Don't Grow Weary - 2 Thessalonians 3:13-15 - Waiting Well

All right, hey guys, welcome across our entire church, whether you're at High Point, you're at Northeast, Clifton, Regional North, or Regular Regional. We're excited to have you guys this weekend.

And so we're gonna be diving right back in. Hey, it's the last sermon in our series that we've been walking through with 2 Thessalonians. So if you have a copy of Scripture, you can take it out and turn with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3.

As you guys are turning there, though, I did want to just mention, as this is the last weekend that we're gathering in our campuses before we all go downtown, for Christmas at Tanger, I did want to mention that we really want to prepare the jars well for what God is gonna do. And I wanted to explain that, okay? Because we use that language a lot around Mercy Hill. You'll hear us just say, prepare the jars, and if you're brand new, that's probably one of a lot of things that Christians say. They're like, man, I have no idea what that means. Well, let me explain that one at least to you.

There's a story in 2 Kings chapter 4 that basically goes like this. There's a woman in a dire situation. She needs oil, like cooking oil. It's something that is expensive. It's something that she needs to live on.

She doesn't have any. And here's what happens. Through the prophet Elisha, God tells her, go get as many jars as you can find and start pouring the oil. The idea is, man, you find the jars, and I'm gonna pour the oil, I'm gonna multiply the oil.

And so the kids go out, and they're finding jars, and they're trying to get places that they can, you know, put the oil. And here's the deal. This is what happens in the story. And it's a great lesson for us. And we say this all the time, prepare the jars. When the jars ran out, the oil ran out.

When the jars ran out, the oil stopped. What's the lesson? The lesson is, you know, and God can do whatever he wants. But generally speaking, and a lot of times, and I've seen this a thousand times at Mercy Hill, what we have the faith to prepare for, what we have the faith to ask God boldly for, what we have the faith in our audaciousness to say, God, I think you can do this much.

It seems like sometimes that's about how much he does. You know, it's like when what we're ready for is about what God might bring us. So what we say a lot of times at Mercy Hill is, prepare the jars. What do we actually want to see happen with this whole deal, Christmas at Tanger? Why does the church invest the money and get everybody to invite everybody and the whole community comes in? We feel like it's a great time for people to check out our church. Y'all, last year alone, over 300 people for the first time ever checked out Mercy Hill. One of those families, the first time they ever came right here at the regional campus, now a year later, they're in a community group, they're serving, they're here every week, their kids are being discipled.

The first time they ever showed up was at Christmas at the Tanger Center. We want to prepare the jars for what God is going to do. Now, how do we prepare the jars? Well, I'm going to tell you, at Mercy Hill, this is how we think about it. About the amount of people that serve will correlate with about how many people end up coming. And I'm just telling you, this is the way it works. Now, I didn't do 2020 because that was very depressing.

Okay, so we're just going to move on. All right, but even 2020 was very similar. The numbers actually were kind of similar. I mean, you know, we had, last, 2021, about 4,300 people attended the Christmas at Tanger deal. In 2020, our whole Christmas services were probably 1,500.

I mean, you guys remember, it was crazy. We had less than 100 people serve in 2020, okay? And about 1,500 people came. It's funny, though, the numbers kind of still will hold with all this stuff, all right?

So last year, 4,300 people attended, 111 first-time guests, 266 volunteers. Now, what you see is, all this stuff will jump together. Now, some of you guys are real math business people. You're going to start trying to figure out numbers and all that. I'm just going to do percentages off of 2022. The point I want you to see is, if you could see 2020, all of this stuff moves together, okay? And what I would posit to you is, it moves together because the church prepares the jars here.

Does that make sense? What we are ready for, God wants to do. And so when you have this many volunteers, you know, when you have this many volunteers, you have this many. So last year, 490 people served, 330 first-time guests, you see the jump, 5,200 in attendance. So this is kind of what I wanted to show you guys today, all right?

And this is why I'm bringing this up. I want to call us to think about, if you haven't already, think about serving. Guys, you know, we saw 1,000 people jump last year to this year, or, you know, two years ago to last year. Let's do more than that. If we want to see 6,500 people come and worship God downtown, I'm going to say this.

