Galatians (14)

Parting Words

Last week we learned about the laws of the harvest .

I. The Law of Dissemination

II. The Law of Identification

III. The Law of Anticipation

IV. The Law of Multiplication

V. The Law of Cultivation

And it is a positive law that can work for you or against you.

Here is how he says to use it for you to get it to work for you.

Here is how to get a harvest.

Parting Admonition

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

He is saying we have the opportunity now

We do not have to wait for it it is upon us.

Do plant seeds to sow inorder to reap a good harvest a good reward.

How you sow is by doing good

We have an obligation

That is the command

To do good to all men

Than we have an order

Especially to the household of faith.

Opportunity look around

It is everywhere

There is always someone needs help someone needs encouragement someone needs prayer some one needs advice someone needs love.

He is saying we have the opportunity.

Out problem is not a lack of opportunity it is a lack of desire or a self focus that keeps us from sowing to reap a harvest.

If you are mindful of that principle we have the opportunity now.

You want to start your day saying Lord I have an opportunity to Do good and to serve you.

Use me God.

I got convicted again about the ark and using God so this week I tried to say Lord use me i want to be your mouthpeace. The dentist and ethan.

The opportunity is there Ask the Lord to show it to you.

The world talks about opportunity for money and getting ahead but do not forget about this opportunity.

let us do good unto all men

You see the doctrine of Grace and salvation by Christ alone was never intended to separate us from the fruit of faith.

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.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

So what he is telling them just because you are not saved by works does not mean you do not have an obligation to work.

You have an obligation you are a debtor Paul says

What is doing good

Having the right attitude

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Luke says it is giving without expecting a return

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

Paul says it is not taking revenge

See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.

It is giving

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;

That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

Now notice the order.

especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Extend your love, your charity, to all mankind,

but let the center of that circle be in the home where God has placed you—in the home of His people.

They have a first claim upon us. They are nearest of kin.

They are our brothers in Christ. Let them have Benjamin’s portion ()

The poor you have always but me ye have not always.

I find this attitude in the church very troubling were people are more worried about what we are doing for the lost than the church.

They say things like the people here have no concern for the Lost I say well you have no concern for the people here.

We cannot forsake the believers for the unbelievers.

This is our first ministry

The body is to minister to itself.

:10For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

By this shall all men know you are my disciples by the love you have one for the other.

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Saul saul why persecutest thou me ?

See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.

But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

Your first obligation is the Lord not to the lost.

We do not forget them.

BUt Christ spent most of his time and energy on his disciples than the jews than a little with the gentiles.

Paul wrote that I did not

Take care of family first that is your responsibility.

Do not be the guy that abandons his family for the homeless.

.As a pastor, I put the priority on helping the members before helping strangers—most who were freeloaders.

Give your charity to people proclaiming the Gospel before you help the world’s United Fund or other endeavors.

Parting Assurance

Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.

Paul some times dictated his letters to a scribe and they would write it.

I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.

People were trying to counterfeit his writings

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write.

So he found it necessary sure they knew it was him.

To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen. Written to the Romans from Corinthus, and sent by Phebe servant of the church at Cenchrea.

The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen. Written from Rome to Colossians by Tychicus and Onesimus.

Heb_13:22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words.

Large is the size of the Letters due to bad eye sight

Parting Alert 12-13

As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

“See,“these Gentiles. We have converted them, and we have got them circumcised.

Is not that a wonderful thing?”

They wanted to boast of their many followers to get favor with the Jews by showing that their converts to Jesus were also proselytes to circumcision.

THe only reason they want you to go through all that trouble and all that pain is so they can brag on you.

Not that it will benefit you but it will benefit them

It was of no help to them but only for conformity's sake.

That is not good.

When we try to get people to adopt our culture not for God's sake but for our sake.

And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but who is this, of whom I hear such things? And he desired to see him.

And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida.

If we could just get them to do this, what would it mean for us and for our ministry .

