Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness, Meekness

In contrast to the ugly works of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19-21, we have the beautiful fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." We focus today on this word faith, which also can be translated faithfulness. These are not contradictory; they are complementary. It demands faith to be faithful, and if you are faithful, you have faith. And the great need today in the Christian life and in the church is for faithfulness.

We live in a world of truce-breakers. This is not only true on the international scene, it's true in the divorce courts. It's true with contracts. It's true on the job. It's true in personal acquaintances and friendships. People do not keep their promises. They aren't faithful. People do not keep their appointments. People say one thing and do something else. And all of us, if we are not careful, are going to drift into this awful swamp of "I don't care." I don't care. I hear the young people say, "Well, ask me if I care." Well, we had better care because nothing is going to be accomplished in this world without faithful people. Now, we want folks who serve us to be faithful. We want the doctor and the nurse and the waitress and the pharmacist and the bus driver—we want all of them to be faithful. And I wonder if they aren't expecting us to be faithful. The fruit of the Spirit is faith, which leads to faithfulness.

Now, you and I rejoice in the faithfulness of God the Father. I read in 1 Corinthians 1:9, "God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." I'm glad God the Father is faithful, or you wouldn't have any sunshine or rain; the seasons would not be operating as they do. I'm glad that God the Son is faithful. He is my merciful and faithful High Priest, and because He is faithful, I can come to Him in prayer. Hebrews 2:17, "Wherefore in all things it behoved him," Jesus, "to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God." Suppose you came to pray and He wasn't listening? Suppose you came to the throne of grace and He wasn't paying any attention? Suppose His promises were not faithful? I read in Hebrews 3:2 that Jesus Christ was faithful to Him that appointed Him. The Lord Jesus was faithful to finish the work of redemption on the cross. Where would we be had He not done that? 

The Holy Spirit is faithful. Here we read about the fruit of the Spirit, which is faith or faithfulness. When you were saved, the Holy Spirit gave you the faith to believe. And now that you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit wants to translate faith into faithfulness. What good is it for us to say, "Oh, we have faith, we have faith," if we aren't faithful, if people can't depend upon us? Well, faithfulness is needed today, and we want to look at this fruit of the Spirit which is faithfulness that comes from faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's notice first of all that we had better be faithful because faithfulness is required. God requires faithfulness. One of these days I'm going to have to give an answer for the way I have used my opportunities, my possessions, what God has given to me to use for His glory. In 1 Corinthians 4:2 we read, "Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful." We must be faithful because we are stewards. We don't own a thing. We are simply the possessors of God's wealth, and we want to use it for His glory. Faithful in the use of our money. Faithful in the use of our time. Time is wasted by Christians today; time that could be used in study, in reading, in prayer, in ministry is just being wasted today. 

We are required to be faithful because we are stewards, and we are required to be faithful because we are soldiers. When a soldier gets into the service, he's sworn in and he promises to be loyal. In 2 Timothy 2:3-4 we read, "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." That's loyalty. Devotion. I was never in the service, but I've talked to a lot of people who were in the various branches of the armed forces, and there's a loyalty there. Well, we ought to be faithful because we are not only stewards and soldiers, but we are sons in God's family.

There is a very ironic statement in Isaiah 1:2. Listen to this: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." Can you imagine? Listen to this statement: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." You see, we ought to be faithful because we are His sons. We're born into His family, sons and daughters of the King, and certainly we ought to be faithful to our Heavenly Father. It's so tragic. God pours out His nourishment, His blessing, His supply, His goodness, His mercy upon our lives, and then we forget about Him. We forget about Him.

We ought to be faithful because we are children of the King. We ought to be faithful because we are married, wedded to the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in James 4:4, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." When you were saved, you were wedded to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Bridegroom, you're the bride. Now, be faithful. Be faithful to Him. Keep your vows to Him. People today get married for better or for worse, but not for long. And they don't believe in being faithful to the vows that they've made to the Lord and to one another. Faithfulness is required.

