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INTRO
INTRO
Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
Good afternoon CityLight. Wow it is so humbling and such a privilege to be back and be able to be here, see everyone, and minister the Word. It’s hard to describe in words how much the CityLight family means to me and my family. I’ve missed all of you so much, but have been encouraged by what the Lord has continued to do through you as a church. I want to also mention how blessed CityLight is to have elders and leaders caring for the church while we wait for the Lord to provide a new lead pastor. Different people have stepped up in different ways and I hope today the message that the Lord has will be encouraging to you.
I also want to introduce Joel Gillman. Joel is the lead pastor of Mission Hill church. We come bringing you greetings from Mission Hill. There is a whole church community that is financially invested and committed to seeing CityLight continue to grow into a healthy local church. Joel grew up in Taiwan, his dad being the YWAM base leaders for many years. He is like a brother to me, and one of the biggest advocates for you as a church. His Chinese is also amazing, so go and talk to him. We are here to bless and love on you as a church. That’s our hope and prayer.
Over the past two years I’ve seen how difficulty it has been for Christians and pastors. Covid was hard, and after returning to the States I didn’t realize how painful the last 4 to 5 years had been for so many people. Political division, racial tension, economic pressure, and all the difficulty that surrounded Covid. I returned to find that many people who had once faithfully followed Jesus were pushed to the margins and had no desire to go to church or be a part of the church. Maybe some of us have experienced this same thing. People who once faithfully followed the Lord are now no longer walking with Jesus. In fact as I look back to my wedding, of all the guys that were there, for a long time only 50% of those guys were still walking with Jesus. Looking back at your life, you might look around and ask the question, where is everyone? Why does it seem like so many have given up? I can’t tackle, or even know, the many reasons why this happens to people, but I believe that God has an encouragement for us, through what Paul tells the Galatians here in Chapter 6. Paul is exhorting the Galatians, to not give up! Don’t grow weary of doing good. Continue to fight the fight of faith! But how do we do that?
They say that ___% of people who start something give up or quit within the first 3 months. It’s easy to start something but difficult to finish well. I know that God’s heart for you, and for me, is to finish well. Paul is going to give us three reasons why we don’t have to give up. Why we can endure, why in difficult seasons of ministry or life, we don’t have to throw in the towel. Paul says, don’t give up church! Because
1)God sees your work
2)The Spirit helps you work
3) You will be rewarded for your work
God Sees Your Work
God Sees Your Work
Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap,
不要自欺， 神是不可輕慢的。人種的是甚麼，收的也是甚麼：
If you read Galatians you’ll see Paul reminding the church many times, to not be deceived! He has to constantly remind them, hey be aware, don’t get sucked into the cultural messaging of the world around you. Don’t buy into the cultural lies. Paul wants us to see that truth plays a vital role in our ability to endure.
Specifically the truth about the nature of God. Paul says, don’t be deceived, God is not mocked, whatever a person sows he will reap.
The word mocked here means, to “turn your nose up”. It’s an attitude that says, “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I want, and I will never be held accountable”.
I don’t know about you. But this is the spirit of our age. There is no fear of God, there is no belief that someday we will be held accountable for our actions. There isn’t a belief in the real consequence of sin. Yet Paul seems to say that this truth about God, is meant to be an encouragement to the church to continue to do good.
One of the reasons people give up on Christianity is because of the prosperity and easy lives of people who don’t follow Jesus.
David laments the prosperity of the wicked.
For I envied the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have an easy time until they die, and their bodies are well fed. They are not in trouble like others; they are not afflicted like most people. Therefore, pride is their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment. Their eyes bulge out from fatness; the imaginations of their hearts run wild. They mock, and they speak maliciously; they arrogantly threaten oppression. They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues strut across the earth. Therefore his people turn to them and drink in their overflowing words. The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High know everything?” Look at them—the wicked! They are always at ease, and they increase their wealth.
