrifice is precious in his sight and shall be rewarded by the King of Kings.

Now, let’s talk about faithfulness. Picking up where we began last week, faithfulness. We live in a world, and I’ve said this before, where we have what might be called an understanding of faith that is kind of like Jimmy Cricket faith—when you wish upon a star and hope something is true and try to be strong enough in your faith you can bring it to pass. Faith in the super thing and wanting the big thing in our lives.

If faith without works is dead and the scriptures tell us that it is, then faith without basis is stupidity. And Jimmy Cricket faith is faith without any basis and a sure word from anybody. In actuality, such faith is more than stupidity. However, it is idolatrous and blasphemous. Why? Because it asserts that our wishful thinking, the exercise of our faith can determine reality. Biblical faith says amen to God’s reality and to God’s word as it interprets the reality of our lives which we live and the context of our lives and the earth which we see and the things we involve ourselves in.

We let that word interpret that reality for us. That’s biblical faith. Modern faith is based upon the ability of man to create reality instead of understanding reality on the basis of God’s word. We live in a world where faith is as I said for the super thing. The scriptures give us a completely different emphasis in terms of faithfulness in the lives of believers. The scriptures and we started our study of application of faith resulting in faithfulness last week.

The scriptures spend a lot of time talking about faithful words—words, simple little things that proceed from our mouths and for some of us proceed from our mouths far too easily without thinking. The scriptures call us to faithfulness in very little things. Everyday speech one with another is the beginning place of faithfulness in our lives, conforming that speech to the word of God. Being true to what God has revealed, being not a false witness, but a true and faithful witness, not a gossip, not a slanderer, but one who uses their tongue to edify each other—the little things of life.

The basic principle the scriptures tell us is that he that is faithful in little will be given much. And the way to the super thing is to be faithful in the little thing, in the minutia of life. Sometimes we want to know: what are the big things that we’re supposed to be involved with? But the scriptures say be faithful in the little things and he’ll make you more and more. He’ll entrust more and more things to your care in terms of big things.

And if we are not faithful in the little things of life and the creator judges us for that, instead of giving us more things, he takes away even the things that we’ve been faithless with in the small things. We’ll be going back to this basic theme of faithfulness in little things required for increasing stewardship over big things throughout what we say today. After having talked last week about faithfulness in speech, let’s talk now about faithfulness in the four institutions or spheres that we’re called to live our lives in: the church, the state, the family, and the workplace.

**Faithfulness in the church.** The scriptures use the term faithful in the Old Testament to refer to Moses in Numbers 12:7. “My servant Moses is not so. He—who is faithful in all mine house.” The distinguishing characteristic of God’s prophet Moses, who pointed to the greater prophet, the greater Moses, Jesus, was Moses’ faithfulness. So the prophet is described as a faithful person. Jeremiah 23:28 says, “The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.”

The scriptures identify one of the key offices of the Old Testament that point to the New Testament role of the church, the prophetic ministry of the church. And it insists that ministry be carried on faithfully. The church has a priestly function as well. And in 1 Samuel 2:35, God says, “I will raise me up a faithful priest that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind, and I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before me anointed forever,” ultimately referring to Jesus.

But again, faithfulness in terms of the prophet—to what God has revealed—faithfulness in terms of the priest, to God’s mind, in terms of the administration of prayer and the consecration of all things. So the Old Testament said those two prophetic offices of the church—or the two ecclesiastical offices of the prophet and the priest—were to be characterized by faithfulness. So it is in the New Testament in 1 Timothy 3 where we have a list of qualifications for New Testament officers.

We read, I believe, of both officers’ wives and by correlation of course of them—that bishops and deacons, elders and deacons. It says about their wives, “Even so must their wives be grave not slanderous, faithful in speech, sober,” and then explicitly “faithful in all things.” The wives of church officers are to be faithful in all things. Basic qualification for service. Titus 1:6 says, “If any man be blameless,” this is another qualification for an elder, “the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot and unruly, living their lives in the details according to the word of God faithfully.”

