The Value of Faithfulness

The Value of Faithfulness

Concord Church’s pastors led the congregation through a summer sermon series on the Fruit of the Spirit this year. I finished the series last Sunday by focusing on faithfulness. One of the key points I made was that faithfulness is consistently doing what we are supposed to do.

I concluded my message by sharing about Pioneer 10. The tiny NASA craft, about 9 feet wide and 9 ½ feet long, weighed just 570 pounds, but was designed to travel 550 million miles to Jupiter and send images of the planet back to Earth.

Pioneer 10 launched on March 3, 1972, and 20 months later began taking pictures of Jupiter on November 6, 1973. It sent NASA about 500 images of the massive planet.

The little space explorer did not stop after completing its Jupiter mission; it kept going. At 1 billion miles from Earth, it passed Saturn, at 2 billion, Uranus, Neptune slipped past at 3 billion, and Pluto at nearly 4 billion. Even then, the little craft continued to operate. Pioneer 10 made radio contact last on January 23, 2003, almost 31 years after it was launched, by then nearly 7.5 billion miles from Earth.

Pioneer 10 was more faithful to its mission than anyone had a right to hope and went much farther than anyone dared to imagine. Here is why this little spacecraft offers such a great example of faithfulness. It kept doing what it was supposed to do longer than any NASA engineer anticipated. That is the definition of faithfulness.

God also wants us to be faithful. Paul described his coworker, Tychicus, this way in Ephesians 6:21. “…Tychicus will give you a full report about what I am doing and how I am getting along. He is a beloved brother and faithful helper in the Lord’s work.” (NLT)

Paul’s point is simply this: Tychicus was someone on whom he could rely to do the right thing consistently. He was a faithful, loyal friend this great apostle knew he could completely trust to do God’s work.

God wants each of us to be faithful too. The married are to be faithful to their spouses; parents committed to their children, friends loyal to one another, and employees reliable workers. In short, like Tychicus and Pioneer 10, we are to do what we are supposed to do consistently. Being faithful not only makes others’ lives better; it also makes us better people and dramatically improves our most important relationships.