Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: The path that is before us as Christ followers is to focus on Jesus Christ and by faith to receive the grace of God in our lives.

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California and a professor in Biblical Studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Galatians. Let's listen as JP gives us part one of keeping it real.

JP Jones: If you have your Bibles, would you open to Galatians chapter 6? We've been in this book the last couple of months looking at these great themes of grace and faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. In fact, the theme of Galatians is that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. And Galatians is is a book that the Apostle Paul has written that gives us an understanding of some of the pitfalls that can clog our relationship with God. On the one hand, there's the tendency to become extremely religious and legalistic and rule following, and that causes us to miss grace.

On the other hand, there's a tendency to speak about our freedom and take that for granted, then just become selfish people who indulge our sinful nature, and that causes us to miss grace. The path that is before us as Christ followers is to focus on Jesus Christ and by faith to receive the grace of God in our lives. That's what Galatians comes back to over and over and over again. And in chapter 5, the Apostle Paul launches into this practical exhortation that we've been set free, but that freedom is to be lived out in the power of the Holy Spirit, and that freedom is to be expressed in bearing spiritual fruit, and that freedom is to be expressed in serving one another.

Here we are in Galatians chapter 6, and Paul is wrapping up this book with some very practical shoe leather applications. I'm calling this this message keeping it real. Randy Jackson theology from American Idol. Just keeping it real, dog. Keeping it real. What Paul's saying is the Christian life isn't something that can only be lived in a monastery. Living in the spirit is not something that only takes place in a seminary with, you know, really high-sounding words. No, it is the life that God calls every disciple to. And it's a life that has some bottom-line applications to it.

Let's see what Paul says here in Galatians chapter 6 verses 3 to 10. If anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions, then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else. For each one should carry his own load. Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 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.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. This is a series of very practical exhortations. This is putting the spirit-filled life at the level that every one of us can understand and can respond to. Here's the first idea. We need to take personal responsibility for our stuff. We need to take personal responsibility for our stuff. Paul says we are not people who are victims of what happens to us.

We are not people who are at the whim and mercy of other people's response to us. Spiritual adulthood, responsible spirit-filled living involves owning our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. We need to take responsibility for who we are and how we live. The other day I was teaching a class at Biola with with college kids. We were looking at Romans chapter 1 and the the theme was talking about the fact that there's this universal sin problem. And in Romans 1, Paul describes the descent of mankind in a macro sense away from God. And there's a phrase that's repeated three times in Romans chapter 1 says God gave them over, God gave them over, God gave them over.

And the point of what Paul is arguing is that there are real consequences to living in rebellion against God. And if a person doesn't take advantage of their opportunity to repent and experience God's grace, then there are consequences. And what's interesting is what Paul says is the consequences of sin is more sin. What God does is he allows us to experience the natural spiritual consequences of sinful behavior, which is just more sinful behavior, so that we actually become slaves to our passions and desires and our sins. So the end result of Romans 1 is a person who's fully spiraled away from God.

It's a person who is a total narcissist. It's all about me. And they have disregard for God and for others. And I began to talk about this from the perspective of Romans 1. And then some students were asking me questions and it kind of got on one of my hobby horses, which is the fact that our society is raising a bunch of narcissists. See, a narcissist adult is someone who was a narcissist teenager. And a narcissist teenager is someone who was a narcissist grade school kid. And a narcissist grade school kid is someone who is a narcissist toddler.

There is a role as parents that we are to raise kids who take responsibility for their actions and for their behavior. And when we drop the ball as parents in teaching our kids to take personal responsibility, we are by default raising narcissists. Wow. Paul says, spiritually speaking, a characteristic of spiritual adulthood of someone who's living in the spirit is they take responsibility for themselves. They don't point the finger at other people or put the finger at God or put the finger at their circumstances. They own their own stuff. So Paul says in verse 3, if anyone thinks he's something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

Paul says we can become deceived. We don't live our life in a neutral playing field. We live our lives in the context of spiritual battle, the world, the flesh, and the devil. We can become deceived. Good people can be deceived. Loving people can be deceived. Followers of Jesus Christ can be deceived. If anyone thinks he's something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. When we have an inflated view of ourselves, we can become deceived, you see. And that's in the context, by the way, of the preceding verses. The preceding verses is where Paul is talking about how we as people who are living in the spirit, bearing spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we're to be aware that we can be overcome by sin and we're to be aware that when someone is overcome by sin, those of us who are spiritual are to come alongside and bear their burdens and encourage them and restore them.

So by implication, thinking more highly of yourself than you should think is when you think I can never become overcome by sin, or thinking I'm above, stooping down and trying to help somebody else and restore them and bearing their burdens. Either type of thinking is self-deception. So we need to take ownership for the way we think and the way we think about ourselves. Verse 4 says, each one should test his own action and then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else. When it says test his own action, that word test is a Greek word dokimazo.

