Thank God for Teachers!
Galatians 6:1-18
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - July 29, 2007
*We are not always as grateful as we ought to be. Here’s part of a quiz Richard Burkey put together to help measure your gratitude.
*Question 1: You are in the 10 item, cash only line with your 2 cans of green beans, 1 can of soup and a fresh $20 bill in your hand.
-The person in front of you has 15 items and a checkbook in their back pocket.
-How do you respond?
A. Gratitude for the Green Bean Bake your family will enjoy.
Or B. -- Yell at the cashier, “Checkout line violation! 15 items! 15 items!”
Question 2:
*You are driving your daughter to school, and as you drop her off, the car in front of you decides to just park there -- trapping you in the school parking lot.
-How do you respond?
A. You look out the window and give thanks for this time to stop and smell the roses and car fumes.
B. Grab the steering wheel tighter as steam comes out of your ears.
Or C. -- Honk your horn continuously until you sound out in Morse code: “Move your car!” (1)
*We are not always as grateful as we ought to be -- But today is Teacher Appreciation Day, and we really should be grateful for our teachers. Their faithful service is priceless!
*How can we show our appreciation to our teachers? There are all kinds of things we could and should do:
-Tell them.
-Send them a card.
-Have a party in their honor.
-Give them a token gift of appreciation.
*All of these things are good, but the best way to honor your teacher is to live out the truths they are teaching you.
1. In these verses, this first means treating other people with mercy.
*Godly teachers teach us to have mercy, as Paul does here in vs. 1-2, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
*“Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” He is talking about the law of love that the Lord gave us in John 13:34&35, where Jesus said:
34. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
35. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
*The only way that we can fully obey the law of love is to bear each other’s burdens. This takes kindness and love -- But sometimes it also takes forgiveness and mercy, because vs. 1 reminds us that Christians can be overtaken in sins and failures. He’s not talking about a sinner being caught by people. He’s talking about a believer being caught by sin.
*That could be you -- And it could be me, so what are the rest of us supposed to do? Paul says, “You who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”
*God wants us to restore them. It means to mend or repair or strengthen or supply. The word picture is a medical term having to do with a dislocated joint.
*What you have here is a dislocated member of the spiritual body. And I have never had a dislocated joint, but I know it’s very painful to have shoulder or hip knocked out of place. So restoration can be a painful process, but God wants us to forgive. God wants us to gently help the person to repent, and find the forgiveness that He wants to give.
*Pastor Larry Sarver once said:
-“When I was a police officer, I responded to several traffic accidents, some of them with very severe injuries. At the scene of these accidents there are three groups of people, each with a different response toward those involved in the accident.
*The first group is the bystanders and onlookers. They are curious and watch to see what happens but have little active involvement. The second group is the police officers, of whom I was one. My response was to investigate the cause of the accident, assign blame, and give out appropriate warnings and punishments. The third group is the paramedics. They are the people usually most welcomed by those involved in the accident. They could care less whose fault the accident was and they did not engage in lecturing about bad driving habits. Their response was to help those who were hurt. They bandaged wounds, freed trapped people, and gave words of encouragement.
*Three groups -- one is uninvolved, one is assigning blame and assessing punishment, and one is helping the hurting. Which group are you in?
*When it comes to reaching the lost and hurting, we’re going to be in one of these three groups. We will be uninvolved and let others do the work...
-Or we will condemn people for their foolish behavior saying things like, ‘It’s your own fault that you’re in this mess. If you had been going to church and doing like you should this never would have happened!’
-Or we will be concentrating on helping those who are lost and hurting.
*Much of the church is responding to the lost like the police officer instead of the paramedics. This is what the Pharisees and teachers of the law did. They were more interested in condemning and criticizing sinners than in showing compassion. I hope we will be those who are showing compassion like those in the last group!” (2)
*I hope we will be like the paramedics too! And that is the spirit God wants us to have when Christians stumble into sin. But why should we show compassion? Why should we bear one another’s burdens?
-It’s because God has shown compassion to us!
-It’s because the Lord bore our burdens on the Cross!
*Jesus Christ took our greatest burden, when He carried our Cross to Calvary, and took all the weight of all our sin. So Jesus wants us to bear each other’s burdens. It’s the only way that we can fully obey His law of love.
*And it’s necessary, because all of us will have burdens to bear. All of us will have sorrow and pain from time to time. And God doesn’t want you to go through it alone. As time goes by, you will bear burdens for others, and they will bear burdens for you.
