just about there. We have just this week and next left in Galatians and then we'll be beginning in Colossians with Daniel preaching and we look forward to a great time in God's Word together. There are times in the Bible when you read and there is a superficial message that comes across to you as you read the particular text that you're in. And then you realize years later that the text is saying a whole lot more than what you thought it said. And this is the wonderful thing about the Bible. It's infinite and it causes us to, well, it's a treasure trove that lasts a lifetime of studying it, just put it that way. And we begin to understand this particular text today Galatians chapter 6 and verses 6 through 10 is just such a text. There is a superficial way to read this passage and understand the need to persevere and to hang in there when the going gets tough and all of that. It's just wonderful. But underlying this particular message on the surface is a much deeper message about the need for us to do good to everyone in order that we might have eternal life. Now, this sounds like a message that's going to be a works salvation. It's not meant to be that at all. In fact, we believe just the opposite here at Galena Bible Church. We believe that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. There's no question about that. But this passage is here to tell us that without good works, without the good that we do to other people, there is no evidence that we truly do belong to Christ. And we probably should question our salvation if there's no evidence in our lives that we are doing good to all people. Now, keep those words in mind as we go through the text. I think I can prove this from the text, but stay with me. This is a very controversial passage, and you may want to walk out of the room during the middle of the sermon if you disagree with what I'm going to say, but please hear me out. I think you're going to see the importance of this text in our lives today. The context of Galatians, as you well know, is that of Paul writing to Christian Gentiles in Galatia, warning them about a group of Jewish false teachers that have been coming around trying to convince these brand-newly planted churches in Galatia of the need to adopt Mosaic law in their churches. In other words, they're trying to go backwards in the clock of redemptive history. They're trying to bring Gentile Christians under Judaism in order to be saved, number one, circumcision, and then number two, to progress in their Christian lives. Just contrary to what Paul has been teaching them. Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Are we to live our lives as it were by a set of rules and regulations, or are we now not under the authority of the old Mosaic code, but under the law of Christ. Are we living as people who are under grace? Which is actually a much higher standard, legalistically speaking. The standard of Christ is so much higher. But we have the Holy Spirit who is empowering us, who is motivating us, who is giving us the ability to be obedient so that the righteousness that's required by the law can be fulfilled in us. I mean, it's an amazing story when you stop and think about it, what God has done with Christ. Paul quickly recognizes that this movement of Jewish false teachers within these Gentile Galatian churches is not the gospel. It is not the gospel that he and Barnabas had proclaimed so faithfully just probably within the last year before this letter was written, about A.D. 48, as he writes this letter. And so he's urgent in his plea to them to not adopt this false teaching because these men are not men of God. And it's very important that we get the same message today when we have a tendency to slip into legalism, to not adopt a Mosaic Code as our law when we're under the law of Christ. That's what he's trying to say. He knew that what was at stake was the core Christian doctrine of justification by faith, and he emphasizes that so strongly in this passage. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We're declared right before God, not on the basis of any works that we have done, but based upon the works that Christ has done. and what he has accomplished on the cross in our behalf. He died on the cross for our sins. And it's up to us to simply rest in what he has done. To believe it, to receive it as our own, to adopt that as our own, and to come into the presence of God bringing nothing in our hands, but a desire for Him. Only God can do that in a person's heart and life, and I pray this morning, if He has not done that in your heart and life yet, that He will do that this morning and cause you to understand that grace. The gospel is good news because it's all of God. It's not of us at all. It's not a meritorious system that we strive after to earn our way to heaven. We earn nothing before God. So, as we live our Christian lives today, much as the Galatian Christians did in the first century, ours is to understand that we are now free in Christ. We are no longer under this authority of the Mosaic Law, the Ten Commandments, particularly the circumcision and food laws to boot. That is, we are now under the authority of the New Covenant, the agreement that God has made with us to forgive our sins, to put His law within us, to enable us to truly know Him as per Jeremiah's promise in the New Covenant, Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34. The beauty of the New Covenant, though, is that it comes to us Yes, with the agency of Christ, he's the mediator of the new covenant, but it