Faithfulness

"Well done, good and faithful servant ..."

– Matthew 25.21

I want to hear those words from Jesus the moment we step into the throne room of heaven.  And so I wonder, what does it mean to be faithful?

Faithful people are trustworthy.  They can be depended on to keep their word.  They act with integrity and they can be relied on to do what they promise.  Yet it also means that trustworthy people remain so over a length of time.  Those who are faithful prove that they are trustworthy over the long haul.  They don’t need you to check on them to make sure they are doing what they said they would do.  The good job they did last week will be the same good job they do this week.  Faithful people routinely show they are dependable.  Faithfulness is the character of someone who can be trusted in any circumstance.

This is most definitely true about the nature and character of God.  He is faithful, and so the work of the Holy Spirit in us will also give us the character of our faithful God.

One of the oldest poems in all of Scripture describes the faithfulness of God:

Ascribe greatness to our God! / ‘The Rock!’ His work is perfect / For all his ways are just; / A God of FAITHFULNESS and without injustice, / Righteous and upright is He.  (Deuteronomy 32.3-4)

Another great song about God’s faithfulness is Psalm 33.4-5:

For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is FAITHFUL in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

But, how did the author of the poem in Deuteronomy and author of the Psalms know that God was faithful?

For an Israelite the story of the exodus proved God’s faithfulness.  The authors of the poem and psalm would say to you: “God kept his promise to Abraham when he brought Israel out of Egypt. And then, once delivered, we travelled the wilderness and we grumbled and sinned against God even building an idol to worship.  Yet even in the face of our rejection, God remained determined to bring us to the promised land – giving us food and water and protecting us from our enemies.  This is how we know God is faithful.”

“Great is thy faithfulness” is the first line of a famous hymn.  But it was first a line from Lamentations 3.23 which was written in the midst of Israel’s darkest hour.  Jerusalem had just been destroyed.  The temple was just burned to the ground.  God’s people had been carted off into exile, all as God’s judgment for their sin.  And still, even as they suffered the consequences of their own unfaithfulness they could sing of the faithfulness of God.  As one theologican put it, “God can be trusted, even when hope and faith seem shattered on the rocks of sin and suffering.”

So now, we who are the adopted children of a faithful God have been given the fruit of the Spirit of God – faithfulness.  What does that mean for you and me?  In the words of Christopher Wright:

Faithfulness means you know what you really believe, whom you really love, and what you are ultimately committed to. Faithfulness means being sure of what you want to live for and what you are willing to die for. Faithfulness is what author Eugene Peterson called “a long obedience in the same direction.”