Faithfulness

I am a bit confused about what to preach on this week. The seventh aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness. As we know, faithfulness means being reliable, trustworthy, dependable, we do what we say we will do, we stay true to our values. We do not let people down. We are faithful.

Or does faithful mean full of faith? Does it mean we trust God; we believe what God says and we act accordingly? We walk by faith.

In other words, is this about trusting that God is reliable or is it about us being reliable?

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith…? Or, faithfulness? When we walk in the Spirit, is the result faith (that is, we trust God more and more, we trust in the reliability of God) or is the result faithfulness (that is, we become increasingly dependable people)?

Hopefully both are true, but which one is this passage referring to? Hmmm, it sounds like we are going to have to go back to the Greek! What word is used here and what does it mean?

The Greek word is pistis, which means… Are you ready? Pistis means faith. It is the normal Greek word for faith. But it also means faithfulness. It can mean either, depending on the context. Bother! Well, what am I to do? I don’t know! I give up! Let’s do something completely different.

I’ve been thinking about Daniel. Daniel grew up in Judah (modern Israel) quite likely in a noble family. But Judah had been led by a succession of ungodly kings (with a few good kings along the way) and various prophets had been predicting the downfall of the nation. In 605 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem. He captured Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, took some of the articles from the temple and took into exile some of the royal family and the nobility – including Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Those people were exiled to Babylon to be trained for three years before serving in the court of the Babylonian king. (See the green arrows on the map. That area is now Iraq.) They were to be taught the language and literature of the Babylonians, and they were assigned a daily amount of food and wine from the kings’ table.

But for Daniel, eating the king’s food would have meant defiling himself. We are not told exactly why but the Jews were not to eat certain foods and to do so would have been to disobey God. Maybe too some of these foods had been offered to pagan idols. The point is that Daniel asked not to have to eat the king’s food. His overseer was afraid that that might anger the king, but they agreed on an experiment. At the end of it, Daniel and his mates looked healthier and better nourished than those who had eaten the king’s food and it was agreed that they would not have to eat the king’s food. The passage just refers to the others as “the young men who ate the king’s food”. I am assuming that they also were deported Jews who had been taken to serve the Babylonian king. In other words, some of the exiled Jews did defile themselves.

After their three years training, the exiles were presented to the king. None could compare with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. God had given them extraordinary knowledge and understanding.

Soon after that, Nebuchadnezzar had a frightening dream. He demanded of his enchanters, sorcerers or astrologers that they not only interpret the dream but that they tell him what the dream was. He refused to tell them. Nove of them could do it. As a result, the king order the execution of all the wise men in Babylon, including Daniel and his friends. When he heard about it, Daniel went to the king and asked for time so that he might interpret the dream for him. He then went to his friends and urged them to plead for mercy from God, that he might interpret the dream. That night God revealed the meaning.

When the king asked Daniel if he was able to say what the dream had been and interpret it, Daniel said no. “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.” Daniel told the king the dream and its meaning. As a result, the wise men were saved, and Daniel was promoted to ruler over the entire province of Babylon, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were appointed administrators over the province.

Then king Nebuchadnezzar erected a huge gold statue, about 27m high. The people of every nation and language were commanded, whenever they heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, they were to fall down and worship the gold image. Any who failed to do so would be thrown into a blazing furnace. Some of Nebuchadnezzar’s astrologers hated the Jews and so reported that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not bowing down to the statue. Furious, Nebuchadnezzar summonsed them, demanded that they worship the statue and threatened to throw them into a blazing furnace if they did not do so. “Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If the God we serve is able to deliver us, then He will deliver us from the blazing furnace and from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

That infuriated King Nebuchadnezzar even further and he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than normal. You know the story. The furnace was so hot that the soldiers who were to throw the tightly bound Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the furnace were killed by the flames, but Nebuchadnezzar was amazed to see Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and a mysterious fourth person, walking around unbound and unharmed in the fire. When they came out, the fire had not harmed their bodies, their hair was not singed, their robes were not scorched and there was not even the smell of fire on them. King Nebuchadnezzar declared that there was no other god who could save in this way, and he promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Nebuchadnezzar had another dream. Daniel interpreted it. It came true.