This is a little bit shocking. Can you imagine praising Jesus the day before Christmas downtown at the Tanger Center? Do you know the next show at the Tanger Center is a drag queen Christmas? So we are going to proclaim the gospel in the heart of Greensboro.

And I know we have a lot of people living in High Point, but I'm just saying, you know, right in the middle of the city. I want to see that number. I don't know if we will, all right?

I want to see it. If we want to see that, that would probably correlate to something like 455 first-time guests, which is really incredible. You think about how many of those have not heard the gospel in years or ever, okay?

But this is what it is. Guys, if we want to see this, about 9% of this number is the volunteer number, and that would put us at 585 volunteers. Right now, we're at 518.

Okay, so what I'm saying is, we got a week left, and we need to see some more people sign up. And so I'm giving you that opportunity. And I'm going to tell you something. I bet you if this number blows, if we blow that number out of the box, I just, I don't know what God's going to do. If you blow that number out of the box, guess what will happen?

I bet you'll blow that number out of the box, and we'll see what God does, okay? So I just want to call you. Hey, you can, Tanger, you can go right there, mercyhillchurch.com slash Christmas. Sign up to serve there. And if you're like, man, well, where do I serve?

I'm going to tell you where our biggest need is, you can imagine. Christmas Eve, kids ministry, okay? So it's that morning service on Christmas Eve, so I hope you guys will jump in.

All right, we got to go. All right, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 is where we're going to be today. And I want you guys to see that we've been talking about this concept of waiting well. It dovetails with Christmas, doesn't it? Think about the songs we sing, oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel, come, thou faithful, come, thou long expected Jesus. You know, here's the deal, not just at Christmas time, Christians are a waiting people. We are waiting for God to move. We were waiting for the Messiah to come the first time. Now we wait for Him to come the second time and bring His kingdom. As we wait, how should we live? And that's what we've been talking about for weeks and weeks, all the way through 1 Thessalonians, all the way through 2 Thessalonians. And today, we wrap the whole thing up with one final charge.

Here's the big idea. Y'all, the gospel gives us the energy for good works. I want to talk to you today about how our lives are to be a flurry of doing good, is what the Scripture is going to say. But that doesn't come from the wrong motivation, it comes from the right motivation. And a lot of people try to do the right thing from the wrong motivation. And when we do, there is one destination.

You ready? Weariness. Weariness of soul, weariness of body, a weariness that ends up finally resulting in just a flat-out quit. That's what happens when we come to the right thing from the wrong motivation.

Of course, the other side of that would be if we really think we're doing well, we may end up in pride, which would probably be worse. But a lot of us will end up in this weariness, and it's not because we're doing good, it's because we're doing good running off the wrong motivation. A lot of people in the Christian life will use things like fear of maybe God not loving them if they don't do the right thing. They're trying to work their way out of some guilt from a past sin. They just can't get over in their life.

They can't believe they did that. You know, maybe it's a positive thing, like in terms of, man, they get a really good feeling from feeling like they're a really good person, you know? So they want to do the good works, or they have pride of being seen as, man, you're really awesome, and I don't know how you can live that way. All of these things are motivations that will end up leaving us weary of soul.

They're not the right motivation for the Christian. You know, I've mentioned this before, but, man, I would love to have a diesel truck at some point in my life, but I'm scared because I will be that guy who puts gasoline in the diesel truck. I'll be on the phone one day, and I'll be not thinking about it. Now, you put diesel in a gas engine, not great, but not totally catastrophic, okay? You put gas in a diesel engine, total catastrophe, all right? And I'm just scared to death that I would be that type of, you know, one day I would do that or whatever.

I've mentioned before I'm about the dumbest, smart person you've ever met, okay? And so, but I think about, you know, the wrong fuel for the job. And that's what I want to talk to us about together this weekend is that we have this fuel that we're supposed to run on, and that fuel is that in the gospel, here's the deal. We are not supposed to weary in doing good because we serve a God who does not weary in doing good to us.

