Let's be turning to Galatians
chapter 6. Galatians 6, I want to look at
verses 6 through 10 with you. This text here is about being
a partaker, a fellow laborer in the gospel, in the things
of our Lord concerning the church, concerning his kingdom. The apostle John was writing
to a man named Gaius, whom he called well-beloved Gaius, the
well-beloved Gaius. And this is 3 John. And he was
encouraged by the charity of Gaius for strangers and for brethren
and how he cared for them. And he said, I want to be like
you, Gaius. I want to remember to be kind
and generous to others in need. And he added that we might be
fellow helpers to the truth. We might be fellow helpers to
the truth. Now this text is about our being
fellow helpers to the truth. you that believe the Lord Jesus
Christ, you that love Christ and love his gospel about our
being fellow helpers to that truth. It's not about creating
a reward for ourselves. Sometimes in religion, that's
what is taught here, that it's about gaining, garnering rewards
for ourselves by the things that we do. And it's certainly not
about creating a righteousness for ourselves. There's only one
who is righteous and only one who makes his people righteous,
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that justifies us.
He's the one that makes us righteous. He is our redemption. He is our
sanctification. He's our wisdom. He is everything
to the believer. And so this text is an encouragement
to partake in those blessings that our Lord freely gives us
in grace. Be partakers of those blessings
in Christ. And here, it's namely about being
fellow helpers to the truth. So Paul writes in verse 6, Galatians
6, 6, that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth
in all good things. Now when he says communicate,
it's not just about talking to him. That's not what he's saying.
Yes, we talk to, you talk to me, I talk to you, but it means
more than that. It means sharing in. It means
bearing that load, giving. to the work of the ministry. And he's speaking to brethren
about their being fellow helpers to this truth, sharing in the
needs of the gospel and the ministering of the gospel. How do we do that? By supporting one who studies
and prays and prepares the word and preaches the word to you.
That is one way in which we communicate with with the gospel, with the
Lord's people and helping. It's to enter into that fellowship
with them that we might be fellow helpers to the truth, to the
truth. And so we are to hear this word
and we partake of the blessings that our God gives to us in the
Lord Jesus Christ according to the riches of his grace. Remember that. The Lord has blessed
us richly out of His riches. Actually it says according to
His riches because His riches never diminish. He gives and
gives and gives and it never depletes or lowers the riches
of our God. And He abundantly has blessed
us in the Lord Jesus Christ. You that are gathered here today
are gathered by the grace and the kindness of God to His people,
to hear what He's done for us undeserving sinners who've done
nothing to merit His mercy or His grace. These riches include
the forgiveness of our sins. I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. God has made you and I to know
that we are sinners. and that before God we're not
just, we're not perfect in all our ways, in our thoughts, in
our words, in our deeds. We're sinners and yet the blood
of Christ washes away the stain of our sin. The blood of Christ
makes us righteous before God so that we are justified of him. Christ is our adoption into the
family of God. These are the blessings of our
God. He's given us His Spirit whereby we know and understand
these things. These things of God. Think of
all the people who have heard the gospel preached and yet do
not know the salvation of God. Have not yet heard it. with the
hearing ear, and yet you who have knowledge and understanding
of your Savior and what your God has done for you in spite
of you, you know that because you have the Spirit of God who
has regenerated you and given you life. Because many can hear
this and still come away with a totally different understanding
of their salvation. and they look to their goodness
and how they try to do what is good and right, and thinking
that God will honor that. No, God honors his son. He loves the son. And for Christ's
sake, we are forgiven. We are adopted into the family
of God. We hear and believe what countless
millions of others do not hear or believe. That's a difference
that God puts between you and others. And so we are recipients
of his eternal life. So what we're reading here in
these verses here in Galatians 6 are really an outline of things
that we've been taught and shown back in Galatians chapter 5.
That one who walks in the spirit They walk in the spirit because
they've been taught. They've been taught by the word
of grace. They've been taught the things
of our God in the Lord Jesus Christ. They've been taught this
word with understanding. And so these, who have been taught,
communicate with their pastor. And they communicate with the
church body as a whole. Why? Because they love Christ.