Secondly, I would remind you that faithfulness is recognized. Whenever God finds a faithful person, He recognizes that person. Daniel was that kind of a person. The other presidents and princes in Babylon tried to find something they could accuse Daniel of, and they couldn't find anything. I read in Daniel 6:4, "Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." I hope that's true of us as we go to work. I hope that during those years I worked for Rockwell Manufacturing Company, they could say, "Well, Wiersbe was faithful; there was no error or fault found in him." God recognizes faithfulness. Why did God bless Daniel? Daniel was faithful. 

I think of Timothy. Timothy was a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. I think of how Timothy was faithful to the Apostle Paul. A young man who could have been out doing a number of things, and yet he was faithful to Paul. Listen to 1 Corinthians 4:17, "For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord." You can't say anything better about a person. I tell you, if a church is going to move forward, you need a lot of faithful brothers and sisters. But you also need faithful ministers. Faithful to the Word, faithful to pray, faithful to visit their people. The Apostle Paul was greatly concerned about his own faithfulness. 1 Timothy 1:12, "And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry." You know, the God who calls you equips you. God's commandments are God's enablements. And he said, "God hath enabled me." Preacher, if you're discouraged today and you can't preach one more sermon, you can't make one more visit—if the workload is so heavy you say, "I can't keep going," read 1 Timothy 1:12. "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me." Your enablement comes from the Lord, for that He counted me faithful. You just be faithful in the corner of the world where God has put you, and that's all that really matters. Paul said, "I'm going to be faithful," and he was faithful. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." 

God recognizes faithfulness, and God rewards faithfulness. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." God rewards faithfulness. God may not show you all the good that you are doing as you teach your class, as you witness, as you raise your family. Don't worry about that. Our task is to be faithful. His task is to work everything out for His glory and for our good. Yes, the great need of the hour today is for faithful people. Not just joiners who put their names on a roll of a church, but faithful warriors, faithful workers, faithful worshippers who stand true to God and to God's people. The fruit of the Spirit is faith, and that faith leads to faithfulness.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness." Galatians 5:22-23. Meekness: a greatly misunderstood word. Many people have the idea that meekness means weakness, that you're spineless, that you give in easily, that people can push you around. Or it might mean that you're always condemning yourself. "I can't do anything, I'm not worth anything." That's a dangerous attitude to have. Paul writes in Romans 12:3, "For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." It's wrong to think more highly of yourself, and it's also wrong to think less highly of yourself. Some folks think that meekness means lack of ambition, that you're purposeless, but this is not true. 

The greatest man in the Old Testament is probably Moses, and we read in Numbers 12:3 that Moses was the meekest man on the earth. Now, Moses was not spineless; he stood against the whole government of Egypt. Moses stood before Pharaoh and said, "Let God's people go." Moses had courage and Moses had strength, but he was the meekest man, we're told, on the earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ certainly was not weak and spineless, and yet we read in Matthew 11:29 where He said, "I am meek and lowly in heart." Why, He made a whip on two occasions and cleaned out the temple. He faced a whole group of soldiers who came out to arrest Him; they had swords and clubs. He wasn't afraid. Ah, but He was meek. 

You see, back in Paul's day, when he used this word meekness, he was using a very familiar word because the word translated meekness was applied to a medicine that soothed a sick person. It was applied to a gentle breeze or the gentle words of someone who loved you. This word was applied to a horse that had been broken. Now, what do medicine and breezes and horses all have in common? Power under control. You see, too much medicine will kill you, but just the right amount will heal you. A gentle breeze is a beautiful thing, but when that breeze becomes a hurricane or a tornado, you'd better watch out. A horse that has not been broken is dangerous. There's power there, but it's not under control. Meekness means power under control. 

I think of some examples in the Bible. For example, Abraham and Lot. They had so many flocks and herds, and there had been a famine, and now their flocks and herds couldn't mix together, and their herdsmen were having trouble with each other. Now, Abraham was the senior member of the team. He could have said, "Lot, get out of here." He didn't. He said, "Lot, you choose where you want to go. You go to the right hand, I'll go to the left; you go east, I'll go west. You just choose where you want to go." That's power under control. Lot made the wrong decision. 

