Executive Summary

This document synthesizes the core themes from a sermon that addresses the challenge of maintaining religious faithfulness during periods of emotional or spiritual desolation. The central argument posits that true faithfulness is an act of perseverance and character, not a product of feeling. This is illustrated through two primary case studies: the personal story of a pastor named Tony Kafka, who endured immense personal tragedy and professional hardship while remaining committed, and a scriptural analysis of Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, who chose grace and obedience despite facing public shame and personal confusion. The ultimate solution presented is to emulate Jesus Christ, who, according to the text in Hebrews, endured the cross not because he “felt” like it, but for the “joy set before him.” The sermon concludes that cultivating faithfulness requires a conscious and active decision to “fix your eyes on Jesus” through tangible practices, with the underlying motivation being the theological concept of Emmanuel (“God with us”), which frames God as the initiator who first “ran to” humanity.

1. The Central Problem: Maintaining Faithfulness Without Feeling

The discourse is framed around a single, recurring question: “How do you be faithful to God even when you don’t feel it?” This state of spiritual disconnect is attributed to several potential causes, moving beyond simple doubt to encompass a range of human experiences.

Identified Causes for a Lack of Spiritual “Feeling”:

Cause Category	Specific Examples from the Source Text
Tragedy and Loss	Experiencing a tremendous loss, similar to the pastor who lost his daughter and felt his ministry was merely a mechanical function, like “a vacuum doing what vacuums do.”
Financial Hardship	Struggling at every end, not knowing how to remain faithful amidst financial strain.
Materialism & Ambition	Shutting off one’s heart to “run after the almighty dollar,” where the pursuit of money deadens spiritual sensitivity.
Worldly Pursuits	Running after personal “experience and desire,” chasing things other than a relationship with God.
General Weariness	Growing weary, losing heart, or allowing love to “grow cold” over time as a result of life’s opposition and taking one’s focus off the ultimate goal.

The speaker notes a personal period of praying, “God, I want to want you,” encapsulating the state of desiring the feeling of faith without currently possessing it.

2. Case Study 1: The Personal Example of Tony Kafka

The speaker presents the story of Tony Kafka, a pastor in Goodland, Kansas, as a formative, real-world example of enduring faithfulness. Tony’s story provides a powerful illustration of character forged through immense suffering.

• Profound Personal Tragedy: Tony had tragically lost his college-aged daughter in a car accident a year before the speaker interned for him. He confessed to feeling emotionally detached from his work, stating, “I feel like my job is to preach the gospel, but I’m just doing it because it’s just my job right now. Like, I don’t feel it.”

• Professional and Financial Hardship: Leading a small church of around 50 people, Tony faced opposition from influential members who disliked his “gospel message, like, with a lot of truth.” These members withheld their financial giving in an attempt to “run him and his family out of town.”

• Extreme Scarcity: The financial pressure was so severe that Tony recalled a moment of opening his pantry to find only “one box of macaroni and cheese left for his family to eat on,” while members of his church drove new vehicles.

• The Defining Act of Faithfulness: Despite not receiving a paycheck and living off savings, Tony and his wife made a conscious decision to remain faithful in their own giving. The speaker recounts Tony’s words: “we decided we would continue to tithe to the church… we were not going to give up on faithfulness to God.”

• Lasting Impact: The speaker credits this experience with shaping his own understanding of ministry and character. He states, “if you’ve ever seen in me like a faithfulness or you’ve seen in me some kind of humility… it probably was a result of that summer spent with Tony where I saw this man who had the deepest character, who was faithful to God even when he didn’t feel it.”

3. Case Study 2: The Scriptural Example of Joseph

The primary scriptural foundation for the sermon is the story of Joseph from Matthew 1:18-25. Joseph is presented as a man who faced an unimaginable situation and chose a path of quiet faithfulness over his legal rights and personal feelings of betrayal.

3.1. The Cultural and Legal Context

To understand the depth of Joseph’s decision, the speaker outlines the specific cultural norms of the time.

• Jewish Marriage Law: Marriage involved two legally distinct stages:

    1. Kiddushin (Betrothal): A binding covenant where the woman was “set apart” or “sanctified” for her future husband. This stage was so legally significant that breaking it required a get, or a formal bill of divorce.

