Start reading verse 6, read down
to verse 10. It says, let every, excuse me,
let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that
teacheth in all good things. 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. And let us not be weary in well-doing,
for a new season we shall reap if we faint not. As we have therefore
opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them
who are of the household of faith. Dear Lord, we come to you this
morning and we thank you for Jesus Christ and we thank you
for the Word of God. We thank you for the Church of
God. We thank you, Father, that you have given us the Spirit
of God to guide us and direct us in our worship today. We thank
you, Father, that you have given us spiritual life and understanding
for those who are yours. And Lord, we thank you that you
have given us this Word to be able to not only feed upon, but
to also glory in the Savior of our souls, Jesus Christ. Lord,
we just pray that you would be with us today, that you would
assist us, that you would give us the ability to understand,
the ability to speak, the ability to discern these things that's
before us, Lord. But most importantly, we pray
that we would honor and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in everything
that we do. From the singing that we just
finished, Lord, we are so moved by the words of many of these
old hymns with their doctrinal richness. And so, Lord, we just
thank you for preserving those songs for us to be able to sing
unto you. And Lord, we just thank you so
much for the word of God to be preached. Lord, I pray that You
would help me this morning to preach and to speak those things
which are in accordance to Your Word. And all these things we
ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, Galatians chapter 6,
verse 6. Now, if you remember, we just
looked at verses 1-5 these last couple of weeks. And we see Paul
here is moving into some admonishing type things. He's been moving
into applicable things of the things that he talked about doctrinally
at the beginning of his letter. And in this application portion
of his letter, we have looked at the last few weeks that we
are to be meek and lowly in spirit, and those who are trespassing
against God, and specifically, as we see here, in believing
that they can gain a righteousness for themselves by law-keeping,
through keeping the law that God gave Moses, that these things
is what gives us a righteousness before God, either to get saved,
or to stay saved, or to stay in God's favor, and all those
things, and that was an error that these believers were being
bewitched by. And Paul has been admonishing
them on these things. And in verse 1, he says, if any
man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness. And so we are to be always preaching
and teaching the gospel. But part of that is defending
the faith. Part of that is communicating
the gospel. Part of that is to pass down
that which was handed. The Bible talks about that God
has, or that Christ has once for all given the body of faith,
the doctrine of Christ to the church. And He has given that
to us to keep and As we, every time we preach, every time we
teach, our goal in all that is to continue to perpetuate the
gospel and the doctrine of Jesus Christ. And that's why from Jesus
all the way down to today, his church has not been overtaken
by Satan, has not been overtaken by the world system, that it
continues to thrive and grow even amongst persecution, even
amongst hardships and bad times and poor times and the church
of Jesus continues to gather together to preach and to encourage
one another in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so the way
that we serve one another or the way that we restore one another
is by maintaining that pure doctrine that was given to us. The faith
once delivered to the saints, that was given to them, it's
been perpetuated by faithful churches, preaching the Word
of God, teaching the Word of God, communicating that to the
other people. And that is a good thing because
that is the building block, if you would, of fellowship. If you remember, I've said it
here many times before, that whenever the Bible talks about
fellowship, that we fellowship one with another, that we are
together as a church. And if you remember, one of the
things about coming to church, and worship is not only to exalt
the Lord Jesus Christ, to exalt God, and to worship God for who
He is, and to preach the gospel, but it's also to fellowship with
the brothers and sisters in Christ. And as we've seen, the way that
we serve one another, the way that we fellowship with one another,
the way that we love one another is by the communication of God's
Word, the communication of the faith, was delivered to the saints
that body of doctrine the doctrine of christ these are different
ways the bible talks about this is a body of documents a body
of faith whenever we say faith a lot of times everybody's talking
about you know this belief or distrust uh... in christ uh... however the word faith is also
used as a body of doctrine and a lot of times the bible uses
that uh... that wording that uh... this
body of doctrine is considered the faith and so the bible says
that that there has been a faith that has been once delivered
to the saints. That's a body of doctrine. That's the doctrine
of Jesus Christ. Because we know that everything
that's in the word of God is centered upon Christ, as we just
sang in the hymn just a few minutes ago. And so Paul here is saying
that in meekness we are to restore one another whenever there's
one in a fault who is preaching or teaching or adhering or following
after something. that is, or being deceived by
something that is not part of that body of doctrine that was
once delivered to the saints, that thing that Jesus taught,
that thing that Jesus gave to the church to instruct, and remember
Jesus said that we are to make disciples, baptize them, and
then to teach them all things whatever he has commanded, that
body of doctrine that was given to us And as each church perpetuates,
as people preach, people gather, people begin to become a church,
and they begin to preach and teach and administer from within
themselves, that is around the body of doctrine. So all that
we do, everything that church has to do with, is all around
proper doctrine in service to Christ Jesus. That's why we meet
together, that's why we even fellowship together. Now it's
good to eat, it's good to talk about things and even carnal
things that are just everyday life things. It's good to talk
about those things too. It's encouraging to hear your
job's doing well. It's encouraging to hear that
your family's not sick anymore or something like that. It's
good to hear about that and to fellowship and talk about that
and have camaraderie and everything. But brother, whenever it comes
down to it, the core essential, of fellowship in the church is
through the Word of God, is by the Word of God, it's around
the Word of God. That's why it's so hard for those
who are truly not saved and those who have lived their lives outside
of what true church is all about. Whenever they live like that
outside, they don't realize what fellowship is all about. The
fellowship of a child of grace is around the gospel. That is
something that the Spirit is producing in them is this desire
for God's Word, desire for exaltation of their Savior, desire to hear
God magnified in His sovereignty, in His salvation, in His justice,
in His wrath, in His mercy. To hear these things expounded
is what the heart, is what the mind, is what the soul craves
in the child of grace. Therefore, whenever we come together, we desire to communicate these
things back and forth. I read a verse a few weeks ago
that said, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Tell Israel what
the Lord has done for them, that their sins have been dealt with
doubly. Listen, this communion we have
together, is always about doctrine. Now, why do I go through all
that? Well, Paul has been saying, bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ, verse 2. For if a man thinketh
of himself something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.