IF your desire is to make a show to prove something to someone you are hurting people not helping them.

Our motive must be for edification.

And we can descend into this thing

Were the reason we influence people is for us not them.

Dress , tie not make me spiritual I like it. I think you should honor God and be serious about it.

Is the reason we try to get them to give for us or them?

You see it is our motive a lot of times that corrupts what we do.

Paul did not care.

You are embarrassing me

Careful with your kids. You are embarrassing me.

We teach our kids it is not against mom and dad or that your dad is the pastor and we want to make a fair shew in the flesh. BUt we want you to honor God

Do not put that on your kids.

Not saying it is wrong but make sure the motive is right.

Lest we should suffer persecution

The reason some pastors and churches do things is because lest we should suffer persecution

The name baptist

Why because that is what I am and I don't want to lie.

Music.

Fear of man it brings a snare.

You guys get that ?

For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.

We have to be careful not to appear as a hypocrite.

These outward rules people see through them.

They did not keep the law themselves.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

1Co_2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Haveman I fight with my wife at times I am human learn how to fight never call each other names and do not try to tear one another down.

And it was very encouraging to the men.

I remember what it felt like to have marriage problems and fight with my wife the preacher got up said him and his wife never fight.

Than i would say that then God showed me that is discouraging we fight I just make sure I win. She lets me win. I have a wonderful wife.

Do not hold people to a standard you do not keep.

None of us have arrived and you definitely do not arrive through circumcision.

Parting Advice 14 -18

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

What makes me different what makes me proud is not the fact that I am a jew

Not that I was circumcised

He was that is not what makes me different

The only boast I have is in the cross of Christ.

Some people laud christianity for its lofty ideas so beautiful.

Doctor butist temple christianity all have good things

The incarnation , or anything else the life of Christ but he choose the substitutionary death of Christ.

The Moravian missionaries to Greenland thought they should first instruct the Greenlanders in the doctrine of the Trinity. So they preached away to them of the Godhead, but the Greenlanders did not care about it. One of them, while interpreting the third chapter of John, came across that blessed passage, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life” (). The Greenlanders stopped him and said, “Why didn’t you tell us that before?” “Oh! I thought I had better begin by telling you of some of the other truths.” “But we knew all those or could have guessed them. Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

Listen what makes us different than the world

What gives us our identity is not what we do and what we do and what we do not do

It is not what we sing and what we do not sing

It is who we are in Christ

It is the cross

It is that we have been declared innocent because the Lord paid for our sins

That is the only boast we have and the only hope we have.

But God forbid that I should glory

Who forbids it ?

God forbid

By whom I am crucified to the world and the world to me

That makes the world dead to me

This honor of men

This who is better

This competitiveness is dead to me

And i am dead to the world as well

Neither one of us have any use for the other.

If You boast is in Christ the world is dead to you and you are dead to the world.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.

God is not impressed

With your flesh

You are or not makes no difference to him.

What makes a difference to him is are you a new creature

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

Not what you do but who you are

Are you a new creature ?

I was baptized. who cares? I do not smoke. who cares? are you a new creature ?

And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

The rule is the gospels in particular and the scriptures in principle

To have peace you have to walk after the spirit and there is no condemnation

If you do you will not have peace or mercy

Israel of God

more likely, the “remnant” of believing Israel , as opposed to the “false brothers” among the Jews (Gl 2:4), who were seeking to be justified by “the works of the law” (2:16).

From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Paul was being accused.

they were accusing him of not being an apostle, not being a God-called man, and not being worthy of apostleship and leadership. And he was being accused by some people that we will call Judaizers,

they were saying that Paul was not really a true preacher, and not really an apostle.

They were saying that if Paul were truly an apostle, then he would have everybody follow the Jewish laws of circumcision, and all of these other things.

And so they were criticizing Paul, and they were persecuting Paul.

If you want to know if I love the Lord do not look to see if I am circumcised look at my marks

My scars

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

He was not talking in metaphor but a reality that he faced.