Office bearers must have faithful wives and faithful children, and they themselves must be blameless. Both in Titus 1:6 and in 1 Timothy 3:2, we read that the elder must be blameless. Now, it’s interesting because in Daniel 6:4, we read about Daniel’s blamelessness. And I’ll quote here from Daniel 6:4: “Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no occasion nor fault. For as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.” Daniel’s blamelessness in the sight of men and the ones who are seeking to charge him is directly linked in Daniel 6:4 to his faithfulness.

And so if we read of elders and deacons that they must be blameless—without actionable charge against them, without a legitimate charge against them—it has a direct implication according to Daniel 6:4 that they must be faithful in all the little minutia of their lives as well: what they do in the workplace, what they do in their homes, what they do with their speech, and what they do in terms of the church offices or the church functions that have been assigned to them. Faithfulness is a basic calling to church office. First Timothy 1:12, Paul says, “But I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.”

He links there the giving of the task of a ministry within the church to his faithfulness to Jesus Christ, seeing him faithful, correlating that to his ministry.

So New Testament offices—Old Testament church officers—required to be faithful. And if we believe as we do in an every-believer ministry, that every member of Christ’s body has a ministry in terms of the church as well as our responsibilities in terms of the state and the family and the workplace, then we must believe that we all are required to act faithfully in relationship to the local body that God has put us in the context of.

Faithfulness is a requirement of all of God’s people and certainly of those officers that he has brought into the church as well. 2 Timothy 2:2 says, “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.” Well, that’s what we’re doing today. See, I’m trying to take things that God has shown me in the scriptures, and I’m trying as faithfully as I know how to interpret them correctly and to pass them on to faithful men and women.

Who will apply them in their lives and teach them to their children and teach them to others as well. Yes, the primary context is probably to the passing on to faithful men who will be in the ministry, but I think by way of application, all of Christian teaching is an attempt to put people in touch with the God of the scriptures and his requirements that they might be faithful in these things.

And so we have a responsibility—every one of you sitting there today who hear the word of God have a responsibility to act faithfully in relationship to it. 3 John 5 says, “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers.” You’ll see if you could read to that passage that he’s not talking about brothers and strangers separately. He’s talking about the faithfulness that they had exhibited in terms of hospitality to other believers even though they might be strangers to them.

And this text tells us very clearly that each of us are to be faithful one to another. If so to strangers—Christians outside of your local sphere of influence that come into your lives—how much more so the Christians that God brings into your life in the context of a local church, in the local body. We’re called to be faithful one to another. So faithfulness should exhibit itself in terms of our relationships one to another.

Now we’re all at different stages of life. There are young people here. There are small children. Those who are about to marry, those who have married and have young children, those who have married and have older children, and older people as well in the context of our church and our ministries. But all of us are called to have a sphere of influence, a responsibility in terms of each of these things we’re talking about today: the church, state, the family, and employment.

There may be portions of your life in which one thing takes more time than another. But never think that you can check out of church responsibilities or responsibilities to the civil state because you’re particularly busy at home. And never think you can check out of your responsibilities in terms of faithfulness at home because you’re too busy at church or in the civil state. These are responsibilities that God has given to you.

So I guess what I’m saying is all of us today—I want us to think through each of these four areas and evaluate ourselves in terms of our faithfulness in that particular sphere. And now we’re talking about the church. Now we’ve said that faithfulness is understanding reality according to God’s word and it has as its basis the word of God that created all things. Faithfulness is tied to God’s faithful word because it is a sure word.

We can be sure in applying it into our lives. That word is a covenant word. And one of the ways you can evaluate your own personal faithfulness and whether or not you’re in the process of firming up your stand in Jesus Christ or being worn down by temptations and slipping away from Jesus Christ—one of the ways to evaluate that is in the context of the covenants that you make with other people. There’s probably no area in life when we more explicitly image our relationship to God than when we enter into covenant with other people.

Very important to acknowledge that as reformed people we understand that God makes himself known to us by way of covenant, that the word of God is a covenant reality and then we, because we’re image bearers, enter into covenants. Are we faithful to the covenants that we enter into? What I’m saying is one of the ways to evaluate your faithfulness in terms of church and the responsibilities you have at RCC and the extended body of Jesus Christ as well is to think through the covenant statement that you signed if you became a member, that you should be aware of and evaluating if you’re visiting in terms of moving closer into relationship with this church.