我看見惡人興隆， 我就嫉妒狂傲的人。 他們沒有痛苦， 他們的身體又健康又肥壯。 他們沒有一般人所受的苦難， 也不像普通人一樣遭遇災害。 所以，驕傲像鍊子戴在他們的頸項上， 強暴好像衣裳穿在他們的身上。 他們的罪孽是出於麻木的心， 他們心裡的惡念氾濫。 他們譏笑人，懷著惡意說欺壓人的話，他們說話自高。 他們用口褻瀆上天， 他們用舌頭毀謗全地。 因此他的人民歸回那裡去， 並且喝光了大量的水。 他們說：「 神怎會曉得？ 至高者有知識嗎？」 看這些惡人， 他們常享安逸，財富卻增加。
How many of us have been tempted to see the “success” or “happiness” of people who don’t follow Jesus and just want to join them?
But Paul reminds us, don’t be deceived, don’t buy the cultural lie that God doesn’t see your work, that there are no consequences for our actions. God will not be cheated, He will hold everyone accountable.
Just recently in America there was a big football game. It was the New York Jets(紐約噴氣機) vs the Buffalo Bills(布法羅比爾斯?). This was important because there was a really good player named Aaron Rodgers who just started playing for the Jets. The Jets were not a very good team but with Aaron they had a chance to beat the other team. But in the first play of the game, he got injured. Out for the whole season. Now there was a bar that offered free drinks to everyone if the Jets lost. After Aaron went down, people started running up their tabs. Ordering their drinks, because there was no way , without Aaron, the Jets were going to win. I mean these people were going crazy! However the news was there, and as the game got closer to the end the Jets actually had a chance to win. You can see the look on people’s faces as they are realizing they might have to pay for all those drinks. And then all the sudden the Jets scored and won the game! All of the people had to pay for all the drinks they had ran up. They got held accountable!
What about us?
What happens when we forget that God can’t be manipulated, when we forget that God can’t be cheated. When we forget that God does reward our obedience. When we forget that God sees our actions, He sees our work. How does this affect you?
Complacency (自滿)
If God doesn’t hold people accountable, then who cares how I live? If I don’t believe that God sees my work, sees my effort, then why not give up?
Fear
How can this lead to fear?
Pride
It’s all up to me. I can mock God. I can live however I want and not reap the consequences of my actions. The results are up to me, I can make it happen.
Paul’s first encouragement to us, why we can endure, why we don’t have to give up is because of God sees your work. God is not indifferent to you or to your actions or work, He sees them and rewards them. Don’t give up! CityLight you can endure because of who God is! His character.
The Spirit Helps You Work
The Spirit Helps You Work
because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
順著自己的肉體撒種的，必定從肉體收取敗壞；順著聖靈撒種的，必定從聖靈收取永生。
As Paul continues to encourage the Galatians, he uses the illustration of sowing and reaping.
This would have been a very common practice in their culture. It’s a brilliant metaphor for the spiritual life,
If you sow tomato seeds what will you get? Tomatoes not pickles.
If you plant apple seeds? Apple tree, not a strawberry bush.
Paul says it is the same for our lives:
Whatever you sow: what you sow, good or bad, anything you sow you will reap the fruit of hose actions.
Will reap: there is a promise, our sins and actions will be found out.
Paul tells the Galatians we have two choices: We can either sow to our flesh or sow to the Spirit
Sow to the flesh:
The flesh in Galatians is opposed to the Spirit. Sowing to the flesh means living for your own pleasure instead of God’s. It means living to satisfy your own desires at the expense of everyone else. In America it’s called the American Dream. The belief that happiness and joy are found outside of God.
What is the result of that kind of life? Destruction.
This word destruction means to “fall apart”. Paul says, sin makes things fall apart. When we sow seeds of anger, relationships fall apart, when we sow seeds of lust, purity falls apart, when we sow seeds of lack of self control, our peace falls apart. Sin breaks things. I know many of us in this community have seen this firsthand. A life lived to only satisfy itself only brings destruction.