They love what he's done. You love what Christ has done
for you. All right, so often we come in with a cloudy head,
but when you're made to hear it, and when you really think
about it, you know, Lord, you are so gracious, so kind, so
generous to me, and I don't deserve it. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
And he blesses your heart. He blesses your heart. Even when
things in life make it hard to hear, the Lord yet blesses your
heart and gives you and ear to hear what he's done for you. And so you're thankful. You're
thankful for the ministry of the gospel. We read it this way
in 1 Corinthians 9, 13, and 14. Paul said, do you not know that
they which minister about holy things live of the things of
the temple? He's saying we see this truth
in the religion of the Jews. And they which wait at the altar
are partakers with the altar. We know that the priests, when
they would offer the sacrifices to the Lord, they lived to those
things. And they took a big flesh hook,
and they would dip it down into the pot. And whatever they pulled
up, that's what they took home to their family for themselves
and their children and wives to eat. They were partakers of
the things of the altar. Even so, he says, hath the Lord
ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the
gospel. And so that's one way you support
the preaching of the gospel through your giving. But it extends even
beyond paying the salary of your pastor. It includes the giving
of yourselves. It includes the giving of your
energy. It includes the talents and the
gifts that you have. It includes your attendance and
giving ear to the word preached. I can't tell you how encouraging
it is to see. It really is. It's the most blessed
part of my day to see my brethren here. It means everything to
me and I really am thankful for it. And so that's contrasted
to what we saw back in Galatians 5 concerning the works of the
flesh. The works of the flesh. This
is the work of the spirit that brings you here. This is the
grace of your God filling your hearts with joy and a desire
and a hunger and a thirst and a willingness. to be a fellow
helper to the truth, to the truth of the gospel. And so in this
sense, we should want to communicate with those who bring us the word
that help us, that help our knowledge and our understanding in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now going through this, we've
come to this, so I just want to make it plain. I'm not asking
for a raise today. I am very thankful for your generosity. And I recognize the sacrifices
that you all make to hear this gospel. And I'm blessed and you're
blessed. And I pray the Lord bless you.
And so don't just hear that this is pastor saying this. No, I'm
very, very blessed and very thankful how you take care of Michelle
and I. and especially how you take care of me, and I appreciate
it very much. I'm here to help you understand
the word as the Lord declares it in his word, to say these
things which are heard by you that have an ear, that hears
what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Now, set your thoughts
for a moment upon this word that you are being taught. The word
that you're being taught. In 2 Thessalonians 2.13, we read
that we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren,
beloved of the Lord. Why? Because God hath from the
beginning for the foundation of the world, He chose you in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He chose you to salvation through
the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. what Christ accomplished our
redemption and as part of the gifts which he's obtained in
his sacrifice, his death and burial and resurrection, those
gifts include the giving, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit,
which has separated you of all the many thousands of people
separated you unto the hearing of this gospel. and blessed you
in the Lord Jesus Christ, washing you of your sins clean by his
blood. And to hear what he's done and
to believe it, to believe the witness which is born to us and
given to us in this word, by his grace through the preaching
of the gospel, which is foolishness to them that perish, but unto
you which are saved, it's the power of God. It's the power
of God, and you rejoice and delight in His salvation. And so this
word is described in scripture with many other words to help
us understand. For example, it's called the
word of truth. It's the word of truth. You believe
your God concerning Christ. You believe your God concerning
the salvation He declares in the Lord Jesus Christ unto you.
You know, in Acts, this word is spoken of in four different
ways. When Paul was commending the Ephesian elders in the church
that went out to meet him, he commended them to the word of
His grace, the word of God's grace, which tells us of the
grace of God, of the love of God. Peter, when men were disputing
in Israel over the truth, he called it the word of the gospel
that he preached to the Gentiles and God saved them. God saved
them, the word of the gospel. It's called also the word of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's at the end of Acts. and
Paul was still calling it the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are his words. This is
his gospel declaring the good news of the father who sent him
in the flesh to die the death of his people to bear their curse
as your substitute As your surety to pay what we owed, Christ came
and did it willingly, freely, happily, rejoicing, delighting
to lay down his life for you, his beloved bride of the Father's
choosing given to him. And it's called the word of this
salvation. This is the salvation of God.