That's the motivation. Man, Jesus does not grow weary in His goodness toward us. And when we are there, when we're basing it on outcomes or feelings or I thought it was going to be this way, it can be very hard. Some of us are tired today. Man, we're serving, and we feel like we're pouring out, and maybe we're getting tired. Pouring out in this marriage is just, you know, making me tired, pouring out for these kids that don't feel like they're very grateful. It's making me tired.

Inviting that coworker again, even though they said no the last two years to going downtown to the Tanger Center Christmas thing, and I just feel weary. Okay, well, what's your motivation? But many times in my life, I start feeling weary, and then I go back, and I'm like, wait a minute, am I doing this because of an outcome that I want to see?

Am I doing this because of the way it makes, I think, it's supposed to make me feel? Or am I doing this because I see that what God has done for me is so overwhelmingly good, and He doesn't grow weary in that, that I want to come out of that motivation and be freed in that motivation. Not bound by fear of the outcome, not bound by, you know, someone else's, what they think about me or whatever, but just simple and pure, what Jesus did for me, I want to do for others.

And that can be a motivation that sustains us. Look at verse 13, as for you brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with them. We talked a little bit about this last week, we're going to talk more about it today, that he may be ashamed, but do not regard him, listen, as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. So we come to the end of the matter, and here's what he says, we're just going to break down these three verses as we've been doing, and here's what it says, so let's kind of dive into this part at the beginning here. As for you brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. Now, he specifically mentions here growing weary in doing good, and the idea behind that, I think, and most commentators would say this, is that it is a weariness that will eventually produce an all-out quit, an all-out stop. It's not just like, man, it's wrong for you to ever be tired.

It's a weariness that leads to I'm not going to be able to do this anymore. I remember one time I was in high school, I was running on the track team, I had never really done this before. They said, hey, man, you're going to run the 400. I said, great, what's the strategy? They said, sprint the whole way.

Got it, all right? Take off, doing good through the first 100, doing good for the second 100, get to the third 100, fall off the track and die, okay? That's kind of how it went. And it's like, man, you know, it's like, hey, there's a weariness, but then there's a weariness that ends up with a hard stop. And that's kind of maybe the idea that's going on here. He's saying, hey, don't grow weary in doing good.

Now, if you're, you know, if you've been around, and I know people are brand new, but if you've been around the Bible much or if you were here last week in our sermon, here is the major problem with this. It is the doing good that is causing the weariness that may end up causing someone to stop. Stop what? Well, stop doing good. Well, how can I stop doing good if I'm a Christian? Like, you know, the thing that's making me weary is the thing that my life is supposed to be defined by. I mean, you know, Spurgeon said it like this, doing good is a summation of the Christian life. So wait a minute, how can it be that the summation of the Christian life is the thing that's making me so weary that I may want to stop? You know, this idea of doing good, if we just drill down on that for a minute, and I know not everybody's here every single week.

I hope you kind of pick up our podcast or whatever, because this stuff builds, especially in a book like 1 Thessalonians. But last week, we talked about idleness, okay? Let me ask you this. If you wanted to make a good definition of the exact opposite of idleness, what would you say?

You ready? Doing good. That would be it, purposes that God has for you, the plans that God has made for you.

The summation of the Christian life is stepping into your Ephesians 3.10, this kind of works that God has put out there before you that you would walk in before the foundation of the world, the unique things that he has for you to do. That is the concept of doing good. That's the concept of the opposite of idleness, that God has purposes and plans, and we are supposed to go after them. Now, I mean, these things are broad. I mean, this is what I mentioned last week. It's like, what was the problem with idleness? Well, the problem with idleness last week was that they were specifically not working.

But there's a lot of ways that we can be idle. It's any way that we just decide, I don't want to fulfill the purposes and plans that God has for me. Flip side, doing good is what? It's fulfilling the purposes and plans that God has for me. It's a missional life. Then it's building a marriage that, you know, reflects the gospel if you're married. It's a single life that takes advantage of that with your time and your talent and goes after it for the kingdom.

Then it's raising your kids in a certain way. It's thinking about generosity. It's the whole Bible.

Okay, it's the whole canon of Scripture. It's who God is calling us to be. It's being shaped into that person. That's what it means to be one who is doing good.

