Stewards of Grace

Today on Renewing Your Mind… Early Christians would be persecuted by the Jews. They would often lose businesses that they had. People would refuse to do business with them, and so on, and so immediately there was a sense of need. And in that fledgling community that's barely able to walk, they held everything in common. Paul tells the church in Galatia that they are to use the things God has given them for others.

Of course, that included physical goods. Money and food were shared liberally in the early church, but it was much more than that. Today on Renewing Your Mind, we join Dr. Derek Thomas in the sixth chapter of Galatians as he looks at the ways we are to be stewards of God's grace. Session thirteen, and we're in the penultimate study on Galatians, and we're just going to focus on chapter six, verses six through ten, taking a little smaller chunk than we have in some of the previous sessions. And this one is about sowing and reaping, and it begins, "'Let the one who is taught the Word share all good things with the one who teaches.'"

This is a text that one might use for stewardship season, and I've always found stewardship season difficult. Every minister has to do a stewardship sermon, sometimes a series of sermons, usually in the fall, talking about budgetary issues, and it's always slightly awkward for the minister, I think, to be doing that, and this particular verse is somewhat awkward. Let's see if we can see why it is that Paul is putting it here. He's been saying throughout this epistle to the Galatians that justification by faith is apart from the works of the law. It's not by obedience.

It's not by compliance on our part. But now in the second half, or maybe the last quarter of this epistle, Paul has kind of flipped it over and said that those who are justified are busy, and they're busy doing things. They're busy obeying Jesus' commands for them, if you love me, keep my commandments. And they do it out of gospel motivations, not in order to be justified, but because they are justified and because they are at peace with God. And now here, he's been talking in the first part of chapter 6 about relationships within the body and what that looks like and those who have fallen and that you can behave in two different ways.

You can kick him when he's down and make much of his transgression, or you can go in with a spirit of gentleness and restore that person. And we saw in our last lesson how, although these are very practical things that Paul is talking about, they're actually gospel issues. And the way you respond in any situation will reflect your understanding of the gospel.

So here, he's applying it in terms of stewardship, stewardship in a general sense, the stewardship of goods to begin with. He says, that the one who is taught, that the Word share all good things with the one who teaches. And you can imagine, this is a fledgling church or perhaps a series of churches in the region of Galatia. Do they have a full-time minister?

Probably not in the sense that we would think of that today. But for the churches to grow, someone had to come in and teach, and perhaps they didn't stay that long, and they were peripatetic, and they were moving around from congregation to congregation before, it's probably 20 or 30 years in the future before some of these churches will have the structure that we would recognize. And later, 20 years on, Paul will talk about ordaining deacons and elders and so on. But those in full-time ministry need to eat, and they need to provide for their families. And therefore, in the context of the early church, there's a responsibility now that falls upon these congregations to take care, to, as it says here, to share all good things with the one who teaches. The word share is a very common word in the New Testament, koinonia, and it means to have in common or to hold in common. It's an interesting question in Acts 2 and Acts 4. You remember that early Christian community, just as it were emerging from the shell at Pentecost, and they held everything in common. And we read Ananias and Sapphira and the consequences of that, and it's a shocking story.

It always shocks me, the Ananias and Sapphira story. This isn't communism. I think this was expediency. The early Christians would be persecuted by the Jews. They would often lose businesses that they had, people who refused to do business with them, and so on, and so immediately there was a sense of need.

And in that fledgling community that's barely able to walk, they held everything in common. And there's still the right of private ownership is still there. It's not communism. It's not forced. It's not a big federal government telling others how to spend their money.

It's not that. This was an agreement that they made among themselves. But it's also interesting that it disappears, and as the church grows, that holding all things in common seems to be just part of that early process where the church is just beginning to learn to walk. All good things.

What are the good things? Money, perhaps? Yes, probably. Food, perhaps?

Yes, probably. Lodgings for visiting preachers who would come in for a season and speak to them. And we think that that did take place in the early church and that the early church's ministers, as we would call them, were peripatetic and that they moved from one location to another. The joy of giving, the joy of sharing, the responsibility of everyone, each to give according to their means and ability, not just the wealthy. And Paul sees it, this stewardship of goods, he sees it as a mark of discipleship. He sees it as a consequence of the gospel. He sees it as a way of demonstrating we have received all good things in the gospel, and therefore we respond by sharing good things, responsibly and with prudence and with oversight and so on, but the stewardship of goods.