As we see here, to bear one another's burdens, as we talked about,
is to come alongside of them whenever they are in this trespass,
as they're being led away or led astray by this wrong teaching,
that we who are spiritual, who are looking to Christ, And as
I said, particularly in context to this letter, it's about the
law of Moses and thinking and going back under the law for
righteousness sake. For those who are being overcome
by this thing, you who are spiritual, you who are walking in the spirit,
who are walking in the light, who is walking in truth, who
is walking according to the gospel, believing the gospel, all these
things refer to trusting in Christ for your righteousness. They
come alongside those, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill
the law of Christ. So we show forth our love by
properly taking doctrine, the teaching of Christ, and in meekness,
bear each other's burden. The one who is in trespass, reprove
and rebuke. That's how we bear that burden. Come alongside in prayer, come
alongside in encouragement, come alongside in admonition, to rebuke,
to warn. See, that's the problem with
so many people today. They think that when somebody
comes and takes the principles and the admonitions and the commands
of God in the Scripture, and they try to warn people about
that, that whenever you oppose these things, you're opposing
God. You're opposing what God's Word
says. And if you are professing to be a Christian, this is where
we get our authority. This is where we get our rule
of life. It's through God's Word. This
is where we understand. the things that God has revealed. And so whenever someone is erring
from that, we who are spiritual, who are still looking to Jesus,
looking and knowing that there isn't anything that we can do
of our flesh to please God, whenever we are erring from the scriptures
and beginning to believe philosophies and things of this world, you
guys, it's easy to watch TV and watch the news and to watch all
the programming that they've got. I mean, we all like to watch
TV. We all got our programs that
we like to watch and everything like that. But it's always, always,
always pushing the world system. It's always pushing evil. It's
always pushing satanic things. And everything that we watch,
no matter what it is, whether it's a Hallmark movie or whether
it's something else, it's always pushing things that are contrary
to right thinking. And so we have to be discerning.
We have to know God's word and know what's a lie and what's
not a lie, what's truth, what's not truth. And not to let those
things be affecting our minds, but that we are letting that.
And I'm not dogging TV. I watch about as much TV as anybody
can watch, but I'm not glorifying it either. But yet, we have to
train our mind. Well, the way that we do these
things is through God's Word. And so, when someone comes alongside
of us, whenever we are trespassing or whenever we are being pulled
away, as we see here, one who is under, overtaken by hope, when
someone comes in love and tries to bring you back to right thinking
on those things, you know, it's not hate. And Paul says here,
he says, bear you one another's burden and so fulfill the law
of God. When we are doing that, we are actually showing the biblical
form of love. That's how we show that. And then Paul said, as we ended
up last week, he said, but let every man prove his work and
then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not another
for every man shall bear his own burden. And now today, We
go right in and Paul, and this is what's weird, I don't know,
I mean, I used to think this too, I used to preach it this
way. And just about everything that I read from anybody that
had a comment about this thing, just about every one of them
believed the same thing. That Paul now goes right in from
verses one through five, and actually everything before that
in the letter, but goes right into verse six and says, that
is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth an all
good thing." Aha, there you go. There's where preacher salaries
are in the word of God. There's nothing wrong with having
a salary for preaching God's word, for being a pastor. That's
why you gotta have a pastor salary. Okay? And people use this verse
as a proof text and it's just It's not proof of anything as
far as what they're saying. That, aha, the tithe is still
in effect and you need to pay your pastor. That's what this verse is used
for. Well, brethren, why would Paul
all of a sudden go from everything he's been talking about, and
most people preach it that way, that this is about paying your
preacher what he's due, and that in doing that, you're going to
have to take up tithes, because that's where we pay the preacher,
with the tithes. But, brethren, and I'll just
say I do not believe that the Old Testament tithe is in effect
for the New Testament church. I still believe in giving. The
Bible does teach us to be giving, to be generous, to not be stingy. It does talk about that God loves
a cheerful giver, and it talks about how we are to liberally give to the gospel
and the service of the gospel. But brother, this whole thing
that a pastor is hired and then you pay him a salary and then
he has a salary and just like every salary, you know, his performance
depends on whether or not he gets more salary or whether or
not he gets the boot and another one comes in, you know. That's
not what this is teaching at all, brethren. Why would Paul
go right into that after teaching everything that he's been teaching?
This has got to be talking about something more than paying a
pastor. Now, I will say this, the Bible
does teach that those who preach and are the ordained people of
God that have been called unto this ministry and everything,
that the church ought to do what they can take care of him i'm
not saying payment salaries and salary i'm not saying i mean
it doesn't even have to be in money they can they can buy food
they can help me with these bills that he's granted whatever the
case is to help the person out because he spends his time in
the uh... in the ministry of the gospel
and he spends his time in the study of the gospel and they
communicate those things but as we'll see uh... I believe
this thing is talking a little bit more about money, okay? So while there is a precedence
in the scripture about taking care, the pastor's issue should
never be that. Well, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna
have to find me another church if you can't pay me this much.
You know, there are preachers that they believe that they are
owed a house to live in, or if not that, then they are owed
owed a house allowance and then they are to, you know, give a
certain amount of money. I can only, you know, I have
to have this amount. You know, I got this many kids and, you
know, I can't do this for free or anything like that. Well,
absolutely you can do it for free. Absolutely you can. Is it a ministry? Have you been
called to minister? Have you been called to be a
salesman? Have you been called to minister or have you been
called or into some kind of entertainment, or some sort of a counselor,
or something like that. Those people get paid. Okay? Those people get paid. Matter
of fact, the Bible says that a man who preaches, and he'll
only preach for money, if the price is right, or if he even
gets something, that man's a hireling. That's what the Bible calls him,
he's a hireling. Preachers ought to preach because
they've been called of God, and whether or not they have someone
to support them to do it, then if not, they support themselves.
