We live in a culture of non-commitment. People get new jobs and then quit them a few months later. They start classes at a university, then drop out after a few weeks. If someone has an issue with their friend, they bail out and do not look back. People walk away from their spouses like it is no big deal. Many are afraid of and averse to commitment in our culture. In today’s terms, people have “commitment issues.” Instead of devoted relationships, people have ambivalationships. Dedication, commitment, and loyalty are not common virtues. This lack of commitment also shows up in modern Christianity. Many churches do not have vows requiring members to commit, and many Christians are not committed to a local church family.
There are various factors for this lack of commitment. For one thing, people are always looking for the next best thing—something better. They are discontent and restless. For another thing, people are distracted and unfocused. People’s lives are becoming like their phone usage: scroll or tap from one thing to the next—never settled, always flitting about looking for something else. These are two reasons why commitment is at a low today.
But the biblical Christian faith is different. The Bible tells us that God is faithful and reliable. His faithfulness is great. Scripture also calls God’s people to be faithful and reliable. We who trust in God aim to display the fruit of faithfulness in our lives for his glory and for the good of his church. In this article on faithfulness, the seventh fruit of the Spirit, we will look at the contours of God’s faithfulness before we consider how it is manifested in our own lives. The two key texts are Lamentations 3:19–23 and Galatians 5:22.
God’s Faithfulness
Lamentations was most likely written by Jeremiah when he was weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem around 587 BC. Before this, Israel had a horrid track record of ignoring God’s word and disobeying his commands. After repeated calls to repentance and many years of patience, the Lord judged his people for their unrepentant sin. He allowed Israel’s enemy, Babylon, to ransack Jerusalem.
When Jeremiah saw the fall of Jerusalem, it broke his heart and crushed his spirit. This is why Lamentations reads like a funeral song or poem lamenting Jerusalem’s death, as it were. That is the feeling you get when reading Lamentations 3:19–20. Jeremiah prays, “Remember my affliction and my wanderings.” He is possibly using the word “wandering” with a reference to his homelessness since Jerusalem’s destruction. He also prays, “[Remember] the wormwood and the gall.” Those words are a reference to Jeremiah’s bitter and perturbed heart. The situation is so dire that he cannot forget about it (3:20a). It causes his heart to be depressed (3:20b).
If you read these verses slowly and with thought, you can feel the sorrow in these words. In the chapters before this, Jeremiah even said he cried to such an extent that tears would no longer flow. His beloved city, Jerusalem, was wrecked. God’s people were being taken away. And it is because of their blatant, unashamed evil. No wonder Jeremiah’s heart was broken.
Very few of us have faced anything like this. We do not know what it would be like to have our hometown destroyed by enemies who take us away as prisoners as a direct punishment from God for our wickedness. Nor do we know what it would be like to watch this happen to our hometown. But some of you have been through terrible things in life. You have faced trauma, painful health issues, a broken heart from a relationship gone bad, or grief at the loss of a loved one. You do know what heartbreak and deep sorrow feel like. In some ways, you can identify with Jeremiah’s misery and depression due to a great calamity.
What did Jeremiah do with his grief and broken heart? He did not bottle them up and keep them inside. He did not turn to the latest wellness fads or strong drink. Instead, he cried and shared his sorrow-filled feelings in prayer to God. The book of Lamentations is filled with Jeremiah’s prayers of grief.
Another thing Jeremiah did was remember the truth: “This I recall in my mind (Lam 3:21a; my translation). He remembered what was real. And when he did that, it gave him hope (Lam 3:21b). What he recalled in his mind caused him to have hope. Though his heart was broken, a certain thought brought hope to the situation. Even in his darkest, deepest sorrow, he dared to hope. For Christians who suffer depression, remember Jeremiah. He had a legitimate reason to grieve and weep with deep sorrow. But he also found true hope in the midst of sorrow. There was a ray from the light of hope piercing through the darkness of his grief.
The question is, what was “this” that Jeremiah remembered and which gave him hope (Lam 3:21)? “This” was a doctrinal or theological statement about God’s character: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” (Lam 3:22). Truth: Yahweh’s steadfast love for his people does not have a conclusion. His loyal covenant love never ceases. His love goes on and on, from here to eternity. This is a bright ray of hope!
