Power Of Constancy 050920

[Speaker 1] [Music] Church and fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God greatly desires a godly home for His. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Tent Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 2] First Saturday in the month of August into the first Saturday in the month of September. And as we come together again, both physically here and our youth, our members that are joining us online, as we gather again this morning, we trust the Lord that it will be a time of blessing in the name of Jesus Christ. Last month, our first Saturday last month, we were considering faithfulness. We considered faithfulness. And we were able to see two important things in the matter of faithfulness. Two important things were that one, once we are not faithful, then we may never be able to get our own in life. We may never be able to get our own in life. The Lord said if you are not faithful to what belong to another man, then who will give you your own? Who will give you your own? So we saw very well last month that if we are not faithful in what belong to other men, then we are not likely to get our own. That being faithful to other men that give us the key to our own. Another thing that we saw about faithfulness last month was that it is crucial to our increase. A faithful man abound in blessing. A faithful man abound in blessing. But he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. So we saw last month also that one important key to our increase is to be faithful. Faithfulness is a very, very crucial key to our increase. A faithful man will abound in blessing. But once a man is not faithful, he is trying to cut corners. Instead of abounding in blessing, we saw that he will not be innocent. Very soon he will be cut down. And we took some biblical examples. And I remember very importantly that we also mentioned last month that faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit. Faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit. If you are not as you continue in your Christianity, if you are not increasing in faithfulness, then it is a sign that you are not growing. You are not growing. If you are really growing, your ability to be faithful to people will increase. It is a fruit. And I said once you plant something, when the thing begins to grow and is actually growing, it will get to the point where it will produce fruit. So if you plant something and it is not bringing out fruit, it means something is wrong with the growth. Something is wrong with the growth. So we saw faithfulness as a fruit of the spirit. And we were able to come to a point where we prayed last month. Today again, we are trusting the Lord to look at another dimension in this character building series. Character building series. All of them emanating from this matter of the fruit of the spirit. Character building. Because the truth is this, once a man is gifted, the only thing that can make you to be sure that the man will last in that gift is character. Anything God blesses a man with, once character is not developed, very soon the man will be cut down. And so we have been character building series. Looking at different dimensions in character. We saw good works. From good works, we moved to good works was in the month of July. Then the month of August, we saw faithfulness. And today constancy, the power of constancy, or the power of being consistent. The power of being consistent. The power of being consistent. Good enough, if you also look at that same scripture we read last month, the month of August, we were looking at the fruit of the spirit. You will see something there that is linked to the matter of constancy and that is self-control. Self-control. Self-control. They are linked together. The Bible says in Galatians 5:22, it says, "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." All of these, like I mentioned in the month of August, not that it is the fruits, but the fruit. It is a fruit that have different aspect of different aspect of character. Different aspect of character. We have been able to look at faithfulness. Today we are looking at something that is linked with self-control and that is constancy or being consistent. The power of constancy. The power of being consistent. And if you look at the dictionary, the dictionary define constancy as the quality of being constant. You are constant. You are constant. You are not something that is not consistent. You are constant. Is it in the place of your spiritual life, you are constant? Is it your academic life, you are constant? Is it your financial life, you are constant? Is it your career life, you are constant? Is it your we are talking about constancy, being constant. The quality of being constant. Another word for constancy is steadiness. You are steady. You are steady. You are not staggering. You are not staggering. You could go on steadily. You could go on steadily. And especially, the dictionary also talks about steadiness or faithfulness in action. Or another definition from the dictionary is an unchanging quality or characteristic of a person or thing. An unchanging quality. So you can see that constancy is linked to self-control and it is also linked to faithfulness. But this time we are linking constancy more with being consistent. Being consistent. The power of being consistent. Not the power of being faithful, but to be consistent with whatever we are doing. So constancy will also mean an unchanging quality or characteristic of a person. This is another important quality in character building. Another important quality in character building. The quality of being constant. It is a product of self-control. Self-control. Self-control. And I want to read Hebrews 3:14 to let us see something there about constancy and our salvation. I would like to start from there. Constancy and our salvation. I will just be linking constancy to different aspects of our life. Constancy to different aspects of our life. But I want to begin with the matter of salvation. For every young person, the first and foremost thing in your life is your salvation. Before any other thing, the Bible says, "Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then other things will be added." So before we talk about career, about finance, about marriage, about other things, let us just look at the matter of your salvation. The matter of your salvation. Constancy, the power of constancy and our salvation. Let us look at Hebrews 3:14 there. The Bible was linking constancy and our salvation in Hebrews 3:14. And maybe to make it clearer, I would like to read from verse 12 to that verse 14 that is our verse of consideration. In verse 12, the Bible says, "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you should be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end." Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart that depart from what you normally hold to, that make you to leave what you believe, that make you to drop what God has revealed to you, that make you to neglect what you know to be correct, to be truth, to be upright. We should be careful lest there be any evil heart. But rather we should exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Why? Why must we not depart? Why must we be constant? Why must we stay there and not depart? Why must we stay there? The Bible says it is because we have become partakers of Christ. We are partakers of Christ on this condition. What is the condition? On the condition that we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. Once we throw it away, once we depart from it, then we will not be partakers of Christ. If we must be partakers of Christ, that thing that we held at the beginning, that thing that became part of us at the beginning, that thing that we became convinced of as correct, that we got to know to be the truth, that thing that God showed to us and we are persuaded of it that this is what God is saying, this is the mind of God, this is the will of God for my life, this is what God wants me to be doing, this is how God wants me to be living. That thing that God showed us, the Bible says we must hold fast to it to the end. If we are not constant, then we will not be partakers of Christ. We will not be able to enjoy Christ. We will not partake. We will not be partakers. We will become spectators. We will become onlookers. We will become signboards that tell men where they should go, but even though it is not going there. Don't become a signboard. And what brings a man to that position is not being constant. So as a young man that is going up in life, you must understand the power of constancy. It is coming from self-control. You must be able to control yourself to be constant. You must be able to control yourself to be constant. Once you cannot control yourself to be constant, then there will be problem. There will be problem. Constancy is something very, very crucial. It is an aspect of self-control. It is an aspect of self-control. It is also flowing from diligence. Being diligent in what you are doing. It is also an aspect of flowing from hard working. Hard working, being constant. But what I am trying to show you first and foremost is that the Bible shows that are you a believer? Have you accepted Jesus Christ? Are you sure that you are born again? Then if you must be a partaker of Christ, then the Bible says it is if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. That confidence that you have in Jesus, that confidence, that work, that faith, that thing that you began with, you must hold it. That thing, you must it must be there. Your love for God, your coming to God, your obedience to God, that thing that you were able to understand that this is what saved me, this is what brought me to salvation, then you must be constant with it. You must be constant. Another scripture that also points this out is the book of Matthew. Matthew 24. This time we are looking at the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 24. Matthew 24. You will find exactly the same thing there. I am talking about the power of constancy. And the first thing is I am linking it to our salvation. Our salvation. Before I will now I will now link it to other issues of life. Let us first look at that that had to do with our eternal life. Our eternal life. In Matthew 24, let us see what our Lord Jesus said there. The Bible I will read from verse 4. It said, "And Jesus answered," He was speaking to His disciples on this occasion and He said to them, "Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name saying I am Christ and will deceive many. And you will hear of war and of rumors of war." Rumors of war, what we are seeing all around us today. It is a sign of the end time. So there is nothing new about all of these things anyway. But that is not our focus this morning. We are going somewhere. "See that you are not troubled. For all of these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famine, there will be pestilence, COVID-19 is one of them that we are experiencing in recent times. There will be pestilence and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrow. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another." What will happen again? Verse 11, "Then many false prophets will rise up and they will deceive many. And because of lawlessness, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many," Are you seeing something now? There was a love that they had for righteousness. There was a love that they had for holiness. There was a love that they had for purity. There was a love that they had for Jesus. There was a love that they had for evangelism. There was a love that they had for prayer. There was a love. But the Bible says because lawlessness will abound, wickedness will increase, all kinds of things. It will look like what is the essence of being upright? What is the essence of being faithful? What is the essence of obeying the commandment of God? Because of what, one important measure of showing our love for God is to keep His command. Is to keep His command. It is a very important measure. It is a very crucial measure. And so the Bible is saying that but because lawlessness will abound, what will happen? The love of many will begin to grow cold. But look at what the Bible now says in verse 13, "But he who endures to the end," Are you seeing that? The power of what? Constancy. The power of constancy. The power of constancy. As a young man, it is a thing you must pray for your life. It is a thing you must beg God. And if you look at the incident in this place, it is talking about pressure. Pressure that will come from situations of life. Pressure will come. It said because of lawlessness. Maybe formerly you find yourself in the midst of believers. Believers who will always pull you up. Oya, let us go for evangelism. Come on. Oya, brother, come. Let us go for three days fasting and prayer. Oya, let us go to fellowship. But in some situation, you now find yourself in