It’s so hard! We have all said it. But with God we can have joy in hard things.

Family Camp 2013

<p>It’s so hard! We have all said it. But with God we can have joy in hard things.</p>

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Restoration International

Alane Waters

Faithfulness with Joy

This morning we have the privilege to have instant access to the God of the universe.

Sometimes we just think of prayer and we don't really think of the significance of what an amazing thing that God can hear all of us at the same time wherever we are in the world.

So this morning if we could all kneel before him as we.

Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the privilege of prayer that we can come before you with our cares, with our desires, with our confession, and with our joys and requests.

We thank you that you can hear us no matter where we are.

And we thank you for the promise that your Holy Spirit will intercede for us because we don't even know what we need and we don't even know what to ask.

This morning, Lord, I pray that you would help our minds to be clear and open to receive the message that you have prepared for us.

And we ask that you would be with Elaine as she speaks, that you would be able to use her as a channel to share the message that you have this morning.

Lord, we all want to be filled with joy, for we know that you say that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

So help us to have joy in our hearts and then to let it show on our faces so that we can represent you in the right way to the world around us.

We thank you for hearing and answering our prayers and ask that you would be with each family represented here.

We thank you for the blessing of the beautiful weather that we have had and the opportunity to come together before you this morning.

And we pray all these things in Jesus name, amen.

What a beautiful day God has given us to be faithful, right?

There's 1 challenge we face at Indiana Family Camp.

And it's really going to be a challenge for me this morning because it's a liability because we have people here who've been to Oklahoma family camp, who have been to Colorado family camp, who've been to New Jersey family camp, and Virginia family camp, and California family camp.

And what I'm going to do this morning in the message is I have some little scenarios happening, some stories happening and I want you to think who those people are but I don't want all of you previous camp attendees earlier this year to spill the beans.

Don't shout out the answer because for many people this is the very first opportunity they've had to be at family camp this year and we want to make it just as fun and surprising and special for them as it was for you when you first heard this message, okay?

So I'm asking for you all to cooperate with that.

I'm not going to ask for a show of hands but I think I've covered all the camps I've seen people at this year.

I may have missed 1 but anyway that's just a little request at the beginning of the message and today we're going to be talking about faithfulness.

Okay, people who've been here before, I mean to the other camps, you can answer those questions, okay?

I just don't want you to give me the answers to the individual story people or some of the other illustrations we're going to do here this morning.

So yes, we want to be faithful to God, right?

Okay, so we want to be faithful and I have found in my own experience that sometimes we put so much energy, so much grit, so much determination in trying to be faithful that we are miserable.

And I know without even asking you that that has been the experience of many in this room.

And so we wanna look at how can we be faithful, but have faithfulness with joy.

It's something that we would not want to give up because it is the happiest, most peaceful, contented, fulfilling life we've ever had because we are learning how to walk with God in the joy of his presence.

And so today, we're going to look at this topic of faithfulness and it's going to, it's sort of a parenting message, it's sort of an adult message, it's sort of an everybody fits into the message message, okay.

So even if you're quite young children, I want you to think about this, because some of the things I'm going to say is speaking directly to you, and some of you moms and dads, it's speaking to you, to me, and some of you older people, it's speaking to you as well.

Give me some words, some adjectives that mean faithful.

Faithful and dependable, those kind of go together.

Loyalty, dependability, I have a few more on my list.

If your mother children ask you to clean the kitchen for her while she is taking care of your baby brother, what is she going to look for in the kitchen when she comes back in?

That means, that means, children, There is no little foodies stuck in the sink trap That's a little thing the counters can be wiped the table can be cleared All the leftovers can be in the fridge.

And you can actually have all the dishes put away.

But if there's foodies in the trap of the sink, ugh.

And that is a problem that most of us have.

It is a problem that we had in our home and it is something that we worked very faithfully to overcome that 1 little piece of the kitchen.

To be thoroughly done, to be responsible, to be loyal to the job, to be honest in our work, to be unwavering.

All of those are simple words to define the concept of faithfulness.

Then we look in the dictionary and it has an interesting definition.

Firm adherence, it means it doesn't come apart, right?

Faithfulness is a firm adherence to the truth, but it doesn't stop there.

And to the duties of religion, or we can say the duties of truth, or to put it in more modern terminology we can say to the living out of the truth right in our lives.

Desire of Ages page 306 says it this way, Bible religion faithfulness, Bible religion is to sanctify our daily life to manifest itself in every business transaction.

That means the sink in the kitchen, right?

It may, whatever your station is in life, that true Bible religion will manifest itself in every transaction of life, all of the duties of life and all of our social relations.

That means it's not just what we do, what our occupation is, or getting our schoolwork done, it means how we interact with whoever we come in contact.

In our own families, in our workplace, or in school, wherever that may be.

So we see the importance of faithfulness.

And really, I think for the group here today, it's not so much that we don't know what we should do.

The problem we have is that we don't always like to do what we should do.

Even with all I know and all of experience and the joy I find in Christ, sometimes I still don't always like to do what I know I should do.

But here is an important factor, because it is not enough to be faithful.

Because trying to be faithful to duty or what is right without Christ becomes a very miserable existence.

And so what happens to you is the same thing that happens to me.

And I'm going to read some little scenarios here.

These are sentences, simple sentences, some of which I have said, some of which I have thought, and some of which you or others like you have said to me.

And let's start evaluating how we are going through our Christian life as faithful because I think many go through our Christian walk with no joy.

And what I want you to do is do a mental tally, keep track mentally.

And I have quite a few here I'm gonna share this morning, but I have in no way made an exhaustive list.

In fact, I could probably write a 30-page book of these types of statements that either I have thought, said, or have had said to me that turn the faithfulness into a drudgery, dry, unhappy existence.

And we're talking about faithfulness here is having true Bible, the principles of the Bible be the foundation of who we are and how we interact and how we operate in life.

I'm not gonna ask you how many did you say or you think, this is private, so you're off the hook, to be public.

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Faithfulness with Joy

Transcript

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