Wednesday, June 1, 2016

When Doing Good Gets Hard


(Audio version; Music: "Broken Hallelujah" by: The Afters and "They Will Be Done" by: Hillary Scott & The Scott Family)





Introduction

            We all have people in our lives that we love to do things for. We love them and they never expect anything from us so we happily serve them and do things for them because it brings us great joy. I happen to have lots of great people like that in my life. Be honest though, we all have lots of people in our lives we don’t necessarily love and maybe even don’t like very much. I’ll confess, there are a few people like that in my life and it is really hard to serve them. They strike me as having an air of entitlement and then seem somewhat ambivalent about anything that is done for them. There is a cynical saying that goes: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Implying that there’s not consistently enough reward in doing good deeds for people. But I don’t believe that. I am convinced that no good deed is wasted even if we don’t experience any immediate reward for the good we do to and for people. Let’s face it though, there are some people in all our lives that somehow manage to suck all the joy out of doing something good for them and that’s When Doing Good Gets Hard.

            You’d think that doing good things for people in your family would be the easiest thing to do, but you’d be wrong. At least it was hard for me. My dad was an abusive alcoholic for the first almost 35-years of my life. For those 35-years I was terrified of him. Once I had the courage to confront him about his drinking, it paved the way for him to change his behavior. However, even though he quit drinking, it was never easy for me to happily serve him and do anything good for him regardless of how hard I tried. But here’s my question: Are we called to enjoy doing good for people or are we simply called to do good for people? It’s subtle but do you see the difference? When we do good only when we enjoy it, we’re doing it primarily for what we get out of it. However, when we do good because we are called to do good, even if we don’t feel like it, and especially if we believe the recipient doesn’t deserve the good we do, that’s When Doing Good Gets Hard. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what we are called to do. But why? Because God has a purpose for all our good deeds even though we may never witness the results of our good deeds in this life. But is it enough for us to know that God has a specific purpose for our good deeds? Do we really have to keep doing good When Doing Good Gets Hard?

Subject Text

Galatians 6:1-10

            1Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, 5for each one should carry their own load. 6Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor. 7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Context

            Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia focused primarily on reminding the church that when they accepted Christ, they were set free from adherence to the requirements of the Law. Unfortunately, the young church, founded by Paul during his first missionary journey through the region, faced mounting pressure from Judaizers who insisted that their faith in Jesus had to be supplemented by faithfully observing the dictates of the Law. You can imagine how Paul, the former Pharisee, reacted to this. Paul, an expert in the Law, recognized, perhaps better than most that the Law didn’t represent freedom but instead only served to enslave people with it’s suffocating demands for perfection that no one could possibly fulfill—that is until Jesus. Jesus’ death and resurrection was the perfect fulfillment of the Law that set believers free to live according to God’s grace not according to the Law. The believers in Galatia were becoming more and more marginalized because of their faith in Jesus, squeezed between unbelievers on one side who were living to please their sinful desires and Judaizers on the other side who rejected God’s offer of salvation by grace alone through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was in this environment that the Galatian believers were, nevertheless, called to live in peace, serve, and do good to those they were being marginalized by. And that’s When Doing Good Gets Hard.

Text Analysis

            1Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

            Sometimes I think people assume that once someone becomes a Christian, they no longer sin. I wish that were true. The real truth is that Christians still commit sins and often struggle with the same sins they struggled with before they became Christians. It is true that some Christians are set free from some of the sins they struggled with before becoming Christians and other Christians are gradually moving toward that freedom. Nevertheless, all Christians are still sinners regardless of how mature they are in their faith. The only difference between Christians and non-Christians with respect to sin is that Christians will not be condemned on account of their sins at the final judgment while non-Christians will be. That, however, should never be an excuse for Christians to continue sinning, or as Paul would say, to live according to the sinful nature (5:19-21). Instead, according to v. 1, those who live according to the Spirit manifested in the lives of Christians as love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (5:22), are to restore those who have sinned. I want you to note, however, who they are restoring and how they are instructed to restore.