And then the stewardship of the body. He goes on, do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. He introduces a principle. It's not a universal principle. You reap what you sow.

There are times when that is not true. The man born blind in John chapter 9 that Jesus heals. You remember the question the disciples asked, Who sinned?

Was it him or was it his parents? Because they're applying the principle, you reap what you sow. And if he is inflicted with a disease, he must have sown something. It must be punishment. It must be retribution on God's part. So who sinned?

Was it him or was it his parents? And Jesus said, Neither. He is not denying that the man isn't guilty of original sin, and he's not denying that the man isn't guilty of actual sin, but it has no bearing on his blindness. And Jesus says, you remember, it's so that the works of God might be made manifest in him.

And his healing is a blessing to us as we read the story and we see something of the majesty and the glory of Jesus in the healing of this man. The same is true in the book of Job, Eliphaz. Job has these two series of days when he loses his ten children, and he loses his wealth and house and everything, his goods. And then in the second section, he loses his health.

And then three friends come in, the best thing they ever did was to be quiet for a week, and then they start to talk and everything goes downhill. And Eliphaz, he's probably the oldest of the three, is the first one to talk, and he immediately brings that principle, you reap what you sow. And the reason for Job's sickness and the reason for Job's trial is because he's reaping what he has sown.

He has sown to the flesh, and he's reaping its reward in punishment. So, this principle is not a universal principle. You reap what you sow. We teach our children that, don't we? But there are consequences to certain actions, and we tell them not to run across the road. And then we take them and we stand them by the side of the road, and a car goes by, and you see, if you run across the road, that car is going to hit you, and there are going to be consequences.

I'm telling you this because I love you, and I don't want you to be hurt. So, you reap what you sow. If you constantly lie, there are consequences, and you will turn out to be someone whom people don't like.

And you'll never have friends, and you'll never be able to keep relationships. There are consequences. You reap what you sow. So, the way we think about our stuff integrally relates to the way we think about ourselves. Where do we find our contentment? And if we find our contentment in ourselves, we'll be always protecting ourselves, and we'll become selfish and mean-spirited.

You reap what you sow. There's a wonderful story. I don't know where I got it from. The inventor of radar. He was a man called Watt, W-A-T-T. He invented radar, and one day he was stopped by the police and was proceeding, and he said to the policeman, you know, I was the one who invented the machine, thinking that this would get him off.

And the policeman just shook his head and congratulated him. It's been wonderful for us, and he fined him, gave him a ticket. He reaped what he had sown. If you sow to the flesh sinful desires, you sow that. What will it reap? And it will reap sin. It'll reap corruption. It'll reap distortion of who you are in Christ.

It'll affect your relationships with those who are close to you, and it'll turn you into something else. And to cover it up, you'll begin a course of life that is full of lies and treachery, and David and Bathsheba is the model story to reflect sowing to the flesh and reaping corruption. If you sow pornography, what will you reap? And what you will reap is a distorted view of sex, a distorted view of women or men, a distorted view of humanity, a distorted view of the gospel, a distorted view of Jesus.

It'll end in divorce and ruin and worse. If you sow ambition to get on no matter what, to get to the top no matter what it takes, no matter what corners you have to cut, no matter who you have to offend in the process, you just want to succeed. You want to get to the top. You want a certain lifestyle.

You want a certain income, and what will it cost? What will you reap? And you may get those goods, but in the process, there are a heap of fallen bodies in the trail of history behind you. We are stewards, and we are stewards of our bodies. We are stewards of who we are, who we are, and that's been Paul's narrative, hasn't it?

Throughout the whole of Galatians, understand who you are as a man, a woman in Christ, somebody who's been crucified with Christ. The old Adam is gone. You are a new creation. You are a new person. You are destined for the new Jerusalem. You were a slave, but you've been set free from that.

You've been emancipated from that bondage. You are one who is indwelt by the Spirit. You're a spiritual person, in the sense that Paul has been using it here in Galatians. Namely, you are one who is led by the Spirit, witnessed to by the Spirit, helped by the Spirit, strengthened by the Spirit, encouraged by the Spirit. And what is it that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit loves to do? He loves to talk about Jesus.

