A Pastor's Thoughts: Weary (RP1)

I’m going to make a rather obvious statement: dealing with people can be really difficult in any context—including ministry. Every day can feel like an uphill climb on a wet, muddy, dirt road. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing I’d rather be doing than giving my life to the service of God and His Church. Nevertheless, there are times (lots of times) when giving up would be so much easier; not having to be the one called on to share in the struggles of others; not having to constantly defend my lessons and beliefs; not having to constantly endure complaints and criticisms; praying for just my family instead of being compelled to pour over a long list of prayer requests every week and remembering or reliving the pain and suffering of those for whom I pray; feeling the pull to sit with the sick and dying and their families; constantly fighting against a culture ruled and used by Satan to consume unbelievers and batter believers. I know it sounds like I’m complaining and I’m sorry if it comes across that way. That’s not my point. Instead, I know many of you can relate this to your calling in life. Whether you’re an accountant or a stay-at-home mom, I know you daydream about a time when your boss doesn’t put another stack of files on your desk to review “in your spare time,” or the teacher of your elementary age child doesn’t assign a college level science project due the next day. If I had to describe how these times make me, and maybe you, feel using just one word, it would have to be “Weary.” However, there is a significant distance between being Weary and giving up, even if they may travel along the same road. Let me provide you with a couple of examples to illustrate.

I read a news report a while back of a very prominent ministry that was nearly 40 years old with a firm biblical foundation for its ministry and teachings that closed its doors citing that they have grown Weary with the constant warring against the culture. They renounced their once biblical worldview and hope to begin a new ministry that adopts a new, marginally biblical worldview that embraces cultural changes—they grew Weary and gave up. In contrast to this, I have a friend who left a very successful ministry to take over and help guide a less successful, struggling and dysfunctional ministry. I know this man very well and he is one of the godliest, humblest, loving, gracious, self-sacrificing and smartest preachers I’ve ever known and have had the privilege to call my friend. As far as I’m concerned, he should be the silver bullet that is the solution to any church’s problems. I’ve spent time with him in a ministry and non-ministry setting and if I could ever be half the pastor that he is I would consider myself fortunate. However, the last time we talked, he shared with me that the church to which he was called is still struggling in much the same way as it was when he first arrived years ago. I could hear the pain and disappointment in his voice. We talked about another ministry opportunity that I had become aware of that I thought would be absolutely perfect for him because of his expertise and background. Do you want to know what he said to me? “Thanks for the information but I’ve been called to this church and God’s not done yet so I’m not leaving.” Through all the struggle, pain and disappointment, he was Weary but he refused to give up.

I got to thinking about these things this week and I realized that many of you are probably feeling Weary right now as well whether you’re in ministry or not. Living your life according to the Spirit God has placed within you as a believer doesn’t magically shield you from becoming Weary. I recognize that as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, you become Weary when you are constantly fighting against the forces screaming at you to conform to the culture; resisting the promises that power will provide the freedom to do whatever you want; saying no to the seduction of sex without boundaries; denying the empty pursuit of wealth that seeks only self-satisfaction. It’s always easier to talk about living obediently according to the Spirit than it is to actually live that reality and sometimes it just doesn’t seem like it’s worth it. Well I want to tell you it is worth it! We may not realize the value in the way we live life according to the Spirit but there is great value that is growing on our behalf in the spiritual realm. Nothing we do or say or endure goes unnoticed by God and one day the payoff will be so overwhelming that it will seem completely disproportionate to anything we will have endured during the times that we struggled to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that at this particular point in time, life has brought you to the point where you may just be Weary—but don’t give up! Scripture is clear that God is not blind to the evil in the world or your faithfulness to resist that evil and one day He will deal harshly with those who allow sin to reign in their lives and mercifully and lovingly with those who repent yet struggle daily against sin in their own lives or have been wounded by the sins of others. Paul reminds us in his letter to the church in Galatia there is great hope that a day will come when our struggles will be worth it as long as we don’t give up and turn back.

Subject Text

Galatians 6:7-10

⁷Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸The 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. 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

Reference is made in our Subject Text to a couple of different theological concepts that Paul addresses earlier that we need to deal with here in order to properly understand our Subject Text: Life according to the Spirit vs. Life according to the sinful nature. Understood in a vacuum, life according to the Spirit represents the life of a believer while life according to the sinful nature represents the life of unbelievers. I say in a vacuum because it assumes that when we receive the Holy Spirit as believers we are no longer sinful but we know intuitively and experientially that this is not true. We must make the distinction between the two as being a life that is controlled and guided by the Spirit versus a life that is controlled and guided by the sinful nature. For the believer, this is complicated because even though we “have crucified the sinful nature (Gal 5:24)” when we accepted Christ, the remnants of the sinful nature, at times, wars with the Spirit. The unbeliever does not struggle in this way—the unbeliever simply concedes control of their life to the sinful nature. In the verses leading up to our Subject Text, Paul makes a clear distinction between life according to the Spirit and life according to the sinful nature. Paul describes the latter as being marked by “Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery [Excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures]; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like (Gal 5:19b-21).” Paul then goes on to describe the former that “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23a).” This is the foundation on which Paul continues to build his teaching to the Galatians in our Subject Text.

