“We’ve come today to the third and last triad of graces in Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit: faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Today, we’ll look at faithfulness.
It’s always been interesting to me that the words for faithfulness and faith in the Old Testament have the same root as the word amen.
Faithfulness is just saying an ongoing “amen” to the commitments that we’ve made.
God has given us a model of what this means, and we see it perfectly expressed in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus.
The author of Hebrews tells us that, as the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus was faithful to Him who appointed Him (Heb. 3:2).
He was determined to say “amen” in His own life to every aspect of His Father’s covenant promises and covenant commands.
Indeed, Paul says that all the promises of God find an answering “Yes” and “Amen” in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20).
This was especially true when it came to the hardest-to-keep promise of all: going to the cross to die for our sins.
When Paul says that Jesus became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross, He is actually describing Jesus’ faithfulness.
And because Jesus has been faithful to that promise, we can be sure He will be faithful to every one of His promises.
And it’s in light of His faithfulness that you and I are called to be faithful.
As I was searching my mind for another word to convey what faithfulness looks like in daily life, my wife, Dorothy, happened to use the word inconsistent during a casual conversation. That switched on a light for me.
Faithfulness means being consistent, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable.
Consistent in our work because someone is paying us for it.
Consistent in our churches to the vows we’ve taken to the Lord and to each other.
Consistent in our friendships.
Consistent with our wife or husband. Consistent with our children and grandchildren.
And consistent and faithful to the Savior who has been so perfectly consistent and faithful to us.
We need the help of the Holy Spirit to be consistent and faithful in all our relationships.
Paul isn’t telling us here that we’re to depend on our own resources.
Rather, he is telling us about a quality that the Spirit of Christ produces in us precisely because He is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So today, let’s trust the Holy Spirit to produce faithfulness in us as He works in our hearts and lives to make us more and more like our Lord Jesus.”
–Sinclair B. Ferguson, Things Unseen: One Year of Reflections on the Christian Life (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2024), 74-75.
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