The Fruit of the Spirit is Faith/Faithfulness

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness….

Some translations have “faith” and others “faithfulness.” The Greek word pistis doesn’t give us much help, since it is translated in a dozen or more ways. Sometimes “faith” refers to a body of doctrine, sometimes to confidence in Jesus, sometimes to the message of Jesus, and so forth.

In the context of the fruit of the Spirit, I’m going with pistis referring to faithfulness, that is, fidelity and loyalty, the quality of being true and steadfast. Reliable.

The Holy Spirit in trust of your life and mine will consistently and increasingly make us true to the Savior, true to the Word, and true to each other.

A phrase every believer serious about his life in Christ would do well to commit to memory is this: A long obedience in the same direction.

The expression originated (as far as can be known) from Friedrich Nietzsche in his book “Beyond Good and Evil:” “The essential thing in heaven and in earth is…that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”

That phrase–a long obedience in the same direction–later formed the title of a popular work by Eugene Peterson on Psalms 120-134.

That expression does not sum up what “faithfulness” means to followers of Jesus Christ, but it encompasses three essential parts: 1) obedience, 2) steady, tenured obedience, and 3) in the same direction.

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The Most Overlooked Aspect of Salvation

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It’s risky talking about the typical anything in church–people are as varied as their fingerprints, voice patterns, and DNA–but once in a while, it’s safe to draw a few general conclusions. Here’s one:

The average Christian who goes forth to witness for the Lord leaves out fully one-half of the equation between God and man.

Here’s what that means.

Suppose I decide to join the New Orleans Saints football team. Their offices and facilities are not more than 2 miles from my house, so one morning, I drive down, park my car and walk inside. A guard meets me.

“I’m here,” I tell him. “It took some doing, but I finally relented. I’m ready to give myself to this team.”

Being of a suspicious bent, the guard looks me up and down and says, “What are you talking about, mister? Why are you here?”

“I’m joining the Saints,” I say. “I’ve heard by the commercials that you need the support of the community. So, I have studied up on everything–talked to people, read the books, watched some games on tape–and I am now ready to join the team.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” he says.

“Yes sir,” I announce confidently. “In fact, I want Mr. Benson (he’s the owner) to know that I trust him. I believe he’s got the good of the community at heart. And Coach Payton, well, he’s the best. I feel like I know him personally. And of course, Drew Brees, the quarterback–well, sir, it’s going to be fun working with a champion like him. This is a big day for me.”

“There is only one problem, mister,” says the security guard.

“How could there be a problem?” I ask. “I think I’ve got everything figured out.”

“All but one,” he says. “The Saints don’t want you on the team. You may know them, but they don’t know you. You may approve the owner and the coaches, but frankly, sir, that doesn’t mean squat.”

I’m crestfallen. But the guard is not through.

“Sir, you run on home now. There is no place for you here. The Saints will be on television in a few weeks and you can watch their games from home. Get you a pennant and wave it, wear the t-shirt, put a sticker on your car.”

“But you cannot join the team,” he emphasizes, as he ushers me out the door.

The question before us today, class, is this: Even if you decided that you know Jesus, trust in Jesus, and have received Jesus, how do you know that He knows you, trusts you, and receives you?

After all, if Jesus does not know you, you are not saved (Matthew 7:23).

And, if Jesus does not trust you, you are not saved (John 2:23-25).

If Jesus does not receive you, you are not saved (II Corinthians 5:17).

In explaining how to be saved, many of us have left off the entire divine side of the operation. In so doing, we may well have left a lot of people in mortal peril.

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The Fruit of the Spirit is Goodness

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness…. (Galatians 5:22-23)

God will make you good.

Or at least gooder than you are now.

Looking at me, you might want to argue with that. After all, you don’t see a lot of goodness in me. My responses are: a) You should have seen me before and b) you ought to know what I would have been without Him.

Here is what I have learned about goodness through more than a half-century of living as a Christian:

1) Jesus is good. God is good.

2) I’m not. And you are not either.

3) The sanctification process–that growth into Christlikeness which the Holy Spirit initiates in every believer’s life from the moment of spiritual birth and continues until the nanosecond of our actual glorification–involves making us good.

4) You are not the judge of whatever goodness the Lord has managed to perfect in you to this point. Goodness seems to be like humility in this aspect, that the bearer has little idea of what extent he/she has attained this trait.

5) Therefore, there is a sense in which you can regain your virginity. So to speak.

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“The Fruit of the Spirit is Gentleness”

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness…. (Galatians 5:22-23)

“Would the gentleman from North Carolina please yield the floor?”

“The gentle lady from California makes a good point.”

The U.S. Senate may be the last place in this country where people are recognized as being gentle. It’s a nice trait. “Gentle” means you are not bombastic, not mean-spirited, not rude or unkind or harsh.

