Fruit of the Holy Spirit – Faithfulness

Galatians 5:22-25, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

             Pistis – This Greek word is the same word that we see translated as faith in the whole of the New Testament. It means belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same. It also means fidelity, faithfulness; the character of one who can be relied on. Depending on the context of the verse, it’s either going to mean faith the action or faith the character.

Examples in Scripture:

 Matthew 9:1-2, “So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city. 2 Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”

             How did Jesus see their faith? He saw it in their action. Faith produces an action. The faith we are going to talk about today is the faith of character or faithfulness. The context will tell you is it a faith of belief which produces an action or faith of character. At the core of faith in general is a person who is steady in their belief. If you are steady in the belief of God’s word, you will obey His word and produce faith the action. If you are steady in the belief of your identity in Christ, you will have a character that can be relied on.

 2 Timothy 1:3-6, “I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.”

             This refers to Timothy’s character, which was found in his grandmother Lois. Paul could trust Timothy because of his solid character. Read Philippians 2:20 – where Paul praises Timothy’s character.

Faith in connection with Character

            We cannot have a character that is relied upon if we do not know who we are. If we do not know who we are, we will be influenced by what’s popular at the time. How can we be relied on, if those around us don’t know what kind of person we will be tomorrow. In our generation, we have let emotions influence our character. Instead of being a faithful person, we have become an emotional person. That is abusing our emotions.

Understanding emotions

            If you do not understand the purpose of a thing, abuse is inevitable. The purpose of emotions is to indicate what is going on in your heart. Emotions are the senses of the soul. If you feel pain in your body, you do not just sit there and dwell on it, you immediately start doing something to stop it. If you smell something bad, you immediately leave the vicinity; or if you smell something good you go and investigate what it is. If I am angry, I should investigate why I am angry instead of just staying angry. If I am sad, I should investigate why I am sad and try to remedy it. If we are influenced by our emotions, nobody will be able to depend on us because emotions change so many times. According to google, the average person experiences up to 400 emotions each day. We must build our character on our identity in Christ not on our emotions.

Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

            That is why we call Him faithful, because He never changes. If you want to be called faithful, you must build your character in Jesus Christ, who is faithful. The main thing about being faithful is being steady and being able to be relied upon.

Understanding Growth

            I want to differentiate between being steady and growth. There are changes that will come because of your growth and maturity. Those who are not growing with you will accuse you of being faithless and begin to question your character. Growth is like going through a pruning season with the Lord. He will remove the unnecessary things that you do not need. In the process of the Lord pruning you, you will grow out of things. This will result in you changing, but you are changing more into Christ, the faithful one. Another way to look at this is this, being steady is more about your character while growth is more about your understanding of who you are in Christ. We always stay steady, our character never changes, but our understanding of we are in Christ is always growing.

            If you want to be called faithful, you must build your character in Jesus Christ, who is faithful. Do we know that we are created in Christ Jesus?

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (NLT)

            We were made in the image of God, that is who you are. As we grow in our identity, we will grow in faithfulness because we will have a character of one that can be relied on