The Fruit of Faithfulness: Cultivating Community Over Isolation

• Theological Definition of Faith (Pistis) [00:03:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor unpacks the Greek word 'pistis,' explaining that it encompasses belief, trustworthiness, loyalty, assurance, and conviction, rather than just mental assent.
• Faith as Action (Verb vs. Noun) [00:08:09 ▶️ 📄]
  > He contrasts the English noun 'faith' with the Greek verb 'pisteo,' arguing that faith is something we 'do' and 'live out' (referencing James 2) rather than just something we possess.
• Faith as Fruit vs. Gift [00:11:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > He resolves the tension between faith being a 'fruit of the Spirit' (for all believers) and a 'spiritual gift' (for some) by using an analogy of genetics versus learned imitation.
• Cultivation of Faith [00:15:06 ▶️ 📄]
  > He concludes that believers must move beyond simple imitation to active cultivation of faithfulness, emphasizing that this is a communal effort ('faithing together').
• Imitation vs. Cultivation [00:14:09 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor distinguishes between initially imitating Jesus and mature Christians, and the necessary next step of actively cultivating spiritual fruit through personal work and development.
• Communal Faith [00:15:58 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that faithfulness cannot be grown in isolation; it requires relationship, mutual encouragement, and the support of the church body to 'faith together'.
• Practical Application/Reflection [00:19:46 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor leads the congregation through reflective questions on how to live out faith actively, who they imitate, and how they will encourage others, followed by a closing prayer.

• Sermon Illustration [00:00:48 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about wearing socks that say 'big old word nerd' as a Christmas gift from his wife to illustrate his passion for linguistic details.
• Sermon Illustration [00:11:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > He uses the analogy of a salad bar to explain that spiritual gifts are selective, whereas the fruit of the Spirit is meant to grow in all believers.
• Sermon Illustration [00:12:57 ▶️ 📄]
  > He compares spiritual gifts to genetic traits inherited from parents (like red hair or blue eyes) and compares the fruit of the Spirit to learned behaviors, such as infants imitating their parents' facial expressions and tone of voice.
• Sermon Illustration [00:16:39 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about trying to grow corn in a raised bed garden. He initially failed with only two or three stalks, but a former church member explained that corn must be planted in groups to pollinate and thrive. He uses this agricultural fact as an analogy for Christian community: just as corn grows better together, Christians need one another to cultivate faithfulness.

• Pastoral Charge [00:19:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > Reflect on how to live out faith in more active ways.
• Pastoral Charge [00:20:43 ▶️ 📄]
  > Identify a personal example of faithfulness and reflect on lessons learned.
• Pastoral Charge [00:21:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > Plan to encourage or provoke a fellow believer to love and good deeds in the coming week.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] ...of your words, may it change your hearts and bear fruit in our lives.
[00:00:07] And now, God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
[00:00:19] Okay, so I've decided that this series on the fruit of the Spirit, it's kind of a setup for me.
[00:00:25] It's really kind of each week I preach, it's a trap.
[00:00:32] It's a trap.
[00:00:34] Focusing each week on one particular word is, yeah, it's a trap.
[00:00:42] Part of it, I'm what you might call a big old word nerd.
[00:00:48] And I say that because literally I'm wearing socks today that say big old word nerd on them.
[00:00:53] Christmas present for my wife a couple of years ago.
[00:00:57] And at several points during this series, because each week we're taking a different fruit of the Spirit, a different um word of a list of nine fruits of the spirit we're looking at each one in order
[00:01:09] and uh kind of several times as i've the week before i preach i think i i can't do it again i can't look at that word and unpack it and talk about the greek and all the definitions and
[00:01:22] and all i can't do that again it's too repetitive and um you know a lot of times you've heard preachers that have a shtick you know they have the sing and oh there he goes again and i think
[00:01:33] i can't but i have to i cannot help myself today we're talking about faithfulness and uh we've got to talk about this word and its meaning and the problem with translating it from greek to english
[00:01:52] because it's really important it really matters for our discipleship how we understand and use the word faith. And here's what happens as we understand things, as we kind of deepen our understanding, it can impact how we live. It can help us to grow and mature in our faith, in our
[00:02:17] living, in our discipleship. So the word that we translate faith is the Greek word pistis. And sometimes when translation you might think i remember taking a few years of spanish back in high school and college i don't remember much i made bad grades but i do remember thinking this
[00:02:39] word means this word and when we first started learning it felt that simple this word is the you know in english is this well there are some words as i began learning biblical languages there's some words in hebrew and greek it's not that easy it this word does not it can mean this
[00:02:56] word, but it can also mean about five other English words, right? And it doesn't exactly mean this. There are nuances and shades of meaning that shift when it comes to context, all that stuff. So the word we translate faith in the Greek is pistis. And there are several
[00:03:14] other ways we can translate that word pistis. When we say the word faith, it's not the same thing that someone speaking Greek in the first century, it's not the same thing they would have meant when they used the word pistis. Faithfulness gets us a little bit closer than
[00:03:33] faith, but still not quite there. The word pistis is basically a combination of a few different words or concepts in English. The first and most obvious one, and the one when we say faith as
[00:03:49] Christians, the one we mean a lot, probably more often than the others, is belief. Pistis can refer to belief. It's usually our go-to, and we use the word faith as Christians. We might talk about
[00:04:05] faith as a set of beliefs that we kind of agree to or give our assent to. One familiar one is the Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed is just kind of a listing of things we believe
[00:04:21] as Christians, and so we think about that as the Christian faith. Or we might think about my faith as a Christian, my own personal faith, a certain depth or amount or intensity of belief.