            For whatever reason, some Christians believe it is their duty to correct the sin in the lives of unbelievers. Nowhere in the gospel will you find this instruction. Now don’t get me wrong, Christians have a duty to speak out against sin in general, especially when that sin might hurt another person (i.e. abortion, greed, sexual exploitation, etc.). Our only duty to unbelievers with respect to their sins is to love them into the presence of Jesus and then let Jesus deal with their sin. Paul’s instruction in v. 1 is directed specifically at believers. Believers are to restore believers who will inevitably stumble over their own sins. Believers speak the same language—the language of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That’s why Paul says that we are to restore each other “gently”—because gentleness is one of the languages of the Spirit. Generally speaking, confronting another believer about their sin is a very delicate matter and should only be done, when possible, by a mature believer who can be discreet and objective and can communicate using the language of the Spirit. One of the languages of the Spirit is love. Is it loving to confront someone about their sin?

            In other words, “Should sin be overlooked in the name of love? Should sin be exposed to everyone? If not, who needs to know, and what should they do about it? Paul did not recommend ignoring unrepentant sin because, no matter how well hidden, sin will eventually cause problems in the church. Neither did Paul recommend a public humiliation of the sinner, for that would not achieve the objective of restoring the person to the fellowship. Paul recommended action, but he gave advice as to who should act and how the action should be taken…Paul clarified what the spiritually mature should do for the one caught in sin: gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. When leaders confront a person caught in sin, they should avoid humiliating, punishing, or using the person as a public example. Instead, the leaders’ purpose should be to restore the person to the fellowship of believers. Mature believers should help get the person on the right track, encourage repentance and accountability, offer assistance if needed, and warmly accept the repentant person back into the church. All church discipline aims at this goal.

            The church has a duty to help erring believers, but each individual believer must take responsibility for dealing with sin and temptation. In situations such as the apostle was describing, those who restore a fallen one could face two temptations: (1) They might be tempted to have spiritual pride, or (2) they may fall into the same temptation faced by the one they were trying to correct.”[1]

2Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, 5for each one should carry their own load.

            Paul’s instruction get’s a little confusing when we get to vv. 2-5. There are four separate threads in these verses that don’t seem to go together but let me see if I can weave them together to form a tapestry of instruction within the context of our Subject Text. Thread #1: Carry each other’s burdens. Thread #2: Having an accurate self-assessment. Thread #3: Humility. Thread #4: Personal responsibility. Let’s first remember the instruction from these verses within the immediate context of what we just covered in v. 1. We are talking about dealing with the sins of believers. “Burdens” can refer to many things, financial burdens, physical burdens, emotional burdens, etc. However, sin creates another kind of burden; a burden that can initiate and perpetuate every other burden—spiritual burden.

Let me try to explain, as a pastor I have all kinds of people come to me to confess their sins. Unbelievers come to me because their sin has smashed up their lives and they’re looking for a better way to do life; they’re looking for Jesus. Their burden is the burden their sins inflict on their everyday lives—broken marriages, addictions, etc. Believers often come to me with similar burdens but carry an additional burden that threatens to crush them—the burden of knowing that their sins have damage their relationship with Jesus. This is a burden the unbeliever doesn’t carry because until they become believers, they have no relationship with Jesus. However, once they become believers, their sins take on a new dimension. Now their sins hurt the most important relationship in their lives—their relationship with Jesus. That’s the burden believers can help other believers carry by listening to confessions of sin with compassion and gently guiding a repentant sinner back to a restored relationship with Jesus. That’s the first thread in the tapestry of vv. 2-5.

            If you’ve ever had someone come to you and confess their sins, you know that it creates a powerful relational dynamic. The person confessing their sin is probably in one of the most vulnerable positions a person could ever place themselves in. And the person hearing the confession knows it. I’ll be honest with you, I have only learned how to deal with this situation appropriately as I’ve gotten older. When I was a young Christian, when someone came to me to confess a particular failing in their life, I immediately felt a sense of relief that it wasn’t my sin. I heard a confession and helped from a position of superiority. Now that I’m an old pastor, I hear every sin as a sin I’ve either committed myself or could easily commit given the right environment. Now when someone tells me their failings, I hear them as a fellow traveller along the same up and down, rocky path in the life of faith. I have learned that we can try to push people along the path of faith or we can drag them along the path. But I believe it is best to simply walk beside them as equals. This is the second and third thread in the tapestry of vv. 2-5.