    2. Nissuin (Wedding): The public ceremony and consummation of the marriage, which could occur up to a year after the betrothal.

• Joseph’s Legal Rights: According to Deuteronomy 22:23-24, since Mary was betrothed (kiddushin), Joseph had the legal right to have her publicly shamed and stoned to death for perceived adultery. The speaker notes that this was not an idle threat, citing the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 as evidence that this practice occurred.

3.2. Joseph’s Act of Grace and Faithfulness

Faced with Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph’s character is revealed in his response.

• Initial Reaction: Believing Mary had been unfaithful, Joseph, described as “faithful to the law,” had every right to enact the harshest penalty.

• Choice of Grace: However, the text states he “did not want to expose her to public disgrace” and therefore “had in mind to divorce her quietly.” This decision is highlighted as a remarkable act of grace from a man who had the “rights to destroy Mary.”

• Obedience to God: An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, confirming Mary’s account that the child was conceived “from the Holy Spirit.” The angel commanded him to take Mary as his wife and name the son Yeshua (Jesus), meaning “Yahweh saves.”

• Enduring the Consequences: By obeying, Joseph accepted a lifetime of social shame. The speaker emphasizes that the community would not have believed the story of a virgin conception and would have whispered behind his back, assuming he and Mary had acted improperly. Joseph chose to bear this shame and faithfully raise Jesus.

4. The Ultimate Model: Jesus Christ’s Perseverance

The sermon argues that the key to understanding how to be faithful without feeling is to look to Jesus himself, who is presented as the ultimate model of perseverance. It is suggested that Joseph’s character was a formative influence on Jesus’s humanity.

• The Central Directive: The primary answer provided is not a three-step plan but a singular focus: “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

• The Motivation for Endurance: Quoting from Hebrews 12, the speaker explains that Jesus’s ability to persevere came from focusing on a future goal: “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame.”

    ◦ The “Joy” Identified: This joy is explicitly identified as believers. Jesus endured the cross because he knew the joy of bringing people into a relationship with God.

• Faithfulness Despite Feeling: Jesus’s own experience in the Garden of Gethsemane is cited as the paramount example of acting against one’s feelings. His prayer, “Father, if there’s any other way, take this cup from me. But if not, your will be done,” demonstrates that he did not “want” to go to the cross but chose to do so out of faithfulness to God’s will.

• The Weight of the Cross: The speaker theorizes that Jesus’s relatively quick death on the cross (hours instead of days) was due to the spiritual and emotional weight of him, “who had no sin… [becoming] sin,” as his heart was “bursting from the pain of him enduring and visualizing and being a part of every single one of our sins.”

5. The Call to Action: How to Cultivate Faithfulness

The sermon concludes by translating the principle of “looking to Jesus” into a series of tangible, active pursuits, explicitly rejecting the idea that faith can be found in “self help books.”

Practical Methods for “Fixing Eyes on Jesus”:

• Deepen Scriptural Engagement: Go beyond surface-level reading. For example, “read the story of the crucifixion every day for a week” and meditate on its personal implications.

• Practice Self-Denial: The core of discipleship is to “die to yourself.” This involves consciously coming before God and saying, “I want to learn to live life the way you want me to teach me. I am all yours.”

• Re-evaluate Life Priorities: This may involve radical life changes, such as quitting a job in an industry that fosters greed (while still providing for one’s family responsibly).

• Cultivate Spiritual Disciplines: Create intentional time for reflection and prayer, away from the “clutter of life” and digital distractions like phones.

• Embrace Physical Action: The final challenge is a “dare” to express spiritual desire through physical movement—getting out of one’s seat, walking to the front of the church, or kneeling. This is based on the premise that “you are a physical being who needs physicality to experience things” and that acting faithfully can precede feeling faithful.

6. Concluding Theological Premise: Emmanuel

The entire framework is supported by the final verses of the Matthew passage, which quote the prophet Isaiah: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.”

This concept serves as the ultimate motivation. The reason a person can “run back” to God is because God first “ran to” humanity in the person of Jesus. This divine initiative is presented as the foundational truth that makes the difficult path of faithfulness both possible and worthwhile. The scripture affirms that for those who seek God with their whole heart, “he’ll be found.”