It's used quite a few times in the New Testament. And what it means is to examine and approve after testing. So there is an appropriate sense in which we at times in our life do what my old football coach said, a gut check. How am I doing as a husband? How am I doing as a parent? How am I doing as a Christian? How am I doing as a witness for Christ? How am I doing as a steward of all that God has entrusted with me? We need to examine, evaluate ourselves. There's a there's a healthy appropriateness about that at times and not do it from the standpoint of comparing ourselves to one another.

See, that's that's what it says. Don't compare yourself to one another. That is when we tend to get it wrong because there's some of us by virtue of our temperament who will always compare ourselves with the people who we perceive don't have it as together as we do. And we compare ourselves with them and then we think, you know, I'm God's gift to Crossline Church. Or there are some of us by virtue of our temperament who always compare ourselves with people who have it more together than we think we do. And it only reaffirms what we think.

We're just scum. We suck. And that's about whatever area we evaluated on, our spiritual life, our financial life, our parenting life, our marriage. See, whatever area you're comparing yourself with with someone, you will either falsely think you're better than you are or falsely think you're worse than you are because the problem is you're comparing yourself to other people rather than standing before God's presence and letting God speak to you about your life. And it's a symptom you see of not taking personal responsibility for who you are and who God made you to be and what God's called you to do.

If anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions and then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else. Verse 5, for each one should carry his own load. That's interesting because it says in verse 2, bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. Here it says each one should carry his own load. Well, again, Paul is using kind of a play on words because there are two different words for burdens in verse 2 and load in verse 5. The word for burden is the Greek word baros, and the word for load is the Greek word phortion.

One implies the overwhelming heaviness that can kind of defeat us. That's burden. The other is the stuff that's appropriate for each of our responsibilities. That's load. Sometimes in life things become overpowering and overwhelming and we need one another's support and help. But that doesn't deny the truth that every day their daily responsibilities, that's our own stuff that we have to take care of. Let me give you an illustration if it maybe can help a picture for you. Let's say we're all students in school and we have backpacks that we carry our stuff in. Everybody here has a backpack and we've got, you know, our books and for for our classes and our papers and our pencils and erasers and the stuff that we need.

That's all in our backpack. So we all get ready to go to school. We put our backpack on because it has our stuff in it. And we are wearing our backpacks to school. We get to class. We take our backpacks off. We go into the classroom. And while we're in the classroom, somebody comes along and puts a bunch of really heavy rocks in my backpack. So when the class is over, we all get out and we go to put on our backpacks. I go to pick mine up. It's so heavy I can't even pick it up.

Now you have your backpack and you need to put on your backpack, but all also you need to help me put on mine. It doesn't really matter how the rocks get there, whether the rocks are there because I made some sinful choices, whether rocks are there because I stepped out of God's will, whether rocks are there because of the family I came out of and the stuff I just carry through my life or whether it's spiritual warfare or whether it is God's unique design to test me. It doesn't matter how the rocks get there. They create the backpack to be so heavy I can't lift it on my own and I need your help.

But you help me while you're carrying your own backpack at the same time. We are to bear one another's burdens, but we're also to take care of our own load, you see, because what this passage is telling us is that we as followers of Christ are to own our our own life issues. We're to own our own feelings. We're to own our own thoughts. We're to own our emotions. We're to own our own actions at the same time caring for one another and helping one another. We need to take responsibility for our stuff. That's that's keeping it real.

That's that's the spirit-filled life in action. Here's a second thing that Paul says in this passage in the series of these exhortations. We need to take care of those who bless us spiritually. We need to take care of those who bless us spiritually. It says in verse 6, anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor. When it says those who receive instruction, it's a it's a Greek verb katalecho. It's where we get the word catechism. From the earliest church there was a spiritual catechism principle. In other words, when we cross the line and we we give our lives to Christ, we we we make much of that around here because God makes much about that.

But that really is just the first step of a whole lot of other steps. We are all in a process of being discipled and becoming formed to become like Jesus Christ. And that's what this is describing, that spiritual formation process, receiving instruction, receiving the word, receiving spiritual input, receiving encouragement, receiving the the modeling and pastoring and shepherding and discipling and teaching of others. Now there's an immediate context to this was the way the local church got set up. I mean, from its earliest formation it was God's design that of the body of Christ there would be those who would be called out by virtue of their gifts and passion and calling to teach and minister and shepherd and pastor the rest of the body.

That's not just a New Testament principle, that's an Old Testament principle. That's the Levitical principle of the 12 tribes of Israel. One tribe was called out to kind of spiritually shepherd and minister and lead the other tribes, the tribe of Levi. And so the Levites had a calling to spiritually care for the rest of the tribes. And because they did that, the other tribes were to contribute financially to make it possible for them to do it. That was through tithes and offerings in the Old Testament. So what Paul is saying here is part of this owning our own stuff is owning our call to care for one another and in particular those who spiritually lead us.

Those who make a spiritual investment in our lives. It's true that this is kind of immediately the principle of how a church can operate, but it's more than that cuz think about all the people in your spiritual journey who've had an impact on your life, all the people God has used. On Wednesday night I lead a group of men. We we're in a discipleship study. We're studying the book Master Plan of Evangelism. And And we're talking about how did Jesus disciple the disciples. In a couple weeks ago one of the things we were talking about was our own personal spiritual history.