Paul did this. So, what does this mean? If it
doesn't mean pay your preacher, what does it mean? Well, brother,
I'm not saying it doesn't completely not mean that. I do think that
we ought to, if you're, as a church, that we ought to communicate
unto the one who teaches, unto the one who pastors. I believe
that we ought to communicate things to them to help them and
bear their load as it pertains to carnal things. temporal things. But let's read this once again.
He says, But let every man prove his own work, and then he shall
have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. But every
man shall bear his own burden. That him that is taught in the
word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. 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." Now, let's just
stop here, brethren, and just kind of think of what Paul's
been saying. He's saying that we need to come alongside of
each other, that if somebody's in a trespass, that we who are
spiritual have spiritual discernment, see these things. Not saying
that we're spiritually perfect, saying those who are spiritual,
those who have their mind right in thinking on God's word, in
the authority of God, working off of God's principles, coming
alongside of them, those who are trusting Christ alone, those
who know the truth and see that there is error here, they are
to come alongside and they are to bear those brethren's burdens
with them and communicate unto them the
truth And in doing so, that shows their love. This is the communication
that I believe it's talking about here. It's talking about communicating
this love relationship within the body of Christ, this love
relationship of holding God's word, holding each other accountable
by God's word, that we are to love each other enough to come
alongside whenever we're wrong, and to correct each other, and
to not scorn each other and look down our nose at each other,
point the finger at each other, but in love, address it and correct
it and rebuke it and then seek God and give repentance to the
heart of those who are being drawn away. And so whenever somebody
who has been in the error of their ways, as the context here
shows, the one who has been overtaken in a fall has been taught or
has been communicated the gospel or the truth by somebody who
is spiritual. And I'm not saying that as a,
this is a platform. The spiritual man is the man
of God who is the ordained minister and all like that. No, I'm talking
about anybody who is spiritual because this whole admonition
is for everybody. It's not just the pastor, for
everybody. So ye who are spiritual, that
person that sees, hey, this brother's coming in error, and I need to
come alongside of him. If I love him, I need to go alongside
of him and tell him, you know, warning, he's going the wrong
direction, and come back this way, and this is what the Word
of God says, come back here. That is communicating to that
brother the truth, communicating him God's Word. And so thus,
he has been communicated that love from that brother, that
service from that brother. And so those who have been communicated
good things as far as the word of God, as far as the righteousness
of Christ, the gospel, all these things, those who have been communicating
themselves, they ought to communicate to the one who did it. What do
I believe this thing is talking about? And it really doesn't
matter what I believe. It's what God's word is saying,
what I understand this to say. is that this is talking about
communion. It's fellowship. It's good for
those who are being taught of God and the ministry of the person
that is teaching, not just the Holy Spirit, we know that's the
one who teaches us, but the person who is continually bringing forth
and declaring God's word before you, that it's good. And fellowship
is centered around that reciprocating, that reciprocating communication
of God's Word. See, I need to hear it just as
much as anybody else needs to hear it. I need to hear God's
Word. I need to be preached to. I need
to be corrected and rebuked whenever I'm wrong. See, that's why I
always leave open a place in the meeting where if anybody,
after I've preached, does anybody have any questions? Does anybody
have any comments? corrections or reviews or anything.
I'm not just saying that to be funny. I'm saying that because
the Bible tells us that we are to be held accountable to a higher
standard because we are responsible of preaching the Word of God
to others as God enables us. And so if we are in error, we're
not above everybody where we can't come and say, you're wrong.
How many Catholics do you see going to the Pope and saying,
Hey, I don't agree with that, I think that that's wrong. How
many of them even challenge Him in the Word of God? Probably
not many of them because they don't really... The only thing
they believe about the Word of God is whatever the Pope tells
them they can believe about it. No, we don't go and we don't
take God's Word and just think, whatever. You know, this is our
standard. And if the preacher isn't following
and preaching after the truth, And he's going off into error.
He needs to be corrected just like anybody else does. And so
we have this fellowship. Me and my friend J.C. Fulton,
whenever we get together, you know, things that he's taught,
I communicate, hey, brother, thank you for sharing that with
me. Thank you for talking about that. I had never thought of
that point before. And, you know, we communicate those things.
And we have fellowship in God's Word. And hey, have you thought
of this? Hey, look what the Lord's been teaching me in the Word
of God here, and we communicate that to our friends, and then
they reap from that. They reap something spiritual
out of that. And so in turn, what do they
do? They communicate the same back to us. They communicate
the things of God back to us. This is what I was saying last
week, is that everybody thinks that fellowship and everybody
thinks that love is this ooey-gooey feeling that we get. Oh, I like
to get around with my friends, because I just like being together.
You know, we have a good time when we're together. You know,
we do all these things together. We watch these shows together,
or we sit around a campfire together, or we play music together, or
we play video games together, or whatever. And we think that's
fellowship. We think that love is whenever
we just have this feeling, oh, my heart goes out to them, Or
as the modern day term is, is, you know, I've got good vibes
for you today, you know. I'm not even wearing scripture,
but vibes do anything. That's new age cultism, what
that is. Whenever we talk about fellowship
and we talk about love, it's always centered around the gospel
of Jesus Christ. And we need to have that reciprocity
here in the church. It shouldn't always be a one-way
street. The pastor shouldn't be the only one that's communicating
good things. See, that communication should
be coming from everybody else. You know, there ought to be spiritual
conversation. The Bible says that they spoke
to themselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
to make a melody of their heart unto the Lord. They were talking,
conversing back and forth The Bible says in Acts... It says in Acts chapter 2 verse
42, And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and
fellowship, and breaking their bread, and in prayers. And fear
came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by
the apostles. And all that believed were together,
and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods
and parted them, to all men as every man had need. Now, there
was a great need for those things during this time. This isn't
an admonition that in the church service, everybody brings in
your money and puts it in the teal and we divide it up to whoever
needs it and everything like that. This isn't a deal that
we have to sell all of our possessions. Now, there are some people that
actually believe that, that you ought to live a monastic lifestyle,
that you ought to divulge yourself of any any kind of pleasure,
any kind of anything, you know, and to, you know, not, you don't
have to wear nice clothes, wear, you know, the scrubbiest thing,
the most basest thing, the most simplest thing, the most cheapest
thing, you know, and everything. That's not what this is saying.
