Holy Character: Loyalty

Our series for Lent is Holy Character. Over the next six weeks we will be reading through Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. And each week we will lift up a virtue or characteristic that God wants to form in us as followers of Jesus Christ. This Holy Character should be deeply embedded both in our lives and in the life of our church.

Season	Series	Date	Reading	Key Word
Lent 1	Holy Character	03-06	Ruth 1:6-22	Loyalty
Lent 2	Holy Character	03-13	1 Samuel 3:1-21	Attentiveness
Lent 3	Holy Character	03-20	1 Samuel 16:1-13	Character
Lent 4	Holy Character	03-27	1 Kings 3:1-15	Wisdom
Lent 5	Holy Character	04-03	2 Kings 19:1-18	Hope
Lent 6	Holy Character	04-10	2 Kings 23:1-14	Obedience

Last week in my blog post, I reminded us of the three important lessons from the opening chapters of Genesis that frame everything we will read in the Bible.

1. God has made us in the divine image and we part of a good and beautiful creation. (Gen 1:26-27)
2. We struggle with a downward spiral of sin, rebellion, and disobedience. (Genesis 3-4)
3. God never gives up on creation, including us, but continually works for our redemption and restoration. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 5:17-6:2; Galatians 3:26-29).

This series on Holy Character is about #3.  God has redeemed us through Jesus Christ. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, God is at work in our lives to restore us into that good and beautiful divine image, into the image of Christ. That is what the Christian life is about.

And what God is seeking to do within each of us is tied directly to the mission of the church itself. And that mission is tied directly to the Covenant God made with Abraham.

Why did God call forth this one family group? And why did he give this family group all these commandments and laws and rituals? As we learned in our study of the Torah, it was so that they could be holy as God is holy. And God wants them to be holy so that all the other peoples of the world could see how they were living and treating one another, and come to know and understand who God is.

So Holy Character is about what God is forming in us, and it is also the very heart of our church’s mission in the world.  Does our character as Christians, the way we live, the way we treat one another, the way we serve the most vulnerable show others who God is?

We begin with loyalty. And we see that holy virtue nowhere as profoundly as in the Book of Ruth. Ruth is one of the most beautiful books in the Bible and it gives us a respite from the long account of Israel’s history of failures and unfaithfulness. The book of Ruth gives us just a glimpse of what God actually intends for his people.  For me the heart of the story is Ruth’s speech to Naomi in chapter one:

“Don’t urge me to abandon you, to turn back from following after you. Wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do this to me and more so if even death separates me from you.” (1:16-17)

We really can watch this story unfold understand the nature of our God – a God who is fiercely loyal and faithful, generous and protective. And when others see in us that same loyalty we see in Ruth towards Naomi, they get a glimpse of God.

On Sunday, I invited the congregation to reflect on someone who had shown great loyalty to them during a difficult moment in their lives. Who was there for you in your moments of grief or pain, humiliation or shame, in the midst of your hardest struggles and deepest doubts?  Who walked with you during those times? Who never left you or turned their backs on you? Who always picked up the phone when you called? Who refused to leave to face the future alone? In other words – who was a loyal friend and companion?  

Can you bring that person into your mind?  Whoever that was and is for you – that’s what loyalty looks like. That’s love made real. That is holy character.

And then I asked the congregation this question: who would bring YOU to mind if I asked them those same questions? To whom have you been loyal in that same way?

Being loyal to one another in this way is at the heart of what it means to be the church. Our loyalty to one another, particularly in the most difficult moments, is the essential expression of what it means to be the Body of Christ. And that loyalty is one of our greatest testimonies to the world of the character of the God we worship.

We know of God’s loyalty to us through the testimony of scripture. We see that loyalty no more succinctly than in Paul’s words in Romans 5:8 – God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us – and in Romans 8:38-39 – For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God has made this commitment to us. God is not leaving us, no matter what. That is the good news we proclaim in Jesus Christ.

And so we give thanks to God for the people in our lives who have been fiercely loyal to us – who have been faithful, generous, and protective. We are grateful for the ways they have walked with us and loved us.

And we ask forgiveness for the times we have failed to be there for others in the same way.

And we ask for the courage to reflect God’s love and loyalty to us in Jesus Christ in our marriages and families, in our friendships, and in our commitment to our church family.