comes to us with the power of the Holy Spirit, which has the ability to change us, to take away the addictions that we have, to take away all of the sins that we deal with each and every day. In this context, the New Covenant context of the dynamic working of the Holy Spirit in individual believers, it's in this context that Paul commands us here in Galatians 6 to do things like this, to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. It is a requirement for us to be prepared to stand on our own, to bear our own burden before the Lord in judgment on the last day. We covered both of those seemingly contradictory topics last week as we went through verses one through five. We're to bear one another's burdens, but at the same time, we're to realize that we are going to one day bear our own burden before God. We're gonna stand, each one of us, individually before God. I cannot stand before you. for you before God. You have to deal with God directly on that last day. And that's what He's trying to prepare them for, and that is what makes this passage in verses 6 through 10 today so important. Because what He's trying to do is prepare us for that day when we will stand before God ourselves. Please follow as I read this passage this morning. It's a wonderful, short passage, and then we'll dive in and try to get through here very quickly. Galatians 6 and verse 6, I'll be reading from the English Standard Version. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. It's a big if. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. May God bless to us this reading of his word. Let me just pray for us momentarily. Father, we thank you for the gospel. We thank you for its simplicity. We thank you that it's the good news of a God who loved us so much that he gave his son to die for us. And yet, Lord, we thank you for its complexities, too, in that in this plan of redemption, you have worked a way to go from the Old Testament to the New in ways that are very difficult for us to understand. But, Lord, all of the Old Testament points us to Jesus. And this morning we want to see Him. Help us, Lord, to respond to Him today, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. If we are to have eternal life, and this is the main idea that we're going after today, if we are to have eternal life by means of the Spirit, we must do good to everyone. And I don't think he's talking about everyone without exception, every group of people, every category of people. We're to do our utmost to do good to those whom God brings across our paths. This is a command. It's an imperative that we're to do good. Let the one who is taught in the word, he starts off with this command, let the one who is taught the word of God share all things with the one who teaches. Verse six, let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. The word share here is the Greek verb koinoneo, you've probably heard that word, koinonea is the noun form of it. It means to share, to have fellowship with, but to share, the idea here is that if you're truly a believer, you're going to share in the support of the ministers of the gospel. That's what he's going after here. One who has taught the word, let the one who has taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. We don't talk a lot about finances here at Colleen Bible Church. We try to minimize any public needs for money because we believe that God's people will always provide for the need of God's work, no matter where. He'll do it in His way. Hudson Taylor believed that. We believe that as well. But where Paul talks to it, we've got to talk to it, okay? And here he talks to the need for us to pay our pastors, okay? So we've got to say it. This is important. There's hardly any doubt here that what Paul is talking about sharing here is financial things, i.e. money, okay? Things that you would do to support the pastor and the ministry of the gospel. The Galatians clearly, from this passage we can tell, had full-time workers in the gospel working in their churches. In other words, there were people who were preaching and teaching the Word of God on a full-time basis who were intended to be supported by the believers in those local churches. And so Paul is telling them to do just that, to make sure that these people have the money they need to live on. If you're benefiting from a preacher's ministry, you need to free him up from the responsibilities of providing food and shelter for his family, so that he has time to get into the Word of God, to teach it, to preach it, to live it, to pray, and to work among the people among whom God has placed him, supporting him and his family financially, and evidence of one having eternal life. is a congregation that is determined to support its leader. That's an evidence that eternal life is present in that church, that they're individuals individually, but collectively as a church, this life is present in the church because of this desire. It's evidenced by this desire to support the leader that God has given them. The idea is that of a sufficient wage upon which to live. Now, the New Testament teaching on this is very, very helpful. It goes different directions, and I just want to run these three points. I don't have these in your outline, but just so you understand that there is more than one way to approach this subject. The first principle of the three is that the preacher has a right to receive the salary. When Jesus sent out the 72, you may remember from Luke 10, he said, for the laborer deserves his wages, These people are to stay in