Text Analysis

⁷Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

It is nothing new that humanity believes that just because God has not intervened to put an end to evil and sinful behavior to this point that He never will; that somehow He doesn’t see everything or know everything. The Psalmist writes: “They [the wicked and evildoers] encourage each other in evil plans, they talk about hiding their snares; they say, ‘Who will see them?’ They plot injustice and say, ‘We have devised a perfect plan!’ Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning. (Ps 64:5-6)…They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’ (Ps 73:4-11)…They say, ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed’ (Ps 94:4-7).” However, v. 7 of our Subject Text is a clear warning for all of us that God sees all things and knows all things and His inaction against continued sin and evil should be a sign of His mercy and grace not as a sign of indifference and weakness. “People can’t ignore God and get away with it. What they sow, they will reap. Sow means ‘spread, utilize, invest.’ Whatever we use as key values determines the course of our life…While believers have received God’s special blessings and promises, God does not change the positive and negative of the natural law that people will reap what they sow…From farming to finances, this saying holds true. A farmer plants corn and grows corn; he should not expect or desire anything else. Believers must decide what crop they want and plant accordingly, for what they get back will be directly related to what they put in.”[1]

⁸The 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 is the critical point in our Subject Text that juxtaposes life according to the sinful nature vs. life according to the Spirit.

Sinful Nature

The sinful nature is best understood when we have a clear understanding of the nature of sin. Rather than trying to enumerate all possible sins specifically, the “nature of sin” allows us to understand sin more generally. Sins can be categorized as either sins of commission—doing what we should not do and sins of omission—not doing what we should do. In order to establish a baseline for sinful behavior, there must be an objective standard against which behavior is measured. “The ultimate objective standard is God’s absolute moral perfection, and anything that falls short of it is sin…Since God’s moral nature is the standard of perfection, it follows that whatever is imperfect is sinful by nature.”[2] It is important to understand that sin was not created or planned by God. “The originally created conditions for and in humankind, designed by God, were perfect. However, by an illicit usage of free choice, sin made its entrance into the world, leaving a ghastly marring of God’s unblemished creation. The subsequent state of human sinfulness left Adam’s race humanly (but not divinely) irreparable. When this fallen condition is viewed in the light of God’s absolutely perfect nature—the ultimate standard of purity and holiness—the stark contrast reveals the horrible picture of human depravity.”[3]

Spirit Life

Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive His promise of the Holy Spirit who resides within each believer. Additionally, the sinful nature has been crucified so we are to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives. “The Spirit is given in the place of Christ’s bodily presence. Before the pivot of history, the Spirit was not yet unreservedly self-offered as indwelling. Afterward, when the risen Lord ascended, he promised that the Spirit would come as helper and abiding companion of the people of God, and that the Spirit would accompany the witnessing community until he personally returned. The Spirit reproves and challenges the faithful to accountability to the holy God…the Spirit’s work of grace is amid the most inward dimensions of human consciousness. There is nothing too subtle or dense for the Spirit to penetrate or too sinful for the Spirit to cleanse or too weary for the Spirit to refresh or too dark for the Spirit to understand or too dead for the Spirit to breathe life into again.”[4]

You can see by this that the Spirit works in the life of believers to oppose and correct all the dysfunction and damage caused by the sinful nature. Whereas the sinful nature in unbelievers continues to control the life of the unbeliever unchecked until they are destroyed. This is why evil appears to grow and perpetuate—because it does! That’s why Paul says that the eventual outcome of sowing to please the sinful nature will result in destruction—there can be no other end result. However, when the believer acts according to the guidance and direction of the Spirit, which attempts to reorient the believer back to God’s original plan for humanity, the natural outcome will be eternal life with God. Perhaps you are familiar with the old proverb that states: Sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.

