Faithfulness/Fidelity
Part 3 in series
Relating to God: What We Can Learn About God Through Our Closest Relationships On Earth
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
February 21, 2009
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NIV)
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
Here we are tonight, in week 3 of our series Relating to God: What We Can Learn About God Through Our Closest Relationships On Earth. In week 1 we talked about the foundation of all healthy relationships, which is trust. Last week we talked about – what? Commitment. If trust is the foundation of healthy relationships, commitment is their oxygen. You cannot build and maintain trust without commitment. Today I want to speak to you about faithfulness/fidelity. See if you trust someone, you can then make a commitment to them. Once you make that commitment, what must you do? You must be faithful to keep it. Remember, last week I said you can make a commitment as you are, but to keep a commitment you will have to cultivate the quality of faithfulness. So we’re going to look at faithfulness and fidelity today.
Several years ago someone in the church disagreed with a decision I made. (That’s the only time this has ever happened!) This person disagreed quite strongly, in fact. So strongly that the language that was used was not, “I strongly disagree with you,” or “Can you explain where you’re coming from?” but rather language like, “How could you do this?” And later on, “How could you do this TO ME,” as if I had woken up one morning and made a deliberate decision to shatter this person’s world. I tried to calm them down. I said, “Christy and I have loved you and invested in you for years. We care deeply for you. We want what is best for you. We know you don’t agree with this decision, but we truly believe it is what needs to happen and that you have an opportunity here to step up and grow in huge ways.”
The response blew me away. This person said, “I’m sorry, I cannot accept this. I loved you. I looked up to you. And now you have done this to me. You and Christy aren’t the people I always thought you were. You’re not the people I loved and cared about and who I knew cared about me.”
I pleaded with this person, “Please don’t say that. You can disagree with my decision. You can be angry at me. You can even leave my church, but please do not abandon faith in me. Please do not choose to believe that those years we have poured into your life and loved you and cared for you were just an act. Please be willing to maintain faith in us, please trust our hearts. Please choose to believe, even when you can’t see it, that we love you and have your best interests in mind.
This person said, “I can’t believe that. You are not who I thought you were.” And they left the church. We’re on good terms today and Christy and I still, as always, care deeply for this person and wish them the best. But this is a person who, when things got difficult between them and us, chose to abandon faith in us. This person decided to no longer be faithful to Christy and me because they were willing to seriously entertain the idea that deep in our hearts we did not love them or care for them.
How quickly we lose faith in each other. How quickly we lose faith in God. If you don’t understand that statement, read the Old Testament – basically the story of God’s faithfulness to us, and our fickleness toward him. Whether we’re talking about human beings or about God, maintaining faith is sometimes going to be the hardest thing you will ever do. After all, every person you ever trust and then commit to (as a friend, colleague, spouse, etc.) will hurt you. They will let you down. They will anger you, embarrass you, frustrate you, bewilder you, and disappoint you. Every one of them. In every relationship you are ever in with any human being, you will have moments where it will require all your effort to continue to believe in this person’s good intentions for you. You might not see any evidence of it at times. Maybe that’s why faithfulness is called FAITH-FULLNESS. When these times come, you will have to be full of faith, and willing to trust the good intentions and the heart of someone even when you don’t understand and don’t agree. And by the way, here’s a piece we can’t forget. You trust that person’s heart, even though that person could still be wrong! See, it’s not that you trust that the person who has acted hurtfully is RIGHT – you just choose to trust that the person cares about you and is committed to you as a friend, a spouse, etc. In other words, faithfulness is making a decision to trust in the good will of another person toward you, and refusing to abandon your underlying confidence in that person. Faithfulness is honoring the Holy Spirit’s work in their life. Faithfulness is granting permission for people not to be perfect. Sometimes faithfulness is being willing to put more faith in the good things you have seen in a person in the past, than in what appears to be rotten things you might be seeing today. Part of my faithfulness to Christy is that when she has off days, grumpy days, down days, or whatever – I choose to believe in her as a person. I do not abandon my faith in her as a deeply good woman, a person upon whom God has laid his hand and declared his good favor toward. In other words, I trust her heart. That’s faithfulness. And Christy grants that faithfulness back to me. We had had an argument a few months ago and I was