Fruit of the Spirit, VII
Hebrews 11:1-3, 32-40

Whenever I’ve read the word ‘faithfulness’ in Paul’s list of the Fruit of the Spirit, I must tell you, I’ve always assumed that the word had something to do with ‘perseverance’. Faithfulness is kind of having a lot of ‘hang-in-there-ness’ in our character!  (You know that word?) When we speak of a faithful person in and around the church, that’s exactly what we mean, don’t we?  Someone who has a lot of “hang-in-there-ness”. 

A faithful person is someone who we can count on – someone who worships regularly, someone who gives regularly and joyfully… a faithful person in the church is someone who not only volunteers but then follows through, and does what they have promised to do. (God bless the people like that, by the way! There are many of you here, and frankly, this church would close down without you. ) 

But while the word ‘faithfulness’ in Galatians 5 probably includes all of that, it really is a much bigger word than just that.  Let me put it like this… when Jesus in the Gospels talks about a faith that can move mountains, or when he tells people that their faith has made them well, or when he invites people to ‘believe’ in him – like in John 14, when Jesus says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” When Jesus said all those things, he was using variations of one Greek word – one of the most important words in the New Testament. The word is pisteo. 

It means, obviously, to have faith in, to believe, to trust, to lean on something or someone. Paul’s word, in his list of the Fruit of the Spirit (faithfulness), is just another form of that very same word that Jesus so often used. And it means pretty much the same thing – it means to show faith on a continuing basis. So, the spiritual fruit of ‘faithfulness’ simply means that followers of Jesus Christ will demonstrate faith … day, after day, after day. To have the spiritual fruit of  ‘faithfulness’ means that we will be people who are living out our faith.  No matter what else is going on in our life, or in the world, we are still believing, we are still trusting in God. 

See what I mean? It’s a really big word.

There was a businessman who was late for an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking space. As he frantically circled the block, the man got so desperate that he decided to pray.

Looking up toward heaven, he said, “Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking space, I'll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life, and not only that, I'll give up drinking.”

Miraculously, a parking space appeared.

The guy looked up again and said, “Never mind. I found one.” 

That is not faithfulness!

In the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament we read the great definition of faith in chapter 11, verses 1 – 3 

¹ Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. ² Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.  ³ By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen… 

The writer of this book captures the essence of faith right in the opening lines of this chapter – by pointing out that faith begins where our five senses end. It is “assurance of the future”, something completely unknown to us apart from faith. It is confidence ‘about things we cannot see.’  Verse three really gets to the heart of it: “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.” 

There are Websites, and whole institutions dedicated to finding evidence of the Creation of the universe by God. And they are fascinating to me. As a philosophy student in college I still have a deep love for the whole discipline of Apologetics. But, I’ve come to the conclusion that while there are some people who come to faith through their intellect, i.e., by considering and weighing the arguments, and making a decision, I think actually, that this is rather rare.  For most people, apologetics bolster faith, and basic convictions that are arrived at through different channels. 

(Which is why at this point in my ministry I choose prayer and witness over debate and argument when it comes to evangelism!) 

If you think about it, everyone has to have some kind of faith when it comes to the origin of life.  We all believe in something eternal. Simply because we are here, we can have conversations like this - there has to be an explanation for it.  Why are we here? 

Maybe the ultimate question – because the answer to every other significant question about meaning in life is based on this one – the foundational question is, “Are we here ‘on purpose’, or are we simply some great cosmic blip, really, just an accident of energy?” 

A person’s answer to that question will set the foundation for everything else we do or think – either my life has inherent meaning, or I have to try and give it meaning; I have to somehow find meaning in a rather pointless universe. (Which, I think, logically speaking, is impossible to do.) Two very different approaches to life, and they both start at this beginning point: with questions of faith. 

There is no ‘evidence’ that will be totally convincing to someone on either side of this debate. I used to be arrogant enough to think that if a person was intellectually honest that they would have to believe if the evidence was presented to them correctly, (and that maybe I could be that presenter!)  But, again, I don’t think anymore that this is the channel into faith for most people. Now, I believe that God himself provides all the internal evidence that we need to choose faith… it’s what we call ‘general revelation’, or ‘the conviction of the Holy Spirit’ but, clearly, we can resist and reject that witness. 

Eugene Peterson, the translator of ‘The Message’ pointed this out in an interview in Christianity Today magazine: 

“What is hazardous in my life is my work as a Christian. Every day I put faith on the line. I have never seen God. In a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye has seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe. That's a risk[1].”  Well, I think he’s right. It is a risk… but so is unbelief. 