My goal is to become more gentle in this life.

Various translations make this “kindness” and “goodness.” Same difference, I suppose, although there is something about “gentleness” that weighs heavily on my mind.

Did you hear about the preacher who was protesting a “gay and lesbian pride” march winding its way through the French Quarter? According to the reports, the minister was preaching to the participants in harsh and condemning tones. At one point, a woman decided that this angry man of God (we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt) needed a hug. So, she stepped out of the crowd, walked over to him, and kissed him.

He has filed charges against her. Accuses her of assault.

On my Facebook page, I pointed out that if that preacher doesn’t know the difference in a kiss and an assault, he has lots of problems. Within hours, I had fifty comments. Some took me to task for my levity, some pointed out that if the woman was HIV positive and had some kind of openness on her mouth, she could infect him. Others wanted to weigh in on the homosexual issue.

My concern was lost in the uproar. I was wishing the preacher had been gentler, kinder, nicer.

If the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness–and it is–then is it not true that whenever a follower of Jesus is anything but gentle and kind, we may conclude from their actions that they are not Spirit-filled?

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The Fruit of the Spirit is Longsuffering

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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

John Cameron Swayze crowned a long career in news and television work with a series of commercials he did for Timex watches. After subjecting a wristwatch to brutal treatment, he would retrieve it (from the hole in which it had been buried, the building they had just blown up, whatever), hold it up to the camera, and observe, “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”

That’s you. That’s me. That’s the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we do it right.

The Lord told His followers that as a result of their identification with Him they were most definitely going to “take a licking.” In one passage, for instance, where we are commanded to love our enemies, Jesus said we can expect to be hated, cursed, threatened, and spitefully used. If we are struck on the cheek–that sounds like a licking to me!–we are to turn the other to our assailant. If someone steals our cloak, we are to offer our tunic also. (Luke 6:27-30)

In order to love the person who hits me, hates me, curses me, and forcibly takes what is mine, I am going to be needing one resource that does not come as standard equipment with the human animal: restraint.

The Greek word “makrothumia” is literally “long-tempered.” (makros = long; thumos = temper) Various translations call it longsuffering, as well as forbearance and patience.

Let’s stick with “longsuffering.” That word says it as well as any.

Longsuffering is self-restraint. When being provoked, one does not lose control and dish out the same kind of treatment he/she has received.

Perhaps a good way to emphasize what the word means is by thinking of its opposites. Here is my short list of the reverse image of longsuffering.

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I Have a Funny Story for You

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Earlier this week, I posted this note on Facebook: Wanna hear something funny? I certainly do. If you saw something, read something, heard something funny or unusual, pass it on. The rest of us need laughter in our lives, and if you have some to share, you are Heaven’s gift to us today.

What I anticipated is not what I received. I figured some FB friends would agree on the need for laughter. What I got was funny stories.

Here they are. All of them.

1) After an especially hard landing by an airline overseas, the captain dreaded standing at the galley door looking people in the eye and thanking them for choosing this carrier. He knew someone would have some sarcastic remark about his landing on this particularly windy day. However, no one commented until near the end when he spotted one little lady approaching him with a cane. As he thanked her, she said, “Sonny, I have one question for you. Did we land or were we shot down?” (from Gordon Donahoe)

2) A riddle from M-Fuge camep: How did they dig up gold and silver in Old Testament times? Answer: Miner Prophets. (from Keith Jones)

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10 Prayers I Hope Never to Hear Again

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You’re sitting in church, working hard to worship. You’ve had a hectic week and this Sunday morning has had its share of stresses. But finally, you’re here, in place, in the Lord’s house, sitting in your favorite pew. You’ve joined the congregation in singing the first hymn of the day. The minister has started the service right with a wonderful call to worship. And then it happens.

The person leading the opening prayer strays across an invisible border and says something that offends you or frightens you or angers you or troubles you or at the very least disturbs you.

That’s what this is about.

Just so you will know, I’m a pastor. We pastors have the same reaction you do when the person praying–whether a layman or a trained minister who should know better–says something very wrong or quite stupid or somewhat offensive. We wonder what that was all about, where he learned that doctrine, or where he picked that weird phrase up and decided to incorporate it into his public prayers.

Everyone has his/her list of prayers that cross that deadline. Here is my list of the Top ten prayers I hope never to hear again.

10. “And Lord, we want to tell you…and Lord, this, and Lord that.”

My neighbor Kay Swanson hears people pray, “Father God, Lord, I pray….and Father God, that you would…Lord God, Father God, be merciful to us….” Kay says, “Please! When you’re speaking to me, you don’t invoke my name between every couple of words. Why do you do this to God?”

Using the Lord’s name as punctuation is a no-no.