            If we are going to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ then we must be willing to take personal responsibility for our lives and actions—particularly our sinful actions. Part of that is having the courage to confess our sins to a trusted Christian. In v. 2 Paul says that we are to carry one another’s burdens and then in v. 5 he says we should each carry our own load; two verses that appear to contradict each other. But Paul is really talking about two different things here. Carrying a burden and carrying a load aren’t necessarily the same things. A burden implies carrying something that has the capacity to overwhelm us while carrying a load could simply imply something that is hard to carry. As previously stated, sin creates a burden in the life of a believer that has the potential to overwhelm us. However, being a faithful follower of Jesus while not being a burden is nevertheless hard. It’s hard to love people in a world filled with so much hate, it’s hard to be gentle in a harsh and brutal world, it’s hard to be faithful in a world that has no faith, it’s hard to have self-control in a world that feels out of control, it’s hard to do good When Doing Good Gets Hard. And that is the fourth thread in the tapestry of vv. 2-5.

            The tapestry that Paul is weaving is that we are to relieve the burden in the lives of fellow believers caused by the sin in their lives by listening to their struggle and guiding them back toward a path of reconciliation with God. We should do so with compassion and humility and with the knowledge that we could easily fall into the same sins given the right circumstances. And finally we must be prepared to do the hard work of being faithful followers of Jesus Christ, taking personal responsibility for how our actions relating to God and to others. “It is in the paradox of bearing one another’s burdens and bearing one’s own load that church discipline and Christian service operate. The very idea of restoring one ‘caught in any kind of wrong-doing’ sounds a bit strange to modern ears. The current mood is more one of live-and-let-live, of staying out of other people’s business, of avoiding friends who seem constantly to want to take care of us. There have been too many in the past who have been only too eager put us right when we have gone astray. But Paul describes the restoration as bearing burdens: sharing the pain of failure, assuming a portion of the guilt and judgment, particularly in the process of making amends. Christians become so involved in the situation of the neighbor that they must take care not to be tempted themselves. But this mutuality only happens when those who help are aware of themselves, their own needs and weaknesses, and have not forgotten their own accountability. This description of church discipline is a far cry from the inquisition of yesteryear or the sharp condemnation of moral magistrates or even the disapproving glares of the self-righteous. The image ‘body of Christ’ connotes this profound mutuality where members have ‘the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together’ (1 Cor 12:25-26). It is an example of what it means to walk by the Spirit.”[2]

6Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.

            Lots of people interpret v. 6 as meaning that the people who are ministered to should be sure to care for the material needs of the one who ministers God’s Word to them. While I’m sure it probably includes that, and Paul is certainly clear about that in his letter to the church in Corinth (1 Cor 9:11, 14), I think Paul is angling at something more here given the overall context of our Subject Text. We haven’t been talking about finances or material possessions to this point so I’m having a hard time believing that Paul arbitrarily threw that into the middle of our Subject Text. Instead, what have we been talking about? Sharing each other’s burdens with compassion, empathy, and humility and taking responsibility for our own actions and attitudes. Given that context, what “good thing” would those who receive instruction be able to share with their instructor? How about affirmation that those who heard the instruction put it into practice in their lives? Meeting the physical and financial needs of those in ministry is biblical and certainly important but money and possessions are no substitute for affirmation that our efforts are effectively impacting peoples’ lives (Of course affirmations are somewhat hollow if ministers can’t financially support themselves and their families). I can tell you from personal experience that there is nothing more satisfying than when someone sends me a note telling me that they have been positively impacted by applying one or more of my lessons to their lives. If you read through Paul’s letters to the various churches, you will find a theme repeated where Paul is rejoicing because he has received news that a particular congregation has put his instruction into practice. Look, I’m not so naïve that I don’t realize that there are some people in ministry who are in it for the money. However, I truly believe that most people in ministry do it because they love God and want to be faithful to do what they believe God has called them to do regardless of the money. Nevertheless, every minister wants to know that what they are doing is making a difference in peoples’ lives. I know we should only care about what God thinks because that’s ultimately who we are doing it for, but it is nevertheless a tremendous encouragement to learn that our efforts are effectively serving those we believe we have been called to serve.

