Love: Being Responsible for Own Load

(2/19/17 Galatians Series)

ATTN: Do you think Sodom, which God destroyed in the Old Testament because it was so wicked, was worse than modern America? If you are unfamiliar, the Bible gives us an example of how wicked Sodom was in that  when the angels in the form of young men came to visit the city,  the men of Sodom demanded Lot who housed them to bring them out of the house so that they can have sex with them. And they tried to break down the door to get at them. That proved their wickedness and God annihilated the city.

If we could be on a time machine and went to Sodom and compared it to modern America, say LA or even Lakewood, I wonder if we would think Sodom was worse than America? Maybe the reason why we don’t feel America is all that bad is because we are born into it. If you were born in a sewer and lived in a sewer all your life, then you don’t realize how dirty the water is. And as a parent, I wonder if that’s how our children are going to be. Having no idea how wicked this society that we are living in is….

To be sure, we are living in end times. Because the Bible says that at end times, the people will grow increasingly wicked. Now, what will they be like? How wicked? 2 Tim 3:1 “There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good…  

In God’s book, a wicked person is not so much a man who straps a bomb to himself to blow up an airplane – that is wicked, yes – but also young people who create a shrine to themselves to tell their 650 friends all about who they are and what they ate for lunch, where they went for their vacation, and expect to get 120 likes on every post? They love themselves. They are all about themselves. The Bible calls that evil!  

I imagine that people in Sodom were like this – lovers of self – and God destroyed them all without a trace. So, when God comes into our lives, the primary sign that God really is in our lives – that we belong to God as His children – is that we become lovers of others, rather than the self. Now, that doesn’t mean that we become self-haters. A mature Christian is not a person who thinks, “Oh, I hate myself. I’m the worst. I’m ugly, fat, and dumb.” You are still focused on the self because it’s “I” “I” “I”! No. the opposite of self-love is other-love. Rather than focused on the self, you are now focused on others and their well-being – that’s Christian maturity.

And we’ve been saying that that is the natural outworking of the gospel taking root. When we understand what God has done for us – that Jesus died the death we should’ve died taking our punishment and lived the life we always wanted to live and given us the credit – we get broken by His love and we become God-centered and other-focused. In just about every letter that Paul wrote, he explains the gospel in the beginning of his letter, then he spells out what that gospel working itself out looks like. And the book of Galatians is no exception.  

We went over two of them last Sunday: 1) They strengthen sinners. 2) They bear one another’s burdens.

To summarize, a gathering of Christians should be like a public bath house – where only dirty people go to get themselves cleaned by scrubbing each other’s backs. So, God’s church should be uncomfortable. If you are surrounded by dirty people and their dead skin cells pile up around you, you will be uncomfortable. But be sure and know and some of that is yours! If a church is clean and filled only with people who are just like you, you are not at church. You are at a country club. What kind of body is it if every part is a left foot? The miracle is when these people who are from all different backgrounds and social groups come together because of the strongest commonality they share in Christ. And if they can become one, then that is a testament to the world that Jesus is real. John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Let’s now look at the other two that Paul says are the outworkings of the gospel.

3. We have responsibility to what God has given us

(v. 4)4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

Before, paul tells us to carry each other’s burdens, but here he tells us that we will have to bear our own load. What is Paul talking about? What is the burden that we are supposed to share and what is the load that we are not to share but bear on our own? The burden we are supposed to share is any hardship, suffering, or difficulties that we just cannot handle on our own. But the load that we are not to share is the exercising of our gifts and thus contributing to the body of Christ. In other words, our responsibility to the body of Christ. We each have a part in the body and we contribute to it. You can either be a consumer of the body or the contributor to the body. Now, if you are a babe in Christ, you just came to faith or you are at a season where you need to be ministered to, then definitely consume! Sit, rest and take it in. We’d love for you to recover and get healthy. But for all others, there is a limit to how much you can grow in Christ by just eating the word of God. Our pastors take extraordinary measures to feed you the pure milk of God week in and week out. But you know what happens to our bodies if all we are doing is eating and laying down to do nothing. The body grows fat and limp. It’s when we exercise that our body grows stronger and as a result, we have greater energy and joy to keep following Christ.

APP: If you are thinking right now, “I’m just not getting fed at this church,” it’s probably not that you are not getting fed, you are, but you are not working out and your body is unable to take in the nutrition that it needs that can only come as you are serving and putting out. Thus, you are not growing. And it feels like, spiritually, you are simply in a hamster wheel spinning round and round and getting nowhere.

