What Happens When We Are Unfaithful to God, the Church, and One Another?

Unfaithfulness compromises what we know to be true for some immediate or temporary high.

Note: You can find the first of this long series here.

We now enter into the final triad, the last three fruits of the Spirit. We are contemplating the concept of faithfulness, which embodies an act of fidelity and steadfastness. Faithfulness is a “persistent loyalty to truth.” It’s the opposite of cunning and deceitful. Remember the fruit of the Spirit is the way of life under the new Adam, Jesus Christ. The first Adam was not faithful, but the new Adam is.

Paul’s list in Galatians contrasts with what he saw among the Galatian Christians. The Galatian Christians are acting like the first Adam; they are following a false script, not being interested in faithfulness but in following the desires of the flesh. Paul offers them a new way of living.

Faithfulness Check

We all need a reality check. We all fall short of the glory of God. Our commitment to faithfulness is sometimes weak. We often excuse our infidelity by all sorts of phrases: “I needed to feel alive again,” “I wanted something he had more than what you could offer,” or “I drink a lot because I need peace. Infidelity breeds a thousand excuses, but fidelity just is. “I am faithful, and what I have to show for my faithfulness is my core commitment to being true and consistent.” No drumroll. No church bells. No red carpet. Just plain ol’ consistent faithfulness. As parents, we should pray that our children’s testimony will reach the apex of boring.” “Yes, I was baptized as an infant and have always loved Jesus.” No rebellion. No Neo-Nazi, leftist phase in my teenage years. No prodigalness. Just ordinary Christian living.

So, what are the temptations towards unfaithfulness? There are three clear ones: We are tempted to be unfaithful to God, the Church, and one another.

First, we can be unfaithful to our Lord. Unfaithfulness to God does not happen overnight. It’s a series of habits and decisions you make, and before you know it, you are forsaking your first love. Your loyalty to the truth becomes secondary. In Galatians 1, Paul was shocked that they were turning to another Gospel. How does it happen that a faithful person can begin to undo all the years of faithfulness and be unfaithful to Jesus, our Lord?

This can occur when one chases after false gods. You begin to trust politicians to answer your problems; you start to rely on authority figures that are not faithful to Jesus; you crave the approval of people who don’t love Jesus; it’s the Psalm 1 principle: don’t sit in the seat of the scornful. The Psalmist is not saying to despise the unbeliever or never listen to them, but don’t sit, that is, don’t be their captive audience hanging on for every word they say. When that happens, you suddenly realize one day that you haven’t prayed or engaged with the Scriptures in a long time; your conversations barely mention Jesus; you haven’t contemplated the work of Jesus in His word and the world; and you enter into that group we call the nominal.

Now, the nominal wakes up every day acting as if Jesus didn’t exist. He/she goes through life without a care in the world, whether Jesus is a part of or not of his own life. Then, on Sunday morning, because he has been trained to do the Christian thing, he shows up to church to hear a word about Jesus, but when there is no one around them, like Peter, they say: “Me? I am not with this man! You are mistaken about who I am.”

Secondly, we are tempted to be unfaithful to the church. I am not just speaking about being in church—that’s a given; I am talking about being the church, participating in the life of the Church. I hear many great absurdities among Christians in our day, but one that is on top of the list is, “I don’t need the Church to grow in my love for Jesus.” That’s like saying, “I don’t ever have to kiss my wife to show that I love her.” Unfaithfulness begins by abandoning those rituals that make us who we are. Those who are faithful to the church are faithful to one another and the life of the church. The Church is where Christian habits are formed and nurtured. That’s why the evangelical Church calendar reminds us that when we think we can create our calendars, we must return to Jesus in his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Finally, we are tempted to be unfaithful to one another. We often rely on one another—not just spouses, but also church members—to be like they are each day: faithful, honest, sincere, and true. But what happens when that changes? What happens when our intellectual partners betray us for an ungodly worldview? What happens when those you trusted choose a path of destruction? You trusted them; you were loyal to them; they nurtured you, but now they have abandoned loyalty to the truth.

We live in a culture where this fruit of the Spirit is necessary. Why? Because we live in an era where people believe they are entitled to pursue their fleshly desires; [1] after all, I deserve to be happy, and I am not feeling happy right now; I don’t have what I want, and so betraying those near to me is my only alternative. Do you see the profound disrespect and deceit involved in that process?

In the Christian community, our values often conflict with our behavior. We want to recapture our lost sense of the self by betraying another self. Do you see how the human mind works? We are comfortable restoring our happiness while at the same time, we take the joy away from our neighbor.

Faithfulness is fidelity exemplified, lived out; it’s a persistent loyalty to truth. Unfaithfulness compromises what we know to be true for some immediate or temporary high.

