Faithfulness is better than Life.
Introduction:
Read Galatians 5:22-25
Last Celebration Sunday we talked about goodness. Today we want to talk about faithfulness.
These verses in Galatians 5 tell us that faithfulness is present in the character and life of the person keeping in step with the Holy Spirit. And so this morning I do not want to talk so much about the concept of faithfulness but rather how do we keep in step with the Spirit that we become faithful people. 
Listen to the words of Paul 
1 Timothy 4:7-8 “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 8For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
We need to train ourselves to be Godly. In other words we need to train ourselves to be like God in character and listen, faithfulness is one of the most common descriptions of God’s divine nature found in the Scriptures. There are more than 100 references to God’s faithfulness in the Bible.
Lamentations 3:22-24 “Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” 
Psalm 86:15 “But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
Psalm 119:90 “Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.”
Every time we fulfill a promise, we point to God himself. Behind every reason for honoring a vow is the character of God. 
Training ourselves to be godly means we need to be very intentional to be trustworthy, reliable, faithful people to God, to our spouses, to our employers and employees, to our friends and the Holy Spirit will empower us not to compromise.
Faithfulness is born in us by the Spirit and becomes the very essence of our characters when we have a fixed determination to obey the Spirit in all things, to stay true to Jesus in all things and in all places: in our marriages, in the work place, in the home, in our recreation and liesure.
When we have fixed determination to keep in step with the Spirit we become people that can be trusted, that keep our word, meet our obligations and are loyal.
Fidelity becomes a mark of our character.
We need to apply the same standards of loyalty to ourselves and our relationship with God and others that we expect from other areas of our lives?
When we first moved into our house we had all new appliances but our fridge stopped working after just 2-3 months. They replaced the fridge twice and each time it would last about 2-3 months and stop working.

 If your fridge stops working for a day or two every now and then, do you say, “Oh well, it work most of the time.”? If your car starts once every three tries, is it reliable? If you don’t go to work once or twice a month, are you a reliable employee? If your water heater provides an icy cold shower every now and then, is it dependable? If you skipped a couple of electricity bill payments do you think B.C. Hydro would mind? 
We expect loyalty and reliability from things and other people - isn’t it reasonable then that God just might expect the same from us and should we not make every effort to be faithful?
As someone has said "The greatest ability is dependablity"

Conclusion:
Listen to Jesus’ words to the church in Ephesus. Revelation 2:3-5 “You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.[Wow, I want that to be said of me. Yet, the church was unfaithful] 4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”
Faithfulness includes persevering and enduring hardship for the name of Jesus and not growing weary but there is more to it. 
We are considered faithful when we are persevering, are faithful, in doing the things necessary to keep our love for Jesus white hot. 
Because when our live for Jesus is white hot we will not compromise. It will be our greatest joy to be faithful to Jesus and out of our faithfulness to Jesus comes faithfulness in other areas of our lives including our marriages and other relationships and obligations. 
Mark Hatfield tells of touring Calcutta with Mother Teresa and visiting the so-called "House of Dying," where sick children are cared for in their last days, and the dispensary, where the poor line up by the hundreds to receive medical attention. 

Watching Mother Teresa minister to these people, feeding and nursing those left by others to die, Hatfield was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the suffering she and her co-workers face daily. 

"How can you bear the load without being crushed by it?" he asked. Mother Teresa replied, "My dear Senator, I am not called to be successful, I am called to be faithful."
Bike and Trainer
Roller: Anybody know what this is.
Bring out the bike: Imagine that this roller represents faithfulness to God. I am on the road of faithfulness, working at faithfulness.
Clothing and shoes: ill-equipped to ride a bike. In situations we will feel over-whelmed and ill-equipped to somehow remain faithful we need to get on and ride and pray God help us.
You all want me to fall off. It is a lot harder to stay on this thing with all of you here. In our world tremendous pressure to compromise.
Balance: faithfulness is about balance and resolving not to fall to the right or left. Sometimes we do fall of the track. We get back on and again we resolve to be faithful.
Focus: for balance don’t look down, keep looking ahead with eyes on a fixed point. When in life under pressure swaying this way and that we must fix our eyes on Jesus, faithfulness to Jesus as I already said.
Training to stay on the straight and narrow. Jesus said: small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life.
Fixed determination:  to keep going and not give up until to develop stamina and endurance.

Now let me be very candid with you. I must be very vigilant and careful that my determination and love for training and riding does not cause me to be unfaithful to God’s call on my life and as a result to be unfaithful to Trish and our family.
At the end when we stand before God we want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' 
Revelation 2:10 “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Faithfulness is better than life because through faithfulness we receive the crown of life, our reward in heaven.
Proverbs 3:3-4 “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck,[as one puts small ornament on end of a chain hanging around ones neck love and faithfulness need to be ornaments of our character] write them on the tablet of your heart. [impress them thoroughly and indelibly on your heart that they become the source of your actions] Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.”