09/01/2026
🔥 SERMON RECAP: FAITHFULNESS Part 1
Sunday we talked about faithfulness and what it really means to be faithful.
Deuteronomy 7:9 reminds us that God is “the faithful God.”
Luke 16 teaches us that whoever can be trusted with little can also be trusted with much.
Matthew 25:21 says, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Three scriptures. One common theme:
✨ FAITHFULNESS MATTERS TO GOD.
When many people think of faithfulness, they think about marriage vows:
💍 For better or worse
💍 For richer or poorer
💍 In sickness and in health
Why? Because faithfulness is about commitment that survives changing circumstances.
Galatians 5 teaches us that faithfulness is also a fruit of the Spirit.
And I think it is interesting that the word faithfulness has the word faith in it.
You cannot have faithfulness without faith.
Faith is trust.
Faith is reliance.
Faith is dependence on God.
Faith says, “I trust God even when I cannot see what He is doing.”
But FAITH•FUL•NESS is faith worked out.
Faith has moved beyond belief only.
It becomes visible.
It becomes tangible.
It becomes demonstrated.
James says, “I will show you my faith by my actions.”
So faithfulness is simply:
🔥 FAITH IN ACTION.
And if faithfulness is fruit, then it has to be cultivated.
You do not wake up one day faithful.
Fruit does not appear mature and ripe overnight.
🌱 Faithfulness requires a process.
PREPARATION.
A farmer prepares the soil before he ever expects fruit.
There are things God has to break up in us:
🪨 Old mindsets
🪨 Bad habits
🪨 Wrong thinking
🪨 Pride
🪨 Distractions
🪨 Anything that keeps the seed from growing
You have to prepare your life to sustain what you say you believe.
Sometimes people have good seed, but bad soil.
🌱 FAITHFULNESS REQUIRES YOU TO BE PLANTED.
Psalm 92 says:
“Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish…”
Some of us struggle with faithfulness because we have never stayed anywhere long enough to develop roots.
We have never given ourselves fully to anything long enough to mature.
The moment something becomes uncomfortable, we uproot.
But a seed will never reach full maturity if it keeps changing soil.
🌳 You cannot keep uprooting yourself and expect to produce mature fruit.
Psalm 1 says the planted tree brings forth fruit “in his season.”
Sometimes the problem is not that your season is not coming.
Sometimes you keep leaving before the season changes.
✂️ FAITHFULNESS REQUIRES PRUNING.
When we built our home in 2015, the builder planted several bushes in our yard.
There was one bush in front of the garage that I kept trimming and cutting back.
At first, I never understood it.
I thought:
“Why would I cut something I want to grow?”
It seemed counterproductive.
But now, after all these years, that same bush has grown almost as large as the garage.
And I learned something:
🔥 THE CUTTING WASN’T HARMING IT. THE CUTTING WAS HELPING IT.
John 15 says:
“Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
Some of us will never grow because we cannot handle the cut‼️