Well, wait a minute. If the doing good is causing me to be weary, you understand, like, this is a problem. Well, okay, we've got to figure out how do you end up doing good in a way that doesn't cause this weariness.

And that's where we want to get into the idea of motivation. That's where we've got to kind of go, maybe even think about some other Scriptures here that help us understand. There is a grace. There is a fall in love with God. There is a spirit-empowered beauty that you see in the gospel that will motivate you in a way that gives you the opportunity to do good without becoming weary.

Look what it says. Your brothers do not grow weary in doing good. Now I do want to mention this because I think it's probably the case that I'm talking from a high level.

I'm going 30,000 feet. But let's talk about the church here that's in Thessalonica for a moment. Probably the actual issue that they are facing is an issue that is a little more like this. Remember last week the idleness. You got people who have decided they're not going to work because they're looking at Jesus to come back in the sky.

You remember this? And what I said was a lot of people think that they were not working because they were looking for Jesus. Actually, I think they fell in love with the idea of looking for Jesus because they didn't want to work. They were idle. Now what happens when you're idle? You don't work. What happens when you don't work? You don't make any money. What happens if you don't make any money? You start going to other believers who do work and you start saying, hey, man, can you spot me a 20? Hey, my kids, I need some shoes.

I need things. Which in the Christian community is good and right unless the people that are continually coming to you have a bad theology that masquerades as piety that basically the reason they keep coming to you is because they're not working and they're calling that spiritual growth. That's a problem, right? And so here's what Paul is saying.

He's saying, wait a minute. Don't grow weary in doing good because you become jaded, cynical. I tried to help one time and I got burned, never doing that again. I mean, you ever felt at some point like that a little bit? I know I felt that at some times in my life. We can get jaded. We can get cynical.

And here's what he's trying to get them to see. Hey, your generosity got taken advantage of. That doesn't mean you sour on the concept of generosity, right? Yeah, I'm not, you know, it doesn't, man, you know, man, a homeless person took my money and bought alcohol. Now I'm jaded on the whole concept of even helping the poor.

How can we be a Christian and not be concerned with the poor, right? But we can get cynical. We can get jaded.

We can get weary in doing good that God has called us to do. Man, I went on a go team, but the people that we went to serve didn't even care. They weren't even grateful. Why would I do that again?

I was part of a church that didn't handle money well. Why would I ever give again? Like what he's saying is, yes, there is, you know, being taken advantage that is going on here.

But here's what this shows. If the outcome of the situation is causing you great weariness, listen, then the motivation for your generosity in the beginning was something related to the outcome rather than the Gospel. Does that make sense?

Let me say that one more time. If what's making you jaded is this didn't work out the way I thought it was going to work out, I'm not feeling the way I thought I was going to feel, I haven't become esteemed in the way that I thought I was going to become esteemed. If that stuff makes you sour on the doing good, then you weren't doing good for the right reason in the first place. Because the right reason, now look, I'm not saying we don't be wise. I mean, we need to be wise with our generosity and all that.

I understand that. Whereas the motivation to give was never the outcome anyway. The motivation to do good was never the outcome anyway. That weariness comes from having the wrong fuel. Man, they took advantage of, I didn't get the result I wanted. That's the wrong fuel.

You could say it like this, doing good without Gospel motivation will produce weariness. Let me go back all the way to the intro. What did I say in the intro? Hey man, there's two types of fuel, right? And I told you, I'm scared to death to drive a diesel truck. One of the reasons is because of how absent-minded I can be.

And I don't want to put the wrong fuel in the truck. So my kids always remember this story where I took them to Chick-fil-A, it was me, Hattie Jo, and Benaiah, and I was not there yet, which is, I was like, what am I supposed to do with these kids? I mean, they were little, and I go in the play place, and dude, it is like a thousand kids in the play place.

This is one of Dante's Inferno 7 levels here, okay? There's a thousand kids packed in, they're screaming, and I'm like, they're running around, I can't even find them, and I'm on the phone, I can't do this, where are you at, I'm going to be 10 more minutes, I can't live another 10 minutes, okay? Every one of these kids needs a spanking right now, okay?