And I want to just take a few minutes to go through some of these things and encourage you to faithfulness. We read in the covenant statement of our church that we’ll endeavor to support it in this fellowship of believers. One of the basic elements of course of a covenant is that you enter into a relationship with other people and you have responsibilities toward them. You have responsibilities to help build them up in the faith and you may begin to think through how well you maintained your responsibilities to other believers in this church that you have come into covenant with.

I mentioned visitors. Are we faithful in terms of ministering to the visitors that God brings into this church? It’s interesting to me when churches want a lot more visitors and yet they’re not being faithful with the visitors that they’ve been given. I’m not saying that’s the case here, but you’ve got to evaluate it in your own life. Are you faithful to reach out to those people that come into the context of this church through whatever means to try to make them understand what we’re talking about, to show them that what we’re trying very hard to do is to follow the word of God?

And if we’re not faithful to the visitors that God brings to us, that principle of faithful in little then faithful in much comes into effect. How can we ask God, or how can any church ask God for more visitors, if we’re not faithful in ministering to the visitors that God has brought into our particular sphere of influence? Well, we can’t. Or if we do, it’s hypocrisy and it’s doomed to curse from God instead of blessing.

Same thing can be true in terms of church growth. Can we really honestly ask God for an increase in church membership in the covenant community if we’re not faithfully ministering to each other in the context of a particular church body? And if we’re not and if we’re not faithful there, then it’s a little silly to hope that God will bring more people along because all we’re going to do is be less faithful than ever.

The scriptures say we got to be faithful in ministering one to another. We must be faithful in the small things before we are given more. How frequently, you might ask yourself in terms of your faithfulness to other people here at RCC, do you invite people over to your home into your home to demonstrate hospitality, to come alongside them and encourage and exhort them in the faith? You know, I’m going to say some things today that may get you a little feeling bad.

I don’t know. But I think they’re things that have to be said and thought through. I know that perception is that I’m pretty busy guy. And I hope that’s your perception because I’ve got to tell you quite honestly that if you’re not asking each other over to your homes more than you’re asking me over to your homes, I think we got a problem. Okay?

Now, I know that I’ve been real busy. I know you’re all sensitive to that. And I’m not trying to make you feel bad about that. But I’m saying that be very honest with yourself in evaluating your faithfulness to people here at RCC in terms of how much you reach out to people in this church. And I might say particularly those who are apart from households—singles. Again, I mentioned that before. Very important that we see that one of the blessings of the new covenant is God brings the singles into households.

And if we’re not reaching out to them and we’re not trying to minister to them, you know, we’re not being faithful in the small things that God requires of us. You’ve signed a covenant if you’re a member to support this fellowship of believers. That isn’t something you’re just supposed to walk away from. There’s a relationship there that you have responsibilities to attend to.

Okay. Now, sometimes it’s a hard thing to do and sometimes it’s hard too. I’ve been in the context of—and although I have not been doing this many years, but already I’ve seen marriages where the marriage covenant is a difficult thing to find back in the lives of people that have had problems for several years. Sometimes marriages are hard to stick with as well. But if you’re faithful to your wife and you’re faithful to the covenant that brought you into that marriage, you’re going to stick it out.

You’re going to fulfill your responsibilities. And I think normally I think it is a disaster that Christianity has reached a place in this country and around the world where you got churches right down the block—several of them. We got one right next door here. I got friends who go to it. Praise God for them, you know, right here at Bible Temple. But isn’t it a terrible thing that believers can just when a problem happens zip over to the next church down the way and attend there?

That’s not the picture of the New Testament. The New Testament saw churches organically in a city. That’s where you would be. You didn’t have a multiplicity of churches. You could go take your choice of what you like and what you don’t like. You were committed to a group of people. And that forced you to be faithful in relationships. Churches in the Middle Ages when Europe was evangelized—you raised, you were born up, raised, died in the same church, generations in the same church.