[00:04:39] Now, this is not wrong, thinking of pistis in this way. Belief is really important for us as Christians, whether it's a set of things we believe or our personal belief in God. But pistis is more than just belief. Pistis is more than just belief. It's also, and this is translated
[00:05:01] in the New Testament sometimes this way, pistis can also refer to trustworthiness.
[00:05:09] Trustworthiness. If there's pistis involved in a relationship, the person you're in a relationship with is trustworthy. There's an element of trust there. And we know how belief is different than trust. They're just different words with different associations. They're both kind of combined
[00:05:27] together in pistis. And we're moving into kind of more relational than belief. So we're beginning to kind of see some nuance here because belief can be about me and God, what I believe, a set
[00:05:40] of beliefs I hold. But trustworthiness is about me in relationship with other people, which leads us to another way you could translate or think about pistis. Loyalty. Sometimes that word pistis can refer to loyalty. Now we've moved a good distance away from belief or mental assent, and loyalty is
[00:06:04] definitely relational. And we're familiar with this, even using the word faith in this way.
[00:06:12] When we use the phrase being faithful in marriage, right?
[00:06:16] We're talking about loyalty.
[00:06:18] You're loyal to someone.
[00:06:19] You're keeping faith with someone.
[00:06:23] And so we've got belief, trustworthiness, loyalty, all kind of wrapped up in what Paul's churches would have understood by the word pistis.
[00:06:34] And then the writer of Hebrews from the Scripture we just heard uses two words to explicitly define faith.
[00:06:40] The writer of Hebrews says it's the assurance of things hoped for.
[00:06:48] A steady, unwavering confidence in the promises of God looking to the future.
[00:06:55] So there's an element of hope when we think about pistis.
[00:07:00] The assurance of things hoped for.
[00:07:03] Then he says it's the conviction of things not seen.
[00:07:06] a solid even passionate certainty in god's existence and god's work and in the truth of the gospel and these various things these various elements and meanings belief trustworthiness loyalty assurance conviction are all combined in into what in greek was called pistos
[00:07:29] now just those things there that's enough to chew on for quite a while and it'll be beneficial just to kind of dig into one of those things and pray about it and think about it. But there's another
[00:07:43] wrinkle to understanding faithfulness as a fruit of the Spirit. And here's where my nerdiness goes into kind of overdrive. Because we've got to talk about nouns and verbs. Connery loves when I do this. We're familiar and we use faith as a noun. And pistis, that word in the Greek, is a noun.
[00:08:09] It's in a noun form, but the Greeks had something in their language that we don't have in English.
[00:08:16] The Greeks had a verb form of the word faith. There is no English equivalent to the Greek word pisteo. Pisteo, which means literally to faith, to faith. We don't have that word in that form
[00:08:40] in English. Now, in English, we add a helping verb. Who in here remembers helping verbs, either from your own school or helping your kids? You have a helping verb, like 20% of you all.
[00:08:54] Y'all were not paying attention in fifth grade, were you? And we have helping verbs. So in English, we say to have faith, right? So you don't say to faith, you say to have faith. Do you see how that
[00:09:10] turns faith into a possession, into something that's kind of static, into something that, you know, we have faith. So we turn that into, it's a noun, it's something we have. In Greek, in that verb form, it pretty much means to do faith. Faith is not only something we have, it's something we
[00:09:32] do. It's something we live out. It's not just a possession that we can measure, like more faith, less faith. It's something we live, something we do. And I think there's something to this.