And I can't do this. So I tell Hattie Jo, I'm like, hey, get your brother, I mean, he was little, he was like a couple years old at that time, I'm like, hey, get your brother, find my keys, we're leaving. I'm looking at dad, I was like, Hattie Jo, I'm not listening to this, I'm like, I gotta go, okay? There's a thousand kids in here, I'm getting a little bit, you know, find your brother, I'm looking for the keys, hey, she's like, dad, I said, Hattie Jo, I'm not arguing about this, okay? We are leaving, find your brother, she said, dad, you're holding him.

I looked at him like this, his eyes are about that big, okay? Now a guy like that, you don't let drive a diesel, okay? Because you're gonna put the wrong fuel in it. And when you put the wrong fuel in it, what happens? Catastrophe.

The thing blows up, the thing won't run. And here's what I see many times, guys, I feel like many times there are people that can, and I'm there too, we can become cynical about pouring out for the family, we can become cynical about pouring out for our community group, we can become jaded, I'm not doing that again, why would I, cocoon, isolation, why? Because I tried to do good and it didn't work out. Whether it was gonna work out or not was never the right motivation. Whether it was gonna work out or not was not the fuel that you needed to run on. That was gas and a diesel. What we needed was a better fuel. If we don't grow weary, it's gonna be because we have the right fuel.

And the right fuel is, I am called to a life of doing good because of what Jesus Christ has done for me. Let me ask you one question. Has Jesus Christ ever wearied in doing good for you?

No. And he doesn't right now. Is he not advocating for us right now? Is his blood not still covering our sin? Man, I told you last week, he was the least idle person that ever lived.

You know how to flip that the other way? Least idle that ever lived. Well, you could say it like this. He never grows weary of doing good for you. Jesus never grows weary of doing good for you. Man, we sin. We deserve hell. We deserve separation from God forever.

And Jesus Christ made peace by the blood of his cross. He brings us into the family. And that is a good that will never, ever, ever run out on us.

That's the motivation that we need. It's as simple kind of as saying this. And I know we do different, talk about different prayers and all that kind of stuff. Guys, on Mondays I try to pray God's glory. I try to be, I mean, I literally pray, God, I pray I just love you more. I want to just open my heart. Let me see the gospel more. That kind of idea. And part of that is a gospel prayer that I picked up from my mentor, my pastor, Pastor J.D.

Greer in Raleigh-Durham. You know, he wrote a book a long time ago called The Gospel. Now, he didn't actually write the gospel, okay?

All right. But he, you know, he wrote a book about it. And he, and in the book he's got a prayer. And one of the aspects of a gospel prayer is God, as you have been to me, let me be to others. That's the basis for doing good. It's not as this outcome is going to be, as I'm going to feel because I'm going to be seen in this way. As you have done for me, let me do for others.

How has Jesus been to you? It's not an outcome, not a feeling, not the fear of God kicking me out. You know, one of my favorite gospel-centered verses. You guys hear us throw that term around, gospel-centered. There's a lot of people talking about gospel-centered.

Here's the definition that I'm talking about when I say it, okay? Gospel-centered means it is the gospel that motivates our non-weariness and good works, if you want to say that. It's not like the gospel got me in and now I'm pulling myself up by my own bootstraps every single day trying to do good stuff, okay?

It's like, no, no, no. I go back and the goodness of God to me as seen in the face of Jesus Christ hanging on a cross for me and the goodness of God and waking Him up from the dead and giving me the opportunity to know Him in the newness of life and walk with Him in the newness of life, that motivates my goodness. Here's a good verse for that, okay, if you're trying to think about motivation. Titus 2, 11, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

We understand that, right? Grace of God, that's how people get saved, got it, but here's what it says, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives. Wait a minute, the grace of God doesn't, it not only saves us, it trains us. It trains us for the very thing that we're talking about here, good works, not growing weary. Now, here's what it says in verse 14 as we continue to move. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Now, guys, when I was studying this, I'm like, man, this feels a little clunky, it almost feels a little unrelated. It's like, gospel motivation, don't grow weary, you know, passages like I just mentioned in Titus 2 come to my mind, Isaiah 40, 31, those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. If you wanna be strong, we've gotta wait upon God and wrap ourselves up in God. I get all that, and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, and if somebody is not doing that, then you need to turn away from them. And it feels a little clunky.