7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

            Paul teaches throughout his letter to the Galatians that we can live life in one of two ways: Either through acts that reveals we are driven by our sinful nature, i. e. sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like (5:19-21a). Or through acts that reveal we are driven by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, i. e. love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (5:22). We know this intuitively but many people still seem to think they can live life in a vacuum where their actions have no long-lasting consequences while others foolishly believe they can live both lives. However, vv. 7-8 make clear that we all live life in full view of God and there are eternal consequences for the way we live. There are no gray areas with God. We can’t live a little according to the sinful nature and a little according to the Holy Spirit. Paul says that the sinful nature desires that which is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature and that they are in conflict with each other (5:17). And there are eternal consequences for both. A life lived according to the sinful nature leads only to a life of eternal hell, while a life lived according to the Holy Spirit leads only to eternal life in the presence of God. There is no way to engage in both lives—God does not give us that option. A life lived to satisfy the sinful nature is a life that is separated from God.

            These verses can be very confusing for people who insist that their salvation is based strictly on their faith in Jesus alone while vv. 7-8 seem to make salvation contingent on behavior. Let me see if I can clarify some of the confusion—it has to do with the idea of mocking God. In this case it means to say one thing and do something else. The Bible is fond of using marriage to illustrate our relationship with Christ. Specifically that the Church is the bride and Christ the bridegroom. Let’s just stay with that metaphor to explain vv. 7-8. Traditionally, one of the vows made during a wedding ceremony made by both the bride and the bridegroom is that once they are in a marriage relationship, they promise to forsake all others and be fully committed only to each other. Now suppose that a husband makes that promise to his wife yet goes on to sleep with other women. Would you say that he fulfilled his promise to forsake all others? What if you confronted him about breaking his marriage vows and he told you that it shouldn’t matter because he had a marriage certificate; a piece of paper to prove his faithfulness to his wife. Would you be convinced that he was faithful to his wedding vows because he waived that piece of paper in your face? Probably not. Instead, you would probably think that his actions made a “mockery” of his wedding vows. Well that’s the way it is with our confession of belief in Jesus. When we believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, Jesus promised that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is true that we are saved by grace alone. But that can’t be just empty words. Paul is saying that if we say we believe in Jesus then our lives should be under the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit. If, however, our lives continue to be guided by our sinful nature, then we make a “mockery” out of our relationship with Jesus in the same way that a husband makes a “mockery” out of his relationship with his wife if he continues to sleep with other women after they are married.

            “Paul says that God will judge us on the basis of our life, whether it was ‘in the Spirit’ or ‘in the flesh.’ This means…that the final judgment, the judgment that will determine our entry into God’s blessing, is rooted in our works. To be sure—and here I want to emphasize to the point of being pushy—the basis of our acceptance with God is what Christ has done on our behalf. But for God to assess whether we are attached to Christ, he will simply scan the evidence of our lives: Is it one of living “in the Spirit’ or of living ‘in the flesh’? Those who live ‘in the Spirit’ do so by faith and obedience, those who live ‘in the flesh’ have sins aplenty to show for their time on earth.

            The judgment of God, then, is a motivational force for the Christian. Someday we shall stand, each of us, before God. That realization makes us different and changes our lives, or it ought to. I do not know how this will happen (and those who claim they do ‘know too much,’ because they know more than what God has said), but I do know this much: we must each give an account and “the one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life’ (v. 8). Let us not garble this demand of God on our lives by minimizing the judgment; behind the judgment stands a holy and loving God who will always act in accordance with his love and his holiness. Judgment is inevitable for such a God.”[3]

9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

            One of the hallmarks of being a follower of Jesus is doing good to people. But there is one group of people in particular that Jesus calls us to be good to—specifically, people who are not good to us. Jesus always managed to turn the normal practice of life on its head with some countercultural teaching and it was no different in this respect when He said:

            “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Lk 6:27-36).”

