(This sermon was preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 12/9/12, and is the 8th in a ten-part series on "Bearing Fruit")
“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
In the Apostle Paul’s writings to the church at Galatia, and in other letters that he wrote to the churches throughout Asia Minor, it is evident that a disease had pervaded the land, and infected many of God’s people. The disease that Paul wrote about, and one that continues to exist in many respects today, was more powerful than all of the most deadly diseases of his day, and of this present day. It was more deadly than the leprosy of Paul’s day, and more deadly than cancer… and heart disease… and even AIDS today.
The disease that Paul wrote about would not – today - be recorded at the Centers of Disease Control, or at the National Institutes of Health. It could not have been treated at Northwest or Sinai Hospitals, or at Johns Hopkins. No, the disease that Paul alluded to was a spiritual disease.
It was the disease of faithlessness.
Indeed, as in the days of the Apostle Paul, faithlessness had crept into to the church, and in many ways had crippled the church’s mission and paralyzed its ministry. This disease of faithlessness is one that continues to persist in many circles today. The disease of faithlessness has, in many ways and in many places, placed the church on life-support at best, and in many instances taken the very life out of the church.
This is the dilemma that Mike Regelle wrote about in his book, “The Death of the Church” several years ago, where Regelle said that in every age, the church will inevitably die. The question for the church then is will we die to die (a permanent/terminal death), or will we die to live (a resurrected life in Christ)?
It is clear in Scripture that the very purpose of Jesus and his coming into the world was to point you and me – and all of humanity toward a clearer understanding of who God is, and to help us to draw closer in our relationship with God. God desires that each of us has an intimate relationship with Jesus that comes through our belief in God and in Christ as the savior of the world. Such belief is the very nature of faith.
What is faith? The writer of the book of Hebrews offers perhaps the most definitive description of faith when he writes that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not yet seen.” And so, faith means that we believe in God and believe God even when we cannot see the Lord.
St. Augustine, perhaps the greatest theologian in the history of Christianity, helped us to understand the nature of faith when he wrote: “Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.” Augustine shared further about faith in this way: “Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what we believe.”
This is a challenge to a world today where so often we need to “see it to believe it” - where as the saying goes – “the proof is always in the pudding.”
But, faith comes before understanding and seeing. Faith begins by believing in God, and believing God to be the source of life and truth for our lives.
This is the challenge for the faithful and the reason why we are here. We are beckoned to search out ways to live faithfully amidst that which would sap the energy and life out of the church and God’s people and render us faithless.
Paul in his letter to the Galatian church offers a remedy – an antidote - for the faithlessness of his day, and for us today, when he writes that the “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Paul declares that one of the fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness.
In other words, when we are walking in the Spirit of Christ; we will be walking in faithfulness.
What was Paul trying to help us with here? What was he really trying to get at when he talked about faithfulness?
Our faithfulness is first and foremost rooted and grounded in the faithfulness of God toward us. If you know like I know, we worship and serve a God who is faithful toward you and me in all places and at all times. There has not been a time in human history when God has not been faithful toward us.
This – the faithfulness of God - is what would lead the prophet Jeremiah to declare in Lamentations 3, that “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, thus we are not consumed. The mercies of the Lord are new every morning; God’s faithfulness endures not for a season, but forever.”
The great Methodist evangelist, E. Stanley Jones, talked about God’s faithfulness in this way: “Faith is not merely your holding on to God--it is God holding on to you. He will not let you go!” God has been, continues to be, and will be faithful toward us.
There’s a story of a man who fell off a cliff one day, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down. The man looked up and the following conversation ensued:
"Is anyone up there?"
"I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?"
"Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can't hang on much longer."
"That's all right; if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch."
There was a moment of pause, and then the man responded: "Is anyone else up there?"
It’s Good News to know that God is faithful toward us. God will not let you go! With whatever you might go through, and however long troubles might last, we can be assured that that Lord is faithful.
Second, our response to the faithfulness of God is that we are to be faithful toward God. And I’ve come to realize that once you know that a faithful God has saved you and raised you, and continues to see about you, it’s not hard to be faithful to God. It’s not difficult to worship the Lord, and serve the Lord when we realize that God has been faithful toward us.
God is faithful. Lest you need any more evidence of God’s faithfulness, and why we need to respond in faithfulness, think about what God did that leads us into Advent. God looked down over the world over 42 generations, and God said that I’m so faithful (I love the world so much) that I need to send a Son and a Savior into the world. So God sent Jesus… born in a manger… meek and lowly… wonderful counselor… the prince of peace… almighty God… king of kings… Lord of Lords… He’s faithful!
That’s why our mothers and fathers in days past could sing with assurance – as an affirmation of their faith – that:
We’ve come this far by faith
Leaning on the Lord
Trusting in his holy word
He’s never failed me yet
Oh-Oh-Oh
Can’t turn around
We’ve come this far by faith!
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