If you are a Christian, you are given a gift. God gives each of us a gift not to serve ourselves but to serve the body. The gift could be an extension of your natural talent, or it could be something entirely different that God gave you when you became a Christian. How do you know if you are gifted in something? Let me put it very simply: It comes easily for you. Other people find it hard, but it comes easily for you. For example, talking to new people comes easily for you. You are an extrovert. You thrive when you are in a roomful of new people you’ve never met! Me? I’m an introvert. I get stressed out talking to new people. I’d much rather be in a room by myself with a book in my hand – good for teaching and preaching but not so great for greeting and welcoming. So, if meeting new people comes easily for you, be a greeter. We need 3 more to stand at the backdoor and welcome people in.

Other areas of need are spelled out for you in the sheet given to you last week and also on the table in the back. Some of you, you may be awkward around adults, but you are great around children. I think a lot of teachers tend to be that way. Awkward around other adults but great around children or teens. Consider giving your time and love to the children. We need Sunday School teachers that will be in the rotation to bring them up in the Lord.

Maybe you play an instrument or would like to learn. Consider helping with the worship team. We want to double-up on every position.

Some of you are naturally strong and you can carry stuff back and forth. We need people for the setup/breakdown. Yes, it will be sacrifice on your part that will only serve as a reminder that our king sacrificed infinitely more for us.

 

4. Keep doing good
5. 9 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

– Why is Paul urging the Galatians not to give up but keep investing in the lives of others? Because it’s hard. Paul himself has seen many Christians even in his days get weary and quit. They quit on him and quit on their faith. 2 Tim 4:10, “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” So, he’s not painting a rosy picture but a realistic one. It’s hard to live for others. Especially, in our generation when the question we ask before we take on anything task is: “What do I get out of it?” “How does it benefit me?” We are asking you to ask a completely different question: “How can I contribute to the kingdom?” “What would make God look good?” “How do I fit into HIS plan rather than fit Him into my plan.”

Well, it will have to be the Spirit of the Lord that will have to change our hearts for us to think like that. We are in our nature selfish. That’s what being born sinful is. We are born self-centered and we will die self-centered unless we become born again. God’s Spirit has to come in and change us so that we become God-centered and other-focused. But even for those for whom God’s spirit resides in, it is hard to keep doing good. Especially when there seems to be no fruit or there is so little to show for. And that is the downside in investing in people. You don’t see the result right away. Actually, you may never see it. People are the hardest animal to change. You can train your dog to do some tricks in a few months, but for people to change, it takes a life time. Just think about yourself. How many of you still struggle with something you struggled with 5-10 years ago? Hmm??? That life change is hard – in ourselves and in others. Actually, it’s down right impossible unless God directly intervened.

ILL: There are missionaries who had their first convert in their 7th year or some in their 10th year. They’ve given up everything to go to a disease-infested land like Burma or African to make disciples and they don’t see a single person coming to Christ until their 7th year. What kept them going? Not result. Not achieving their goals. But faith in God. And faith in His word – “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

God knows we will want to quit. He knows we will want to revert back to seeking after our own benefits and living for just ourselves. Because that’s easier. That’s what the world does and it’s always easier to go with the flow than to go against it and swim upstream. That is why with words like this He urges us to persevere and stay at task. Yes, take breaks. Take your Sabbath. But don’t quit serving God and serving others.

“But what if I don’t feel like serving, pastor? Isn’t it dishonest to force it when I don’t feel like serving others?” C.S. Lewis was asked this question once and here was his reply. “What do you do when you don’t feel like loving others?” He said,  “Act as if you did.” In other words, even if you don’t feel love at the moment, act as if you did and do the loving thing for the person. And you will presently come to love him in due time. “So… basically fake it till you make it?” Thought you’d say that. No. Lead it till it follows. Lead what? Your heart. Lead your heart. Your heart and my heart is wicked and it wants to only cater to itself. And it will tell you that  to be true to yourself is to be true to your feelings. And so if you don’t feel like loving others, then it’s hypocritical or you to be act loving when you don’t really love them – that is your deceitful heart talking to you. So, rather than following your heart like the world tells us to, lead it. You say to your heart, “shut up, heart. What’s right is not what you feel but what God said.” I’m not going to obey you but obey God. I am going to give myself to others, I am going to put others’ needs before mine, I am going to avail myself to others even if my wicked heart doesn’t want to. And you will find that C.S. Lewis was right. You will presently come to love them because you acted as if you did.

CONC: The gospel, when it takes root, will make us be about others. It has to. And Galatians 6 tells us that that means 1) we are strengthening sinners, 2) we bear one another’s burdens, 3) we take responsibility for what God has given us and 4) Keep doing good until He takes us home.