⁹Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Since Paul is speaking within the context of an agrarian culture, he continues with his farming analogy in v. 9. Farming is a tough business; it includes long hours of very hard and often monotonous work of planting seed after seed in row after row and field after field. Nevertheless, regardless of fatigue, the work must be done if the farmer expects to reap a crop during harvest season. What keeps the farmer going is the belief that there will be a payoff at some point. In this same way, Paul encourages the Galatians, and by extension all of us, not to grow Weary as they continue to strive to do good and thereby sow seeds that please the Spirit. “Sowing to please the Spirit means ‘serving one another in love’ (Gal 5:13), restoring one who has been caught in sin (Gal 6:1), carrying the burdens of others (Gal 6:2), giving generously to those who teach in the church (Gal 6:6), and doing good to all (Gal 6:9)…sowing to the Spirit in the context of Paul’s teaching here involves building love relationships with others…If sowing to the sinful nature means selfish indulgence, then sowing to the Spirit means selfless service…Growth in our relationships does not happen automatically, growth takes effort. Hard work is required if broken relationships are to be rebuilt…One of the greatest obstacles to rebuilding broken relationships is simply fatigue. We can easily lose heart and run out of strength when we come up against the same problems over and over again as we deal with others. Even Paul sounds discouraged when he talks about his efforts to rebuild his relationship with the Galatian believers: ‘I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you’ (Gal 4:11). Paul recognized that fatigue and discouragement might cause Christians to throw in the servant’s towel and quit.”[5] Nevertheless, Paul promises them that there will be a payoff [harvest] if they will refuse to quit. However, the promise only guarantees that there will be payoff without specificity as to when they can expect the payoff. They must rest in the assurance that the harvest will be “at the proper time” or according to God’s timing.

¹⁰Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

When Paul starts off v. 10 with “therefore” he is saying that armed with the knowledge, confidence and anticipation that there will be a payoff [harvest] associated with their faithfulness and obedience, they should exploit every possible opportunity to do good to everyone generally but to those who belong to the family of believers especially. In v. 9 Paul uses the promise of a payoff to encourage us not to give up and here in v. 10 he encourages us to continue doing good by reminding us that especially in the case of believers, we are loving and serving family. “Every time we have the opportunity to do good, we should do it. The timing for doing good is always right. The opportunity is not optional. We are to treat it as strategically placed by God in our path. Our settings may continually change, but each one will bring a fresh opportunity for helping and serving…When Paul told individual believers to ‘do good,’ he spoke to their responsibility in the community as well as in the church. The church is not meant to become merely a social agency, but individual believers can work together in meeting social needs, giving time and resources as God calls and enables them. Sowing seeds of kindness to those in need expresses Christ’s love and prepares hearts to receive the gospel.”[6]

Application

One of the things I’ve learned being married, having two children, working full time, doing ministry and pursuing my doctorate all at the same time is that you are tired all the time! Many of you have your own stories to tell about events in your life that have driven you to the point of exhaustion when all you can think about is giving up on something if not everything. If you are anything, you are Weary. We are particularly susceptible to the feelings of fatigue when we are serving and caring for and ministering to others especially when we don’t necessarily perceive many if any results related to our efforts. When we become Weary, we are especially vulnerable to listening to Satan’s voice suggesting that our lives would be so much better if we just gave up. I am still learning that when we are Weary, we make very poor decisions. A few years ago I decided that in addition to posting weekly lessons, I would post a daily devotional on a social media site for the benefit of my friends and family. In and of itself, it wasn’t that difficult but added to everything else I had committed to doing it started to become increasingly difficult. Coupled with that was the realization that I had no idea if it really mattered to anyone, and I became Weary and eventually I allowed Satan to convince me that it was just a waste of time and that no one really cared anyway—so I gave up. Well you guessed it, I was wrong. I was at a Seminary alumni event soon after that and one of my former professors stopped me and told me how much he enjoyed the daily devotionals I had been posting and that they really made him think. It would have been less painful if he had just punched me in the gut!

I confess that it’s hard for me to instruct and guide you in areas that I’m not very good at myself without sounding like a hypocrite and this is one of those areas. I confess that I struggle with pouring my heart and energy into people and ministry without really knowing if it makes any difference to anyone. I don’t doubt that there are many of you who aren’t in ministry that feel exactly the same way when it comes to the things you pour your heart and soul into; doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, builders, students, mothers, or fathers. Nevertheless, we must all be committed to the calling God has called us to and to live our lives according to the Spirit out of obedience to God and love for Jesus Christ so that our lives will be marked by the fruit derived by the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Every day of our lives we have countless opportunities to care for, serve and love those around us; to do good. God promises that there will be a great harvest resulting from our faithfulness provided that even though we grow Weary we must never give up.

[1] Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 794.

[2] Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2004), pp. 106; 110.

[3] Ibid., p. 120.

[4] Thomas C. Oden, Life in the Spirit, (New York, NY: Harper SanFrancisco, 1992), pp. 49-50; 55.

[5] G. Walter Hansen, Galatians—The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), pp. 195-196.

[6] Barton, et al., Life Application New Testament Commentary, p. 794.