Isn't it wonderful? The Holy Spirit's entire existence is to draw attention to Jesus, like a light that's sometimes put in a bushes outside a magnificent building. The building at night is lit up in all of its majestic architecture, and when you pass by, you don't sort of go into the bushes and say, what a wonderful light this is.

No, you look at the building and you say, what a magnificent building this is. And that's the role of the Holy Spirit. He will speak of me, Jesus says in the upper room.

He is Jesus' personal representative agent, the Helper, the Paraclete, the Strengthener, the Advocate, and He's all about Jesus. And if you show to the Spirit, He will make you more like Jesus. He will reproduce Jesus. Jesus will be born in you until that's one of Paul's images here in Galatians.

And what will you reap? Well, you'll reap eternal life is what Paul says at the end of verse 8. This is the road and the trajectory that ends up in eternal life. So, think of your life not in terms of a week or a month or a year, but think of it in terms of eternity. Well, that what you do has consequences for eternity, not just for now, not just for tomorrow, not just for retirement, but for eternity. Live, as it were, with one eye on the glory, one eye on heaven.

Let your mind be set on things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Verse 9, let us not grow weary of doing good. We all recognize weariness. At the end of a day of long and difficult things and difficult relationships and circumstances and so on, and you're just, you're just weary. And there are seasons of life where you feel weary. Well, never get weary of the Christian life. Never get weary of the things of God. The fact that Paul is saying this means that there is a temptation to become weary.

He's not simply saying this, as it were, in the dark. He recognizes that we are prone to get weary. We are prone to give up.

We are prone to lie down and sleep and then forget who we are when we wake up again. So, don't grow weary of doing good. In due season, we will reap if we do not give up. So, the stewardship of goods and the stewardship of the body, and then the stewardship of opportunity. As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith. It's interesting that that's the order in which Paul puts it, that there is a sense in which we should do good to everybody, especially to the household of faith, but everybody. And so, I think that justifies that every church, I think, should have at least a part of its budget for the community, not just for the church, not just to look after ourselves, but for the community in which our church is placed. My own church is in downtown Columbia. We occupy a couple of blocks of the city.

We don't pay taxes to the city. I think that brings an obligation that we should try and make up for that in doing good to the city, the fact that we are there as a salt and light to the community. And all kinds of complicated questions arise, of course, in trying to answer that in specific ways. And sometimes it's not the church directly that helps the community, but it's sometimes parachurch organizations, and they're much better suited, and they have more skills to do some of the things that improve the city, that look after the homeless and the poor and the working poor.

We all have to try and work that out in the context in which we find ourselves, but we have a responsibility, I think, to the community in which we are set. Folk look at the church. They see this Christian community, and what do they see? But especially to the household of faith. As the church progresses, it'll become the specific responsibility of deacons. I'm not sure that there are deacons yet, in Galatia, but 20 years from now, Paul will talk about the office of the deacon, that part of the office of the deacon is to take care of the flock, those who are in need, those who find themselves in a period of financial need.

There's a team of women that just appear, for example, when there's a loss, when there's a death, and they provide food and take away the burden of having to wonder and care for the people who come and visit at a time of death. And that's just one example of taking care of the household of faith. Paul is being very specific now as he brings this epistle to the Galatians to a close, but it wouldn't be Paul if he didn't have one more thing to say about Jesus and what He has done for us. And a marvelous text comes in the final lesson on Galatians. And we will hear that lesson next time here on Renewing Your Mind.

I do hope you'll make plans to be with us. We're studying the book of Galatians with Dr. Derek Thomas from his series, No Other Gospel. In first-century Galatia, false teachers infiltrated the church, claiming that faith in Jesus Christ is not enough to be justified in God's sight.

Paul responded to this distortion of the gospel by writing a passionate letter defending the doctrine of justification by faith alone. So we're discovering that if we get the gospel wrong, we get everything wrong. We would like for you to have this complete series. There are 14 messages contained on two DVDs, and you can request them with your donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries.

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To learn more, simply go to Renewing Your Mind and look for the tab that says Ways to Listen. Well, as Dr. Thomas mentioned, tomorrow we will hear the final lesson in this series on Galatians. That's where Paul sets aside his own accomplishments and boasts in just one thing. I find my identity. I find my sense of well-being in my relationship with Jesus, in my union and communion with Him. I am a crucified man. I have died to who I once was. Please join us Tuesday for Renewing Your Mind.