“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” - C.S. Lewis
So using the metaphor of sowing and reaping, Paul tells us. We can’t expect to plant seeds of sin and reap a huge harvest of holiness. Right? We can’t expect that we can live our lives for own pleasure and somehow wake up one morning and be who God created us to be!
Paul says holiness is a harvest not reaped overnight, but by the labor of sowing to the Spirit.
This means to live a life that seeks to please the Spirit. In Galatians it means to be led by the Spirit, to obey the Spirit, and to bear the fruit of the Spirit.
This is what is encouraging to me. If sowing to the Spirit means bearing the fruit of the Spirit, than He is working in us to do that. God’s Spirit is in you right now working so that you would live a life that is pleasing to God. When we feel His conviction, that is not meant to condemn us but to bring us into more joy. We know that the Spirit’s work in us leads us into more joy, because Paul says when we sow to the Spirit, we get what? Eternal life
Eternal life isn’t simply life after we die, but the life of the trinity, the Father, Son, and the Spirit right now.
This isn’t a pain free process. Farming is hard work. I love how Paul mixes both, the life we get from the Spirit, with the reality that it does take our effort. In order to reap that life we have to sow to the Spirit.
This is not salvation by works. This is not karma. This is God rewarding our obedience. Because if we got what we deserved we would receive God’s wrath and judgement.
The longer I walk with Jesus and the more I am aware of my own sin, I’ve learned this to be true:
The people we are becoming is directly related to the decisions we make.
When I look at the state of my marriage, my family, do I simply blame or do I ask my self, have I been sowing the fruit of the Spirit in these areas?
They did a study on happiness in Europe. Everyone is looking for happiness. Not a bad thing. They looked at how much money people made, lifestyle, relationships, etc. What they found is that truly happy people are people who have found meaning in their life, usually through some sort of pain. That people who only had pleasure were not usually the happiest people. So they concluded this that:
A life of meaningful pain is more valuable than a life of meaningless pleasure.
Sow to the Spirit, He is working in you, and we get life.
We Will Be Rewarded For Our Work
We Will Be Rewarded For Our Work
Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.
我們行善，不要覺得厭煩；如果不鬆懈，到了適當的時候，就有收成。
Let us not get tired. Notice how Paul includes himself here. The call to follow Jesus is not an easy life or a call to comfort. Paul tells the Galatians don’t get tired, don’t give up!
For it is an easy matter for a man to do good once or twice; but to continue, and not to be discouraged through the ingratitude and perverseness of those to whom he hath done good, that is very hard.
Being a farmer is a hard life.
How many of us feel tired at times? Paul is brutally honest about the Christian life. Sometimes it gets weary. Sometimes we are tempted to give up. God knows this.
What would make farmers give up?
Natural environment
Lack of results
Hard labor
Not willing to trust in the process of planting and reaping.
What would cause the Galatians to give up?
Culture they are living in: oppressive to Christianity
Lack of results in their ministry
Not trusting in the Lord
Galatians: An Introduction and Commentary g. Sowing and Reaping (6:7–10)
As describing a disheartened farmer the picture is very graphic; as describing the disheartened Galatians, who have found so much previous ‘effort’ vain, it is equally striking. The reason for the despair is the same in either case: it is the lack of observed results.
What would cause you to give up?
Lack of seeing results?
impatience
Hard work of sowing?
Environment that we live in?
Knowing that not all of the seeds you sow will actually grow?
Give some practical examples.
Don’t give up because we are promised a great reward:
We will reap
Not if, but when. It is a promise given to us by God Himself.
He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless.
Labor is not in vain, you may think that
impatience: waiting but seeing lack of results
We are conditioned by our culture to be impatient, to not wait. And this effects our spiritual life as well. Paul says to not give up, to not grow weary, we have to trust and wait for God’s timing for the harvest.
