Modeling our Faithfulness (pt.1)

College was a great time in my life and I made a lot of great friends. As I've gotten older, do you know what I’ve realized? Relationships take work. I've come to realize that you really have to make it a point to keep in touch with old friends or family who live in other cities. Part of the reason for this is that we all have busy lives. We work all day long at our jobs. When we come home, we have chores that have to be done at home, not to mention obligations to spend time with our family. When we do have free time, if there is any such thing, we just want to relax. We know we have friends and family living elsewhere that would really like to talk to us and catch up but we can’t find enough time or space in our day planner for them.However, of all of our relationships, our most important one is with God. God is like that friend or family member who is always there, waiting for us to get in touch with Him . But we have to make the effort to do so. Just as easy as it is to pick up the phone to call a friend it is as easy to get alone and read God's word and pray. And as other relationships, if we don’t make time for God the relationship will suffer. Thus, we have to be faithful in our relationship with Christ to truly have an effective ministry and a content and happy life. As Christians we are called to model our faithfulness to Jesus, and if we do this correctly, our community will take notice.

1 Thessalonians 1:6-7 says:

“And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe.”

The first way we can model our faithfulness in God is by imitating our Savior. (v.6-7)

Verse 6 says “and you became followers of us…” This word “followers” literally means “imitators” of Paul, Silas, and Timothy. However, they were not only imitators of them they were imitators of the Lord. Not every preacher you see or hear is worth imitating. When watching and listening to Christian preachers and teachers we need to make sure that what they teach, preach, and more importantly how they live is in accordance with scripture. Notice what the second part of the verse says: “having received much affliction…” No doubt they suffered for imitating Christ. Thessalonica was the third largest city in all of Greece. And like any big city, it was an evil one. There were all kinds of sinful things going on. Archeologists have even excavated a sex shop from this time period. It was not the popular thing to do to imitate Christ. But they did anyway. Notice what the next part says: they did this with “joy of the Holy Spirit.” The joy that they had in their lives from the Holy Spirit enabled them to persevere despite troubles and affliction while they were imitating Christ.

Verse 7 says…"so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe.” These believers modeled faithfulness by imitating the Lord in how they lived and it was evident to those around them. Did you know that if people know you are a Christian they will constnatly watch you? When we live our lives, we should live knowing that at all times people are watching us…it’s a big responsibility. We need to make sure that if we profess to be Christians that we are imitating our Savior. We need to be careful. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I’m driving down the road and someone races past me or cuts me off recklessly. I really hate that. But what I hate even more is when that care who has zoomed in front of me has a fish on the back of there car. As a good friend of mine has said anytime someone’s car speeds past him he wants to pull up beside that car and say “I saw your fish!” We need to make sure that when people "see our fish" they see an imitation of Christ. We will have suffering in our lives, but through the joy of the Holy Spirit we will persevere and the world will take notice. We can model our faithfulness to our Lord by imitating our Savior, Jesus Christ.

(continued tomorrow)