For instance:
• I have a problem with a person leaving a perfectly good job!
• I have a problem with a person getting rid of a perfectly good car!
• I have a problem with a person leaving a perfectly good church!
• I have a problem with a person with going from one marriage to another!
WHY DO PEOPLE LIVE THEIR LIVES LIKE THIS?
Because they have the capacity for becoming tired of things.
Illus: There was a time:
• When a person would work on the same job their entire life.
• When a person would attend the same church their entire life.
• When a person would be married to the same person until the day they died.
• When a person would wear their clothes until they wore them out! And when they wore them out, they slapped some patches on the holes and wore them some more!
But it is true in America we have the capacity to get tired of things real fast.
Illus: Speaking of the word “Tired” one man said, “I hate that moment when you are “Tired” and cannot wait to go to sleep but as soon as you try to go to sleep, your body is like “Just Kidding”.
But this problem of getting TIRED of things seems to be a problem that begins in childhood for some folks.
For example:
• Some children wake up on Christmas day and they are excited about all the new toys they have, but before the week is over, they are so tired of them they no longer play with them.
• Then some adults will tell you they sold everything they had to move to the mountains, or beaches, but after six months of living there, they seldom ever notice the mountains and beaches.
• WHAT HAPPENED?
• WHY DID THE THRILL LEAVE?
They let the daily routine of life rob them of the excitement they once had.
Illus:I have often said, I hope when we get to heaven they will have strawberry ice cream.
But did you know you can love ice cream so much that you think you could eat it every day of your life, but if you ate it for every meal every day, after a while you would soon have to force it down.
Listen, if all these things are true in the NATURAL LIFE, they are also true in the SPIRITUAL REALM.
This was one of the reasons that the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians.
In Galatians 6:9, he said, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Look at the word “reap.”
This is translated from the Greek word “therizo,” which means: “To harvest.”
That is, the farmer who wants to have a harvest can not become weary in carrying out his task. He might become tired of:
• Fighting insects.
• Fighting bad weather.
• Fighting the high prices of equipment.
• Fighting the high prices of fertilizer and insecticide.
• Struggling to keep good help.
But if he expects to have a GOOD HARVEST, he CAN NOT BECOME WEARY IN WELL DOING.
AND, if we expect to have any heavenly rewards, we cannot become WEARY IN WELL DOING!
Illus: All of us (If we are smart) know one day if the Lord allows us to live long enough, we make plans to put money aside for retirement. That money we set aside for retirement we do not touch it because we know when we can no longer work, we will be glad we did not become WEARY in putting that money aside.
But also, if we are smart, we will PERSEVERE in laying up treasures when we get to heaven. And once God REWARDS us for PERSERVERING IN SOWING GOOD SEEDS we will be glad we did not become WEARY in well doing.
The Word of God acknowledge that we can become WEARY even in SOWING GOOD SEEDS.
Illus: Throughout my ministry I have heard Christians say…
• I am tired of teaching a Sunday school class.
• I am tired of singing in the choir
• I am tired of driving a church bus to pick up children for Sunday school
• I am tired of being a deacon or usher
• I am tired of preaching week after week and year after year
These are very good things we can do with our life, but the book of Galatians tells us, BE NOT WEARY IN WELL DOING!!!
We can become weary at doing anything, and if we do something often most likely we will become tired of even DOING GOOD THINGS!
Let us make one thing very clear: THIS “GROWING WEARY” in doing good deeds that John talks about HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR SALVATION.
There are some religious groups who actually teach a person is saved by PERSERVERING by doing good deeds to earn their salvation.
That is, they teach that if one does not PERSEVERE in their good deeds, he/she will lose their salvation!
Let me illustrate…
Illus: A Mormon man who owned a motel in Florida got behind on his tithes which is mandatory for their salvation.
• He un-expectedly sold his motel and he was asked why he sold his motel.
• He said, He had to sell it to catch up on his tithes!
They would teach you and I that we had better keep on SOWING GOOD SEEDS, because, according to their teachings, our reaping of eternal life depends on our GOOD WORKS.
Illus: Sometime around town we see young men dress with shirts and ties riding a bicycle knocking on doors inviting people to attend the MORMON CHURCH.
Why is that we see young MORMON FELLOWS doing this and not seeing any BAPTIST YOUNG MEN doing this?
The answer to that is that the Baptist believe we are saved by GRACE while the MORMON believe if he does not want to die and go to a devil’s hell, he had better ride that bicycle!!!
When will folks ever learn we are NOT saved BY OUR WORKS. We are SAVED BY JESUS’ WORKS ON CALVARY!
Illus: Did you know that you can...
• Tithe 50% of your income every week,
• Pray 25 hours a week,
• Study the Bible 25 hours a week,
• Do good works in your community 25 hours a week.
You can do all these things fifty-two weeks out of a year and still go to a Christless eternity!
Why? Because we are not saved by our works, we are saved by the grace of God.
Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly teaches, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Those who teach we must PERSEVERE in our good deeds to go to heaven are clearly teaching salvation by works.
If this was true, which it is not, why did Christ bother to die on the cross of Calvary…we could save ourselves through our good works!