But it doesn't stop there in Acts, even in the epistles that
Paul wrote, he called it the word of faith. The word of promise. It's the word of reconciliation. How that God reconciled his enemies
to himself and the Lord Jesus Christ, his people chosen of
him. It's called the word of righteousness. It's the word of life. You live and are righteous, justified
of God. because of Christ, and that's
declared in this Word of Righteousness. What true righteousness is, it's
Christ. It's not the things that we know,
it's who we know, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's who your God
is making known to you, that you look to Him and believe Him
and rejoice in Him. Not what you do, not what you've
done or don't do, the Lord Jesus Christ is all. And that's what
your God faithfully has declared to you each and every time we
meet. Christ, Christ, Christ. Christ crucified. He is all. He's obtained your redemption.
That is the promise of God. Believe him. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You will never be ashamed
looking to Christ. And so this word trumps us all. It trumps who we are. It trumps
me. This word is the most important
thing. You support me for one purpose
and one purpose only, for me to preach the gospel. That's
it. That's why it's not because you like me or any other reason. You support me to preach this
gospel to you. And that weighs heavily on my
mind. And that's what it should. That's
exactly what it should. My mind should be thinking of
this word, this gospel, the Lord, you, that the Lord would give
me a word to preach to the people, to feed the people with Christ. Even as he feeds me and teaches
me, I'm to feed you, my brethren. And so that alone is why you
communicate or share or give to the ministry. Because anything
aside from that would just be charity. You would just be taking
care of a bum if I didn't do anything. And that would be charity. But that's not what this is.
You're supporting the ministry. You are fellow helpers to the
truth. To the truth. And so we read,
it's never described as charity, and Paul said it this way to
Timothy in 1 Timothy 5, 17 and 18. He said, let the elders that
rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they
who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, thou
shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the
laborer is worthy of his reward. The Lord's not worried about
oxen. He's giving you a picture of ministers of the gospel, preachers
of the gospel. Now, let's read the next two
verses in our text, Galatians 6, 7, and 8. Paul writes, Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. So here Paul is, by the spirit,
is using an illustration that's widely and well known to us all. Even me, I grew up eating grocery
store food and not really connecting how that stuff got there. But
now I know at some point we have some idea of where food really
comes from, from the labors and the hard work of farmers. Everywhere and so this is an
illustration. That's well known to us in other
words if I sow tomato seeds should I expect to get peppers or garlic
from those seeds or bananas or Lemons not at all not at all. I've sowed a tomato plant and
therefore Tomatoes is what I'll get right God is not mocked. I God is not mocked. I know people
today think that if they just self-declare themselves to be
something, that if they just identify as something else, that's
what they are. No, God is not mocked. What a man sows, that
shall he reap. And so if I sow heirloom tomato
seeds, I'm going to get heirloom tomato seeds. They may get bitten
and taken down by a bug or something like that, but if it comes to
maturity and it doesn't rot, it's gonna be tomato seeds, pure
and simple. God's not mocked. And so taking
that example from gardening to how we walk in this life, he
says, he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. Why? Because all his works in
the flesh are sin and death. That's what this flesh is. The
works of this flesh is corruption. And it breeds corruption. And
all it is is defiled and it defiles and ruins everything it touches. But he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Why? Because it's
the Spirit of God who does it. It's not us. It's not this flesh.
It's your Lord. Bearing these fruits in you. Bearing these fruits in you.
Let me say it this way. I heard a man put it this way
and I liked it. It's simple. He said, it's not
a formula. It's a fact. This is not a formula for how
you do better. This is, it's a fact. The Lord
is just telling you what the truth is so that you hear the
truth. Here's another way. And we'll
talk about that a little bit more, but here's another fact
in second Corinthians nine, six, but this, I say, He which soweth
sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully
shall reap also bountifully. In my yard, I have quite a number
of locations where I plant things. I have some beds, some raised
beds, and I have some other plots of land that I've amended the
soil and have it so that I can plant things. If I don't plant
anything in one of those spots, nothing's going to come up except
the weeds and things that blew in there from the wind. That's
nothing profitable or good for me. And if I have a bed and I
say, you know what, I'm going to put a couple things in there.