And a question that I'd asked the guys to consider was who are the people that God has used in your life to disciple you, to teach you, to encourage you, to pastor you, to shepherd you? Who are the people that God used to have an influence on your life? And how did he use them? What What What was the spiritual influence? Think about if we were to actually do that, do that exercise, and then thank those people, appreciate those people, let them know how God used them in our life. Wouldn't that be great? Maybe you're one of the people that will get thanked.

Maybe you're one of the people who will receive a phone call or an email and someone says you don't even maybe realize this, but God used you in an amazing way to help me in my my walk with the Lord. I think if we created that kind of culture here, it would just elevate our sense of involvement in one another's lives and appreciation and gratitude and encouragement and we'd be contagious in this community. And it would spill out and bless the entire community, you see. And that is exactly why God led Paul to write this to this church at Galatia in in the first letter possibly that Paul wrote this book of Galatians.

And in a letter that's filled with all these deep theological issues, he's just keeping it real and says, listen, the people that God uses to bless you, appreciate them. And if that's in a financial way, make sure you do it that way, but appreciate them and share all good things with them because it creates a culture of generosity and a culture of encouragement and a culture of blessing. We need to take personal responsibility for our stuff and we need to take care of those who bless us spiritually. Here's a third idea of how we just keep it real.

We need to take advantage of the law of reaping and sowing. We need to take advantage of this. You see, Paul has um introduced this concept of sharing good things with those who teach us and instruct us. The idea is is immediately financial. And what Paul does is he backs this up with a larger principle, the law of reaping and sowing or the law of sowing and reaping depending on how you understand it. He does the same thing over in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 because in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 Paul is talking about the New Testament principle of generous giving and sacrificial giving.

And he uses the same example. You reap what you sow. And so he comes back to this here in Galatians chapter 6 and says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 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. Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. In effect, what Paul is saying is this, whether the issue is financial stewardship or any other life management, a spiritual principle that just God has said is true is this principle of sowing and reaping.

And we need to be aware of it. And not only aware of it, take advantage of it cuz it can work either way. It can work for good or it can work for bad cuz it's just a principle that works. See, it's really not that complicated. If I invest my time, my talent, and my treasure in the world, I'm going to become more worldly. If I invest my time, my talent, my treasure in the spirit, I'm going to become more spiritual. So do you want to become more worldly or do you want to become more spiritual?

It's not that complicated. You know, growing spiritually, becoming more like Christ, becoming a person of spiritual impact from a big-picture perspective is not that complicated. So do the spirit. And from the spirit you'll reap eternal life. But if you're not doing that, guess what? By default you're sown to the flesh because what this is saying is we need to take a proactive stance about our lives. We need to take a proactive stance in terms of investing in the things that matter for eternity and sowing to the things that will reap a spiritual harvest.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 233 31 Molten Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or give us a call at 949 916 0250. That's 949 916 0250. For your gift of $25 or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book Facing Goliath.

Please join us every Sunday at 9 or 11 a.m. at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 233 31 Molten Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment. But before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. You know, the Bible says that we live out a Christian life in the context of a battle. That's right. It's a spiritual struggle. There is a conflict that is raging in the unseen world. 1 It's with the world, the flesh, and the devil. In fact, we might think of it this way. On the one hand, God makes his appeal to us through his word and our capacity to respond is the new nature or the indwelling Holy Spirit. So God is constantly speaking to us through the word of God and he has implanted his life within us through the indwelling Holy Spirit and we can respond and allow the word to transform us.

On the other hand, Satan makes his appeal through the world and our capacity to respond is our old nature or the flesh. And so Satan is using the world system to tempt us and to deceive us and to accuse us. And our flesh is vulnerable to be deceived and to respond to that. So here's the spiritual conflict that is at play all of the time. And what determines whether or not we live in victory or we live in defeat is what we choose to listen to, what we choose to feed upon, and what we choose to act upon.

If we choose to listen to God and his word, if we choose to feed upon God and his word, if we choose to act upon God and his word, then the Holy Spirit transforms us and makes us more and more like Jesus Christ. On the other hand, if we choose to listen to and to feed upon and to act upon the world and the flesh, then we end up living in defeat and spiritual deadness. God wants to transform us spiritually. He's enabled us to be transformed spiritually by giving us new life in Christ and by giving us the Holy Spirit.

The moment we were saved, we were born again by the Holy Spirit. The moment we were saved, we were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The moment we were saved, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit and baptized by the Holy Spirit. But it is only as we sow to the spirit, as we feed upon the spirit, as we dive deep into the life in the spirit that we experience true and eternal spiritual transformation. And that's a decision of the will. Today will you decide to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit? Let's pray. God, I surrender my life to you.

I don't want to sow to the flesh. I want to sow to the spirit. So today I determine to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life. And I do that in Jesus' name. Amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 233 31 Molten Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or call us at 949 916 0250. On the internet you'll find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.