We are saved by HIS WORKS! Not ours!!!
What the Lord is saying here is that we need to keep SOWING GOOD SEEDS if we want to REAP THE ETERNAL REWARDS OF GOD in this life and the life to come!
Our works is our REWARDS not our SALVATION!!!
John is not talking about SOWING GOOD SEEDS AND REAPING ETERNAL LIFE FROM THOSE SEEDS.
Today we want to examine how this LAW OF ALMIGHTY GOD, WE REAP ONLY IF WE PERSEVERE AFFECTS US!
Anyone who has ever done any gardening knows it can be difficult.
• WHY IS IT, because you can plant seeds that you want to sprout and you can nurture them on almost a daily basis, yet things you do not want to grow seem to grow without any difficulty?
• Every gardener knows IT TAKES PERSEVERANCE to keep weeds out of a garden so the little plants they planted will have room and food to grow.
It is the same in the Christian life. It takes all the effort we can muster up to keep the forces of evil out of our lives.
We do not have to do anything to have evil flow into our lives.
This is why there are so many wicked people around. It takes no effort to be wicked. It goes along with the Adamic nature we inherited from Papa Adam.
But, if you have a desire to please the Lord, you have to make a full-time effort to keep wickedness out of your life.
We have to PERSEVERE, and we will REAP THE REWARDS OF HEAVEN.
Let us look at this law - WE REAP ONLY IF WE PERSEVERE.
Again, like the other laws, it works in THE NEGATIVE and POSITIVE.
Let us first look at...
I. THE NEGATIVE.
WHY IS IT THAT PEOPLE HAVE SO MUCH SIN IN THEIR LIVES?
• Because sinners constantly work at having more sin in their lives. Seven days a week, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year they build their lives around sin. They pursue sinful things the way a hound dog pursues a rabbit.
THEY DO NOT ALLOW ANYTHING TO STOP THEM FROM CARRYING OUT THEIR SINFUL PLANS!
• Wouldn’t it be wonderful if CHRISTIANS PERSEVERED in GOOD DEEDS as much as the UNGODLY PERSEVERE in EVIL DEEDS.
It is hard to understand how a person can be a slave to sin three-hundred-sixty-five days a year, yet when that same person accepts the Lord Jesus as THEIR Savior, they can think of a thousand excuses for doing nothing except sitting on a padded pew on Sunday morning for a couple of hours.
Did you know this, and I cannot prove this:
• But more people are SICK on Sunday than any day of the week
• And I cannot prove this also, but I also believe this …More people are miraculously cured of their sickness on Monday than any other day of the week.
Illus: If Christians use the same number of ridiculous excuses, they use for missing church they would use on their jobs they would be FIRED!!! (You know that, and I know that!!!)
But the real reason they use these ridiculous excuses is that they do not LOVE GOD ENOUGH TO BE FAITHFUL TO THE HOUSE OF GOD!
They have other gods in their life that they love more than God their Creator.
Let me illustrate with a true story…
Illus: They remind me of a man that was married. He would faithfully work and come home to his wife.
But sometimes he would get tired of the married life it seems, and he would decide to go elsewhere and would be gone for several days with another woman in his life!
But after several days he would come home to his wife with some ridiculous excuse because he was absent.
He repeated this sinful process over and over!!!
You do not have to be a psychiatrist to figure out why he did this repeatedly? HE DID NOT LOVE HIS WIFE! LOVE IS FAITHFUL!!!
And if those who profess to be saved with all their flimsy excuses, they are not fooling God, God knows that they do not LOVE HIM ENOUGH TO BE FAITHFUL IN ATTENDING THE HOUSE OF GOD!
It would be a marvelous thing if CHRISTIANS could serve the Lord as untiringly as they once served the DEVIL.
• Most of us know of sinners who would not allow anything to come between their nightly trips by the bar, or whatever other sin they love.
• The other familiar example is that of sports. So many have made this their god. They can tell you the names of all the players and details of the private lives of the players. With great determination they PERSEVERE and do not allow anything to come between them and their god.
Illus: Most of us have probably seen a television broadcast of a pro. football game where 50 to 70 thousand people were at a stadium in the freezing cold to pull for their team. Often, they have paid between fifty to a hundred dollars to be there.
The ungodly PERSEVERE in serving the gods they love.
Illus: Again, we are reminded of the true story of one elderly lady who was hooked on watching the afternoon soap operas.
• She was outside when she realized it was time for her favorite soap opera.
• She ran across the yard so fast that she overshot her porch with such speed that she went across the porch and broke her leg.
When have you ever heard of anyone being that excited about being on time to be at church when it was time to attend church?
Listen, sinners put many Christians to shame in their PERSEVERANCE in serving their gods!
The devil’s crowd knows how to PERSEVERE!
The devil is in hot pursuit behind us every day trying to tempt us to sin and to throw up our hands and quit serving God.
But the devil's crowd put most Christians to shame in perseverance, they know how to pursue evil.
Look at Mark 5:2-5. We read, “And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”
Look at the words, “night and day,” in verse 5. This man was totally committed to evil twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week!