            As usual, Jesus expects us to act in a way that contradicts our nature. Well it does—it contradicts our sinful nature. We don’t love someone who hates us. We don’t lend to someone who can’t pay us back. We don’t do good to our enemies—we kill them! But Paul, always the faithful follower of Jesus, tells us the same thing—that we are to do good to everyone when possible. And he adds something very important when he says that we must pay extra attention to doing good to other believers. In truth, this should come natural. Unfortunately, however, I know it doesn’t. It should come natural if the Church is understood properly as the Body of Christ. Paul told the Corinthian church:

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it (1 Cor 12:14-27).

            When Paul says that we are to take extra care to do good to the family of believers he’s saying that all parts of the Body of Christ are equally valuable and deserve to be treated with care. Sadly, it is precisely our fellow believers we have such a hard time doing good things to or for. It is especially hard when other Christians treat us in a way we perceive to be unfair or unkind. That’s When Doing Good Gets Hard. It is interesting to note that Paul does not refer to a group of believers, in vv. 9-10, as the Body of Christ as he does elsewhere. Instead, he refers to them as a “family of believers” and in other translations as a “household of believers.” It seems natural that family or household relationships should be the easiest and most comfortable to exercise our faith within. But as many of you know, family or household relationships often prove to be the most difficult and contentious. It was certainly that way in my family of origin where, as I said before, my father was an abusive alcoholic. Perhaps you weren’t terrorized by an abusive father, but maybe your father was absent and neglectful, or maybe your mother was smothering and controlling, or maybe your sister was spiteful and manipulative, or your brother was an angry bully. Regardless of your circumstances, families are often the most difficult environment within which to do good. However, it is precisely in this environment that we are called to do good and that’s When Doing Good Gets Hard. Paul’s instruction is clear that no good deed is wasted. Instead, every good deed is like a seed planted in the heart of the beneficiary of our good deeds. Eventually those good deeds will produce a harvest if we just don’t give up. But that’s the hardest part isn’t it? We want to see the results of our good deeds right away. Unfortunately, the results of our good deeds don’t usually manifest themselves for a very long time. In fact, we often don’t get the opportunity to witness the fruits of our good deeds during our lifetimes.

            “The wise farmer can usually depend on the expected timetables of seedtime and harvest. Not so in the spiritual life. One of the greatest frustrations in the Christian ministry, and a principal cause for ‘weariness in well doing,’ is the inability to calculate the spiritual outcome of faithful labors in the work of the Lord. For this reason we must be cautious in putting too much stock in what we often call ‘visible results.’ We serve a Sovereign God who has promised that his Word will not return void. The ultimate harvest is assured, but it will only come ‘at the proper time,’ that is, in God’s own good time...Just as the time of reaping will come ‘at the proper time,’ so now we must make good use of the present ‘opportunity’ to sow to the Spirit rather than to the flesh…The freedom of the Christian is a freedom of service in the moment of opportunity. The life of every person rushes toward its appointed end. The time for harvest is irretrievably set in the divine date book. Because this is true, consequently, therefore as we have opportunity, let us faithfully fulfill the ministry God has given us to do…

            Christian ethics has a dual focus: one is universal and all-embracing. ‘Let us do good to all people’; the other is particular and specific, ‘especially to those who belong to the family of believers.’ Paul’s universalistic appeal was based on the fact that all persons everywhere are created in the image of God and are thus infinitely precious in his sight. Whenever Christians have forgotten this primary datum of biblical revelation, they have inevitably fallen victim to the blinding sins of racism, sexism, tribalism, classism, and a thousand other bigotries that have blighted the human community from Adam and Eve to the present day.”[4]