Maybe I'll put two beets in there and two heads of lettuce. Well,
I sowed sparingly. I'm going to only reap sparingly.
But if I see a bed and I say, I'm going to load this thing
up and I put in fertilizer so it could support this abundance
and really think about it and stuff everything in there, I'm
gonna reap bountifully. I'm gonna have more things to
can, or Michelle will have some more things by her kindness to
can, but yes, we'll have more food, more food to eat, because
I sowed plentifully. And so we aren't to overcomplicate,
overcomplicate this. It is what it is, it's just facts.
It's just facts of what the Lord tells us. And so the Lord is,
If you communicate with the ministry of the word, giving yourself
to hearing that word, supporting the preaching, even as the Lord
has supported you and given to you, and you give what time you
have and your efforts and you come and your gifts and you want
to be here, the Lord's gonna bless it. It's that simple. The
Lord's gonna bless it. He's not gonna leave you without
the word. And if you do those things, if
you do anything as a fellow helper to the truth, it is because of
the grace of God in you. It really is. You have nothing
to boast in, but the grace of God that has given you that heart.
And that's why we cry, Abba, Father. That's why when we see
ourselves sinking down and we see our sin and the hardness
of our heart, we cry, Help me, Lord, keep my wandering heart,
because all I do is go away, and all you do is bring me back
in grace and in mercy, and keep me, and turn me away from this
flesh, and where this flesh is going, and the death of what
I am by my nature. You turn me and bring me back,
so we have only the Lord to praise, because it's His grace that keeps
us. I was thinking of that hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,
in that third verse, which says, O to grace, how great a debtor,
daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy grace now, I liked how
that was in a different hymn, let thy grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it. Seal it
for thy courts above." It is the grace of God that keeps us.
It's the grace of God that turned us and that keeps us all the
way, all the way. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He's the author of our faith
and the finisher of our faith. He is the first and the last,
the beginning and the end. He's everything. And so, rain
is of the Lord, the sun is of the Lord, and so, so to these
things, praying that the Lord bless them, praying that he bless
them and bring forth abundantly fruit in our hearts and in our
minds and in our works that we do, may it all be of the Lord's
blessing. and of his giving. And so in
some ways, Paul's just reframing what he had said earlier back
in Galatians 5.16, when he said, this I say then, walk in the
spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Because
those things are contrary, the one to the other. They fight
against each other. He said so to the spirit. Walk
in the spirit. Walk in the spirit. And the way
we walk is by looking to Christ. looking to Him, breathing, crying,
desiring Christ the Lord. Therefore, because our salvation
is by grace, God has given you this word of promise. He directs you to give your time and your
focus to Christ crucified, to Christ resurrected, to Christ
seated on the throne. Think on these things. Look to
where He is according to His promise and grace. Turn over
to Romans 12. Romans 12, let's look at the
first three verses. We'll pick up in Romans 12, 1.
Paul says there, I beseech you therefore, brethren,
By the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. And be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. For I say, through the grace
given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
In other words, we're not as strong as we like to think that
we are. And we need this word. That's why the Lord has given
the word. That's why he has established local churches and given pastors
to feed his sheep. to feed and nourish his sheep
with the preaching of Christ because he is the bread of heaven. He's the one upon whom we feed
and are comforted and nourished and instructed and taught and
corrected as we have need of those things. The Lord does it
all through the preaching of the gospel. And so your time
and your energy in these things, give to these things, because
he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life
everlasting, and sowing to the Spirit is wrought in those looking
to Christ. Paul said those things, he wrote
those things in Romans 12, because we can do them. No, not at all,
not by the flesh, but that you would know the truth, that you
would cry to the Lord, saying, Lord, Teach me, keep me because
I feel what I am in this flesh. I know what I am in my mind and
in my heart which is of the flesh of the natural man in Adam. It's
all corrupt. Lord I need your grace. So that's
why he tells you the truth. That's why he tells you those
things that in our flesh we can't do because it shows us our need
of him. It shows us what the scriptures
have concluded that all are under sin, that we would receive the
promise of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we will look
to him and cry out to him for his mercy. And so I say these
things as someone who sat on the couch for many, many years
in my home without a church. And it was such a blessing when
the Lord gathered together a few random people, so it seemed,
and brought us together. And we called the pastor and
brought him and his family up there. And it was such a blessing. It was such a blessing. Then
I began to grow. I had heard these things and
believed these things, but it was so sparse and so weak and
so on my own. And the Lord blesses sheep. Sheep,
when you see sheep, people who raise sheep, they're together.
