Tending the Garden for a Good Harvest: Faithfulness
We’ve been studying the Fruit of the Spirit for seven weeks, and we’ve journeyed through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness. Every week I remind you that the Fruit of the Spirit is not nine separate “fruits” but indeed nine aspects of the same Fruit, and that it only comes from the Holy Spirit. We are privileged to have the God of the Universe live within us, and when we talk about the Fruit of the Spirit, it’s really all about His character showing through our lives.
This morning we’re going to start with a contest. Would all of the married people in the congregation please stand. [marriage longevity contest: ask for one thing that has kept them together this long]
The Greek word we are looking at this morning is pistis. This can cause some confusion, because this word carries different meanings throughout scripture. We understand that faith is necessary for salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.).
Faith is also set aside as a spiritual gift (Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by the means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit…)
But the kind of faith that Paul is talking about here is better described as fidelity, loyalty, and trustworthiness in one’s dealings with others. Pistis is the quality which describes “the man on whose faithful service we can rely on, on whose loyalty we may depend, whose word we can unreservedly accept. It describes the man in whom there is the unswerving and inflexible fidelity of Jesus Christ and the utter dependability of God”.
There is a reason we ask the marriage question when it comes to faithfulness; the Bible compares our relationship with Christ to a marriage relationship. In biblical Jewish culture, before a bride and groom were married, the groom would go to his father’s home and build on a room for the couple to share. Once the room was finished, he would go back and get his bride. So in John 14, when Jesus comforting his disciples, he tells them, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” This is marriage language! A healthy, long marriage is the best example of faithfulness we can see.
In years past, we could look to our sports heroes and see a faithfulness – players to teams and teams to players. If I mention my favorite running back of all time, Walter Payton, you’d think “Chicago Bears.” If I mentioned Mickey Mantle, you’d know he played for the New York Yankees. But more recently, finances and egos have made team loyalty (from the standpoint of teams/organizations as well as players) a thing of the past. Like Brett Farve – I used to be a rather grudging fan of his; but now what team does he play for anyway? So anyway, I thank all of you whose marriages have stood the test of time to allow me to use you as examples!
It’s clear that faithfulness is an aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit, but what does faithfulness look like? After all, many of us never witnessed much faithfulness. I remember doing premarital counseling for a couple and I asked them about their families of origin. She told me that her parents had divorced when she was young, and they had both remarried. Her mom had subsequently divorced and married again. And again. She was on her fourth husband. Then the groom told me that his parents were divorced. But they had remarried. Each other. And they’d done this multiple times.
We often derive our view of God from our own parents, and this couple had been given a skewed view. His example showed him that faithfulness was only available when it was convenient. Her example, well, faithfulness was out of the question.
I think a lot of us have a similar view of God. When things are going well, when the sun is shining, when you’ve got a good job, when everyone is healthy, when your family is getting along, we consider ourselves “blessed” by God. Then when it’s cold and raining, when unemployment has run out, when the doctor gives you the bad news, when every night you cry over your wayward child, we wonder where God went, why He is absent.
Honestly, don’t we do this? I’ve never seen someone get a bonus at work and shake their fist at God asking, “Where are you?!”
I’ve referenced Exodus 34:5-7 frequently during this message series; it’s when Moses has gone up on Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”
This isn’t just God’s name; it’s His character. Abounding in faithfulness. King David certainly knew this aspect of God. In Psalm 36:5, he writes Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. In Psalm 57:10 For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. In Psalm 108:4 For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Do you think he was trying to say something significant? In Psalm 100:5 the Psalmist says For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. God’s faithfulness extends forever. “All generations” includes us.
Unfortunately, the people of God too often behave like the parents of the groom I mentioned earlier. In the history of Israel, we can see this clearly. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram and tells him to Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:1-3)
In Genesis 15, God confirms his covenant with Abram. God tells Abram to “Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.” Then He said to him, “So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5). Then there is this weird scene where the Lord tells Abram to bring him a heifer, a ram, and a goat. Abram cuts them in half and arranges them across from each other. That night, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. The meaning of this ritual was the confirming of a covenant; God was saying, in effect, “May it be done to me as was done to these animals if I forsake my end of this covenant.” I guess the way people make this kind of promise now is by saying “Cross my heart, hope to die.” And actually meaning it.
But we don’t mean it. We make promises lightly; it’s hard to talk about faithfulness because we don’t understand it. Throughout the Old Testament we see the history of God’s people. We see high points in their faithfulness, such as the Exodus, where God led Israel out of Egypt and they were faithful to Him and praised and thanked him. Exodus 15 records a song that Moses and the Israelites sang to the LORD. The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. (Exodus 15:2).
On Mount Sinai, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and the people all responded together, “Everything the Lord has said, we will do.” (Exodus 24:3). Then the people confirmed the covenant with sacrifices.