Illus: You can drive by some liquor “joints” at two in the morning and people are still there, drinking cussing, and lying.
The lives of ungodly people are FILLED WITH SIN because every day they PERSEVERE to have as much sin in their lives as they can get.
But the life of SOWING AND PERSERVERING works in the POSITIVE and the NEGATIVE.
This is THE NEGATIVE when it comes to the law, we reap only if we persevere.
This law works this way in THE NEGATIVE, also it works this way in...
II. THE POSITIVE.
Let us look at Galatians 6:9 again. We read, “And let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Again, I want to remind you this law says, WE SHALL REAP IF WE FAINT NOT!
That is, just like some have filled their lives with sin because they persevered. We have to do the same thing if we want to fill our lives with GOODNESS and the BLESSINGS OF GOD! WE REAP ONLY IF WE PERSEVERE!
If we do not faint sowing good seeds, I want to share with you WHY SOWING, SOWING, AND SOWING DOES for the child of God.
It will sharpen your skills…
Illus: Robert Benchley said, “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”
Illus: George Bernard Shaw said, “When I was a young man, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn’t want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.”
History reveals that if we PERSEVERE, we shall REAP:
Illus: I tell young preachers if they want to prepare good sermons and preach good sermons they have to
Sow good seeds in their sermon preparation and become the sermon before you can preach the sermon.
Sowing, Sowing, and Sowing sharpens our skills!!!
• Plato wrote the first sentence of his famous “Republic,” nine different ways before he was satisfied.
• Cicero practiced speaking before friends every day for thirty years to perfect his elocution.
• Noah Webster labored 36 years writing his “Dictionary,” crossing the Atlantic twice to gather materials.
• Milton rose at 4:00 A.M. every day in order to have enough hours for his “Paradise Lost.”
• Gibbon spent 26 years on his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
• Bryant rewrote one of his poetic masterpieces 99 times before publication, and it became a classic.
• Sir Walter Scott put in fifteen hours a day at his desk, rising at four o’clock in the morning. He averaged a book every two months and turned out the “Waverly Novels” at one a month.
• Burke wrote the conclusion of his speech at the trial of Hastings sixteen times.
• Adam Clark spent 40 years writing his commentary of the Holy Scriptures.
• Hemmingway is said to have gone over the manuscripts of “The Old Man and the Sea,” 80 times.
• John Wayne one of our favorite actors was known to frustrate co-actors because he would want to re-shoot a scene over and over until he was satisfied with it.
• Dean Martin, who was a great singer, was known to practice his singing 6 to 8 hours a day on some occasion.
One thing that frustrates me today in our seminaries we are not teaching ministerial students the need for PERSERVERANCE.
The average pastors only serve at one church between 2 and 3 years before they are ready to throw in the towel!
History reveals that all the men and women who did anything outstanding with their lives SOWED and kept on sowing and EVENTUALLY THEY WERE ABLE TO REAP FROM THEIR LABOR.
Illus: King Hubbard said, “In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it.”
Again, God has established a law, WE REAP, IF WE WILL KEEP SOWING AND FAINT NOT.
Notice, after God’s Word tells us WE SHALL REAP IF WE DO NOT BECOME WEARY IN WELL DOING, then God’s Word tells us HOW we are to do good in the next verse.
Look at Galatians 6:10. We read, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”
Paul is telling us two things:
Every time you see an opportunity to sow good seeds in helping ALL MEN…THEN DO IT!
God’s Word says especially when you see the opportunity to help a brother or sister in Christ…THEN DO IT!
We are told as Christians we are not to become WEARY IN WELL DOING”
Why?
Because if we do not FAINT, we shall receive a REWARD.
Let me close with a football illustration…
Illus: Walter Payton who played for the Chicago Bears will go down in history as the best running back that ever played.
• During a Monday night football game between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants, one of the announcers observed that Walter Payton, the Bears' running back, had accumulated over nine miles in career rushing yardage.
• The other announcer remarked, "Yeah, and that's with somebody knocking him down every 4.6 yards!"
Walter Payton, the most successful running back ever will go down in FOOTBALL history books because He got knocked down 4.6 yards but he PERSERVERE AND SCORED NINE MILES OF RUSHING!
• Over nine miles in rushing yardage
• Who was knocked down every 4.6 yards
HE NEVER GAVE UP!
God has established this wonderful law, In Galatians 6:9, tells us, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end.
Illus: A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer.
God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while, the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” But the Saints of God PERSERVERE because they love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind.
God says these are the saints of God who will REAP because they PERSERVERED!!!
Conclusion:
I. WE REAP ONLY WHAT HAS BEEN SOWN. (#1)
II. WE REAP IN A DIFFERENT SEASON THAN WE
SOW (#2)
III. WE REAP MORE THAN WE SOW (#3)
IV. WE REAP IN PROPORTION TO WHAT WE SOW. (#4)
V. WE REAP ONLY IF WE PERSEVERE. (#5)
1:48
We'll Work Till Jesus Comes with lyrics
YouTube
Emmanuel Church, Rio Rico
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Jul 30, 202