Sheep are together. They hang out together and they
spend time together. and they feel comforted together
and at peace together. And that's where the Lord teaches
us things about loving your brethren. It's very easy to say, I love
my brother who I never see. It's very easy to be kind to
people that I don't rub up against or talk to. It's very easy to
think that I love them because they haven't done anything to
offend me and I haven't done anything to offend them. When you're together,
You're proving and working out these things, which the Lord
teaches us in his word about loving and forgiving and being
kind and tenderhearted and gracious to one another, even as the Lord,
for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us and done that for us. And
so that's why it's so good to be together. It really is. It's
so good. We learn. I learn much more being
with brethren than when I sat on the couch watching video cassettes
and recordings of these things. And so that's what the Lord's
saying. So Paul adds in verse nine, and let us not be weary
in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. And here again, we are to turn
to the Lord who fulfills his promise to us. He's the one that
never grows weary. He's the one that strengthens
us. We don't have it of ourselves. We really don't. I'm not strong
enough to to labor in this blessed gospel. I need the Lord Jesus
Christ. I need his spirit and his strength
always. And so ask him, pray to him about
these things. That's why he instructs us as
he says in another part of the word, for all these things I
will be sought. by the house of Israel. I'll
be sought of Israel for these things that I'm promising in
my word. You will pray. You will seek me for them. You
will feel your need of them and you will cry out to him. He does
it in grace and in mercy. And so in Isaiah 40, verse 28
through 31, I want you to turn there cause it's a little lengthy
in Isaiah 40, back there in the old Testament, be after Psalms. and Proverbs and those poetic
books. The first prophetic book, Isaiah
40. And we'll pick up in verse 28.
This is your God to whom you pray. Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard that the
everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not? Neither is weary. There is no
searching of his understanding. So we see he's the strong one.
He's the one that's not weary and doesn't faint. He giveth
power to the faint. That's you and me. We're the
faint ones. We're the weak ones. And to them
that have no might, he increases strength. Even the youths shall
faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. You don't
need to be jealous of those younger than you. Even they get weak
and fall over and perish. They do. But they that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings
as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall
walk and not faint. And so your strength is not in
your might, it's not in your power. If it was, it would be
you doing these things in the flesh. Your strength is in the
Lord. You are weak and you know your
weakness because the Lord has you looking to Him. He turns
you to him to find your all in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ
says, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. I
won't turn you away, he says. So go to him. Pray to him. Seek. him abundantly, seek his
work abundantly in you. And verse 10 says, as we have
therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially
unto them who are of the household of faith. And so that brethren
giving of yourself, that's how we are fellow helpers to the
truth. I pray the Lord bless that word
to you, to you, to your hearts and minds. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your grace. We thank you for
your power, that you are not ever weary. Lord, that we don't
tire you out, but that you delight to hear our prayers. You delight
to answer our prayers. You delight to show yourself,
your glory, your power, your omnipotence. in and by the Lord
Jesus Christ, your blessing to your people. Lord, we thank you
for these things. We thank you for the word. We
thank you, Lord, when it is made profitable to us. because we
know it's of your grace and mercy that is done so. Not because
we're so skilled at hearing, not because we're so good at
being here or doing what we ought to do, but rather because you
are gracious and kind, even though we are undeserving of it. Lord
bless this people. Bless them richly according to
your riches in Christ. Feed your people. Continue to
bless your people. Help me to be faithful in these
things for for the glory and praise of your name and the honor
of your name because you alone lord are worthy and we have no
salvation but that which but the one whom you've provided
the lord jesus christ it's in his name we pray and give thanks
amen