Furthermore, Yahweh’s mercies do not fail. Mercies in this context means compassion or pity for the weak, needy, and brokenhearted. It is the compassion that Christ had for the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34). It is a compassion that goes on and on. “The rivers of [God’s] mercy run fully and constantly, but they never run dry. . . . When our comforts fail, God’s compassions do not.”1 In fact, God’s compassion is new or fresh every morning (Lam 3:23a). Jeremiah confessed that every morning when he woke up, the stream of God’s mercy was still flowing strong and pure. “Streams of mercy never ceasing / call for songs of loudest praise!”2
Then Jeremiah prayed again: “Great is your faithfulness” (Lam 3:23b). Great could mean abundant. Great could also mean distinguished or strong. God’s faithfulness is abundant or strong. Both are true! These are the things that Jeremiah called to mind, things that give him hope: God’s loyal love never ends, his compassion keeps flowing, and his faithfulness is abundant (or strong). These are the doctrinal or theological truths that gave Jeremiah solid hope in the midst of deep, dark despair.
God’s Great Faithfulness
The word for faithfulness in Lamentations 3:23 means reliable and trustworthy. God is trustworthy. He does not lie; it is impossible for him to lie (Heb 6:18). He does not go back on his word. You can trust him one hundred percent all the time. He is a faithful Father. If he says he loves you, he means it and will keep on loving you. If he tells you he will not leave or forsake you, he means it and will never leave or forsake you. He faithfully keeps all his promises all the time. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, learned this after God kept his promise and gave her a child in her old age. “She considered God faithful to keep his promise” (Heb 11:11). What God says, he does!
God is also reliable. He will not bail on his people or walk away from them when the going gets tough. His people can always rely on him because he is perfectly dependable. When Jesus said that he laid down his life to save sinners, you can depend on that truth. When Christ says to come to him for rest, you can be sure he will give it when you go to him. He is perfectly reliable.
One thing that frustrates us in life is when we come across people who are not dependable or reliable. I do not know how many times over the years I have called a person to ask if I could look at his car for sale. The man says, “Yes, the car’s sitting right here. You can come look at it in an hour.” So I drive an hour away only to find that the man had just sold the car.
Some of you perhaps work with unreliable people. They arrive late to important meetings, forget to reply to important emails, or lie about getting a job done. We can also think about the unreliability of many politicians—both Democrats and Republicans. They make all sorts of promises but rarely follow through. They are not reliable! That is part of the reason Mark Twain said something like, it does not matter who you vote for; the politicians still win! This unreliability and unfaithfulness of people sometimes make us jaded and cynical.
But do not get too cynical or jaded. God is perfectly reliable and completely faithful. In fact, Jeremiah tells us that God’s faithfulness is great. It is abundant and strong and plentiful and vast. His faithfulness is first-rate; his reliability is remarkable. Other Scripture says the same thing. His faithfulness reaches to the heavens (Ps 36:5). The Lord’s faithfulness endures to all generations (Ps 100:5). His love is loyal and everlasting, so God continues his faithfulness toward us (Jer 31:3).
This is the reality that Jeremiah remembered on those dark days of his life: 1) God’s steadfast love never ends, 2) his mercies never stop flowing, and 3) his faithfulness is great.
These truths can also give us comfort during those dark days of life. They give us comfort in all the circumstances of our lives. If you sin, God is faithful to forgive you when you confess them to him (1 John 1:9). When Satan is on the warpath against you, God is faithful to guard you from him (2 Thess 3:3). When you face temptation, God will faithfully help you through it (1 Cor 10:13). The Lord’s love is a faithful, loyal love that will keep you to the end (1 Cor 1:6–7). He is faithful. He will preserve you through it all.
Notes
- Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 1330.
- Robert Robinson, “Come thou Fount,” 1758.
© Shane Lems. All Rights Reserved.
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Shane Lems
Shane Lems is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California and has a DMin from RTS Orlando. He has been a church planter and pastor in the URCNA. Since 2013 he’s been serving as pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Hammond, WI. He is married and has four children. Shane has written numerous articles for Modern Reformation, New Horizons, and other publications. He is also the author of Doctrines of Grace: Student Edition and manages a book blog, The Reformed Reader.
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