Fruit of the Spirit - Faithfulness
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Introduction
We’re almost at the end of our series on the fruit of the Spirit. After today there are only two more aspects to look at. Hard to believe...
Today we are taking a look at an interesting aspect of the fruit of the Spirit…interesting in the sense of the word used by Paul in this list.
And today’s fruit, as you can see and the songs give it away, is faithfulness.
However, that is NOT the word that Paul uses in this list. The word Paul uses is the Greek word Pistis, which means FAITH.
However, most commentators pick up that in the context of the passage, it should be translated as faithfulness, which it has…but we’re going to look at more than faithfulness tonight, because I think we need to look at more than faithfulness.
So tonight we’re looking at this in two parts - first of all we’ll look at faithfulness. Then we’ll look at faith - specifically, full of faith.
So, first of all, faithfulness.
Like a loyal dog or a faithful companion, someone who is faithful is loyal to you. They are there when you need them, they don’t run away and quit at the first sign of trouble or inconvenience. They stick by you to the end.
Now, it’s not easy to find someone like that these days is it?
Here’s an extract from Readers Digest of a faithful friend...
After my wife of 44 years died, I didn’t feel the urge to socialize. But that didn’t stop my friend Tony from inviting me to join a group of guys who got together every Thursday for dinner. I told him I wasn’t ready. He called again the next week, and again I said no. He kept calling every week, and finally I said, “OK, I’ll go. Anything to keep you from calling me every week.” It has now been six years since my wife died, and thanks to Tony, I have been going to dinner every week with the gang.
That’s a faithful friend - someone who sticks by you, who doesn’t quit being your friend. Who is right there when you need him.
And when we think of God, we have the same picture...
1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
And it’s the ever-present help in trouble that shows God’s faithfulness to us.
In Proverbs, Solomon writes that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother - and there are no prizes for guessing who THAT is.
But God is much more faithful than a friend or a dog. God is not only faithful to us, but he is faithful FOR us. He keeps his promises. He does what he says he will do, and he is committed to that.
Which means that in all circumstances that we face, we can hold fast to the promises of God. We can hold fast to the knowledge that he DOES care for us, that he IS a very present help in times of trouble. We can hold fast to the promise that he WILL NEVER leave us or forsake us...
Because he is faithful to us.
And he’ll never stop keeping his promises, because someone who is faithful never quits.
And God will never give up on you.
Pause
But it doesn’t stop there, because while God will never stop giving up on you, Jesus is our faithful friend who never gave up on his mission.
Because faithfulness means sticking to the task…and that’s exactly what Jesus did for us.
Because when you think about it, Jesus knew exactly what he was facing when he came to earth. He knew, from eternity past that he would have to suffer and die an excruciating death - not just death on a cross, but to take the eternal punishment that we deserve billions of times over - it’s unthinkable.
And Jesus could have quit at any time. He could have said, ‘you know what, this it too much for me.’ or ‘you know what, these people don’t deserve to be saved, because they constantly sin and let us down.’
But he didn’t do that…Jesus didn’t quit - he walked that long and lonely road to the cross, emptying himself of everything, taking the nature of a servant, in order to be FAITHFUL to his mission to save the world from sin - to bring life to the world and freedom from Satan and death.
Jesus didn’t quit. He was faithful to US and to his mission to save us.
Can you imagine what it would be like if he had quit? If he wasn’t faithful to us and his mission to save us?
We would have no hope in life or in death.
We would have no joy in life.
We would have no peace in life.
We would despair.
Thankfully Jesus is faithful and he kept the promises made to us and he went to the cross and suffered our punishment for our sin.
And thankfully he rose from the dead, and he reigns with the Father, and he has left his Spirit with us - the Spirit that gives us the fruit of faithfulness.
Pause
And because we have that fruit of faithfulness, we too can remain faithful to God and to our mission in life. We too can get through the tough times and keep our eyes on the Lord and be faithful to him - not quitting, but standing firm in the faith.
And we can also be faithful to others. Because there are times when our friends and family, or even people in the congregation let us down…but a faithfulness from the Holy Spirit gives us the power and ability to stick with people, even when they annoy us or let us down.
A faithfulness from the Holy Spirit is needed in our marriages, because there are times when people want to walk out of their marriages. Sometimes things get so tough that there is the temptation to throw in the towel.
And what we need in times like that is a supernatural faithfulness to weather the storm - and that comes from the Lord.
But don’t forget, this isn’t like the Spiritual gifts where one person gets one gift, and another person gets another gift...this is not one fruit of the Spirit among others. Paul doesn’t talk about the fruits of the Spirit - it is the FRUIT of the Spirit…these are different segments of the one fruit. So faithfulness is one segment, but we also get love and joy and peace and patience and all the others through the Holy Spirit…and in a marriage, we need all of these things.
