Never Give Up
Galatians 6:7-10
September 28, 2014
Morning Service
Florence Chadwick – English Channel
God will never be able to do anything through your life if you quit. Never stop trying and never try stopping.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers. Galatians 6:7-10
God cannot be mocked
There is no way for us to fool God. He sees right through the games that we play. The truth is that we will never be able to deceive God. We may have those around us fooled, we may have people in church fooled and we may have ourselves fooled but we will never be able to fool God.
Remember that God knows everything there is to know about us and misses nothing. He knows all of our deepest, darkest secrets. He is aware of our every fault, failure and flaw. There is nothing He does not know about us. This can seem kind of frightening when you stop to think about it. Those things about you that no one knows, God knows them. The truth is that God knows everything there is to know about us, the good, the bad and the ugly. He knows everything and loves us in spite of it all. God knows all about us and sacrificed His Son Jesus to give us a life that we could never deserve.
A man reaps what he sows
Honestly, this seems like basic common sense. Would we think that would harvest onions when we planted tomatoes? No one would be so foolish. So why do we think that we can continue to live in a sinful manner and still be able to please God? Godliness and ungodliness will never mix. There will never be a moment that we can think we can live for ourselves and still be living for God.
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.
The reality of sowing and reaping become clear in a spiritual sense by the fact that we pay a price for our sinful behavior. Sin is the root cause of the destruction of the world. Our world was perfect before Adam rebelled against the will of God. The moment that sin entered the world, destruction comes along with it. Destruction allows follows sin. The payback for sin is death. There is no way that we can live a sinful lifestyle and please God. There is no way we can live in sin and walk in salvation. We cannot live to please ourselves and still be able to please God.
There are two natures at war within us, our sin nature and our spiritual nature. These two natures are in a state of conflict. In essence, there is a war going on in our heart. This war is won by the nature that we most support. The more we support our sin nature, the more we destroy our lives. The more we support our spiritual nature, the more we become like Jesus.
The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life
When we live to please God, we reap the reward of living for Christ. We gain a place in heaven. The reward of receiving Christ is eternal life. Our problem is that we tend to overemphasize the moment of salvation and not the process of discipleship. Coming to Christ is the first step in a relationship with Him but it is not the end. The moment of salvation gets us into heaven but pursuing a life that pleases God reaps the benefits of eternal life.
The closer that we grow to Christ, the greater our walk with Him becomes. We get the taste of heaven in this life by following Jesus. The believer seeks to live for Christ and be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The more we seek to please the Spirit, the closer we grow to Christ.
Let us not become weary in doing good,
Paul tells the Galatians that we should not become tired of doing the right thing because in the end it will pay off. The understanding that Paul communicates here is more than being tired but to be exhausted and have nothing left to give. The word also means to lose heart or to be drained of spirit.
The understanding that Paul is communicating is that doing good is not merely being kind but it is being like Jesus. We allow our character to take on the qualities of the character of Christ. Doing good means that we continue the work of God even when we don’t feel like it.
for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
There will be a time that we will be rewarded for our faithfulness to God. The proper time is one of the things that we often struggle with because we want things to happen on our time table. Paul makes it clear that God is at work and things will happen in His time. Our problem is that we want God to work in our time. Paul is telling us that things will come together in the right time.
There is a condition to this. We cannot give up. There will be times that we get tired of doing good. There will be times that doing good will exhaust us.