But a few chapters later, we read that since Moses took so long up on the mountain with God, his brother Aaron led the people in building a golden calf to worship. Certainly a low point in Israel’s history, God’s people breaking covenant already. Then in Numbers 20, Moses, too, breaks covenant. He is provoked by the Israelites’ grumbling in the wilderness. God tells him to speak to the rock; it will pour out water. But Moses lashes out, “Listen you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses strikes the rock. God’s response to Moses: “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” (Numbers 20:12). Indeed, immediately before Moses dies, he is on Mount Nebo, looking over the Promised Land, and the Lord says to him, “I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” (Deuteronomy 34:4b).
When Joshua takes over as leader of Israel, he makes this famous charge to the people. He tells the people: “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:14-15). They follow for a while, but then comes the book of Judges, one of the most tragic books ever, and 1 & 2 Samuel, 1& 2 Kings, 1& 2 Chronicles… God saves his people, they enjoy prosperity and peace, then they turn away and disobey, then disaster strikes, then they finally turn back to him and he saves them again. We see again and again that God is faithful, even when we are not.
In Luke 15:11-31, Jesus tells a story about a man with two sons. The younger son tells the father, “I wish you were dead so I could have my ½ of your money.” To the father gives him his share of the estate and the son takes off for Las Vegas and wastes all of his money in what the Bible calls “wild living”. Soon he finds himself broke and starving, so he gets a job feeding pigs, and he’s so hungry he longs to eat their food. Then he realized that his father’s servants actually had food to spare, so I’ll go back to his home and beg him to hire me.
I love this picture from Luke 15:20 But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. A good Jewish did not run. He did not disgrace himself by hiking up his robe to run. He would not go out to the son who had so disgraced his name. But this is how the father treated his son. He celebrated. He threw a party. “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
This is the God we serve. He is faithful even when we aren’t. You might be saying, “What about Moses? Didn’t he get excluded from the Promised Land, just for one outburst? Maybe. In Matthew 17, as Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to the mountain and is transfigured, who shows up? Elijah and Moses. In the Promised Land. Did you get that? Maybe I’m making too much of this, but it seems like God had mercy on Moses and lets him step foot in the Promised Land.
There is one reason for faithfulness, and one reason alone. Love. When we take our wedding vows, they’re all about love. We love each other enough that we’re willing to promise that no matter what, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part, we promise ourselves to one another. God’s faithfulness comes from his love, too. His unfailing, overflowing love for us. God loves us so much that He’s willing to do whatever it takes to make this thing work. Even send His Son, Jesus, to sacrifice Himself on the cross for our sake. Even to send Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, to live within us.
You see, there is nothing we can do to void God’s faithfulness. In Romans 3:3, Paul asks a rhetorical question (about people who don’t have faith) “Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?” And the answer is an extremely forceful: Not at all!
The Bible is a story of God’s faithfulness, even when his people are not faithful to him. If you want to boil down the gospel into one verse it’s this: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16). Salvation doesn’t come because we’re good. Salvation doesn’t come because we’ve done great things. Salvation doesn’t even come because we’re faithful. But salvation comes because God is faithful.
So, through the Holy Spirit, we reflect the qualities we learn from God in response to his unswerving, faithful loyalty to us.
Maybe this is where it gets hard for you; you’ve accepted Jesus’ gift of salvation, but you are constantly bombarded by temptation from every side. 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! 13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
And in his second letter to the Thessalonian church, Paul says, But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do the things we command. May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance. (2 Thess 3:3-5)
So we can be sure that God will uphold his part; what is our part? Our part is to be faithful. It’s going to be hard. Jesus challenged his disciples to count the cost of faithfulness: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23) Being faithful to God is a big deal. It’s not easy. It means denying selfish desires. For Jesus, faithfulness meant actually taking up a cross and going to his death. It’s hard, but it’s absolutely worth it.
When Jesus charges his disciples to faithfulness, he says this (in Luke 16:10-13) "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are drawn to serve one Master, to serve Him only, and to serve him with everything we are. Remember the lesson from Moses and Aaron: Aaron set up something else to worship (in his case, a golden calf). Moses disobeyed God’s clear command. Remember the charge from Joshua: choose this day whom you will serve. They were smart back in those days; they recognized that there was never the option not to serve something. Or as Bob Dylan put it, you’ve gotta serve somebody.
Then understand and recognize that being faithful and loyal to God means putting him first, above everything else. Everything. Later Jesus was even more forceful on the issue. In Luke 14:26, he puts it this way: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. Meaning that your identity is no longer in your family, and your allegiance is no longer primarily to your family, but first to God.
So if your allegiance and loyalty is to God first, then you will necessarily order everything around Him. Perhaps the most widely memorized and quoted scripture in all of history worldwide is Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Did you notice how the Shema orders life? Love God with everything. Be faithful to God in everything. Listen to His commands and memorize them; allow them to become part of you. Don’t just teach them to your children, but live them with your kids, model them for them. Fill your whole life with following Him. Make visual reminders everywhere. Everything in your entire life should point toward Jesus. If I looked at your calendar or your appointment book, it should show that you love Jesus. If I looked at your finances, what’s first?
1 Thessalonians 5:24 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
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