Application

            Theologian John Brown once wrote,

            “Every poor and distressed man had a claim on me for pity, and, if I can afford it, for active exertion and pecuniary relief. But a poor Christian has a far stronger claim on my feelings, my labors, and my property. His is my brother, equally interested as myself in the blood and love of the Redeemer. I expect to spend an eternity with him in heaven. He is the representative of my unseen Savior, and he considers everything done to his poor afflicted as done to himself. For a Christian to be unkind to a Christian is not only wrong, it is monstrous.”[5]

            Nearly 25 years after Brown’s words were published, they proved to be prophetic in the small African country of Rwanda where an estimated 1,000,000 Rwandans were slaughtered in a 100-day period between April and July of 1994. Slaughtered “by friends, neighbors, classmates, and fellow church members—with machetes and hoes and nail-stubbed clubs. The world watched on television and did nothing. Over twenty years later Rwanda is still reeling and damaged…There are one millions orphans in the country. There are thousands of widows, many who were raped and now have AIDS, as well as raising AIDS-infected children born of those rapes.

            The country was considered 90 percent Christian at the time of the genocide, and the church was complicit in the slaughter. Many people fled to the churches for sanctuary and were massacred within the church walls. Several churches around the country have been left untouched as memorials to what happened. That means you can go into these churches, where sunlight comes through broken stained glass and the Bible sits on the altar, and see the bones of thousands, lying just as they died—twenty-five hundred in one, four thousand in another, ten thousand in the third, and so on. Hell not only came to Rwanda; it came to the church…How can such a thing be? How does a sanctuary of God become the house of death? How do people who call themselves Christians slaughter neighbors?...Rwandans were fed a diet of hatred for others—derogatory terms, ridicule, thinking of others as less than…Some of us know what it is like to think of others in this way—those who have hurt us, those we hold a grudge against or carry bitterness toward; those of another economic class; or those of another faith or even denomination.

            Human beings do not go from dinner with friends to genocide in a day or a week. We get there little by little; blind, numb, and not noticing until the horrific seems normal and acceptable.”[6] We usually don’t resort to extreme measures when we have been wounded in some way. However, when we are repeatedly wounded the seeds of anger and hatred begin to take root. That’s why Paul’s instruction to the Galatians, and by extension to us, is so very important. The best way to avoid being swept up in the destructive consequences of anger and hatred is doing good to everyone and especially to other Christians. Hutu Christians of Rwanda called Tutsi Christians of Rwanda “cockroaches.” The seeds of hatred had taken root in the hearts and minds of the Hutus. “It is a little-by-little seduction until we find ourselves thinking of another human being, created in the image of God, as a nasty, threatening creature that ought to be stamped out.”[7] Imagine how things would have been different had the church in Rwanda followed Paul’s instruction to the church in Galatia and instead of calling their fellow believers cockroaches, they had simply done good to them. A million lives would have been spared and the local churches would be sanctuaries for the redeemed instead of sanctuaries of the dead. A million orphans would still have their families, there would be far fewer widows, and AIDS wouldn’t be a national epidemic and a perpetuating tragedy. A nation would still be whole, all because Christians were obedient to do good to all people but especially to other Christians in their communities. In hindsight the answer seems so simple but I know from personal experience how hard it can be when you’ve been wounded to do good the person who has wounded you. But that is the sign of a true disciple of Jesus Christ. It’s not only to do good to those who treat us well, but especially to those who don’t treat us well even if they are Christians. This is what Jesus means when He says that we are to take up our cross daily and follow Him (Lk 9:23)—doing good to people When Doing Good Gets Hard.

Lesson Schedule

            I will be spending the next week enjoying the company of my family and friends so the next lesson will be posted in two week.





[1] Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), pp. 792-793.
[2] Charles B. Cousar, Galatians—Interpretaion: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 145.
[3] Scot McKnight, Galatians—The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), p. 296.
[4] Timothy George, Galatians—The New American Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1994), pp. 426-428.
[5] John Brown, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, (Shallotte, NC: Sovereign Grace Publications, 1970), p. 348.
[6] Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How trauma destroys and Christ restores, (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2015), pp. 11-12.
[7] Ibid., pp. 12-13.

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