the midst of some other people. These ones they don't have love for God. They are not pressurizing you to the things that that you have always believing. This one will say, "Come, let us go to cinema houses. Let us go and watch American movie. Let us go, let us go and play game. Let us go, let us go and enjoy ourselves. Ah, you don't have a girlfriend? You need to have one." I say no, I don't do it. "Then who will you marry? Let us come on have one. Oh, you don't drink? Taste it, there is nothing wrong with alcohol." You could come under a different kind of pressure as a young man. You could come under situation where things changes. Things change. And things are not different from what it used to be. If you look at these people, they used to love the Lord. They were loving God. They were passionate about God. But there was now a pressure. What was the pressure? Lawlessness. They now saw people who don't who don't care about these things. Abeg, forget it. Let us leave that one. What is it? Abeg, leave it, let us flow on. Lawlessness. Because lawlessness, another translation calls that iniquity. Iniquity. King James says because iniquity will abound. Iniquity will abound. I don't know whether there are other other words for that lawlessness. Let us see some other translation for that lawlessness. Just trying to comprehend that word lawlessness. Let us see some other translation that may help us with other meaning of that word lawlessness. Lawlessness, what does the other translation have there? Defiance of the law. Okay, defiance for the law. Yes, there will be defiance for the law. What of your own translation there? What what do you have? I want us to try to open the Message here. Matthew 24 verses 12 and 13. Matthew 24 verses 12 and 13. We just want to see different meaning of that word. Verse 12 and 13, wickedness. Wickedness. Okay, wickedness, defiance for the law. What does this other translation say here? NLT, NLT says, "Sin, sin will be rampant everywhere. Sin will be rampant everywhere and the love of many will grow cold." So the word lawlessness also mean defiance for the law, also means wickedness. Wickedness will abound. Sin will be rampant everywhere. And I want to ask you as a young man, what are you noticing today? Look at Nigeria. I remember one day I I was in a filling station getting ready to buy fuel. It was one of during one of these time of serious fuel scarcity. And then we were on the queue trying to buy. But we noticed that the queue was not moving. And then what is going on? What is going on? So much, much later we tried to leave our car and then go to where the selling was going on. And then we now noticed that some individuals are there, there was a regulation that nobody can buy into kegs, you can only buy into your car. But these individuals, they were giving money and so they were filling all kinds of keg, 50 liter keg, 40 liter keg. That was going on. So a young man was there trying to see how he could get fuel to buy. And because he got so frustrated, the young man just shouted, he was speaking in Yoruba language. I will translate it. He said Nigeria cannot be good again. Everything will just spoil. We will all just be destroyed. He was speaking in Yoruba language. I will translate it for you. What he was trying to say was that Nigeria can never can never things cannot improve again in this country. That he too will now join hands in destroying the nation. He will join hands in making sure that things don't go well. Now, why is this boy speaking like this? Because there was defiance for the law. People don't respect regulation. Sin was rampant. Wickedness was increasing. And so his own love for wanting to obey the rule, what happened to it? It waxed cold. So the Bible is saying that the same way when you are in the midst of people where sin, iniquity, where fornication is described as fiance, fiance relationship, where lying is colored to mean wisdom, where insincerity is colored as understanding, where stealing is colored as as being smart. You understand me? When they give all these kind of color, before you know, if you are not careful, you will lose your constancy. Your love will begin to grow cold. Your own love for what is right will begin to grow cold. And so the Bible is warning us about the matter of constancy. Constancy. It is it is one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. It is coming from self-control. So when you are growing in your faith, when you are growing in your faith, one thing that will be developing in your character, because these are character building series. One thing that will be characterizing your life is constancy. Even where you are even where you are where people are not doing right, you will not join them. Even where you see wickedness abounding, you will not join them. Even where you see people sin, all kinds of things going on, you will be indifferent. You will not be part of it. Because your love will not grow cold. Your own love for what is right will begin to grow cold. So the Bible is warning us about the matter of constancy. Constancy. It is it is one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. It is coming from self-control. So when you are growing in your faith, when you are growing in your faith, one thing that will be developing in your character, because these are character building series. One thing that will be characterizing your life is constancy. Even where you are even where you are where people are not doing right, you will not join them. Even where you see wickedness abounding, you will not join them. Even where you see people sin, all kinds of things going on, you will be indifferent. You will not be part of it. Because your love will not grow cold. I want to ask you as a young man, how constant are you? Are you a constant person? Are you someone who is constant? There is power in constancy. Number one, what we discuss today, I am rounding up as we as we pray this morning. What we discuss today is that one, it is tied to your salvation as a Christian. If you are not constant with the things that you believe, you cannot be a partaker of Christ. Number two, if you cannot endure, stay with those things till the end, then you cannot be saved. It is not how well you started. Starting well is good, but you must finish well. We saw it that this matter of constancy affect every other aspect of our faith. Prayer, we must be instant in prayer. Visitation from God, Zechariah was instant. He was constant. He got his