one place and they're to eat and drink in the houses in which they go because the labor is worthy of his wages. So someone who preaches the gospel according to Jesus should be supported by God's people. That's the bottom line there. The Apostle Paul quotes the same command of Jesus in 1 Corinthians. He says, in the same way the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospels should get their living by the gospel. It's okay for a person to receive money for preaching the gospel. And then again, in 1 Timothy, he talks about the elders ruling well. Let those elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honors. Talking about financial support, especially those who labor in preaching and in teaching. The PCA has a nice little slogan. I liked this when I read it. Congregation are to leave their ministers, and I quote, free from worldly care. I like that. Free from worldly care. In other words, we're to not make food and shelter something that distracts them from the ministry of the word of God. So that's the first principle. The preacher has a right to receive the salary that we give him. Secondly, the congregation has a duty to provide that salary. We the people are committed to provide that salary. This passage is the premier passage. Let the one who has taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. The word share is koinonia, it's not a tax, it's a sharing of God's goods with the person that God has placed in our leadership who is full-time preaching and teaching the word of God. It takes time and energy to put together a sermon. There's a standard joke in pastorhood about, you only work one hour a week anyway, what's the problem? Well, there's a little bit in that iceberg below the surface, visit the sick, counseling, administering the church, dealing with church conflicts, correcting error that pops up in the church, being available at any time of the day or the night that things pop up. This is just part of the deal, okay? And all pastors understand that when they get into it. All elders understand this when they get into it. And in Paul's mind, this requires that the congregation be the one to respond sacrificially to support this ministry. And I hope that you all will do that in the future of Killeen Bible Church, that you will understand the need. We don't make pleas from the pulpit for this, but we're preaching this because it's in the text today. This principle is not just in the New Testament, of course, it goes back to the old as well. There was an annual tithe for the Israelites that was pretty high. Most people know the 10% rule, you've heard that one, right? But it actually goes up to, Joe taught this class some years ago, my eyes were open. 25% is what it reaches to when you add in all the head taxes and everything that went with the support that they were to provide. the leaders, the religious leaders of Israel, the priests and the Levites. They were supported by the congregation. This is not a new thing in the New Testament. But there is a third principle. So you've got the pastors do the support, the congregation is required to support them. The third principle is, it's also the preacher's right to deny that support. And this does happen. It sounds a little counterintuitive, but the man who gives us the most instruction on this matter of pastor salaries himself denied salaries from at least three different churches. The Apostle Paul would not take it from Corinth, from Ephesus, and from Thessalonica. In Corinth, he had the desire to not be beholden to these folks for preaching the gospel. He didn't want it to be construed as something they were paying in order to receive. the gospel evangelism. In other words, he wanted to be free of charge. Let me use his words. 1 Corinthians 9, 18, what then is my reward that in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel? So what he's saying is I have the right to take money from Corinth, but I'm not going to do it. Because in this particular instance, I believe it's gonna detract from the gospel. 1 Corinthians 9 is full of all these rights that Paul says he has. But he denies those rights. He has the right to take along a wife and he denies himself that privilege because it's gonna inhibit him in his particular situation from proclaiming the gospel. And so he supports himself in Corinth. Thessalonica, you may, for you remember, brothers, our labor and toil, we work day and night that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you the gospel of God. So Paul refuses a salary from the Thessalonians so that he might be able to proclaim the gospel to them freely. It's an amazing thing that he does. He doesn't want to be a burden to anybody, so he works all day and preaches all night. I don't know what his schedule was, but he divided himself as a person who was what we call today bi-vocational. He ministers in the gospel and works at the same time. We have a lot of people who do that because they don't have the support that they need, but Paul elected to do that. Remember what his job was, he was a tent maker. So he worked with his hands. And Thessalonica, the third place, it's even more interesting. That was Thessalonica, I'm sorry. It's more interesting in Thessalonica because there were people there who were not working who should have been working. In other words, they were lazy, okay? And so he rebukes them for their idleness and exhorts them. And yet he's there to help them in their weakness. The third place is Ephesus. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel, he says in Acts chapter 20 about Ephesus. You yourselves know that these hands, he's talking about his own hands, ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. So these people who should have been supporting the apostle Paul were being supported by Paul financially because he worked with his hands and gave to those who were in need. following the example of the Lord Jesus, who said, it's more blessed to give than to receive. So these three examples show us that there are different directions, different dimensions of this matter of a pastor's salary. He deserves the salary, the congregation is responsible to provide it, but the preacher himself may refuse it. for whatever reason, and there could be lots of reasons why a preacher would refuse the salary. D.A. Carson gave, I think, some of the wisest words on this subject years ago. I just happened to catch this sermon in Timothy that he was preaching. He says that the ideal situation in any given church, and he was raised as a pastor's son, so he saw good times and bad times in the money side of things in the household. He said that the ideal situation is the one in which the minister is saying, you're paying me too much. and the congregation is saying, we're not paying you enough. That's the healthy situation. That's where you wanna be. That's the sweet spot. If you can hit that, you're really, now frequently, that's hardly ever the case, but that's usually, it's usually wrong on one side or the other. When you get those two reversed is when you have major conflict within the body of Christ. So keep it there. As you support the pastor here in this particular church, make sure that you take care of him. you're taking care of God's servant in the gospel. Well secondly, we must sow to the spirit and not to the flesh. He covers in verses seven and eight. These are things that we must do in the gospel as a response to the gospel. The need to sow to the spirit, not the flesh. I'm gonna read these two verses and then we'll comment. Galatians six and verse seven. Do not be deceived. God is not martyred. For whatever one sows, that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. What Paul's doing here is tapping on an age-old maxim. This is not new. Whatever you sow, you will reap. Okay, we all know that one. You've all heard that many times. It's not unique to the Bible, but Paul uses this maxim to teach us a truth. There's no rocket science here. It's true and demonstrably true in every area of life. If you plant apple seeds, what do you get, kids? You get apples, okay, eventually. Get a tree first, then apples. If you plant 50 years of alcohol abuse, then you're going to reap memory loss, heart conditions, liver conditions, pancreas problems. If you plant no discipline in your homes, okay, if that's the seed you're planting in your homes, you're going to reap indiscipline in later years. And your kids eventually will get that discipline that they didn't get from you, from law enforcement, or worse. You will just pass the problem off to their teachers and the police later. If you plant unforgiveness in your relationships with others, what are you gonna reap in the long term? You're gonna reap bitterness in the long term. You'll have physical results, you'll have spiritual results. It's awful when people will not forgive. And if you plant that unforgiveness and you nurture that grudge over the years, you're gonna reap the results. This is a law of nature. It's going to happen. If you sow something, you will reap it. And what Paul says here to expand on this even more is that sowing to the flesh reaps destruction. And this gets into the hard to talk about area that I think we need to talk about in this text. He takes it one step further. He contrasts sowing the flesh with sowing to the spirit in verse eight. Let me just read this verse. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, or could be translated destruction. But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. What he's doing is applying this particular text in this passage and causing us to understand that there is a contrast between the flesh and the spirit that he's been building on throughout the book of Galatians. And I hope you all have been picking up on this as we go through. In verses 19 through 21 of chapter five, he talks about the works of the flesh. Let me just remind you of what these works of the flesh are. By the way, the flesh is our old man, what we were before we came to Christ. If that had continued, here's where we would be. sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. This is what the works of the flesh are. If you sow these works, If you sow the flesh, these are the works that you're going to produce. These are the things that you're going to come up with. It's inevitable. It's a law of nature. If we plant these things or elements, the beginning of any of these things in our lives, we can expect problems later. And Paul says, God is not mocked. Don't be deceived. God is not mocked. He is no fool. He is going to hold people accountable before him. Remember the bearing your own burden back in verse five. We're all gonna stand before Christ and we're gonna have to give an account for how we lived our lives on this earth, either as believers, having our works judged, or as unbelievers, having our works judged for eternal conscious punishment. Now, this is the work of the flesh. If we sow to the flesh, these are the things that are going to happen, and they will multiply in our lives. And he says, don't be deceived, God is not mocked. The one thing the