pretty disappointed in myself about the way I had come across to her. I got to work the next morning and there was a post-it note on my computer monitor from Christy. It said, “You are a good man.” It did not say, “Congratulations for acting like a donkey – I loved it.” It didn’t say, “We’ll pretend that what happened didn’t happen.” It said, “I know what happened. I was there. I saw you not acting very good. But you are a good man.” That’s faithfulness. Faithfulness is refusing to believe that the other person is really as bad as they may have acted toward you. Let me ask you something. When someone hurts you, are you capable of maintaining faith in them? Or do you go off the handle and start slinging the gossip and rhetoric: “how could you do this to me. I guess you’re not really who I thought you were.” Are you capable of dealing honestly with a person who has hurt you, and yet affirming the basic goodness of that person? Or to you, is a person evil every time he/she has done something that upsets you, angers you, or disappoints you? Sometimes men are surprised when they start seeing their wife’s dark side. They ask, “Who is my wife really? Is she the one I was in bed with last night who said all those amazing things to me, or is she the crabby one that came home from work today? The answer: she’s both. But my friend, if she weren’t a woman of good will, if her heart was not loving toward you, if she were not basically well-intentioned toward you, trust me, there would be none of those good times between the sheets. When you see things in her that are dark, remember what is truest about her – she is a good woman – a woman of good will. Maintain your faith in her. Women, is your real husband the guy who took you out for your anniversary and wined and dined you and got you an awesome card and flowers and seemed to get everything right? Or is he the dude who sometimes gets so angry? Answer? He’s both. But if he weren’t a good man, if he didn’t love you, if his intentions were not good toward you, that anniversary thing wouldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t hear those occasional sweet remarks. It takes effort for him to do that stuff and if he’s doing ANY of it, it’s because he knows you need it. When you see things in your husband that are dark (or maybe just disgusting!), remember what is truest about him. He is a good man – a man of good will. Maintain your faith in him. Focus on his flaws and he will grow discouraged and give up because he wants to make you happy and if he can’t, it’s easier not to bother. But continually affirm his goodness, and I assure you he will become what you affirm. Don’t abandon faith in him. Husbands and wives, we cannot abandon faith in each other. Remaining faithful is about so much more than staying out of the sack with people you’re not married to, right? It’s continuing to believe in our partner’s goodness. If you don’t see goodness in your partner, is that because it isn’t there? Or is it not there because you consistently don’t see it?
This week I had an uncomfortable conversation with a close friend. There was some tension in both of us and blood pressures up just a little bit. But at the end we worked it through. And I said to my friend, “I apologize if I got too intense.” He responded, “Don’t worry, with you I always know your heart is in the right place. I don’t even have to think I agree with you all the time, knowing this....it always gets me past my own petty concerns.” “I always know your heart is in the right place.” That’s faithfulness. This person is a true friend, why? Because when things got difficult he didn’t just throw his hands up and say, “forget you, you’re not who I thought you were.” He said, “Whether I agree or disagree, I know your heart is in the right place.” That’s faithfulness. That is the faithfulness we are to be showing to each other in the body of Christ – the church. That is the faithfulness we must learn to show to our spouses, and friends. And that is the faithfulness God promises to us and expects from us!
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NIV)
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
Let’s talk about God. God is faithful. God is in a special position to be faithful, because God had no beginning, he will have no end, he never forgets, and he never changes.
Psalm 90:1-2 (GW)
1 A prayer by Moses, the man of God. O Lord, you have been our refuge throughout every generation.
2 Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, you were God. You are God from everlasting to everlasting.
That prayer of Moses starts out, “You have been our refuge throughout every generation.” Do you know the best predictor of future behavior? Past behavior! How does Christy know I’ll be faithful to her tomorrow? Because so far I have been faithful in all of our yesterdays! How do we know God will be faithful to us tomorrow? Because God has been our refuge throughout every generation. That’s faithfulness!
But I want you to notice something special about God’s faithfulness to us.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NIV)
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
What is Paul saying God will do? God will keep us blameless in his sight. Now what’s important about that? What’s important about that is the simple and scriptural fact that we are NOT blameless! The whole message of scripture is that we are sinners. Sin has separated us from God. We are all guilty of sin.