visitation. Reward from God, He says you should not be wearied in well doing. Once you weary, once you are not constant, then you will not reap. You will not reap if you faint. The coming of Christ, when the Son of Man shall come, will He find faith on Earth? Constancy. And I relate it beyond that to stability in the face of challenges. Even something as cogent as marital challenge. Look at the case of Zechariah. That was our example. In the face of difficult time, this fruit of self-control, this thing, constancy helps you to remain there. To remain unchanging. To remain unchanging. That is why it is linked with faithfulness. You remain faithful. You are there. You are constant. You are unchanging. Then what about breakthrough financially? What about breakthrough maritally, materially, career-wise? How does it come? It is being constant in that little. Taking the little, doing it constantly. You are constant. You are constant. You are constant. You are constant. You are constant. Before you know, before you know, suddenly there will be a visitation. Suddenly. That boy was lucky. He was and the thing just became No, it was not luck. It was constancy. I tell people program your life for breakthrough. Program your life for it. Be doing something constantly. Suddenly the breakthrough will come. It will look as if you are lucky. It is not luck. Program yourself into it. Be constant. Program your life as a young man. Program your life as a young woman. Program your life. So that it look as if at a point you were lucky, but it is not luck. Prepare yourself, under way I put it is prepare yourself for those luck. People who looks lucky prepared themselves for the luck. Prepare yourself. Prepare yourself. Prepare yourself for it. And lastly, we said that even what you have physically you will lose them. Not only spiritual things. It is not only salvation and all of that. Even physically, the things you have, you can lose them if you are not constant. If you are not constant. So don't forget again like we said last month, it is a fruit of the spirit. It comes from self-control. It comes from self-control. So you need to begin to pray the Lord, "Lord, that I may grow in grace." See, this matter has to do with growth. You are not growing if your character is not changing. Your character must be changing. Nobody always get everything right at first. There is no nobody like that. That's one strong language of my son. "Nobody always get it right at first. Nobody. There is nobody like that." Everybody start from somewhere and then begin to set them right. As you move on in life, you will be setting them right. As you move on, you start adding them, adding them, adding them, adding them. That is the point. Nobody always always get it right at first. Nobody. There is nobody like that. Everybody start from somewhere and then begin to put it, begin to add it, begin to add it, begin to add it. But that thing that help you to add and add well is constancy. It is a fruit of the spirit. It is coming from self-control. Self-control. Self-control. It is an important aspect of character building. Build into your character that I will be constant. It takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of telling yourself, "No, no, no, no, no. Come on, stand up, stand up. No, you must do this now." It takes a lot of discipline. Paul said, "I pommel my body." It is tied to discipline and diligence, self-control. It is tied to it. You pommel your body. You tell your body, "No, no, no, no. This is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to do this. No, this is what is to be done." And then you begin to become constant. No, this is what is to be done. It doesn't matter how I feel. This is what is to be done. And like that, like that, like that, before you know it, you will enter into your breakthrough. You will enter into your greatness. Talk to the Lord this morning. Talk to the Lord this morning. Talk to the Lord this morning. I will enter into everything that God has purposed for me. I want you to pray that prayer. I will enter into everything. Spiritually, spiritually I will enter into everything God has prepared for me. Physically, financially, academically, materially, I will enter into everything that God has prepared for me. I will not lose any of them. I will not lose any of them. I will be constant. I will be constant. I will be constant. I will be constant. And I want you to pray that God, in respect of my salvation, Lord God, I will be constant even to the end. My love will not wax cold. My love for the things of God, my love for God will not wax cold. I will be constant. I will be constant even to the end. I will be constant even to the end. I will be constant, instant, constant even to the end in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Thank you, eternal father. Blessed be your holy name, our God. In Jesus' name we pray. In Jesus' name. Father, we thank You for everything we have learned. We pray that You will empower us to walk constantly both in Your ways and in everything we lay our hands upon in Jesus' name. Lord, we pray that You give us the spirit to be consistent and to discipline ourselves in Jesus' name. Lord, we pray that as we continue with the day, You speak to us and be with us in Jesus' name. In Jesus' name I have prayed. Amen. Let's share the grace together. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us now and forever more. Amen. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord, forever and ever. Amen. [Speaker 1] This message is coming to you from Family Tent Ministry, an ecosystem ministry involved in reaching the lives of singles and married through preaching and teaching of God's word, discipleship, family life enrichment, social and community development, and mission aid. Our regular activities are: Discipleship class every Monday, 5:00 PM; Adolescents and singles club, every first Saturday of of every month at 10:00 AM; Marriage forum, second Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; Family life seminars, regular school outreaches and everyday counseling. For further counsel, you can reach us at our location: Life camp by the first bridge, Iloro community, opposite Very Joy filling station along Igbara Road, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. You can also reach us through our social media handles: familytent@yahoo.co.uk, familytentministry01@gmail.com, www.familytentministry.org. Our phone numbers are 08033861136, 07033613848. God bless you all. [Music]