That’s what the scriptures, I think, want. And that’s the light at the end of the tunnel that we’re starting to walk down, that we’re trying to accomplish at RCC. We’re trying to reemphasize the importance of these covenants. “I pledge to give God his tithe.” That’s part of your responsibilities in terms of the local church to support the ministry of the local Levites through the use of your tithe. Now, you’ve got to think it through.

I want you to think through this stuff. Are you being faithful in your tithe? If you are, thank God for that. And if you’re not, recognize that you’re under God’s curse. Failure to tithe is stealing from God. The scriptures make it real clear he doesn’t like that. Again, you may think, “Well, I don’t have enough money to tithe right now.” But God says faithfulness. You honor me first, God says, and I’ll take care of all the rest of things.

Seek the kingdom first and all these other things will be added unto you. “I pledge to regularly attend this church’s worship service. I pledge to support the leadership of this fellowship.” Are you faithful in prayer for the church officers that God has given to you? And again, there—if we’re not faithful in supporting them in prayer and encouragement and exhortation—then why will God give us more? He won’t.

Faithful in little, faithful in much. “To participate in the government of the church.” You signed a statement saying that you would participate in the government of this church. The government of the church is not related or restricted to church officers. It is an every-believer ministry. The government of the church means the workings of the church in all its details. We have tried and we continue to try to make sure that every covenanted member of Reformation Covenant Church has some sort of responsibility, usually fairly official and with a title or whatnot.

That’s important. And if you have a job that you’re performing in the context of this church, ask yourself right now: am I being faithful in the small details of that work, or do I want a super thing given to me instead? Am I being faithful in the small task that God and his providence has given to me? And if you’re not, repent of that sin and move on to faithfulness. And the only way God’s going to bless you with larger responsibilities is if you’re faithful in the small things that God has brought you to do.

“I pledge to educate my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” I think that—let me come back to that in a minute. “I pledged to keep the Sabbath, not doing my own pleasure, but God’s honor according to the scriptures.” We had a men’s discussion group this last week to talk about this. This is a weird thing for most of us. None of us have come from Sabbathkeeping churches. And there are very few Sabbathkeeping churches in the land today. Very, very few reformed churches in general don’t keep Sabbath anymore.

What does it mean? How do we do it? I hope these are questions you’re asking yourself. And I hope that these are questions that you’re looking for guidance and direction from other people at church on how to apply these things in your life. I don’t know if you’re doing that or not. I do know that out of I don’t know 35 or 40 families that worship here, I think we had 12 or 13 fellas Thursday night. Now, I know it’s reaching towards summertime.

The hours are getting longer of sunlight. Many of you are very busy in terms of homeschool and business. But see, this is an important thing. We were reading in the scriptures that night—Ed had sent in the reading that I handed out—that’s one of the basic reasons that God said he took the people into captivity. Jeremiah said, “It’s because you don’t honor the Sabbath. So God’s going to drive you out.” And Nehemiah in the times of reconstruction, in his time, Sabbath started to be broken almost immediately.

And he went in there and said, “What are you doing? This is what got us in trouble. This is what got us kicked out of the land in the first place. Keep this day holy.” Now, why is it so important? Well, it’s so important because it’s putting God first in our time. It’s saying, “This day is to be given aside faithfully, in the minutia of the day, to a consideration of God.”

And the nation that puts second tablet considerations—abortion, other matters, theft, other civil crimes against humans—before the first commandment requirements of God to honor him in all that we do, that is not a Christian perspective. One of the men prayed the other night that God in his mercy would bring this country to repentance for its violation of the Sabbath. Sounds weird to most people. What are you talking about? But it’s so important to recognize that the scriptures place a great emphasis upon that. It’s a way to put God first and be faithful in the small things and then the rest of the week is consecrated in that way.

Are you faithful in terms of applying yourself to the Sabbath? I mentioned educating your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Again, as I said last week, it is a pleasurable thing to speak to a group such as this because God is training you in faithfulness. If you’re homeschooling, you probably started for the sake of the children. But God’s design is a little bigger than that. What God is doing in your household is probably two things.