In 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar again attacked Jerusalem, this time destroying it and deporting many Jews to Babylon. Some years later, Nebuchadnezzar died, and Belshazzar became king of Babylon. Belshazzar gave a great banquet but was terrified when a hand appeared and wrote on the wall. Again, no one could interpret it, except Daniel who, as a result was promoted again, to be the third highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night, Belshazzar was murdered, and Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians.

King Darius took over. Daniel was one of three administrators over the entire kingdom. The other two and the 120 satraps who ruled the kingdom under them were jealous of Daniel. They desperately tried to find grounds for bringing a charge against him, but they could find “no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent” (6:4). They realised that, if they were to charge him, it would have to be something to do with his obedience to his God. They persuaded King Darius to make a law that no one could pray to any god or human, except to the king himself, for the next 30 days.

When Daniel heard about it, he went home and prayed three times a day just as he had always done. The other rulers reported that Daniel had prayed to his God. “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or huma being except yourself, Your majesty, would be thrown into the lions’ den?”. The king was distressed but the law could not be changed, and so Daniel was thrown into a den of lions. A stone was put over the mouth of the den and sealed with the king’s signet ring.

That night, the king would not eat, wanted no entertainment and could not sleep. Early in the morning, he hurried to the lions’ den to see what had happened. “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?”

“May the king live forever! My God sent his angel, and He shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in His sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.”

There is more to the Daniel story but let’s leave it there. That is a story of faithfulness. Daniel and his friends remained faithful to God no matter what. They also remained faithful to the various kings, even though they were exiles in a foreign land, serving foreign kings. They served faithfully – so faithfully that they were repeatedly promoted. They could have resented serving a foreign king. They could have used their positions to benefit themselves, but the other administrators and satraps could not find anything untoward in Daniel’s character or his carrying out of his duties.

When it came to a conflict between being faithful to the king and being faithful to God, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego chose to be faithful to God. Not eating the king’s food might anger the king but eating the king’s food would be disobedient to God.

Telling the king that he could not interpret his dream, but that God could, was being faithful to God, giving God the glory that was rightfully His. Going to God in prayer first, seeking His mercy, was being faithful to God, not assuming they did not need God.

Not bowing down to the gold statue was being faithful to God, even if that did mean perishing in the fire.

Giving King Darius the very bad news represented by the writing on the wall was being faithful to God.

The decree not to pray was for only 30 days. Surely, Daniel could have refrained for 30 days. No, he would not not pray. Praying three times a day was being faithful to God.

Why did Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego remain faithful to God? Because they had absolute faith in God. “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If the God we serve is able to deliver us, then He will deliver us from the blazing furnace and from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

We do not have to defend ourselves before you. We believe in a God of justice. We trust Him to do what is right. Let Him defend us. We also believe in a God of power. He is more than able to rescue us. We do not know if He will. He is God; we are not, but even if He doesn’t, we will still not worship your statue. We will entrust ourselves into the hands of God.”

Faith in God leads to faithfulness to God. And faithfulness to God leads to faithfulness to other people as well because God calls us to love, and to serve, and to let our yes be yes and our no be no; to be people others can rely on.

The story of the Bible, from beginning to end, is a story of people who are faithful to God and other people who prove faithless. The story of Israel is a story of faithfulness sometimes and utter faithlessness other times. We talk of faithfulness in marriage. Israel’s faithlessness is often described as adultery.

The fruit of the Spirit is… faith and faithfulness. They are inseparable. There is no faithfulness without faith and there is no faith without faithfulness. Faith is a gift from God. Faithfulness is a gift from God, something God grows in us, fruit of the Spirit in us.

Are you a Daniel? Faithful? If you want to be like Daniel, walk by the Spirit like Daniel.

·       Prioritise prayer.

·       Know and obey God’s word.

·       Worship God only.

·       Serve using your spiritual gifts.

·       If you say you will do it, then do it.

One last comment: the story of Daniel’s faithfulness also reveals the faithfulness of God. When Daniel and his friends trusted in God, when they put themselves into God’s hands, God proved absolutely trustworthy. All of these aspects of the fruit of the Spirit, are about the Holy Spirit transforming us to be more like God – more Christlike – as we walk by the Spirit.

1666