Verse 46, and they continuing daily with one accord in the
temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart, which is good. We all
like to do that. We all like to get together,
eat together, and talk about the good things that's been going
on, the things that we like. But it says here, praising God
and having favor with all the people. So part of fellowship
is worship. Part of fellowship is the declaration
of the gospel. Now, why do I think that? Well,
I think not only is this going along with Paul's theme, and
it's not this little offshoot that a lot of people think that
all of a sudden Paul just kind of goes out of nowhere and starts
talking about paying the preacher. This is talking about the communication
among each other so that there is a fellowship, a relationship
together enough to, hey, I can go talk to my brother in sin.
Or hey, I can listen to my brother who's coming to correct me because
I know that he loves me. Right? Now, how many of you,
now, I'll just say this. The majority of people, even
amongst churches, they go to church week after week after
week after week. There is not enough of a fellowship relationship
that they'll go to them and correct them, because most people, they
don't want to be bothered, and they don't want to have conflict,
and they're not even going to go and say nothing to anybody.
That's between them and the Lord. If God wants to correct them,
He's going to correct them. This is the Holy Spirit admonishing
us. to come alongside of each other
and to treat each other as we would want to be treated. If
you're going the wrong direction and you're doing something that
is contrary to God's Word, wouldn't you want somebody to say, hey?
You know? You know, if my son was about
to go out there, didn't know that I'd been smoking meat all day
and came home and went to go put his hand on that thing, if
I yanked and grabbed that hand real quick, he's going to be
thankful eventually, hopefully, that I snatched his hand away
from that hot stove, right? He didn't do it out of hate,
he did it out of love. He corrected me out of love.
Now, that's how we are to be within the church. If we have
enough love for each other and relationship, we're gonna be
able to come together. So that's why I think Paul was
talking about this, because he not only says it here in this
context, and it bleeds on from the context previous, But Paul
has already talked about this in Galatians chapter 4, verses 12 and 19. If you look
there, Galatians chapter 4, verse 12, it says, Brethren, I beseech
you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me
at all. Now, what is Paul doing here?
Paul is talking about his love between him and the Galatians.
Remember, the Galatians had this great love for Paul for coming
and preaching the gospel to them, communicating the gospel. And
then they reciprocated that love to Paul. He's reminding them
of that, reminding them, cultivating their minds to think back. Listen,
remember how it was whenever we were communicating the gospel
back and forth to each other, and we weren't broken up into
our little groups, and we weren't trying to go our own ways, and
we weren't trying to do it on our own and trust in ourselves?
Whenever we were looking to Jesus and all of us thought that right
there, that gospel was enough for us to have hours upon hours
of fellowship, Look what he's saying. Brethren, I beseech you,
be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all.
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel
unto you at the first, and my temptation which was in my flesh
ye despised not, nor rejected, but received me as an angel of
God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness
ye speak of? For I bear you record that if
it had been possible, you would have poked out your own eyes
and given them to me." So he's saying, look, this is how much
you cared for me because of me communicating the gospel to you.
Now I'm coming to communicate the gospel to you, but someone
has led you astray and we don't have fellowship anymore. And
the reason we don't have fellowship anymore is because the thing
that that original fellowship was built upon, the gospel, The
true gospel, that catalyst or that thing that we were centered
around has been moved. It's gone. You're now looking
not at the true gospel, you're looking at a false gospel that
these men have come in and bewitched you with. And so now that you're
moved over here, our fellowship is gone. You have fellowship
with those men, but you don't have fellowship with me, the
very man who at one time, if it could have been possible,
You would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me." And so Paul says in verse 16,
and this is the question that pastors need to ask, and any
child of grace should ask any of their friends and family whenever
they are preaching them the truth of God's Word, what God's Word
says. It's not my opinion. It's not my religion's opinion.
Okay? It's God's opinion. It's God's
Word. It isn't what I think or some
philosophy that I heard on TV or some new fad or some new wave
of generation that has come through and, oh, this is just this generation. This is how we do things. This
is our deal. You know, anything like that,
listen, it's God's Word. And so Paul here, he says, listen,
At one time you loved me, you cared for me, we communicated
the gospel together, but now you're believing a lie and whenever
someone in love comes to you who is listening to a lie and
tries to tell you the truth because of your deception over those
lies, you don't have any more love for me. You don't have any
more relationship or fellowship with me. You have that fellowship
with the one who's telling you what you want to hear. You have
fellowship with them and you find your comfort in them. But
brethren, if it's not this, if it doesn't come around this,
it doesn't matter what I think or what you think. It's what
this thing, what this thing says. And so Paul says this, verse
16, look at it. He says, am I therefore become
your enemy because I tell you the truth? Paul's saying we have great communication
of fellowship between each other. When I say communication, I'm
not just talking about, whenever I say communicate, I mean communicate
as in impart, and I'm giving you something. And you're taking
that, you're receiving that to yourself, and you're saying praise
the Lord. That's truth as I've been taught of Christ. That's
truth, what you're saying, amen, and you're receiving that truth
and everything. That's what communicating is.
That's what it is, it's a reciprocal, declaring a reciprocal of delivering
the message of Christ Jesus and His gospel between each other. And Paul says this was going
great with us. You was receiving these things.
You was finding comfort in these things. You was looking to Christ
alone and then all of a sudden somebody come in, bewitched you
and overtook you in this fault that you're now in and has washed
you away to the point where now there is no more fellowship to
the one who brought you this who was teaching you this and
you was finding great comfort in, now all of a sudden I've
become your enemy. And the only reason I'm your
enemy is not because I am your enemy, but it's because you view
me as your enemy because your truth has moved away from the
truth. See, your truth is a lie according to God's Word. And brethren, you see how relevant
that is today? I mean, it's not just relevant. I mean, this doesn't actually
talk about anything. But look how relevant this is
today. I mean, just here recently with everything that's going
on, with the wonderful news that it's going to be harder for women
to be able to go get abortions and kill babies. Man, that's
great. Every Christian should be rejoicing
the very fact that this evil thing that has been put on this
country. Listen, other countries, they
don't have strict abortion. strict rules and regulations
on abortion that keeps letting women have abortions. It's not
as prevalent in many other countries. And in most countries, it's looked
down upon and frowned upon. But yet, here in our country,
because we've become so entitled, because we've become so woke,
that whenever we take God's word and we apply God's word, we want
to find something else because our itching ears want to hear.