If you’re a homeschooler and you’ve been doing it very long, and you’ll know it’s true: the one of the first things he shows you is how unfaithful you are and how often you fail and how badly you slip. I think there is an incredible amount of guilt in the homeschooling community today. And that is not a bad thing. That’s because they’re trying to do something that seems simple—to teach your children at home—but it involves an incredible amount of faithfulness day in day out, details here and details there, a difficult thing where it begins.

But then you move to resolution of that and you find that over the years you become more faithful and you understand it better and you get more and more disciplined in your own life. Now saying, “Well, I used to like this time to go to movies or this, that, or the other thing or watch TV, but now I’m using it for the education of children,” over time you become more faithful. God through homeschooling is maturing a group of men and women as I think the front troop, terms of the army of God that marches across this nation and preaches the gospel.

You’re being trained. And what I want you to do is take all that faithfulness that you’re learning in terms of the homeschool and see that it’s necessary to apply it in these other areas as well. It becomes a way of focusing your whole life. And that’s why we insist on one of the other things here in terms of the attendance of the worship services. God trains us by faithfully just coming forward week after week and going through the liturgy that we think God has prescribed.

He’s training us to be faithful in small things that he might, that we might be faithful in large things as well. Evaluate yourselves. Are you faithful in terms of your responsibilities here at Reformation Covenant Church? And are you faithful secondly then in terms of your civil responsibilities in the state?

Proverbs 29:14 says that the king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever. The key to longevity in terms of civil rule is faithfulness, God says, and particularly in terms of judging the poor. Turn to Matthew 25:14.

Terms of the Seattle church—by the way, this is really what we’ve just talked about, is the key at some of the difficulties that we’re going through there now. And just pray. Would you please pray? Be faithful in praying for that church and our responsibilities to it, that the people there at Christ the Sovereign Covenant Church would see their responsibility to be faithful to the covenant they’ve already made one with another, to be faithful in terms of sticking it out when the going gets a little tough up there.

Okay. Matthew 25:14-31. “The kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one. To every man according to his several ability, and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them another five talents.

And likewise he that had received two, he also gained another two. But he that had received one talent went and digged in the earth and hid his lord’s money. After a long time, the lord of those servants come and reckoned with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, ‘Lord, thou deliverest unto me five talents. Behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.’

His lord said unto him, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord.’ And the parable continues in that way. And the man that has one was not faithful and he is cast out as judgment comes upon him.

What I want you to see there is that he takes slaves, servants, and he entrusts small things to them. Money. The scriptures say money is a small thing compared to heavenly riches. He entrusts a small thing. They’re faithful in the small thing. And then what does he do? He commends them and he says, “You’ve been faithful over a few things in terms of service. I will make thee ruler. Different word used now. Ruler, magistrate, over many things. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord.”

His delight comes in his faithfulness and service, which God then rewards with faithfulness in terms of rule. And the scriptures say that faithfulness in small things in the business community, in your family, etc., is what’s required in God’s sight before he will put you in a position of civil rule. And so there’s this principle of moving on to civil rule after demonstrated faithfulness in small things in other ways. This is seen in Luke 19:17 as well.

Turn to Luke 19 starting at verse 12. “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and return. And he called his 10 servants and delivered them 10 pounds and said unto them, ‘Occupy till I come.’ But his citizens hated him. And sent a message after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’ And it came to pass that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, that he commanded these servants to be called unto him to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.

Then came the first, saying, ‘Lord, thy pound hath gained 10 pounds.’ He said unto him, ‘Well done, thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, and have thou authority over 10 cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, thy pound hath gained 5 pounds.’ And he said likewise to him, ‘Be thou also over five cities.’ And another came saying, ‘Lord, here is thy pound which I have kept laid up in a napkin, for I feared thee.

Because thou art an austere man. Thou takest up that thou layest not down and reapest that thou didst not sow.’ And he said unto him, ‘Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knowest that I was an austere man, taking up that I lay not down, and reaping what I did not sow. Wherefore then gavest not thou my money unto the bank, and at my coming I might have required mine own with usury.’

And he said unto them that stood by, ‘Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath 10 pounds.’ And they said unto him, ‘Lord, he hath 10 pounds. For I say unto you, that unto everyone which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.’