Proper time:
The harvest is not under our control it’s God’s.
Paul planted Apollos watered
A study showed that the average adult becomes frustrated after just 16 seconds of waiting for a web page to load, and after 25 seconds of waiting for a traffic light to change. Respondents said just 30 seconds of waiting in a line would be enough to try their patience, and half said they are likely to switch to a different line if the one they are in isn’t moving fast enough.
How many of us judge ourselves based upon the results we are or aren’t seeing? We are not in control of those. At the proper time.
When no one else sees, God sees, when no on else can see the harvest. God can. Trust in Him!
We don’t need to judge our sowing by the size of our harvest.
The farmer doesn’t judge himself, the only thing under his control is the faithfulness to plant. To sow the seeds.
A life of meaningful pain then, might be more valuable than a life of meaningless pleasure.
What happens when we don’t trust in God to bring the harvest?
Try and make things happen ourselves?
In 1994, there was a company who created the first GMO(genetically modified food) tomato. If you aren’t familiar with this term. GMO foods are foods that have been chemically altered by humans to get desirable results. But studies have shown that GMO foods are not as healthy as naturally grown foods, and are potentially harmful because they contain chemicals that provide no nutritional support to your body. In America they say that over 90% of all corn, wheat, and soy is GMO. That is a ton! What was the reason behind the GMO food? What was the reason behind chemically altering our food even if it could be harmful? To get bigger crops. Bigger results. Trying to control the outcome.
There is a real danger for the church, for us, to also try and control the results from our work for the Lord. There is a danger for us as well to see GMO christians made by the church. Instead of trusting the Lord to bring the harvest and results, we get restless, wanting to show people something for what we worked for. We need to write a newsletter, we need to post on social media, we need the results! So we take that process into our hands. It could look like compromising the Gospel to get people to follow Jesus. It could look like not following through on discipleship. It could look like so many different things, because as Paul mentions here, there is such a temptation to give up and give in, instead of trusting in the Lord of the harvest to bring the results!
God has promised you. You will reap in His timing what you have sown.
So CityLight your labor is not in vain
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
God sees your work, He will reward your work, and the Spirit is here to help you continue to live for Jesus.
There was a man named Luke Short at the ripe old age of 103 gave his life to Jesus. Short was sitting under a hedge when he happened to remember a sermon he had once heard preached by the famous pastor. As he remembered the sermon, he asked God right then and there to forgive his sins through Jesus Christ. Short lived for three more years, and then he died. The sermon Short remembered had been preached by this pastor eighty-five years before! Nearly a century had passed between the sermon and the conversion, between the sowing and the reaping. Your labor is not in vain.
The famous missionary George Muller recorded 50,000 prayer requests that were answered, but of the 50,000 he recorded only 5,000 were immediate. 45,000 more he had to wait for. Keep sowing, keep planting, your labor is not in vain!
There is a author named Lee Strobel. Lee was an atheist for a really long time. He worked as a journalist for a big magazine in the States. Once he came to Christ, he had a friend who was an atheist, as well, For a long time he had prayed for him, talked to him, but the friend had no interest in Jesus. One day, on his way home from work, he felt like the Lord said to go by his friends office and share with him one more time. So he did. And while he communicated the Gospel to him, and loved on him, once again, the man, no interest. Nothing at all. 15 years later. Lee was speaking at a conference and a man came up and said, Lee I just want to thank you for how much of an impact you’ve had on my life. Lee, didn’t know the man and asked him if they knew each other. The man said, “there was one day when you came into an office and started sharing the Gospel with a man. You didn’t see me, but I was in the next cubicle laying tile. I listened to the whole Gospel presentation, called my wife and said we need to go to church, and gave my life to Jesus.
YOUR LABOR IS NOT IN VAIN!
CityLight’s story?
APPLICATION
With your kids, don’t grow weary in doing good. With
