Those words are in a recorded message that Jesus spoke through the Apostle John to the local, New Testament, first-century church at Smyrna: “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.” (Rev.2:10)
Paul exhorts his readers and disciples in Thessalonica that “faithful is He that calleth you who will also do it.” (I Thess.5:24). We have His footsteps to follow: “But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you and keep you from evil.” (2 Thess.3:3) Again, he wrote to the Corinthian church that “God is faithful, by whom ye were called.” (I Cor.1:9)
He does not ask or expect anything from us that He has not done and is not doing. God is faithful. Jesus is faithful, and His desire for us is that we will be faithful—like Paul, who said on the eve of his martyrdom, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim.4:7)
A leading pastor of a large Baptist denomination said that, though the official membership in his denomination was more than 15 million, only about a third of them showed up for church on Sunday. Marketing expert and church analyst George Barna found that, though evangelicals believe in evangelism, only one-third share their faith with a non-believer in the course of a year.
“Faithful over a few things” was a standard that Jesus commended (Matt. 25:21,23). Inventor and entrepreneur George Washington Carver once asked God to tell him about the universe, but the Lord replied, “George, the universe is just too big for you to understand. Suppose you let Me take care of that.“ In humility, Carver then asked, “Lord, how about a peanut?” And, Carver said, the Lord replied, “Now, George, that’s something your own size. Go to work on it and I will help you.” When Carver had finished his work on the peanut, he had discovered more than 300 products that could be made from that tiny particle of God’s great universe. He was faithful in just a small thing.
I was privileged to pastor a good many folk who were faithful in the small things that God had asked them to take care of. One such member was just 33 years of age when I became her pastor. At her funeral service, 37 years later, here is some of what I said about her:
“Joie always pretty much sat in the same row and seat at church; and you could always count on her requesting that we sing, “Victory in Jesus.” She had a great heart for her God and for truth. She loved preaching and she loved her preacher. She was a poet of sorts and shared with us some of her works of poetry. She loved the bus ministry and wrote of it in one of her “masterpieces,” in a poem entitled simply “Bus Number Seven.” She was a woman of simple tastes but profound thoughts. She had a heart for the down and outer; she loved her children and her family, but she would cut them no slack when it came to doing right and being on God’s side. She was not what you would call a scholar, but she was one of the first graduates in the Bible Institute (4 year) that we had at our church back in the 1980s, and I think she made straight As. She loved souls, and she shot from the hip without trying to present herself as something she was not. If she were here today, she’d have come without any coat on and probably wearing a short sleeved blouse. She never sang in the choir but always had a song in her heart. I don’t know that she was ever known to be one of the best cooks around, but she would never miss a dinner, because she loved the fellowship of it. She had children that caused her to lose some of her beautiful black hair, but every one of them were always in her prayers before the throne of God. She spent her last years receiving the most loving, caring, and compassionate attention any mother could ever hope for from a devoted daughter, who, ironically, may have given her the most heartaches when she was younger. Joie was not just a Sunday saint. She lived it 24/7. And now with a set of teeth and waiting for her glorified body, with brilliant, new black hair and all the wrinkles smoothed out, she is in her Savior’s presence. Yes, I was her pastor for almost four decades and privileged to have been so. But Ellen and I were more—we were her friends. She was a good woman, a genuine Christian, and a true saint. All of us who knew her loved her and look forward to spending eternity with her in that place where she has realized the glory of His presence.” (December 28, 2016)
So, reader friend, how would you like those kinds of words to be said about you at your funeral? Well, all it takes is a life of faithful, consistent walking with Christ. Now, I know that some of you would not want the preacher to be quite so candid as I was in eulogizing Joie, but I know that she would have wanted me just to say it without any flowers. That’s the kind of person she was, so I wanted to honor her in that way.
H.C. Morrison, pastor and author, went on a mission tour of the world about the time Theodore Roosevelt went to Africa to hunt big game. They both arrived back in New York on the same day, and Morrison wrote: “There were scores of reporters there. Cameras were clicking. There were news flashes. But nobody noticed me. I had won a good many people to the Lord in Korea, Japan, China and India, down in Egypt and over in Europe. I had not killed any big game. All I did was win some souls to Jesus. I checked through customs as quickly as possible and called my wife and told her I was getting home ahead of schedule, asking her not to tell anyone because I wanted to slip up on them. I got down to Kentucky, stepped off the train, and not even my wife was there. The driver came down to meet me in an old rattletrap buggy, announcing to me that my wife had a sick headache and could not come to meet me. So we went up the road toward home, and I said ‘This is funny. I have preached around the world. People have been saved. I didn’t kill any big game, though; and nobody recognized me.’” Morrison went on to say, “I just kept thinking about it, then suddenly it occurred to me that I was not home yet.”
“Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” (I Cor.4:3)
YOU and GOD 