But the closer we are to the Lord, the more this will be evident in our lives to enable us to stick with our spouse, or to stick with our friends.
But we don’t need it just in marriage - we need it for all our relationships and all aspects of life. And it comes from a life lived in close proximity with Jesus.
Pause
Now, the second thing to look at with respect to this fruit is not faithfulness, but full of faithness…in other words, since the word Paul used here is the word Pistis, which just means faith, we need to look at what this means for us too.
Because what the Spirit gives us is faith - we will be full of faith the closer we are to God.
And this is where we come to our other reading tonight.
In Hebrews 11 we have a list of people who did amazing things for the Lord through Faith. Let’s look at a couple of them...
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead. 5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
And we can go on and on...
But where did this faith come from? Were these people super-human people who just had an extraordinary amount of faith?
Or were they GIVEN faith from the Lord?
You see, this list in Hebrews wasn’t written to tell us of some great people who were really good people. It wasn’t written to praise a group of humans from the past…this list was given here to show us what faith can do in us.
And FAITH is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s what the Holy Spirit gives us as a result of our relationship with Jesus.
But this faith releases us to LIVE for Jesus and to step out and do amazing things for him.
Pause
Think of the Essentials series that we are looking at in the morning services…the courage that is needed, the cost that is required and the challenge that is made to us takes FAITH. We can’t step out in confidence that God has given us the authority unless we have FAITH that he actually HAS given us the authority.
We can’t take up the challenge to go and make disciples unless we have FAITH that Jesus WILL be with us always and has equipped us to do that.
Pause
So let’s look at Abraham in some more depth...
17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
That event in Abraham’s life must have been one in which he had nightmares for the rest of his life.
To hear the voice of God and believe that God was telling him to sacrifice his own son is just mind-blowing.
How can anyone take their son up to a mountain and build an alter and then lay them on the alter…With Isaac asking, ‘where is the sacrifice?’ and all along you know that the sacrifice is HIM.
And yet you also know that God has told you that through Isaac, the nations of the world will be blessed - so you know that this can’t be the end....that if God lets you go ahead with this sacrifice, he would also be able to raise Isaac from the dead....
When you really think about it that’s just inconceivable...
Now, what makes a sane person do something like that? Faith…but not a human faith - no human could have that much faith…No, this act of faith comes from God himself.
Pause
But what I didn’t read out earlier was another list in the same chapter…and it’s a list of people who didn’t have a happy ending...
36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—
And yet they still had faith…despite the torture and the flogging, the imprisonment and even death. Can you imagine being sawn in two and yet still having faith in the Lord.
Again, that type of faith comes from God himself.
Pause
One last thing before we close...
Paul says in Ephesians 2:8
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
It is our faith that saves us, but this saving faith isn’t even our own - it’s given to us as a free gift by God because of his grace.
Because without this gift of faith, nobody would believe what we believe.
But thanks to God’s grace, he gives us the faith to believe and it is that faith that saves us.
But the faith that saves us isn’t momentary, it’s NOT temporary faith that allows us to say a prayer and that’s our ticket punched and we’re on our way to heaven.
No, this faith is a commitment - it’s faithfulness....We are saved by our faithfulness to the Lord. So we’re not saved because of a prayer, we are saved because of our commitment TO THAT PRAYER.
It’s our faithfulness to God that saves us - sticking to what we believe, even if it means that we get a hard time for it - it means sticking to the Lord even when there are wars and famines and atrocities around the world that make it hard to understand why God would let these things happen.
It is sticking to what we believe in all of that - being faithful to God through our FAITH in him that will get us over that finish line.
But the good news is that this faith and faithfulness is something that God gives us as a gift to us through his grace. It’s not of our own doing. It’s not something we can just put the head down and get on with it - this faith and faithfulness is a gift from God and a fruit of the Spirit given to everyone who believes.
And it is this faith that saves us and it is this faith that keeps us faithful.
Because it is a reflection of the faith that God himself has - who won’t give up on us, who DIDN’T give up on us, but sent his Son Jesus, who DIDN’T give up on us and who didn’t give up on his mission, but went to the cross, facing the scorn and shame and agony to bring us life.
And it’s a reflection of the faithfulness of God who promises to be with us and who keeps his promises and will never EVER stop keeping his promises.
That’s the kind of faith that we get from the Holy Spirit as a result of keeping in step with the Spirit.
Pause
Remember our passage...
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
The flesh will want to give up and give in… The Spirit will help us remain faithful...
So the more we walk by the Spirit the more faithful we will be to God, to his mission to go and make disciples, and the more faithful we will be to others around us - to our spouses, to our friends, to our family.
Let’s pray.