It's not clunky at all. I want you to think about this. Why does this passage come right after a passage that says don't weary in doing good?

I'm gonna tell you why. Because one of the easiest areas for the Christian to grow weary is in holding each other accountable in community. It's one of the easiest places for us to grow weary. It's a tough deal when we've gotta speak up. Sometimes it just feels a lot easier to just sort of let it go. Man, I'm just gonna let people, hey, live and let live, man, let people go, I'm not interested in a fight, I'm not interested in any kind of confrontation.

Many of us live this thing where our whole ideal and ultimate in our mind is a confrontation free life, and so we just sort of let it go. Even though Proverbs 27, 6 tells us faithful are the wounds of a friend, a loving people speak up. That's what love actually is. You know, I was listening to this thing the other day, a guy sent it to me about a former addict who now is doing rehab centers and multiplying them all over the place and it's this cool thing. And here's what the addict said. He talked about how if you baby an addict, you bury an addict. And we have, man, we've been touched by that in this church. We've been hurt by that in this church.

And here's the deal. Man, if you confront an addict and you give them the tough love or whatever, that ain't no guarantee that things aren't gonna, you know, work, there's no guarantee they're gonna work out the way that you want them to. But never speaking up probably does guarantee that they're not gonna work out the way that we want them to. You know what I mean? It's the same thing with our groups.

It's the same thing in our relationships. He says in verse 14, have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. But he says this, do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Y'all, that word enemy has its roots in the word hatred. I want you to understand what Paul is not saying. He is not saying hate someone and count them an enemy if they were in your community group and then you find out later that they're living with their boyfriend and they wouldn't tell anybody about it.

Now you hate them. That's not what he's saying at all. What he's saying at all is, and what he's saying is, in love for our brothers and sisters, we have to be a people who speak up. We have to be a people who would be willing to go all the way to DEFCON 9, the Hail Mary at the very end. Let me ask you this. Is there anybody in your life that you love enough that if it came to, you would turn away from them? Because that's what the Bible's calling us to here. Why? Because when we turn away, the idea is maybe they wake up.

Maybe they realize, man, when my fellow believers are turning away from me, it is because I'm refusing to give up this sin of my life and it's going to eat me up and it's not good for me. Man, it's the person who says, no, I refuse to stay in this marriage. There's no grounds for divorce. There's no, but it's I'm not happy. I'm getting out. And people are going to them. They're talking to them. And they refuse. It's the person who refuses to stop bullying in the home. It's the person who refuses, you know, to stop watching things on pornography or things like, I mean, this is, and they just refuse.

And they're staunch. And the Christians say, man, I don't have any other power in your life, but I love you too much to watch you do this. And when it comes to it, we'll turn away. Now, listen, I know this is weird for people that aren't believers.

You know, it's like, hey, you know, you know why? Because if you're not a believer here, let me talk to you for just a minute. If you're not a believer at one of our campuses, you've been raised in a world where the ultimate goal is a conflict free life. And you got to understand that is not our goal in the church. Man, our goal is not a conflict free relationship. That's not the ultimate goal. We are after something that is much deeper than that.

We're after a body of believers that grow in godliness with one another. That can't happen without there being friction sometimes. And people love to quote the verse. I mean, iron sharpens iron, book of Proverbs.

Yeah, it does. Iron does sharpen iron, but it never does so without sparks. Man, it never does so without heat.

It never does so without friction. Don't you see now why he's saying don't grow weary? He's saying don't grow weary because this is an area where we could easily grow weary. I tried to talk to somebody in my group that was insane.

They said it was none of my business, and who am I to judge them? I'll never do that again. Listen, yes you will if you love people. If not, get jaded, get cynical, go do whatever. But if we actually love, then we will lean in.

