But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

We've been thinking about these words and we've come today to the third and last triad

of graces in Paul's description of the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the Christian

believer.

Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Today it's faithfulness.

Sometimes the reason a marriage breaks up as people say is because one spouse was unfaithful.

It's the kind of question actually young people should always ask before they go any further

in a relationship, isn't it?

Do I have some sense that this is the kind of young man or young woman who will be faithful?

That's important.

And actually it's of the essence of being able to respect someone.

You can't respect a person, you can't trust to be faithful.

And actually you shouldn't marry someone, you can't respect.

It's always been very interesting to me that the words for faithfulness and faith in the

Old Testament have the same root as the word Amen.

Faithfulness is just saying an ongoing Amen to the commitments that we've made.

God has given us a model of what this means, we don't have to make it up because we see

it perfectly expressed in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus.

The author of Hebrews tells us that in serving as the apostle and high priest of our confession,

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