That's what the Bible says. It says, they gathered unto themselves
teachers that tell them what their itching ears want to hear.
Their heart's carnal desire is for that. They're lusting after
that. They want to have that. But God's Word says that's not
good for you. You should not do that because
it's not good for you. This is not honoring to God.
This is not what Christ taught. And yet they want this over here
so whenever they hear This over here, and they're being drawn
to that, and now all of a sudden this right here is being preached
to them. Now they don't like this. So they're going to find
everything they can against God and his people and his word that
they can't even go so far as to misrepresenting them. See,
we're not a religious group. The true church of Jesus Christ
is not a religion, so to speak. It's not a religion like, Hindu
is a religion, equal with Hinduism or Catholicism or with, you know,
Buddhism, all this kind of stuff. It's just not a religion to pick
amongst. Christianity, God's people, this
right here, is the only religion. This is the only salvation. This is the only God, the God
of this Bible. as it's taught by and revealed
by Him. This is the only truth. Nothing else is true. Buddha
don't have truth. He might have some good sayings,
but he ain't got truth. That is not truth. Hinduism is
not truth. Catholicism is not truth. They
are all false religions. And listen, even within the umbrella
of Christianity, not all people who claim to be Christians are
following after God's Word and is considered a true New Testament
church. If they're not adhering to Christ's
doctrine, they're not a New Testament church. And so Paul here is saying that
whenever these people begin to be drawn away by their lust,
then the fellowship is broken amongst God's people because
the people of God We're going to be preaching the truth. They're
not going to want to hear the truth. They're going to hear
what their itching ears want to hear. Therefore, the fellowship
breaks. And now what do we do? We find
everything that we can to point our finger at them. We go back
to the law. Well, look at you. You don't
do this. You don't do that. You don't
do this. You know, if I mention something
to somebody, come alongside them and love and correct them, they
go, well, that's you. You listen to secular music and
watch secular TV and have a secular you this or that, you know? What
do we do? We start pointing our fingers
at each other and saying, you don't do the law as good as I
do. You don't do the law as good as I do. Is that not what Paul
has been talking about in these two last two chapters? He says,
but if you buy and devour one another, take heed that you be
not consumed one of another. When it gets down, to not being
able to rebuke and correct and come alongside and love serving
one another as Paul is admonishing them, then it's going to come
back to this. The law, how good you do the
law, and how better I do the law. That's what's going to come
down to. We want to abide and devour each
other. It's going to be a constant upheaval. There's going to be
schism in the church. There's going to be division
in the church. And the fellowship is going to be broken within
a church. That's why Paul said, take heed.
That's why in verse one of chapter six, he said, consider myself,
lest thou also be tempted. Be careful because listen, you
can be in the same boat. This could be you. So he says here, but let every
man prove, or excuse me, let him that is taught in the word
communicate unto him that teaches in all good things. So Paul,
he says, listen, I would have done anything for you. You guys
have this fellowship with me. I have this fellowship with you.
And now something has came and has changed that. In 1 Corinthians,
he addressed this as well. 1 Corinthians chapter four, look
at verse 14. 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse
14. Paul says, I write not these
things to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you. See,
brethren, we're not trying to shame people whenever we try
to correct them with the Word of God. It's not to shame. At
least that should not be our motive. It shouldn't be our intent.
That's not how we ought to operate. If we're going out to shame them,
then we're doing it the wrong way. It says, I did not write
these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you. Sometimes we warn in sarcasm,
right? Paul used sarcasm a lot in delivering
the gospel. But we shouldn't shame people,
okay? We shouldn't be shaming people.
It says, I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved
sons I warn you. For though ye have 10,000 instructors
in Christ, yet have not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus
I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you,
be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto
you Timotheus, who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord."
And it wasn't his real son. He's using a metaphor of father-son
as those who was the one who taught and presented the gospel
to one who began to believe under the ministry. It says, "'For
this cause I send unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son and faithful
in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways.
How was he going to be a faithful minister to them in Corinth? He was going to be a faithful
minister by doing what? Bringing them into remembrance
of the ways of Christ. See, that's how he was going
to fellowship among these brethren, was by communicating unto them
the things of Christ. And they were to communicate
the things of Christ back to Timotheus. He says, which being
Christ, says, I teach everywhere in every church. So he's saying,
in every church everywhere, I teach these things. He says, now, jump
down to chapter six, or excuse me, second Corinthians chapter
six. Corinthians chapter six. Look
with me in verse 11. He says, O ye Corinthians, our
mouth is open unto you. Our heart is enlarged. He's saying
that our mouth is open to you. We're communicating unto you
the gospel. We're communicating unto you
the things of Christ. Our mouth doesn't cease to close into talking
about the things of God among you. And he says, our heart is enlarged.
He said, what does he mean by that? He says, our love for you
is growing. As we communicate God's Word for us, we're beginning
to care for you. We're beginning to love you.