And this isn't just, listen, there's other examples of this. Guys, choosing a conflict free as the ultimate goal, it kills some marriages, it kills relationships, it kills, I mean think about this. Some of you guys right now are in a relationship, in a marriage, with a woman who has a dominating spirit. And in your mind you're like, yeah, I'm just gonna kinda live and let live. I don't care about this marriage actually reflecting the gospel. What I care about is not really getting yelled at and they're just being kinda, and so I'm just gonna. There's others of you that might be in a marriage where the man is totally apathetic, and it's like well every time we bring that up there's a lot of sparks and we're just not gonna talk about that. There's some of you right now that maybe don't wanna have that conversation with a adult child who is walking in sin and you know you need to talk to them. There's others that might be in a situation, this is hard, where you feel like there's things you need to say to your parents, but you're like, man I can't, that's gonna rock the boat, that's going to. How much do we love people? I mean that's the question, do we love them or do we not love them? We're so worried and we're so convinced that we can see the future.

That's what gets me in my life. I'm so convinced that if I speak out it's gonna fracture the relationship. What if God is calling me to do something that's gonna forge a relationship?

Now I don't know what's gonna happen. Man you may, I was talking to this in sermon planning. You know one of our, one of the people on our staff, one of their bridesmaids, they were sharing the gospel with them and they got to the point where if you're not a believer you end up going to a place called hell and she said, wait a minute, you think my family or me if I don't accept Christ are gonna go to hell?

It fractured their relationship. I understand that that can happen, but I also understand that God can forge some things through it and he calls us to it. And this is a third way for believers, okay. Haven't you noticed in the world, either the world, the world is always either full acceptance or full rejection cancel, okay.

There's nothing in between, have you guys seen the president for Penn got fired or whatever and all these people are signing on because of what she said at the deposition and I just thought about that and I thought all these people that are now signing on for her to get fired, did you not know what she thought about some of these issues before this? I mean of course you knew, but in the world it's always one or the other. It's full acceptance and then the next day it's absolute put their head on a pike and cancel them. For the believer it's not that way. For the believer it's man, there is a long suffering in relationship where we will, there's a protocol as one biblical counselor used to say, man Matthew 18 tells us, man I'm gonna go, I'm gonna talk to you, I'm gonna bring others, then we're gonna continue this side. If it comes to it though, I do love you enough, I'm not gonna grow weary in doing good and I'm not gonna watch you in the body of Christ stand in sin like this.

And so I think it's a good thing for us to understand. All right, here's what I'm gonna call us to as we start to close down, okay. Don't grow weary in doing good.

This is the big I think idea from this. Are you leading a group and you're tired? Are you serving week in and week out and inside the walls of the church, outside the walls of the church, but you're weary?

Are you pouring out into marriage? Are you pouring out for kids that aren't grateful? I saw the meme over Thanksgiving, oh this is so funny.

It was like a meme and it was like this woman who was like, you cook all day for three days for your kids just to eat a roll. And I thought, you know, that really is, it's a lot of families that go through. And it makes you just kind of want, man, I don't want to do this.

You know? Man, they're not great. I'm just trying, you know, you're trying to talk to people, nothing's getting through. Maybe you're the only one, listen, from a high school ministry at Mercy Hill, maybe you're the only one you feel like that's standing up for the gospel in your high school, in your middle school, on the college campus and man, you're like, is it worth it?

I feel tired. Okay, man, we all get to that place. When we do, we've got to ask ourselves, okay, what is the motivation? It's not about an outcome, it's not about a feeling. It's not about earning something before God. It's about responding to the gospel. You know, the Bible here in this passage tells us, don't weary in doing good.

You've got to go to other places. I went to Second, I went to Titus, Isaiah, I think, Romans 8 is another good example of this. Guys, the way that we get at motivation is this concept of, man, what God has done for me, I want to do for others. That's the way that we can stay in the long game. I think about Robert Morrison, he was a missionary to China in the early, early 1800s, you can imagine how hard that, I mean, on the run, sick all the time, seclusion, beaten, all this kind of stuff, 27 years of ministry, 10 baptisms. How can you stay in a place like that? Now, a lot of good came from it.