Romans 3:23 (NIV)
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
So what Paul says in this prayer is “God, make these people into something that right now they are not.” And he concludes with a promise to the people: God is faithful and he will do this!
This is the essence of God’s faithfulness to us. God is working something in us, doing something among us, that is a work in progress. And God has called us to allow him to do this work in ourselves and in others. When work is being done, a mess is always created. When we acknowledge that work is being done in people, and choose to be okay with the mess that is created when work is being done, that is faithfulness! Something is going on in us. It’s not finished yet. In fact, it has a long way to go. God is in the process of sanctifying us – making us holy! This is an ongoing process that will culminate on the day of Jesus’ return, at which point we will be blameless in our spirits, souls, and bodies! God is faithful, and he will get this done.
So three things are certain.
1.We are all works in progress. That person who has wronged, hurt, or disappointed you is a person that God himself has taken eternal interest in and is at this very moment honing into holiness. Husbands, God is honing your wife into holiness. Wives, God is honing your husbands into holiness. Who are we to give up on others? Who are we to lose faith in people that the eternal God is at this very moment investing in and drawing toward himself?
2.God will complete his work. God’s not gonna leave any half-baked Christians around. He will bring each of us to completion! Faithfulness is really just what? Patience! When we are faithful to God, we are patient with him to do the work he does. When we are faithful to others, we are patient with them as God continues working on them, knowing that one day he will finish!
3.God’s not done yet! Who are we to give up on people? God’s not done! Who are we to lose faith in people? God’s not done! Who are we to take a snapshot of a person with their faults and deficiencies and respond to them as if that’s who they are? I mean sure, it might have been who they were at a certain moment – but by the next moment, they’re already someone else. God’s work continues, and he’s not done! When we are faithful to someone, we treat them in the same way God treats them – we see them not as they are, but as they will be! At the same time, we realize that God isn’t done, and they aren’t yet that person they will be, and we partner with God in being faithful to them. Like God does, we allow them to be broken, to make mistakes, to say and do stupid and hurtful things.
When we are faithful, we are full of faith. We cling to belief that God is at work in people. We refuse to believe the worst about people, because the worst is what we can easily see – it doesn’t require faith. And in case this hasn’t occurred to you yet, please don’t fail to realize that ultimately faithfulness to human beings is an expression not of confidence in them, but of confidence in God – that he knows what he is doing, and that he does all things well! That brother/sister in Christ you have chosen to believe bad things about – let me just ask you this. Does God know what he’s doing? If so, be faithful. If not, then I have to wonder what’s going to happen to me…
Now what about when, in spite of our stubborn clinging to the goodness of our brothers and sisters, they are not actually good? My friends, there will be occasions like this. There will even be occasions, because of human sin and fallenness, where we will regretfully experience brokenness in relationships even with people who we DO honor and acknowledge God’s work in. Let’s not be simplistic and thus confuse ourselves. There are certain human relationships that are not good for us and we should not be in them. But we can still believe God is working in people we can’t be close to. We can still trust in their basic goodness, and honor God’s work in their life. We don’t have to lose faith in a person as a person simply because we are unable to be close to them.
God is faithful. If we are not learning to be faithful, we are not becoming holier and more like Jesus. There is no greater lesson we will learn in relationships than the lesson of faithfulness, because being faithful requires that we learn to see as God sees. Faith is hard, because it requires us to believe what we cannot see, and to trust that (go right into closing scripture)
Philippians 1:6 (NIVw/DE)
6 …he who began a good work in you (and those around you!) will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
We must not abandon faith in God because the one who called us is faithful. And we cannot have faith in God if we do not have faith in the work he is doing in us and in others. Therefore, we simply must not abandon faith in each other. When it comes to our marriages and other relationships, let’s forget talk about remaining faithful TO people and instead focus on maintaining faith IN them. How do you remain faithful to a person you’ve lost faith in? But if we can learn to continue to keep faith in the people around us, we will have no problem being faithful to them. Because God is not only faithful to you, my friends – God has faith IN you.