See, whenever we communicate the Word of God between each
other, there begins to be a love for each other because of this. Again, going back to what I said
at the beginning in my rough introduction, that the communication
of this Gospel amongst those who feed off this Gospel is a
good thing. You know, we have, our family,
one of the things we like to do is we like to go try out new
restaurants, try different kinds of food. We like food, basically. We like food. Good food. We like bad food, too. We really
like good food. And we try to make good food. And so food kind of becomes something
that is a thing with our family. We like to go to restaurants
that are cool, that have different things. And I've all, as our
kids have grown up, and everything we have, instead of buying a
lot of gifts and things for them on their birthdays and things,
I would let my kids pick on their birthday, wherever they wanted
to go to eat, no matter how much it cost. I'd take them there
for their birthday dinner, as well with the rest of the whole
family, not just the kids. And so sometimes they pick really
nice places, and sometimes they pick really, really expensive
places. But anyway, the fact is we have this fellowship around
food during our birthday times. We take each other out to somewhere
that we want to go eat. And whenever we get there, we
all try different things. We've never been to a restaurant
before. What do we do? We all order something different,
right? And then we pass it around. Here, try this. Try this. Try
this. Try this. Try this. Try this. And so we're taking
this food and we're passing it around. Why? Because we all are
excited about food. We all like food. We all like
different food. And we like going to cool restaurants.
That is something that is very important to us. We like to do
it. We drive lots of places. We drove lots of miles to go
eat at certain places just for the fun of it. Why? Because that's our thing. That's
what we like to do with each other. That's what we like to
do when we're around each other and gathered with each other.
We like to do that. Well, this is kind of what we're
talking about here. Paul is saying, and you know, taking the word
of God as the bread of life, Jesus Christ, the bread of life,
he is the bread. He said, he that eats my flesh
and drinks my blood, they fellowship with me and have communion with
me. Listen, This is what we're talking about. It's just like
that. Whenever we come together as
Christians, the communication of the things of God and what
Christ has done for us ought to be the thing that causes our
love for each other to enlarge, as Paul is saying here. What
does he say? He says, He says, our mouth is open unto
you, our heart is enlarged. We begin to love each other more
and more and more and desire to serve one another more. Why?
Because we are engaging off of this thing that drives us, this
person who drives us, Christ. And we're engaging in that. And
whenever we engage in that, it causes a care and a love for
each other. Why? Because that person is truly
giving me something that my heart desires to hear. See, I can go
to somebody's house and we can talk about football and hunting
and fishing and cooking, grill, grilling out, smoking meat, all
that kind of stuff. We can talk about all those things
and it's all right, but it doesn't feed our soul. But whenever we
get around the people of God where we can talk about the gospel
that truly sets us aflame in the heart, then we can just talk
and talk and talk. You guys always wonder why preachers
always can't quit talking after church services. Well, that's
one of the reasons why. It's because not a lot of people
in the congregation communicate back to the preacher. The preacher
desires to hear and communicate these things and have them communicated
to him. Preachers like to preach to each other, and so that's
how they get it. So that's one of the reasons
why. But Paul here is saying, listen,
he says, verse 12, ye are not straightened in us, but ye are
straightened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same,
I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged. Okay, so he's encouraging them
in this fellowship again. And lastly, let's look at Philippians
chapter 1. Philippians chapter 1, look at
verse 3 if you would. It says, I thank my God upon
every remembrance of you. See, just the very fact of the
fellowship was so good with Paul and the Philippians, that every
time he thinks about it, he just says, man, I thank the Lord for
them. I thank the Lord for them. Man, they always seem to encourage
me. They always seem to help. They
always seem to lift me up. They always seem to point me
to Christ. You know, we have our churches that we like to
fellowship with, whenever we go to Coweta, Choctaw, and down
to Mena, and all these churches that we fellowship with quite
a bit and everything like that. We desire to go there. Why? Because
whenever we go there, everybody loves us. And they cheer for
us whenever we're down. They pray for us whenever we
have need. They're all the time encouraging
us. And they desire to hear the communication
of God's word. And we desire to hear the communication
of God's word from them. So whenever we think of them,
you know, But it's a wonderful thing. Especially whenever we
get to be around them at a Bible conference or a Fifth Saturday
Fellowship or something like that. We get to see them again.
We haven't seen them in a while. Lord willing, we're going to
get to go down to Charlottetown for the Bible conference this year.
We haven't seen a lot of those people in quite a while now.
It's going to be good to see them. We haven't seen them in
a while. And it'll be good to see them, but more than anything,
it's going to be good to fellowship in the Gospel with them. You
know? And Paul here, he says, Every
time I think of you guys, every time I think of this church, I thank God. He says, always
in every prayer of mine for you all, making requests with joy
for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.
See what the fellowship was in? It was the fellowship in the
gospel. It wasn't in the fellowship that
we all dunk each other underwater. That's not necessarily the reason
we fellowship, okay? Now, that's definitely part of
the doctrine of Christ, and it ought to be adhered to, and it
ought to be properly administered by the proper administers. Okay? But we fellowship in the gospel.
Now, baptizing people is part of the gospel. It shows the gospel.
But, brethren, we don't fellowship because we're called Baptists.
We don't fellowship because we're called Sovereign Grace. Baptist
or because we're called primitive Baptist or absoluters or whatever
you want predestinarians or whatever you want to call us, just don't
call us Calvinist please. Whatever we are called, whatever
people want to place a tag on, we don't fellowship because of
that, we fellowship because we've been given a light precious faith.
A light precious faith that looks to Christ and a light, precious
faith, which is the doctrine of that Christ. For your fellowship in the gospel
from the first day until now, being confident of this very
thing, that he which began a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. Even as it is meek for me to
think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, Inasmuch
as both in my bonds and in the defense of confirmation of the
gospel, ye are all partakers of my grace." Not of Paul's actual
grace, okay? While they did experience Paul
going and loving them and sharing the gospel with them, which is
one of the most loving things a person can do to another brother
or sister in Christ is to declare the gospel to them. Not necessarily
that, but the grace that Paul preached. Paul preached sovereign
grace. And they are partakers of that
same grace that Paul loves. Paul loves the grace of God.