evil one wants to convince everyone of in our culture today is that these things are no problem. You can choose your human sexuality. The lies in our culture just go on and on and on and on. You can be whatever gender you want to be. The sins of our culture are having a huge effect upon our kids and their thinking, and our society right now is more tolerant to these kinds of sins than it ever has been before. The sins have always been there. But the attitude toward these sins is changing. We're like the proverbial frog getting cooked, and the water is gradually being ramped up, tempered up. Everything that you do, young people, in your lives today shapes who you're going to be when you're a grownup. And yes, God can come back and he can do miracles in our lives. He can cause our attitudes to change, and he can take away all the wasted years. He can do all that. I grant that. There are some things that can't change. Once you wreck your kidneys, they're gone, okay? Once you wreck your physical health, you're gone. You're not getting a new body until the new creation comes. And as far as the spiritual calluses in our lives, as we go through these sins, we're missing the opportunity to grow spiritually during the time that we're feeding on these works of the flesh. And they're having irreversible effects upon our personhood. And they do affect us. It's so amazing to see the grace of God work in a person's life, and a person gets saved, and these works of the flesh are done away with, and in come the works of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It's wonderful to see God's grace at work in our lives, but how much better it would be If we got this straightened out early in life, and we began dealing with these sins, so that the work of the Spirit begins early in our lives. This is what we want for our children, obviously. We want them to know the Word of God, we want them to grow in grace, and so we present the gospel to them. Not a set of rules to obey. Do this and God will be pleased with you. But do these things because the Holy Spirit will give you the ability to do them if you're truly a believer. And what God will do is create a desire in our hearts for these things. Sowing to the flesh will reap bad stuff. The word for corruption used here is the word that's used, as I said, for destruction. It's also used for dissolution, depravity, and the like. In other words, there's a corrupting influence that takes place in our lives when we sow to our own flesh. Now, because this word, sow to the flesh, in verse, part A of verse eight, is contrasted with sowing to the spirit, producing eternal life, in part B of verse eight, that tells me that what Paul has here, and this is the underlying message of the text, if you will, the overt message is very obvious, but the underlying message here is what he's really talking about is eternity. What he's really talking about is where we're destined to go after we die. A life that is marked with the fruit of the Spirit in whom God has worked the Spirit is going to heaven. In other words, if the Spirit is being manifest as a result of, I should say, the fruit of the Spirit is being manifest by the work of the Spirit in a person's life, the end result is eternal life. Not that the person has worked his way or earned his way, but because he's demonstrated that the Spirit is within him by these attitudes, by these virtues, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, all the nine fruits that are mentioned here in this particular passage. Whereas, if the other fruits are evident, the works of the flesh that we just mentioned a moment ago are evident, and they're not corrected for, in other words, they're never repented of, there's no turnaround in the person's life, they're indicative of the fact this person is not a believer. And so if you look at your life today, and none of us can say we've got pure lives, none of us can say we're sinless. John tells us if anybody says he has no sin, he's a liar. But what we should be seeing is a work of the Spirit in our lives so that these characteristics become dominant within our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. And the works of the flesh become less and less evident. This is what sanctification is all about. God is constantly chiseling away at us, chipping away everything that is not a work of the Spirit, everything that is not a fruit of the Spirit, everything that is not Christ-like. That's what's going on in sanctification. I am very confident, after having read this passage a bunch of times, that this is where he's going with this passage. This works of the flesh and this fruit of the spirit, this conflict is going on in our lives right now. And what is the difference between the two? It's the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit who makes the difference in our hearts and gives us the desires to do these things. Paul is not holding back at all here. What he's doing is laying everything on the table, giving the Galatian Christians a severe warning. about what will happen if they pursue legalism, if they pursue the works of the flesh. That's where legalism ends up, by the way. You jump into the pit of licentiousness from legalism. That's almost always what happens. And what happens is you're sealing the fact that you are not a believer if you continue to live in the works of the flesh. In other words, he's trying to scare them half to death, okay? I don't know about you, but I need that. I need to be brought up short, and I need to understand I need to understand