I mean, it opened up pathways and, you know, translation, I mean, a lot of awesome stuff came. How can you stay there? 27 years, 10 baptisms. You got to have the right fuel. If the fuel is outcome, if the fuel is what people back home think about me, if the fuel is my success meter, if the fuel is anything other than what God has done for me, I'm going to do for others, and that's why I'm here. You know, I think about some of the ones that we have right now, it's got to be hard to stay on the field, but you understand that the fuel for them is no different than the fuel for you to continue to long suffer with that couple in your community group that just cannot get right. They just can't get right, man. You know? How do you continue to not weary in doing good?

Got to have the right fuel. How do you remain faithful in serving? How do you think about another mentorship or another mentorship with the pregnancy network even though the last few have burned you? Walked with them, never heard from them again.

Walked with them, never heard from them again. Can't be about the outcome. It's got to be about what God has done in your life.

That's the right fuel. So my question as we close is this, right? Here's my question for you. What has God done for you? I saw something this week that really made me think. A lot of us don't value what God has done for us enough to allow it to be a fuel in our life because we kind of just think, well, I'm doing pretty good in my life.

You know, like even apart from Christ, I'm not that bad of a person. And here's what we think. I saw this the other day. I don't know if you guys saw this. It drove me nuts as a former football player. I don't know if you guys saw the play at the end of the Chiefs game this last weekend. Travis Kelce catches the ball and out of nowhere laterals it to Kadarius Toney, which you never see. Touchdown, end of the game.

They win the game. You don't know who Travis Kelce is. He used to be known as being like a really awesome Pro Bowl football player.

Now he's Taylor Swift's boyfriend. Okay, so that's the only way he's known. But play gets called off because the guy who caught the lateral was offsides. Now this is crazy as a receiver, okay? They teach you from when you are six years old, every time you go up to the line, you look at the ref. And the ref very courteously, he looks back at you and he either tells you a little bit more up or a little bit back.

You have kind of an understanding with them. For whatever reason on this one play, which maybe would have been the best play of the whole season, okay, you could see on the replay, Toney, he didn't look at the ref. He lined up offsides. Now after the game, this is crazy, after the game, Mahomes and all these guys, they were going nuts.

I've never seen this called. How can the ref take the game in their own hands that way? I mean, they were so livid.

Here's what they were trying to get at. The play was so great that they should have overlooked the fact that they were out of bounds in terms of the rules. And it's like, you know, the next day, people were kind of pointing that out like, hey, I mean, just if you look at the replay, he's standing a foot, you know, he's, what did you want them to do?

Did you want them to just say, well, the play was really awesome, so we're just not going to, you know, throw the flag or whatever. But I thought, how many of us are doing that? We don't value the gospel in the way that we should because we think, well, the play of my life is really awesome. Here's the deal. We stepped over the line.

It was us. And in breaking God's rules, this is the penalty, separation from God forever, hell forever, and eternal isolation and darkness. It's what we, every single one of us, deserve. And yet Jesus Christ in His goodness has rescued us from that. This is what He has done for us. Now, if we get that in our soul, what will we be willing to do for others? And so I think about it like this, okay, here's, I guess, the big application, you know, don't do weary and doing good. Really it's, man, let's go back to the gospel together.

That's the way that we don't grow weary. Think about it. Drink it in. Sing about it. Read about it. Thank God and prayer over it. That's the fuel.

If you're tired because you're a rope holder, if you're tired because you're a foster family, if you're tired because you're serving in a ministry and have been doing it for a long time, if you're tired because you're a group leader, if you're tired because you're an elder, if you're tired because you're a former pastor who burned out and now you're at Mercy Hill trying to heal, if you're tired for any of these reasons, man, I would call you, the answer's really the same. We've got to get back to the motivation. Man, it's not an outcome. It's not a feeling.

It's not being seen a certain way. As Christ has been to me, I want to be to others. All right, let's pray. Father, we come before you right now. And Lord, we just ask, God, that whatever the Spirit is doing in raising these things in our life, putting his finger in our heart right now, Father, God, I pray that we would be faithful to bring them before you to repent and to go back to the motivation. It is the grace of God that saves us. It is the grace of God that trains us. Lord, help us to wait upon you, wrap ourselves up in you for our strength to be renewed. God, help us not to grow weary and doing good. In Christ, then we pray. Amen.