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When Preachers Need Correcting

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Anyone who reads my stuff on this website knows I am a preacher and am pro-preacher. I’ve seen so much mistreatment of God’s servants over nearly a half-century in the ministry that it weighs heavily on my heart. I want to do anything I can to encourage these beloved friends and anything I can to help churches and church leaders know how to relate to them.

However.

Periodically, someone will write, “Yes, but what if the preacher is in the wrong? What if he is—” and you fill in the blank. What if he’s a bully? a dictator? a flirt? a heretic? a liberal? a nut? an abuser? a molester? a criminal? a thief? a liar?

Let me emphasize that I am under no illusions about human nature. We are all sinners and daily in need of God’s mercy, Christ’s forgiveness, and compassionate understanding from one another. I know also that some men in the pulpit have no business there.

There are times when godly lay leaders in a church absolutely must rise up and deal with an out-of-control preacher.

Those times and occasions are rare, thankfully.

More often, the problems are smaller, subtler, safer (if you will), and less of a threat. Even so, every church needs a system for speaking to the pastor who needs a rebuke, even if it’s only a gentle one.

If you thought I was leading up to a story, you’re right. Several, in fact.

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The Kind of Friend Every Pastor Needs

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Question: Pastor, is there anyone you can go to with a serious doubt about the Christian faith?

Let’s say you are struck by contradictions in the Bible. But if you preached these from the pulpit, you would have caused great harm. Psalm 73:15 comes to mind.If I had said, “I will speak thus,” behold, I would have been untrue to the children of your generation.

But you need answers. Where do you turn?

You are burdened by the suffering in the world. “How,” you wonder, “could a powerful and loving God allow such?” Perhaps you say, as some have, if God is almighty and allows this suffering, He is not all-loving. If He is loving and does nothing to stop it, it must be because He is not able. But, you reason, since suffering exists, we cannot have it both ways.

Who can you talk to about your questions?

If you have no friend to whom you can turn, there is a serious gap in your life. You are in need of another friend or two or three.

We do not mean just any kind of friend. We may have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook. But most are only acquaintances at best. Few if any are “friends” in the deepest sense.

A friend, they say, is someone you can call in the middle of the night to help you bury the body. He shows up and never asks for the details, but helps you carry out your unpleasant little task.

Maybe so. Maybe not. I prefer to think a real friend would confront you and force you to come to terms with what you have done. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. (Proverbs 27:6)

This is about two friends: a young Billy Graham and a young Charles Templeton. The story of that friendship and the doubt that drove them into separate life-paths is told in “Billy,” a book by William Paul McKay and Ken Abraham.

Billy Graham you know. What you may not know is that when he began his ministry of city-wide crusades, Charles Templeton was “the” evangelist drawing the big crowds, seeing great results, getting all the press. Templeton was tall, movie-star handsome, articulate, dynamic, and popular. He was a star, if we may use that word, when Billy Graham was just stepping onto the stage.

Instead of becoming rivals or competitors as we might have expected, these young men developed a great friendship. Each appreciated what he saw in the other. Both helped to organize Youth For Christ, the post-World War II evangelistic ministry which brought the gospel to a new generation. Billy Graham was its first full-time evangelist.

As young and dynamic evangelists, both Graham and Templeton went through a valley of doubts and questions regarding the Bible, God, and the Christian faith. Graham emerged stronger than ever; Templeton’s faith did not survive the test.

Billy Graham had friends to help him through his crisis; Charles Templeton did not. That, I believe to be the primary reason for what happened to each evangelist.

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The Fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace…

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Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. (John 14:27)

My young friend Josh Woo is visiting his parents’ homeland of Korea while on summer vacation from his studies at the University of Southern California. Today, I read the email he sends occasionally to friends and family. Over the weekend, he visited the DMZ, that “demilitarized zone” marking the border between North and South Korea, part of the settlement which ended the Korean War in 1953. Josh sent several pictures, including one showing a sign with the number: 21,172.

“That’s the number of days since the Korean War ended,” he said. Then he surmised, “This probably means that in their minds that war is not really over.”

I expect he’s right. What we have here is a truce, an agreement to disagree. For each of those thousands of days, relations between these two nations and its people have been strained.

What we do not have is peace.

When I went off to my freshman year of college, that truce was five years old. I recall our history professor, Mae Parrish, lauding the agreement that ended that war, calling it a mark of maturity among nations. Rather than a fight to the death, rather than demanding “unconditional surrender” of one side or the other, the combatants agreed to disagree.

That’s about the best we humans can do sometimes. And, let us be quick to say, it’s a far cry better than slaughtering our young men and women to make a point or have our way.

But let us not call it peace. Peace is something else altogether.

Scripture knows three kinds of peace: with God, within ourselves, and between one another The implications for Christ-disciples are enormous.

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