what is going on in my life. You all need to do it. Now the difference is the Holy Spirit. Let me give you three different phrases Paul uses. These are very helpful. What does it mean? What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? There are three phrases, I think, that mean essentially the same thing. Verse 16 of chapter 5, we're to walk by the Spirit. That is, we're to walk under the control of the Holy Spirit, live under the control of the Holy Spirit. Verse 18, chapter 5, we're to be led by the Spirit. And then verse 25, he says it a different way, we're to keep in step with the Spirit, like a military formation stays in line. Have you ever seen a band march at halftime in a football game? They all stay in a line. We're to stay in step with the Spirit. Now in a passage today, he says it's still a different way. We're to sow to the Spirit. were to sow to the Spirit. We can't see the Holy Spirit, and yet the Spirit is working in our lives as believers in ways that we're just so grateful for, giving us a desire to be obedient to Christ, and then giving us the ability to be obedient to Christ. Now, if a person is not a Christian, they're not indwelt by the Spirit. And so if you don't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you're not going to have the ability to have victory over these sins in your life. And I think Paul would end up on a very positive note here and give us this message of hope that there are ways that we could by means of the Spirit of God and with the Word of God, work with our children to cause them to understand what the Word of God says. Not in a moralistic, be good mentality, do these things and God will be pleased with you. That's the temptation with kids. That's the way you raise young Pharisees, by the way. We need to be teaching them the gospel of the grace of God. They were all born sinners. We all have a natural inclination that's contrary to God. Romans chapter five and verse 12, the doctrine of original sin, we're born that way. We're born with hearts that desire to please ourselves and it takes the grace of God coming into our hearts to change us. I think Paul would say in our passage here to us this morning is we need to teach our kids the grace of God by letting them know that the only way that they can be free of sin. The only way that they can have victory over sin, the only way they can stop lying or tattling or whatever sin that they're involved in right now, the minimal sins that they're involved in right now, is to have the Holy Spirit of God working in their heart. And to have that happen, they've got to know Christ. And so the most important thing we can teach them is the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. He will cleanse our hearts. He will cleanse our iniquities. from the standpoint of living the Christian life, give us the ability to have victory over pornography later on. Give us the victory to have the ability to stop telling lies. The ability to do what we ought to do as parents and as husbands and wives. we all need to take note, because if we fail to do these things, it's indicative of bad things concerning us. He winds up in verse nine with this statement, and let us not grow weary in doing good. For in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. That's a strange verse. That's not the way you would expect it to end. Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap, and then he adds, if we do not give up. It almost sounds like a works righteousness, doesn't it? But when you think about what he's saying, our perseverance to the end, our continuing in the faith until the end, our avoidance of falling into the works of the flesh that we just described a moment ago, our avoidance of these things is an indicator that God is working in our lives, that the grace of God has had a powerful influence in our lives, indicating that we are truly his, that we belong to him. It's when we abandon the faith, it's when we throw it all in the trash can. And by the way, this happens to professing Christians all the time. Every day there's someone new turning away from the faith. And what they're showing is that they never truly had that grace operative in their hearts and lives, because if they did, they would have persevered. They would not have gone away. John had this problem, people leaving them, not leaving his church, but leaving Christianity. as he writes his epistle. They were among us, but they were not of us. And they left. And this happens all the time as people realize that they're really not true believers, and they fall into the sins that they have condemned publicly for many, many years. Do not lose heart, he says in several passages. Do not grow weary. Do not lose heart. I've always taken that as an admonition just to persevere to the end. But what he's saying here is something even stronger than that. If we grow weary of doing good, we're demonstrating the fact that we are truly not believers. Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap. What did we say you reap as a result? You reap eternal life. And so when you abandon the faith and you go the way of the flesh, What you end up with is you're on the course to eternal death, to eternal corruption, to eternal destruction. That's what this passage is saying, I do believe. And I could be wrong, but this is, the people I really trust in interpreting the scripture, this is the wrath that they see. And I see it very clearly in the passage. There's a huge urgency, not just an encouragement to finish, it's an encouragement to finish well so that you might finish. Okay? It's an encouragement to finish well because you know that if you deviate from the life that God has given you to live, you're indicating that you don't have that new life. And it's meant to scare us half to death. If we give up, are we ever tempted to give up? If anyone in this room told me they'd never been tempted to give up, I would not believe you, okay? When we do that, what we're saying, when we get ready to abandon the faith, what we're saying is that we do not have the spirit within us. Now, there is hope. And what God does here is he gives them one last thing to close this text out. He says, we have opportunity. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone. and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. There's another passage, which we didn't read in 1 Timothy 5, which talks about the person who doesn't provide for his relatives is worse than an infidel. So there's actually, I think, three levels to this support requirement that we have. It's the families, it's the believers in the church, and then it's the world at large. We are responsible for mercy ministry. We are responsible to provide help for people in need. We are to do that. Christianity has brought hospitals and all kinds of treatment programs to this world to help people who have been suffering, and we need to see that continue. We need to see it grow. We need to be more involved in jail ministry. We need to be more involved in food closets and pantries and things to help. That is not the gospel, but it is an evidence of the gospel having taken place in our lives. We're to do good. We're to actually do something. It's got to show up in our lives. And what Paul is saying in this text, if that is not there, we need to take a look to see if the gospel is there at all. especially to those who are of the household faith. There's a question about where we're to give our money. I think this is a good lesson for us as leadership. We're to focus upon people within the body first. We're to give priority to people within the body. Of course, care for our own families first, but as far as the body is concerned, we can take care of them first and then have an outreach that goes beyond that. This is not a social gospel, this is not along the lines of just paying attention to the second table of the law, you'll hear that talked about a lot today, a social gospel that's very popular today. No, but Paul has made very clear that we're not saved by the law, we're not saved by doing these things, we're saved by faith, but the genuine faith that we have received as children of God will always be shown by our works. If we truly believe Christ, we'll be interested in helping those who are in need around us. We'll be interested in finding them, discerning whether the need is genuine. That's always a problem in mercy ministry, isn't it? You have to determine that the need is genuine. You gotta sort through all that, fix the wisdom. Gotta be wise as serpents and harmless as does, figuring out how to spend God's money. But we're to be aggressive and go after that and help people who are in need. How do we do that? How do we do that? We can't do it by ourselves. We've got to have the Holy Spirit of God giving us the desire to cross that mercy ministry boundary. We've got to have that motivation to cause us to have an effect upon our culture. This is how slavery was reversed in England by a man of God in Parliament who persisted until the slaves were freed. It's the way so much mercy has been done in our own country through hospitals and the like. This happens as a result of the Holy Spirit of God working within us. We must walk by the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, stay in step with the Spirit. And this is where we are today. Do you have the Holy Spirit? Do you have the Savior working in your heart, giving you Giving you the gospel today, do you understand that Jesus died for sinners like you? Do you repent and believe the fact that he died on the cross for your sins? When that happens, that means God has done a work in your heart, a work of the Holy Spirit that has caused your eyes to come open and understand what's going on, what your relationship really is with him. I call you today to repent and believe the gospel. for Christians today, I would just say a few comments in closing, these are in your notes. We are responsible to do good, that is to invest ourselves in all kinds of people, people outside of our normal circles. We must fully support our ministers. That's in this passage. These are all evidences of what God does to evidence true, genuine faith. We need to sow to the Spirit. We need to invest in the kingdom. All of us have money that God has given us. We don't have anything that we have not received, and he wants us to give it to him. If we're to finish, we must finish well. I can't say this strongly enough. You have to finish right before the Lord. Don't give up. We must have God's priorities in our mercy ministry, families, believers, and then unbelievers. Well, may God do his work, a work of grace in our hearts to cause us to see the need to believe him. Let us pray. Father, I just ask that you will use this passage to change our minds and our hearts with respect to our responsibilities for the good of the people around us. in our families, in our church, in our world, with our pastors. Father, I pray that you'd cause us to understand what it means to have eternal life. Help us to sow to the Spirit that we might reap eternal life, we ask in Jesus' name.