I think of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph was the second in command in Egypt, and when his brothers showed up, what power, what authority Joseph could have used. Oh, he could have fixed them. But he didn't. He forgave them. He had power, but it was under control. Remember, you can't exercise meekness unless you are right, you've got the first choice, unless you have the power, and unless you are doing it the way God wants you to do it.

Many years ago, Dr. Albert Barnes, the great Presbyterian preacher who wrote Barnes' Notes on the New Testament, had this to say about meekness. Now, let me read it to you from Dr. Albert Barnes: "Meekness is patience in the reception of injuries. It is neither meanness, nor a surrender of our rights, nor cowardice, but it is the opposite of sudden anger, of malice, of long-harbored vengeance. Meekness is the reception of injuries with a belief that God will vindicate us. Meekness produces peace. It is proof of true greatness of soul. It comes from a heart too great to be moved by little insults. It looks upon them with pity. He that is constantly ruffled, that suffers every little insult or injury to throw him off his guard and raise a storm of passion within, is at the mercy of every mortal that chooses to disturb him." 

And this is why so many people are in trouble today. Dr. Albert Barnes is correct. If you and I are so thin-skinned and so supersensitive that anything people might say or do disturbs us, then very soon the devil finds out he can keep us disturbed. Meekness is power under control. 

This meekness comes from love. In fact, all of the fruit of the Spirit can be found in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I'm reading verses 4 and 5, "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Now, that's meekness. There are people who are always waiting for an opportunity to talk about themselves. No matter what you are discussing, they bring themselves into it. They're always promoting themselves; they're pushing themselves. They are puffed up with themselves. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says love "doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked." Oh, how we need that. That's meekness. When a person has meekness, the fruit of the Spirit, he is not easily provoked. He has a blind eye and a deaf ear; he doesn't take seriously everything he sees and hears. He can smile at someone who is mean and nasty. 

Meekness, you see, grows out of love. Meekness is the opposite of self-will toward God and ill-will toward man. It means we are yielded to God, and He works through us and in us to produce meekness. Now, where should this meekness be revealed? Well, let's start with the home. In 1 Peter 3:4, Peter tells the wives—and this can just as well be applied to the husbands, but he's writing to the wives—that they should have the "ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." Meekness in the home. You know, sometimes in the home we get abrasive. We're tired at the end of the day, and we say and do things we shouldn't. In the home, we need to exercise meekness and not be sensitive and touchy. 

We need to cultivate meekness in our church life. Paul has written to us in Ephesians chapter 4. We've already read those verses; let me read them again. "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." That means in the business meeting, we exercise meekness, power under control. We don't make a great big fuss over something. So many times we go to church with our fists clenched, wearing boxing gloves. It's hard to turn the pages of your Bible when you've got boxing gloves on. And we're there to fight the preacher. No, with meekness, receiving the Word of God. It may be personal admonition. 

Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:11, "But thou, O man of God, flee these things," like the love of money and so forth, "and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness." And then the next verse says, "Fight the good fight of faith." Can you imagine a soldier having meekness? Yes, because meekness is power under control. 

In Titus 3:2, he says that we should "speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men." There's a tendency among some Christians today to talk too loud, to shout too much, to get all worked up in anger, especially when it involves matters of politics and law. My Bible says we get more accomplished by showing meekness. 

When you hear about a Christian who has fallen into sin, don't say, "Well, I'd never do that." That's what Peter said, and he did it. Say, "Oh my, why did that happen? And I'd better be careful it doesn't happen to me, and what can I do to help him?" Galatians 6:1, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Christian soldiers are the only soldiers in the world that when a fellow soldier is down, they kick him, instead of in meekness helping him to get back on his feet again. Oh, we need the fruit of the Spirit which is meekness. In our homes, in our churches, in our witnessing, in our daily living, to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ who said, "I am meek and lowly in heart."