The great C. S. Lewis, in one of the Chronicles of Narnia (The Magician’s Nephew) wrote in story form about this witness that God has built into creation. He refers to it as God’s call to faith; and writes about how some can and do, choose to disregard it: 

In the Chronicles series, the kingdom of Narnia is created when Aslan—the lion who represents Jesus—sings it into being. The creation song reveals Aslan's majesty and glory. It is a grand “call to worship!” But there is one guy, Uncle Andrew, who refuses to hear it, and the consequences are staggering.

“When the great moment came and the beast spoke, [uncle Andrew] missed the whole point for a rather interesting reason. When the lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. 

Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (“only a lion,” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn't singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. 

“Of course it can't really have been singing,” he thought, “I must have imagined it. I've been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?” And the longer and more beautifully the lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. 

Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan's song. Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the lion spoke and said, “Narnia awake,” he didn't hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings.[2]

So maybe, (to use C. S. Lewis’ imagination), we can say that faithfulness is the ability to hear God’s song of creation in all of our life. In the good times and in the bad times. In beauty and things that are lovely and wonderful, but also even in the midst of things that are troublesome and difficult.  We recognize that God’s song continues and always will. 

And it certainly seems, ironically, that it is in those difficult times that faith grows and blossoms the fastest. A guy named Frank Clark once said that “Faith on a full stomach may be simply contentment – but if you have it when you're hungry, it's genuine”[3].

In that faith chapter (Hebrews 11, a passage that someone once called ‘God’s Hall of Fame’) we read of people who lived their faith, allowing God to accomplish great things through them, but we also read of others who suffered tremendous hardships because of that same faithfulness...

³² How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets. ³³ By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. ³⁵ Women received their loved ones back again from death.

   But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. ³⁶ Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. ³⁷ Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. ³⁸ They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. 

There are still people like these in the world today. There are people whose lives are powerful testimonies to the awesomeness of God.  People whose faith still moves mountains.  There are also people – we try to remember to pray for them in our weekly pastoral prayers – people who are suffering greatly because of their faith. People who are subjected to harassment by their peers, by hostile governments, by even their own families. And yet they choose to remain faithful. They are leaning on God day by day. 

We have seen, even in this congregation, evidence of a similar ancient faith through changed lives, through medically inexplicable healings and other powerful answers to prayer. We’ve seen people who have overcome incredible trials and hardships, and who are today giving glory to the God who sustained them in these difficult periods of their lives. But then there are many others who are in those very difficult circumstances even today, with no clear end in sight, but they are still here. They are walking – or staggering – but they continue on their journeys by their faith. 

That is what ‘faithfulness’ is. It is when we decide to keep walking even when the road is very steep. Faithfulness is to continue the journey even when we are tired and hot, and thirsty… and when we look around and realize that we are walking alone… at least for now… but we keep going. That is faithfulness.

I mentioned earlier that one way that we can define the biblical word for ‘faith’ is that it means ‘to lean on’.  Maybe you can picture it like this: imagine that you are walking through the woods (which I’m going to be doing all this coming week, Lord willing!), and you come to a ravine. And there in front of you is a rope bridge, swaying the breeze. And there is no other way across. 

You look at this bridge and you’re thinking, “No way! That bridge will never hold me!” But you notice an old man who is sitting by the edge of the ravine and he says to you, “Friend, I’ve crossed this bridge every day of my life, just to sit here and tell travelers like you that it is safe.  You can trust it.”  And you think to yourself, “There is something about this man that makes me think that I can believe him.” 

Now, in the New Testament, if you were to decide that this man was telling you the truth, (that you believed him) that would be one specific word, and that, of course, would be a very important decision. Because in the English language, we’re kind of limited, it would likely be translated simply that you ‘believed’ him. But if you went a step further, and acted on that belief, if you stepped out onto the bridge and put your belief into action, that word would be pisteo – faith.  Until you put your weight on the bridge, you haven’t expressed New Testament faith in that thing that you claim to believe. 

In Paul’s list of the Fruit of the Spirit, faithfulness is not only believing that the bridge can hold us, it is stepping out and putting our weight on it, it is taking another step beyond that, and another and another.  Until our faith becomes sight, and our journey is over. 

May the Holy Spirit grant us all the fruit of Faithfulness, that we might walk by faith into the future, convinced that we will never