Sunday message · Wrestling with Love series
Listen to the message
Message Summary
Pastor Phillip Santillan closes the Wrestling with Love series, which began on Easter Sunday, with a fruit of the Spirit the series had skipped: faithfulness (Galatians 5:16–23). Everyone wants to be loved better, and the series has shown how God produces in us a love we could never sustain on our own. Paul writes, Phil says, that following the Holy Spirit helps us remain faithful to the love of Jesus.
Faith, Phil explains, is an action based on relationship, not mental agreement with an idea. Even the demons believe. When he married, he had no certainty about the future, only enough trust in his wife to commit, and his faith was in her rather than in the institution of marriage. Doctrine matters, but our faith rests in the person of Jesus; following him is a relationship built on trust, not a religion built on certainty. Hebrews 11:1 calls faith the assurance of things hoped for. Faith admits it cannot be certain of the future, but based on all it knows of Jesus and his promises, it commits to following and obeying him.
The promise, in Ephesians 1:9–10, is that God will bring everything in heaven and on earth under the authority of Christ, when death gives way to life, hatred to love and discord to harmony. God can be trusted because he is faithful. Scripture shows God’s pattern of promise and fulfillment, even when his people broke covenant. What first broke the relationship between God and humanity was a lack of trust, the belief that God was holding back something they deserved, and ever since, God has been rebuilding that trust. As 2 Timothy says, if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is.
The greatest display of God’s faithfulness is Jesus. People rejected, beat, crucified, denied and deserted him, yet he came back from the dead offering forgiveness and pursuing us with what some call reckless love, inviting us to be God’s children and co-heirs with Christ. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), and anyone who has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9). He was faithful even in the face of death.
Phil then pauses to recognize what God has already produced at Clarity. After nearly five years, he thanks his wife and many others whose Spirit-produced faithfulness made the church possible: people who said yes to a church plant no one knew, early leaders who shaped its culture of hospitality, and those who served, hosted small groups, watched children, led worship and gave generously. His hope, he says, is not in people but in a great God who works through people who submit to him.
The gathering ends by honoring a staff member who is stepping down to begin a new season. Phil explains that he has always wanted Clarity to handle ministry transitions more like a family than like corporate America, and he invites the church to pray a blessing over him, trusting that God remains faithful in every season, even uncertain ones.