Now, we could spend a lot of time on this, but there’s several very important things to remember to look at this just in terms of passing. First of all, what happens is he takes servants and entrusts money as he goes to receive a kingdom. Now this leads up to his triumphal entry in Jerusalem. Our Lord is saying he’s going to go receive a kingdom and he’s going to come back and his servants are the disciples and his disciples are given responsibilities.

The citizens, not the servants, ostensibly come to the disciples—those who stand for the one who went away—and say, “We’re not going to have this guy rule over us.” That’s the unbelieving of Jerusalem. That’s Jerusalem in total, the Israelite nation that rejected the Savior. And Christ when he comes back takes those who have been faithful in terms of the administration of the financial things he had given to them, the responsibilities he gave them, and then makes them responsible over what? More money? No. Cities. Cities. They’re faithful in the wages that he gives them.

That little faithfulness is rewarded then with much faithfulness in terms of reign over political areas, cities. Now, the one that interpreted “occupy till I come” as a holding action—right? He said, “Occupy till I come.” Several servants said, “Occupy must mean increase, spread dominion, exercise more reign.” One servant said, “Occupy till I come must be a holding action. I’ll just hold on to the thing that he gave me until he comes back and then give him just what he gave me.”

Well, that servant—even what he has is taken away. He’s not judged. The ones that are judged and cut in pieces are the citizens who rejected him. So I think by way of application we see here that it is rather those who reject the Savior outright who are judged by him. But faithfulness over small things is required before faithfulness to large things. Faithfulness to add value to what God has given us in terms of money, by way of the parable, is seen then by being rewarded with civil rule as well.

So you have the same transition that we just read from Matthew 25: from faithfulness in service to faithfulness in rule. And indeed when the Savior comes back, he takes the faithful disciples who had hung in there, kept the faith, faithfully talked about him in his absence—coming up to AD 70 and preached the gospel—and he lays upon those faithful members of the church responsibility over all the world.

He takes the kingdom away from Israel and delivers it over in totality to the new church of which we’re a part. So there’s lots of things we can talk about. Important thing I’m trying to get you to see is that faithfulness in terms of the state, the simple state, is preceded by faithfulness in relatively smaller matters. And so there’s that basic trend in Scripture.

Now what we’ve seen then from the book of Proverbs and from these parables is that both kings and servants are called to faithfulness and it has relationship to civil matters eventually.

Okay. Unfaithfulness on the part of kings leads to a transient throne and unfaithfulness on the part of servants leads to no real ability in terms of exercising civil stewardship. Now we all have a civil calling. We all have an aspect to our lives that is related to the civil state as well. The scriptures tell us here that we must be faithful in the civil things that we’re involved with as well. And faithfulness in small things is rewarded by God.

For faithfulness in 1985, God rewarded us with freedom in terms of homeschool. There are faithful men and women now who are working away in Salem and God seems to be blessing again. We have a responsibility again. Now, we want to get this personal. We want you to evaluate your own lives in terms of your faithfulness in terms of your civil calling. Are you faithful to vote in elections? Are you faithful to register to vote?

Are you faithful in knowing who the candidate or representative or your senator is in your area? I mean, it’s amazing how many people don’t even know who the representative is. How then can they exercise any influence and faithfully relate to that representative what he needs to know in order to rule well in terms of the civil state if you don’t even know who the guy is? Are you faithful in doing these things?

Christians particularly have a tremendous capability to witness and to otherwise encourage civil magistrates. Last Monday night, God was very gracious and answered the prayers that we put up last Sunday about our meeting with Representative Katz. Remember we prayed that she might hear the gospel at the meeting that we had Monday night, and there were six homeschool families at the meeting with Representative Katz in northeast Portland at a restaurant.

We talked for 3 hours, a very enjoyable meeting, and it was very interesting in the context of that meeting that one of the men that was there—12 or 13 years ago was not a Christian and had worked in left-wing politics with Representative Katz. Or Vera Katz was not a representative then; she was in the city of Portland doing her thing. And he reminded her about two-thirds of the way through the meeting.