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Leonard Ravenhill wrote about the Apostle Paul,, “Look closely at Paul—at that cadaverous countenance, that scarred body, that stooped figure of a man chastened by hunger, kept down by fasting, and ploughed with the lictor’s lash; that little body, brutally stoned at Lystra and starved in many places; that skin, pickled for thirty-six hours in the Mediterranean Sea! And add to this list danger upon danger, and then multiply it with loneliness; finally, count in the 199 stripes, 3 shipwrecks, 3 beatings with rods, a stoning, a prison record, and deaths so many that count is lost.”

That is the mark of love

Not circumcision

I heard of a boy who was talking to his girlfriend on the phone, and he told her, “I love you more than life itself.” He said, “You are so precious to me.” He said, “I worship the ground you walk on.” He said, “I would fight wild beasts to be at your side.” He said, “I would walk barefoot on hot coals to be near you.” He said, “I would wade through a swamp of crocodiles to hold your hand.” And then, later on, he said, “And sweetheart, if it’s not raining, then I am coming over to see you Saturday night.” And so many of us are that way, you know—we talk, but talk is so cheap.

And these people who were criticizing Paul, they talked, but they did not suffer for Christ. The making of those marks—they were literal, physical disfigurements upon the body of this man. He had been beaten, brutalized, and mutilated for Jesus Christ.

Back in medieval times—as they say, “when knights were bold”—they had warrior kings—kings, like the romanticized stories of King Arthur. And those warrior kings would lead the knights into battle, and those knights would want to stand by the king, number one, to protect the king, and, number two, to show their allegiance to the king. And of course, the king was the center of the battle. And so the hottest part of the battle would center around the king, and the arrows would fly the thickest around the king—where the king would be. And then, if the battle was a victory, they would come back to the castle, and there would be a sumptuous feast with the smoking meats and the delicacies.

And then, at a particular time, they would discuss the battle. And the king, who would certainly, surely, be wounded somewhere in the battle, would show his wounds, and would show his scars. And others who had fought by him and stood by him would also show their scars out of their love for their king—that they had received because they stood by the king, and fought with the king. And at that time, other warriors who had no scars did not count themselves lucky that they had no scars—they hung their heads in humiliation and shame. Could it be that they were not brave enough? Could it be that they were not near enough to the king?

I found these words by Amy Carmichael. Amy Carmichael spent half a century as a missionary for Jesus in India, and here’s what she wrote:

No wound? No scar?

Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow Me.

But thine are whole; can he have followed far

Who hast no wound or scar? (Amy Carmichael)

You see, as the master is, so shall the servant be. And she also wrote these words:

Captain beloved, battle wounds were Thine,

Let me not wonder if some hurt be mine.

Rather, O Lord, let my deep wonder be

That I may share a battle wound with Thee. (Amy Carmichael)

There was a man who didn’t know whether he wanted to believe in Jesus or not. He wanted to, but he needed some proof—his name was Thomas. Do you know what Thomas said? Thomas said, “Except I see the scars in His hand and in His side, I’ll not believe” (). Now he believed that Jesus died, all right; he just wasn’t convinced that Jesus arose, and it was those scars that convinced Thomas.

I am wondering if there are not some people who are looking for some scars in our lives to be convinced. Now they don’t have to be literal scars. There’s more than one way to bear a scar. But you can suffer for Jesus. You don’t have to go out and bait suffering. Don’t anybody get a martyr complex, and try to get people to persecute you for Jesus Christ. But I’m saying, dear friend, that, when we get serious about suffering for the Lord Jesus Christ, and we say, “Pentecost at any cost,” and when we say with the Apostle Paul, “I’m going for God, no matter what it costs,” I believe there shall be in our lives that fruitfulness that Paul had.

Maybe you feel like that because you go Sunday night and the preacher overlooked you.

God help us

Let what it costs you to be a christian be what is it you can point to not your words

Words are cheap

Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. To the Galatians written from Rome.