Hosea 11:1-11
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

We have been looking at a different fruit of the Spirit each Sunday for the past six weeks. Today, we are on the seventh fruit the apostle names as something that God produces in us in Christ. The fruit is faithfulness.

What does it mean to be faithful? Sometimes it’s easier to think of these things with examples. Faithfulness can look like loyalty, as in being loyal to your spouse. That doesn’t mean you always to have to like them or agree with them, but you are faithful to your spouse by remaining loyal to them. 

Faithfulness can look like being steadfast even when everything else is going sideways and wrong. Here I am thinking of grandparents and other elders. For me, when things were going sideways, it was my grandfather who was often the steadfast person in my life. Sometimes parents are too close to the situation to have perspective, but grandparents are just close enough and yet also removed enough from the day to day with parents and children to bring perspective to a fraught situation. They can serve in that steadfast, loving role to work out peace and harmony. 

Finally, faithfulness can look like devotion through good times and bad times. Here I am thinking of sports fans who keep showing up and rooting for their team. These people are not fair weather fans. A team could be 0-10 and they’ll still put on their jerseys and turn on the TV. Frustration, disappointment will inevitably come. But they are devoted because there is hope one day that the team will turn things around. 

Loyalty, steadfast love, devotion. Those are all marks of our faithfulness. But the Christian message isn’t first about our faithfulness and how loyal, steadfast, and devoted we are. The truth is that we are sometimes those things, but we are sometimes disloyal, flighty, and careless. Instead, the Christian message is first about God’s faithfulness. God is loyal to us. God is steadfast love and faithfulness. God is devoted to his people. God demonstrates all of this in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is faithful to what God would have him do. He is loyal to people even when they are disloyal. He is steadfast love even to the point of death on a cross. He is devoted to God’s call on his life despite the mocking and betrayal he experienced.

The Christian message first really is about what God has done for us, mainly God saves us, over and over again. Once we have that down, then we can get into what our response should be. That response is what we call the spiritual fruits. However this ordering of things – God acting first, us responding, will take some getting used to because we are used to things being all about us and things having to get done by us. Far more of us are Marthas than we are Marys, if you remember the story of Mary and Martha from a few weeks ago.

As many of you know, my full-time job is actually in accounting and finance. Most of my day consists of meetings and reviewing ledgers and spreadsheets where I approve budgets and review transactions and make sure money is spent in compliance with grant agreements. For someone (like me) who thinks very orderly and logically, it’s very satisfying work. It struck me this week that many of us, myself included, approach our Chrisitan life like accountants.

Here is what I mean. Accounting works with debits and credits. If you debit your bank account, it means you have more cash going into it. If you credit it, it means you have cash coming out. Well, I think we think of our spiritual lives like that: debits are the good things we do and credits are the bad things we do. So we go through the week and all of the good things we do, we accumulate debits to our spiritual bank account and then all of the bad things we do, we take on some credits along the way. Our goal is to at the end of a week, month, or lifetime, have more debits than credits (that is, accumulate more good deeds than bad deeds). We think then God will pronounce us worthy. 

Here is the thing – good works are good. We want to keep doing them. We want to be generous and help us others and love and serve the poor. Those are all signs of faithfulness. But the gospel is not “do those things and God will love you and save you and give you good things.” The gospel is that “God so loved the world that he gave us only Son.” The gospel is that God makes us okay even if we aren’t okay. The gospel says you are worthy even in all of your unworthiness because Christ died to save sinners.

If there is one message I’d like you to take away from this study on the spiritual fruit of faithfulness is that God goes first and then we follow. God is faithful and loyal and steadfast to us and to the world and when we open ourselves up to it, God straightens out our hearts and clears our heads and livens up our souls so that we can also be faithful, steadfast, and loyal.

So what does it mean to be faithful? When things are going well in life, being faithful can look like the the parable of the Good Samaritan. Faithfulness can be showing up and giving of what you have. The Samaritan shows up for the man in the ditch in desperate need on the side of the road. He shows up, he provides aid and assistance, and he cares for the man in need. He does so out of the abundance of his heart and possessions.

When things are going poorly in life faithfulness can mean remembering God’s mercy. Here I am thinking of the parable of the prodigal son. After the son lives wildly and out of control, he finds himself essentially stuck in the pig pen. His life is in shatters. But he remembers the goodness of his father’s home and decides to go back, even if he’ll never be in his former position. Faithfulness can look like remembering God’s mercy and going to “home” – to worship, to pray, to take communion – even if you don’t feel like it or feel worthy for it.

When things are going steady in life, being faithful can look like remaining alert to God and not getting distracted. Here I am thinking of the parable in Luke’s gospel of the woman and the lost coin. The parable goes that when she realizes she lost some of her coins, she sweeps the house and searches carefully for it. And when she finds the coin, she calls her friends and neighbors together and has a party. Jesus says this is what happens in the kingdom of God when sometime turns back to God. The whole of heaven rejoices! It’s easy in our modern world to be distracted by all sorts of things. Being faithful to God can look like keeping those distractions like phones and the internet and TV and money and drama in their place and remaining focused on God.

Friends, the scriptures teach us that God is faithful and just, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Allow the Spirit to work on your heart, mind, and soul so that you can bear good fruit to the glory of God. Amen.