[00:09:47] Scripture gives us some helpful insight, specifically in James chapter 2. James says, what good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,
[00:10:05] and one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs. What is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
[00:10:19] And so faith is just a listing of beliefs. James seems to say that's not actual faith. It's dead.
[00:10:28] Faith is a verb. You live it. It's not something you possess just for you inside yourself.
[00:10:35] is something that you live out in the world.
[00:10:41] You combine that with what we read in Hebrews and we begin to see that faithing, faithing is more than just belief.
[00:10:51] It's an active way of being and doing in the world built on confidence in God and the hope that we have in the promised future of reconciliation, peace, and resurrection.
[00:11:04] So even another wrinkle, Paul lists faith as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.
[00:11:12] And in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 9, Paul says faith is a gift of the Spirit.
[00:11:18] And there's a difference between those two.
[00:11:21] The fruit of the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit, they're for every believer.
[00:11:25] All of them are for all of us.
[00:11:27] So it's not like a buffet.
[00:11:30] The fruit of the Spirit is not like a salad bar where you can pick what you like and don't like.
[00:11:34] the purpose is for them to grow in all of us the gifts of the spirit however they're more limited god kind of chooses this person has this gift this person has that gift that person has that
[00:11:49] gift and in the body of christ we bring all of these gifts together in in service and so that might lead us to ask well which one is faith a fruit of the spirit or is it a spiritual gift
[00:12:02] The answer to that question is, of course, yes.
[00:12:07] It's both.
[00:12:08] And I was wrestling with this.
[00:12:13] Actually, over the past couple of weeks, as I knew this sermon was coming, I was wrestling with this idea.
[00:12:17] Is faith a gift that the Spirit gives to just a handful?
[00:12:20] Or is faith a fruit of the Spirit for all Christians?
[00:12:23] And yes, again, is the answer to that.
[00:12:25] They're not in competition with one another.
[00:12:30] I think God, through the Holy Spirit, gives some Christians Faith might come easier to them.
[00:12:36] Trusting God might come a little bit easier.
[00:12:38] And they have this ability to share faith in a contagious way.
[00:12:43] But all of us, that fruit of faithfulness can grow in us.
[00:12:47] And I began thinking about children and parents.
[00:12:50] What we receive from our parents.
[00:12:53] And thinking about similar to what we receive from God.
[00:12:57] There are some things that children receive from their parents genetically.
[00:13:02] And these things are limited.
[00:13:04] No one child has all the genetic traits of their parents.
[00:13:11] Different genetic traits show up in different kids.
[00:13:15] And this is kind of like spiritual gifts.
[00:13:17] We're given certain gifts and attributes to the Spirit.
[00:13:20] Now, we don't ask for these.
[00:13:22] They start showing up as we grow and develop.
[00:13:26] And we can certainly work to use these gifts effectively, but we didn't sign up for them.
[00:13:29] It's like, well, red hair and blue eyes to talk about our daughter.
[00:13:36] these things just kind of happen naturally.
[00:13:38] The spiritual gifts are kind of like that.
[00:13:41] But however, everything that's true about us is not connected to our genetics.
[00:13:46] And from a surprisingly early age, we begin to imitate those closest to us.
[00:13:51] We're talking about within weeks of being born, we start trying to imitate.
[00:13:56] Usually our parents, we imitate facial expressions, tone of voice, movements, and this imitation is crucial for our growth and development.
[00:14:05] And we begin to take on the attributes of the people we're imitating.
[00:14:09] This happens, hopefully, when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit.
[00:14:13] We imitate Jesus.
[00:14:15] And we said throughout this series that all these fruits grow in us, but they grow out of things that are true of God.
[00:14:24] Before they are true of us, all of these fruit of the Spirit, they're true of God.
[00:14:29] And so we begin to imitate and reflect who God is through the way these fruit grow in our lives.
[00:14:38] And not just imitating Jesus, we also imitate other Christians who are more mature, wiser, more experienced in the faith.
[00:14:47] We start imitating them, and then those gifts we were given by the Spirit, like genetics, we begin to use those to serve, and we grow in maturity imitating Jesus and other Christians.
[00:14:58] And at some point, however, we have to move past imitation into cultivation.
[00:15:06] We can't just keep imitating.
[00:15:08] We have to move into cultivation and development, both in our growth as children and adolescents and as Christians.
[00:15:16] It's not enough for us to just copy what someone else does.
[00:15:23] We have to do the work of cultivation.
[00:15:26] So bearing the fruit of faithfulness, faithing as a disciple of Jesus, is not about me simply imitating the faithfulness of someone else.