*Thank God for teachers who teach us to have the same love, mercy and compassion that Jesus has for us.
2. The best way to show your appreciation is by treating other people with mercy, but it is also by living in humility.
*Godly teachers teach us to have humility, just like Paul did in vs. 3, “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
*In vs. 4, Paul tells us to take a good look at our Christian life, but we can’t do that if we are blinded by pride.
*Dr. Charles Lowery is an author and counselor. He is also a funny man. Last January he talked about one of his patients, and Dr. Lowery said he knew he was dealing with a difficult patient when the man told him, “There are three things wrong with me -- my wife, my mother, and my oldest son.” (3)
*That man had a problem with pride! -- But God wants us to live in humility. Thank God for teachers who help us do it!
3. The best way to show your appreciation is by living in humility, and by recognizing our responsibility.
*Godly teachers teach us to take care of our responsibility, like Paul did in vs. 5-8, when he said:
5. For each one shall bear his own load.
6. Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.
7. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
8. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
*Christians, we are all responsible for how we live. Just because your sins are forgiven doesn’t mean it’s o.k. to live any old rotten way. In vs. 5 Paul said, “Each one shall bear his own load” or “burden” in the KJV. You need to know that this “burden” is a totally different word than the “burden” Paul mentioned in vs. 2. This word “burden” was used for the cargo on a ship. It’s talking about the stuff we are supposed to carry.
*In vs. 6, Paul mentions our responsibility to teachers, and then he reminds us that it matters how we live. It matters how you live. You will harvest what you plant. So what are you planting in your life?
*A lot of us can relate to that old cliché that says, “We sowed wild oats, and then prayed for crop failure.” And through the abundant, mysterious grace of God, a lot of us have seen those crop failures. We have dodged some bullets by the grace of God -- But we won’t always be able to dodge those bullets. This Scripture is true.
*As “The Message” says in vs. 7&8, “Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others -- ignoring God -- harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.”
*It matters how you live. But how shall we live for Christ? How shall we give our lives for Jesus? Fred Craddock gave this great explanation:
"To give my life for Christ appears glorious," he said. "To pour myself out for others ... to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom--I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.
"We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it on the table -- ’Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.’
"But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying, ’Get lost’. Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home.
"Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul." (4)
*But that is what the Lord wants you to do. How are you spending your life? Thank God for teachers who help us see our responsibility!
4. The best way to show your appreciation is by recognizing our responsibility, and by doing good with tenacity.
*Godly teachers teach us to serve the Lord with tenacity, endurance, determination. Paul teaches us this tenacity in vs. 9, when he said, “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
*One of Satan’s most effective strategies is to discourage us. As the KJV says, he tries to make us “weary in well doing.” Satan tries to make us give up. He may not be able to make you give up on the Lord, but he has great success in getting people to give up on the Lord’s church.
*There is no telling how many around us have given up. They used to serve God. They used to be an active part of His church, but now they have given up. Don’t you ever give up on serving the Lord!
*Dr. Norman Geisler is a well-known pastor, Christian educator, author and seminary president. He helped write over 60 books and taught for over 40 years for the cause of Christ.
*As a child, Norm went to a Vacation Bible School because he was invited by some neighbor children. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week he was faithfully picked up by a bus driver. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Jesus Christ. (5)
*What if the bus driver had given up on Norm at 395? What if the driver had said, “This kid is going no where spiritually, why waste any more time on him?”
*Never give up on serving the Lord! “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Thank God for teachers who help us keep serving Jesus!
5. The best way to show your appreciation is by doing good with tenacity, and by having passionate loyalty for the truth.
*Godly teachers teach us to have passionate loyalty for the truth -- The kind of loyalty Paul showed in vs. 11-13, when he said.
11. See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand!
12. As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these try to compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
13. For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh.
*Now Paul could have written with such large letters, because of a serious eye problem that made it hard for him to read. But knowing the urgency of what he had to say, he wrote it anyway.
*Maybe he just used large letters as we do sometimes to make an important point. And Paul had an extremely important point to make. You see, Paul’s main purpose in writing this letter was to correct the false teachings of those who said that we could only be saved by keeping Old Testament ceremonial law. This was a horrible lie, because it destroyed the value of the cross, and made people believe that they could be saved by their own good works.