The grace of God had helped him, that had delivered him from sin,
that had saved him from sin, that grace that had elected him
and had called him and it's going to glorify Him. Paul was a partaker
of that and so were they. They believed that they were
of like precious faith. And so Paul loved them for that
and it caused him. But you notice that word partakers
of my grace, that word partakers there is the same Greek word
as communicate. It's the same Greek word as communicate
back in our passage. To communicate is to partake
in. Are you partaking in the message
and the gospel that is being communicated to you? Are you
partaking of that? Meaning that you're receiving
that for yourselves? Whenever we partake, whenever
we sit down, we don't often sit around the table at our house,
but like on Thanksgiving, we'll sit around the table because
Lori's made 10,000 things on there. And what do we do? We take a scoop of potatoes out
and we pass it to the person beside us. We take some green
beans out and we pass that to someone there. We take some stuffing
out and put it on our... I'm ready for some Thanksgiving
food now. Some cranberries and we pass
it around. What are we doing? We're partaking of this one meal
together. And I'm taking... Ah, yeah, that's
what I want. And then I'm giving it to you.
As I partake of it, you partake of it. We have a joint partaking
of the same thing. We are joint partakers in these
things of Christ. We are receiving them things
and we are growing in the grace and knowledge of God because
of the things that are being communicated and taught by the
Holy Spirit through the brethren in Christ. And so here, Paul
is saying, he says, even as it is meek for me to think of this
of you all because I have you in my heart, in as much as both
in my bonds and in the defense and the confirmation of the gospel,
ye are partakers of my grace." So back to Galatians. So this is why I believe that
this passage here that Paul is writing is not some tangent about
preacher salaries. Let's go back and read it again
and see what Paul is getting out of this. I had to go through
all that, and I know it might have been a little scattered.
I didn't get much sleep last night, and my mind is in a thousand
directions today. But I apologize for that. That's
the flesh in me, and it could do no good. Look at verse 7. It says, Be not deceived, God
is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. So if we spend our time in carnal
things, fleshly things, all we're going to reap is carnal and fleshly
things. If all I spend my time doing
is watching TV and I don't spend time in God's Word, I'm going
to know the plot lines and story lines. I'm going to even be able
to probably quote a lot of the movie lines and everything. But I might know everything about
these shows that I watch, and I'm going to reap that. But listen,
brethren, that's all going to burn up. That's all going to
be worthless. That's 10-4. But if I spend my time looking
at Christ and studying the Word of God and feeding myself upon
that, again, I'm not doubting TV or radio or anything. I'm
not saying, I think we ought to be careful what we watch.
and listen to, and things like that. But what I'm saying is
that our minds are to be fixed upon the Word of God and the
Gospel. And that is the eternal things
that we fellowship around. So whenever we get together as
a church, if we're going to come to fellowship, well, let's come
and fellowship in the biblical way, and not so much in the carnal
way. And this is what Paul thinks
is in vain here, because that's what he's been talking about.
He's talking about these people who need to be brought back from
a fault and don't keep coming together and communicating in
carnal things or even in fleshly things. If you can continue to
reap to your flesh, you trying to keep the law in the flesh,
which you cannot do, you're going to reap corruption. All you're
going to find is that your law keeping is going to fail. Your
flesh is going to reap corruption. You're going to see that every
time I try to keep the law, I die. Every time I try to show forth
righteousness, I die. Right there. But he says here, he says, 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. We're going to rejoice in these
things forever. So might as well start getting
some good out of them now, right? Whenever we go to heaven, you
know, unfortunately a lot of people will be pretty, if they're
there, I should say, some people are going to be surprised what
heaven is all about. You know, heaven isn't about
us just running around, jumping from cloud to cloud with our
little wings and playing harps and eating grapes, being fed
to us by some angel or something like that. Heaven isn't about
us going and shacking back up with all of our family members
that have gone on before us, and we're going back to see them
again. And now we're going to continue on as life has always
been going on. No, brethren, heaven and eternity
is all going to be gathered around the throne of worship of Jesus
Christ. We're going to be worshiping Christ. And God has revealed
that Christ in his word. And why not now begin to experience
some of the reaping of the spiritual part that we're gonna spend a
whole lifetime experiencing. Experience some of that now.
For he that soweth to his flesh, shall the flesh reap corruption.
If you're gonna try to do things in the flesh, you're gonna reap
fleshly things, and the flesh is gonna die and go back to the
dust. The flesh can do no good. It can't do anything pleasing
to God. All it's gonna be is things.
So if you spend your time with your burdens, carnal burdens,
and not the burdens and spiritual burdens of your brethren, you're
just going to reap carnal things. But there is something about
investing and reaping, or sowing, in the lives of each other. And
I'm not talking about the crazy preachers on TV talking about,
sow a seed of faith and send it in the year $1,000 and God's
going to give you $10,000. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking
about sowing into each other this love that we're talking
about, this discussion of the gospel, this encouragement in
God's word, this correction and review that the word of God has
been given for us to use. You know, the Bible says all
scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for correction,
for reproof, for training in righteousness. These things are
given so that the child of grace might be thoroughly equipped
for the works of the ministry. What are we ministering? The
Gospel of Jesus Christ to each other. We're ministering Christ
Jesus to each other. See, it all goes around. And I've used this motion 9,000
times this morning. I'm going to have to tie my hands
down. He says in verse 9, And let us not be weary in well-doing,
for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. This isn't just
a song we sing. This is something that the Lord
has said and has promised. He says here, Let us not be weary
in well-doing. Listen, there are going to be
times as we are investing and sowing into the lives of people
and ministering the gospel among each other, by correcting, rebuking,
there's going to be conflicts. There's going to be hard times.
There's going to be times when it's not going to be good. And
it's going to become wearisome. You're going to think, why do
I keep doing this? Why do I keep on? I don't know.
You can ask my wife. I've done it on many occasions.