He said, “You don’t remember who I am, do you?” And she said, “No.” And he said who he was and she remembered then. And he said that he was really left-wing and everything until he became a Christian. And he was going to go on and make another point but Vera said at that point, “Wait a minute. I want to hear about that. Could you tell me about that becoming a Christian thing?” And he then went on to tell her essentially his testimony, asked by her.

See, those prayers that we offered up last week for a civil magistrate that we thought it was important to hear the gospel were answered by God. The faithful prayers of some of you even this last week were answered. We should be faithful in getting to know our representatives and to letting them know who we are. We’re some of the best citizens this state has. And I’m telling you, she was impressed. She was impressed that there were people who are not paid professionals in terms of education and yet who could talk about education, who obviously had a love and a desire to help their children and whose test scores showed they were doing such a great job.

You are a walking advertisement for the gospel. It sounds a little crass perhaps, but it’s true. Why? Because the gospel is truth. It’s based upon faith that is real because God created the world to reflect his values and his realities. So it’s really hiding your light under a bushel not to get involved in some cursory manner with your elected officials to let them know who you are and what your concerns are and get to know them if you can possibly do so in terms of your own district.

And with a representative it’s not that difficult. You should be faithful in trying to communicate with your representatives. You should be faithful in terms of voting, understanding candidates. Some of you should be faithful and perhaps, looking as God has blessed you and you’ve been faithful steward over business affairs, with faithfulness in the civil realm as well—running for office perhaps.

We have a situation going on right now of course with HB 2820. We passed the committee education last week. Real good. There’ll be a vote this coming Thursday or Friday and we got a lot of work to do to make sure that all representatives are contacted by their constituents. We’ll need people making phone calls. Some of you—I’d love it if you to come to Salem and help us to lobby individual members of the house.

You know, in 1985, my wife reminded me that this church was incredibly faithful in the introduction of that bill. My wife and Debbie—I think some other people from our church went down one day. I, Howard, and I were out of vacation time. Howard L. and we needed somebody down there to talk to the representatives and my wife Chris and Debbie Fakuda went down and lobbied representatives in Salem.

Now, that was a scary thing for them to do as you might well imagine, but they did it. They were faithful and God blessed those efforts. Now you know it seems like we’re sort of losing some of that involvement on the part of the membership of the church at RCC and some of this activity. Part of it’s because we got bigger things we got doing. The mailings are getting bigger, etc. But pray that we’re having a meeting this Wednesday evening, members of the parents education association, pray that we can figure out ways again to involve people that you might be faithful in assisting these works that we got going on and not just turn it over to a professional mailing service or professional lobbyist.

And this week is a good opportunity for that. Doesn’t take a lot of time to go down. We have literature that you can use to talk to your representative. If you’re interested in that, please see me. But just what I’m trying to get you to see is that you have a requirement to be faithful in terms of your responsibilities to the civil state as well.

And you know that parable also—we could talk a lot about. We probably spent a whole sermon talking about the fact that the Christian church in general has been dominated by “occupy till I come” meaning just keep the one thing that were given in place without adding to it. And you know God says quite explicitly in that: the one who sees things in that way, who is not faithful in small things that the responsibilities the church does have, he’s not going to give that church greater responsibilities in the civil state.

So the key to more involvement in the civil state and more faithfulness is faithfulness in terms of the church, the family and the workplace as well.

Okay. **Faithfulness in the home.** Matthew 24:45-51. Please turn there. Matthew 24. While you’re turning, you might want to—I remember a meeting a couple years ago in which I told some from the audience I was addressing, “Put on your steel-toed shoes because I’m coming through now.”

And as we go through some of these things, you may get ready for a little bit of conviction. Matthew 24:45-51. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant whom the Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, ‘My lord delayeth his coming,’ and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day that he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and he shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Weeping and gnashing, chopped up into pieces for a very simple failure—a failure to feed his household. The one says, God says, “Here’s your household. Feed your household. Make sure you do it in due season.” And the slave here is saying, “I’m not going to do it. I don’t know when he’s coming. He’s not coming today. I’m not going to feed him today.” And in fact, actually ends up beating them and using food improperly for his own drunkenness and gluttony.

And for that, he’s judged by God. Now, this has an obvious application to the family.