[00:15:35] It's not about me saying, oh, I don't have the spiritual gift of faith. That person does. I don't have to worry about that.
[00:15:39] No, it's about cultivating that fruit in our lives. And here's the thing we learn from both Paul and the writer of Hebrews. Cultivating the fruit of faithfulness is not supposed to be individual work. It's not just solo work. The goal is that we're
[00:15:58] faithing together. We grow better together. In fact, without relationship, without one another as disciples, we're not going to grow. Now, as you can see up here, the fruit I'm supposed to be talking about this morning is grapes. There's biblical precedent for this. Jesus talking
[00:16:20] about, I'm the vine, you are the branches. Any number of directions I could have gone with like wine. But here's the truth. I don't have any stories about grapes. I have stories about corn.
[00:16:34] And so I'm kind of cheating today. I'm not going to talk about grapes as wonderful as they are.
[00:16:39] years ago, somewhere in my 30s, I was reading a book by a guy named Wendell Berry.
[00:16:46] Let me recommend Wendell Berry to you. Wendell Berry, still living, about 93, 94 years old.
[00:16:53] He is famously grumpy, which that's enough to endear me to Wendell Berry, famously grumpy.
[00:17:00] He's a retired Baptist preacher and a poet and a theologian and a farmer. I love this guy. Wendell Berry, the thing that impacted me that I read by him is he said, part of the problem with American
[00:17:15] culture is that we have no understanding of the earth beneath our feet. We don't know the ground we're standing on. Too few of us get our hands dirty. And he's not talking about blue collar
[00:17:29] jobs or anything like that. He's talking about we don't have or our relationship with our land is really sick. We'll call it God's land. And so that inspired me to literally get my hands dirty and I
[00:17:40] began growing a raised bed garden. I did that for a few years until I realized that when I was supposed to be tending that garden, it was really hot and I didn't like it. So I stopped. But one
[00:17:52] year I decided to grow some corn and I planted some corn. I had like two or three stalks and miserable failure. And there's probably some of you who have done some gardening or farming that
[00:18:07] know why. And somebody at the previous church said, well, I told him, I said, my corn just didn't make it. Those two or three stalks just died. He said, if you want to grow corn, you have
[00:18:16] to have a lot of corn. Two or three stalks won't cut it. Corn grows better together. And I'm like, ooh, here's a sermon illustration. Well, here it is. Corn grows better together just like Christian. The writer of Hebrews knows this. So I love the way he puts this. The writer of Hebrews
[00:18:38] says, provoke one another. We're really good at that, aren't we? Provoke one another, but finish that sentence, provoke one another to love and good works. Help one another cultivate faithing, faithfulness. Don't neglect meeting together. Encourage one another, promoting that
[00:19:04] growth in faithfulness. We need help to make faith a verb, to live that out. We need one another. We We need the church.
[00:19:16] We need this body.
[00:19:17] We need this family to help us do that, to cultivate that fruit in our lives.
[00:19:26] We don't and we shouldn't.
[00:19:28] We don't have to go it alone and we shouldn't go it alone.
[00:19:31] God has given us the gift of one another to help grow that fruit of faith in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[00:19:42] This morning, just a couple of, a few minutes of reflection for you.
[00:19:46] I have some questions.
[00:19:48] I want you to take a minute to reflect on.
[00:19:51] So I first want you to take a deep breath.
[00:19:58] Just take a moment reflecting on where is God leading you to live out your faith in more active ways to make faith a verb in your life?
[00:20:40] Next question.
[00:20:43] In your life, who has been an example of faithfulness worth imitating?
[00:20:49] What have you learned from them?
[00:21:24] Next question.
[00:21:26] In the coming week, how can you encourage or even provoke a brother or sister in christ to love and good deeds almighty god grower of spiritual fruit let the fruit of the spirit blossom and mature and ripen in my life
[00:22:10] love joy peace patience kindness good goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control god your word says there is no law against these things so god i would pray that you let us possess these fruit and let them grow in us.
[00:22:31] God, since we belong to Jesus Christ, we have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
[00:22:38] So let us live by the Spirit.
[00:22:40] Let us walk by the Spirit.
[00:22:45] Let us not be arrogant or conceited.
[00:22:51] And if we provoke God, let us provoke one another to love and good deeds.
[00:22:57] Let us live in, through, and for Jesus Christ.
[00:23:02] as He lives in through and for us and for His whole church.
[00:23:10] In the name of Jesus, I ask You to perfect us in love and to give us the grace to accept and endure the transformation You want for us in our lives.
[00:23:26] In Christ's name we pray. Amen.