I don't know how many, she might be keeping track, but I don't
know how many times I have said to my wife, you know, there's
little me just thinks that, well, I'll just close this thing up
and just go on. There's been a lot of times that
I've told my wife, I really would like to just kind of get away
from everybody, everyone, and just kind of be a loner, just
me and my family and nobody else. Get away. There's been a lot
of times that I've got up in Sunday morning, and I'll be honest,
this morning was one of them, that I've got up and I'm like,
man, I really don't feel like doing this today. I really am
tired. I really don't want to do this
today. But listen, brethren, our desire for fellowship with
each other, our desire to communicate the Word of God, that drive that
the Holy Spirit gives us in these things, And praise the Lord he
does, because my flesh would never want to do it. My flesh
would have stayed in bed this morning. Daniel texted me this
morning and asked, and he said, are you guys still having church
this morning? And everything. And I was sitting there, I was
looking at that text, to be honest with you, Daniel, I was like,
man, I could say no, go right back to bed. Yeah, I was, the
thing was, was I wasn't sure if there was going to be today
since the 4th of July is tomorrow. I was thinking, If there was
not going to be church today, I could just go right back to
sleep. Well, that's what I was thinking. That's what I told
my wife. I said, man, but you know, there's this desire for
this because the Lord has given us this thing. He says, let's
not be weary. We can become weary in well-doing. We can be weary in this service. Why? Because we are dealing with
sinners who are overtaken in fault. We are sinners who become
overtaken in faults. And when people are overtaken
in faults, and they go back to this finger-pointing by going
back into the law and not remembering that Christ has done this all,
and so it says Christ has forgiven us of all these sins, we ought
to be forgiving to others. We ought to be compassionate
with others, knowing that we also could be tempted, knowing
that we also should take heed how we stand lest we fall. Knowing those things, they can
be rubbed, they can be rubbed, and it becomes weary. But the
Lord is encouraging us to not be weary in well-doing, for in
due season we shall reap if we faint not. Even if the Lord doesn't
reward us with anything in this temporal life, okay, if He doesn't
make anything easier, You know, the Lord may not bring a bunch
of people to this church again. Who knows? We don't know. We've
experienced in the 12 years that we've been here, it's gone up,
it's gone down, it's gone up, it's gone down. It mostly stays
down, but it does go up and down occasionally. The Lord sends
people our way on occasions. We had a family from Guatemala
here for about a year. The Lord's taken them to someplace
else now and is God's purpose for them, wherever He's got them,
He set their habitation. And so we rejoice in the fact
that we had a year with them. We've had people in the past
that's been members of our church who have moved away, some have
passed on. We don't know what the Lord does. And we see times
of going down, times of going up, and it becomes weary. And
we may never see any tangible, outward, temporal reward here,
but brethren, know this. that he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting, and in due season
we shall reap of those spiritual things." What God has done in
this spiritual salvation of His people, we will reap all the
benefits. The Bible says that we are joiners
with Jesus. The Bible says that we have an
inheritance and the Holy Spirit is given to us as the promise
of that inheritance, as the seal showing that God is not finished.
And as we just said right here, seen right here, that the Lord
has a purpose and that everything that he begins, he's gonna finish.
And so we have that faith, we have that trust. And so he's
telling us, don't be weary in doing this. Don't be weary. in
this communicating between each other. And he says in verse 10,
as we have therefore, so in light of what I just said, as we have
opportunity, let us do good unto all. Now the word men there is
in italics, it's not in the actual Greek. They've provided this
word here to make the flow a little bit better. It's not there. It says, let
us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household
of faith. So here we have an admonition
to do good. What is the doing good here?
Is that meaning, you know, mow their lawns, do things? I think
that's, you know, good that we do that. But again, what's the
context? What are we communicating here?
What's the fellowship in? It's in the gospel. As we have
therefore opportunity, let us preach the gospel. Let us do
good unto all men, especially them who are the household of
faith. Why especially them who are the household of faith? Well,
it's because they who love to hear that sound. I love to tell
the story because I know it's true. It seems hungering and
thirsting to those who know it best. I mean, we desire to hear
these things over and over again. And why do we do it to all men? Because we don't know who the
Lord's elect are, right? We don't know who His sheep are,
and we don't know when He grants them understanding to be able
to hear the Gospel. So we preach to everybody. I
preach to people that, you know, I share the Gospel with people
that have express that they don't like the gospel, that they don't
like what we believe. I just continue to keep sharing
that because you never know, that person may be a child of
God who the Lord has yet to open up their hearing and understanding.
And one of these days he will, and that's going to be a comfort
to them. It's going to be something that they're going to hear and
they're going to love and they're going to have a fellowship with you
once in, begin to have fellowship with you. And so this is all
about not paying the preacher but it's about communicating
back and forth this gospel of Jesus Christ. Worshipping together
underneath the faith once delivered to the saints and taking God's
word and using that as the foundation for reprove and rebuke and correction
whenever we are drawn away from the truth. And all this is done
in love for each other in service to Christ Jesus. Now, we'll stop
right there if anybody has any questions or any comments, we'll
make it now. Lord willing, we'll pick up with
that here next week. Now, if you remember, not next
week, the 10th, but on the 17th, we will not be here. So we will
not have any services here at the church. But we'll pick back
up on the 24th, Lord willing. But we will be here next week,
so. Lord willing. All right, anybody got any questions?
All right. Lord, we thank you today for
your love and your mercy. We thank you for Christ Jesus,
and we thank you for his blood. We thank you for his sacrifice. We thank you for his life. We
thank you, Father, for grace that has been given. We thank
you for the gospel message that feeds. We thank you for the word
of God that is given to correct our hearts by the spirits moving
and working. Father, Lord, we just pray that
you'd just be with us now as we leave this place, that you
might keep us safe in any travels that we might be doing over this
holiday time. Lord, we pray that you would just continue to be with this
church. I pray, Lord, that if there are any of your sheep that
you desire to meet with us, that you desire to participate in
the service of the gospel here. Lord, I just pray that you might
draw them to here, however it is that you might do it, whether
we come in contact with them, whether they hear about us from
the internet or whatever the case might be. However it is
that you build your church, Lord, we just pray that you would do
that as you have promised you would. Lord, we thank you for
those that have come and gone from here and the times that
we've spent and the Christ that we have fellowshiped around.
And Lord, we thank you so much for the investment that they've
made within our lives as far as service and communicating
of the gospel. And Lord, that if there's been
any fellowship that has been true fellowship, Lord, we thank
you because the Spirit has been there to teach us and to draw
and knit our hearts together in that gospel. So Lord, we just
once again pray for these things. We pray that this has been honoring
to you and exalting of Christ today. And it's in his precious
name that we pray. Amen.