The Positive Practice of Faithfulness

If we are tempted to disloyalty first to God, then to the church, and then to one another, how do we begin to build a culture of faithfulness in our midst?

That’s a profound question, but we do have some biblical principles to help us pursue faithfulness to these three fundamental aspects of a Christian’s relationship.

First, our relationship with God must be defined by faithfulness. Paul says in II Timothy 2 that when we are faithless, He remains faithful. When we have forsaken God, when we have chosen other voices but His, He refuses to let us live in silence. God speaks. He may need to speak loudly to get our attention; he may put you through a crisis to get you to listen; but if you are His, He will get your attention. Either you are striving to be faithful, which implies repentance, or you have given up on trying to be faithful to God.

When that occurs, you run a great risk: the risk of forsaking your first love. What you need is an inventory of your habits. You need to ask questions like:

“What am I doing that is keeping me less and less inclined to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength? Is God even a part of the way I live and move and have my being? Or is he a footnote to a conversation about religion with a friend?” I urge you to ponder what it means to be faithful, persistently loyal to truth in your life in your particular context.

Each one of you will develop a unique way of answering that question because each of your lives is different; however, you cannot postpone making an inventory of your habits.

Second, our relationship to the Church must be defined by faithfulness. If I were to put all the excuses for why professing Christians are not engaged in a local church—from “they’re all hypocrites” to “I just don’t fit anywhere”—I’d say the main mark of those who are not faithful to a local church is individualism. “I don’t want to submit to anyone’s authority, but my own.” “Nobody tells me what to do.”

This sentiment is prevalent in our culture, which is why a gentle and gracious demeanor should be characteristic of the authority of ministers. Titus says the minister should live the gospel in all humility. I have met people like that over the years who show no interest in being faithful to the church because they feel betrayed by it. I pray that your congregations provide a more beautiful vision for you of what the church is, and I pray that when we, as pastors, make mistakes, which inevitably happens, we would be quick to repent.

The desire of a minister is not just for people to show up, but for them to see the love and glory of Jesus in everything we do on Sundays, as well as throughout the week. Faithfulness needs to be exemplified.

Finally, our relationship with one another must be defined by faithfulness. We live in a world of betrayal. When people are betrayed, they begin to question everything. Who am I? Why am I here? The first recorded betrayal after the garden was when Cain decided to kill his brother Abel. Cain led his brother out into a field. Surely Abel thought: “This is my brother…blood of my blood. I am connected to him, and he desires my well-being,” and at that moment, Cain betrays his brother by taking away the one thing that we have with those closest to us: a high sense of trust. Betrayal happens sometimes to those who are most like Jesus, which is why Jesus is the one betrayed the most. But now, are you the betrayer or the one betrayed? What do you do?

Let’s begin with the betrayer. You are a Christian, but you have betrayed someone; let’s say you spread a false report that deeply hurt that person and damaged his reputation in the community; now, what do you do?

a) You need to make restitution. That means becoming a faithful person requires paying what you owe. If it were someone’s reputation, then you would do everything within your power to restore the right message and the person’s good name, which may mean going to the people in your community to correct the intentional misinformation you provided. You need to be intentional about repenting of that deed.

b) You need to be specific about your sin to that person. You should not manipulate the individual into thinking it was partly her fault; you shouldn’t give political answers like, “I did that because I love my country too much (or fill in your favorite institution).” You need to be specific. Once you have done that, if necessary, give the individual time to process everything. People are not forced to accept your desire for forgiveness immediately and move on as if nothing happened.

What if you are the one betrayed? What do you do?

What you shouldn’t do, and it will be quite a temptation, is to distrust everyone: your pastors, parents, and closest friends. If you are betrayed, you need to place yourself under the healthy care of another. It could be your pastor, but it could also be a godly saint in the congregation. The Christian community is called to bear one another’s burdens. Don’t suffer alone. At times, you may feel the weight of your betrayal, and in that moment, God does not abandon you; He reaches out to you with tender mercies and loves you with an everlasting love. To be betrayed is a hurtful experience, but in union with Christ, the Church, and one another, those who have been betrayed can find healing and renewal. I believe that because I have seen it so many times.

The reason faithfulness is so connected with habits is that habits keep you in the place of faithfulness. In almost every case I know where betrayal and relational disappointment happened, whether in marriage or day-to-day relationships, it begins with the refusal to continue to practice habits of grace, whether it be abiding in the Bible, singing the Scriptures, being with God’s people, surrounding yourself with wise counsel, etc. Faithfulness begins in the house of God, and the reason you come Sunday after Sunday is because you know that faithfulness needs to be renewed. So, let us renew ourselves in faithfulness together this Easter Season; let us persistently be loyal to truth to God, the Church, and one another.

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