Food for the Way: Faithfulness
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-24)
“You know they take a few years to produce fruit, right?”
A friend asked me this after I had finally stopped babbling about the two blueberry bushes I had just planted on the side of my house.
I did not know that.
I did not know that when I bought them, fresh off a trip to Chesterfield Berry Farm with our son. I did not know that as I drove home, with visions of blueberry muffins dancing in my head. I did not know that when I schlepped them out of my car and heaved dirt aside to nestle them into the ground.
I bought those bushes in 2013. We made sure they had enough water. We pulled out weeds threatening to choke them. We covered them with netting to protect them from hopeful squirrels and rabbits.
And finally, in 2016, we saw fruit: three beautiful, delicious berries, one for each year of our work. In the years since, we’ve kept going, caring for these bushes, each year bringing new berries. It takes commitment. It takes time. It takes faithfulness.
Paul closes his first letter to the Thessalonians with a benediction that reminds me of my family caring for these blueberry-bushes-that-can. In Winn Collier’s Love Big, Be Well, benedictions are helpfully described as being “…both instructive and revelatory. These moments illuminate what it is that all of us are doing every day of our lives.”
Paul’s words to the church in Thessalonica do exactly that. He offers up a series of instructions to a people known for their faithfulness (1Thessalonians 1) so they can keep going—practical steps to help the faithful stay faithful. And it’s all about how they live life together and care for one another as a church family. Respect and encourage each other, he commands. Keep the peace, practice patience, rejoice, pray, give thanks. But Paul doesn’t pull these instructions out of thin air. They’re rooted in something—or, rather, someone—that reveals to the Thessalonians the source and object of their faith.
“…this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you,” he says.
In this benediction, Paul is not just telling the Thessalonians how to be faithful. He’s also reminding them of why they are to be faithful because of who they belong to: a God who is faithful and steadfast. A God who keeps his promises, shown most completely in the fulfilled promise of Jesus, His only son, who was always faithful, even unto death. Whose death and resurrection brought them—and us—eternal life.
Our faithful God wants to make us faithful, and he will surely do it—with his son, by his Spirit, and through his people. We are faithful in response to God’s faithfulness. And we are brought together as the body of the church, just like the Thessalonians before us, to live out that faithfulness together for the long-haul by belonging to each other. It’s ongoing and day-to-day—a Spirit-aided exercise in commitment to our God and the people he has given us.
It’s not unlike my family’s relationship with those blueberry bushes. We’re faithful to those plants, after almost a decade, because they belong to us. We’ve been faithful and steadfast in caring for them, and, as a result, the promise of delicious, blue fruit is fulfilled each and every summer. It’s not an eternal promise, but it’s about as close as it gets down here.
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CONSIDER
What loyal commitments do you have in your life? This could mean relationships, hobbies, organizations, your career, anything. Why have you chosen to stay faithful to them?
How does faithlessness feel easier than faithfulness? What keeps you from choosing faithfulness?
How does our faithfulness to one another connect to God’s faithfulness to us? What are some practical ways we see that play out as members of the church body who belong to one another?
Reflect Further
Read Isaiah 53. Where do you, as someone on the other side of the cross, see God’s faithfulness in this Scripture? How does it offer you hope for the long haul?
Artwork by Tess Miller. Additional design by Rachel Lee.
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