*We are talking about the difference between legalism and salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Tom Fuller gave a good comparison between the two.
*Legalism says: “I can do it. I’m better than you. We’re better than you. You need to measure up to our way of doing things. Faith in Christ is not enough.”
*Grace says: “I can’t do it -- but Christ did it for me. . .” (6)
*The false teaching of legalism was a huge problem in the early church, but Paul fought for the truth with all his might.
*We need that kind of passion today, not because people are being fooled into legalism. But because they are being fooled into multi-cultural humanism: The belief that there is no absolute truth, all religions are the same -- Or no religion for that matter.
*“My truth is just as good as your truth.” And the biggest sin is for you to say you have the real truth. Just as in the Old Testament days of Judges, everyone “does what is right in his own eyes.”
*How bad is it? Last April the “Barna Update” reported that only 2% of U.S. teens possess a biblical worldview based on these five truths:
-The existence of God, Satan and sin...
-The availability of forgiveness and grace through Christ...
-And the existence of absolute biblical moral principles. (7)
*By the way: This is one of the reasons it is so important to do all we can to reach children when they are reachable, including the Children’s Building you will be hearing so much about over the next few months. But thank God for teachers who take a passionate stand for the truth!
6. The best way to show your appreciation is by having passionate loyalty for the truth, and by giving glory to the cross of Jesus Christ.
*Godly teachers teach us to give glory to the cross, just as Paul did in vs. 14, when he said, “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
*Nothing has ever been more important for you than the cross of Jesus Christ. Nothing will ever be more important than the cross! If you make it to Heaven, it will only be because of the cross. And when you get there, you won’t ever brag about how good you were, how smart you were, how rich you were, how athletic you were or how beautiful you were.
*We will brag forever about the cross!
-The cross where God took our sins and put them on His only Son.
-The cross where Jesus took all of the punishment that rightfully belonged to us.
-And died so that we might live forever -- If we trust in the Risen Savior.
*Everybody needs Jesus. We all need His mercy. Thank God we can have it through the cross!
*This afternoon our eight missionaries will be flying home from Romania. It may seem unreal, but 20 years ago they would have been thrown in jail for telling people about Jesus in that country.
*Before the collapse of the Soviet Empire in the late 80’s, atheistic Communists controlled governments all the way from East Germany to the tip of Siberia. Their power stretched across 13 time zones, and they did everything they could to oppose the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
*In East Germany they erected a huge TV tower to help broadcast their propaganda. Near the top was a huge globe-shaped structure -- It was large enough to hold a restaurant. But the amazing thing was that the sun always reflected off that globe in the shape of a cross.
*The Communists were embarrassed, and did everything they could to block it, but nothing could cover up the cross. (8)
*And no matter how hard some people may try, the message of the Cross will never be destroyed, because it is God’s plan for saving all who turn to Jesus.
*But thank God for teachers who give glory to the cross of Jesus Christ!
Conclusion:
*Have you listened and learned from your teachers?
-Have you put your trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord?
*The great news is that you can do that right now as we go to God in prayer.
-And then honor your teacher by living out the truths they are teaching you.
1. Adapted from SermonCentral illustration by Richard Burkey
2. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “Things Needed for Reaching the Lost” by Larry Sarver - Luke 15:1-10
3. SBC Life, January 2007, p.16 (Found in “In Other Words” - July2007_2) (IN OTHER WORDS... began in 1991 and is produced by Dr. Raymond McHenry, Senior Pastor of the Westgate Memorial Baptist Church in Beaumont, Texas. 6130 Barrington ~ Beaumont, Texas 77706 (800) 553-4697 www.iows.net)
4. Found on: KERUX ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION - ID Number: 2687 - SOURCE: Leadership - TITLE: The Practical Implications Of Consecration - AUTHOR: Darryl Bell, Maple Grove, Minnesota - DATE: 1984 Fall
5. Found in SermonCentral sermon “What You Sow You Shall Also Reap” by Guy Caley - Gal 6:7-10 (Also see bio material from NORMGEISLER.COM)
6. Adapted from SermonCentral sermon “Helping the Fallen” by Tom Fuller - Gal 6:1-18
7. Barna Update 4/23/07. Found in “The Church Leaders Intelligence Report” July 18, 2007 (Compiled and edited by Gary D. Foster.)
8. Found in SermonCentral sermon “Why the Cross?” by Owen Bourgaize - Gal 6:14
