[0:00] Amen. You guys glad to be here today? What an incredible day to sing together. All nations and tribes and peoples from all over the world.
[0:12] Right here in one room. That's a cool thing. We're going to do a responsive reading together, if that's okay. So let's just focus our hearts now on what we're about to say to our Lord.
[0:24] Merciful God, we think of the freedom that Paul speaks about. And too often we accept it as the freedom to do what we like, rather than being obedient to you and serious about reflecting your character into our world.
[0:39] We confess with shame that whenever we bite and devour one another, such things as discord and factions exist, even within our faith communities.
[0:51] Forgive us when we use our freedom to be self-indulgent instead of serving one another in love. We confess that we fail miserably when we try on our own to live lives that are shaped by love, joy, and peace, patience, kindness, and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
[1:12] Forgive us when we fail to be led and guided by the Holy Spirit, who enables our lives to produce such freedom, which enrich and enhance our lives, and through us the lives of those.
[1:26] So merciful God, we confess also our failure to seek the empowerment of your Holy Spirit when we're confronted daily with the challenges of following Jesus. When we look at the cost that Jesus sets on his discipleship, we confess that so often we fail to meet that cost.
[1:43] So forgive us when we fail to take Jesus' demands on our lives seriously enough, forgetting that out of love for us, he has already walked the hard road the way of the cross.
[1:57] So gracious and loving God, in and through Jesus Christ, you have given us the freedom and the power to live by your Holy Spirit and be guided by him.
[2:10] May our acceptance of these gifts be visible as we bear profusely the fruit of the Spirit, and as we faithfully follow Jesus on the challenging road of discipleship.
[2:22] This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's be seated together. Amen. The scripture reading today comes from Paul's letters to the Galatians, chapters 5 and 6.
[2:46] Please read along in your bulletin with us. If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit.
[2:56] Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.
[3:16] Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.
[3:36] For each one will bear his own load. The one who has taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him. Do not be deceived.
[3:47] God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.
[3:57] But the one who sows from the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
[4:09] So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. This is the reading of the word of the Lord.
[4:23] Let's be seated together. A lot of cables up here. How you guys doing? I get to say that at least one time, right?
[4:34] I try not to repeat myself. Hey, we are going on a journey in Galatians. We're about to finish it today.
[4:46] And if you were here last week, during the sermon, we had a very interesting experience.
[4:59] Often it's kind of one of those experiences where you talk about them later, as if heaven meets earth, and our flesh meets God's Spirit.
[5:11] And when that happens, we don't know what's going to happen. So I wanted to, one of the things, you know, as a church, when we started at Watermark, we said we wanted to be a church family.
[5:27] And the goal was to make it where we come, and we discuss things as a family. Like, we'll talk about what's going on in our life, and in our world. Kind of like our dinner table as a family. And I felt like enough stuff happened last Sunday.
[5:40] Maybe we should talk about this a little, and Q&A, because we do Q&As. If this is your first time, we do Q&As here, probably once every five or six sermons, especially if it's a topic that's intense, or there's a lot of questions.
[5:53] And so, just to begin off with it, Pastor Charles was preaching, and about 26 minutes into his sermon, there's, like I said, there seemed to be a collision of the physical and the spiritual world, and all these dynamics interplaying.
[6:07] And it just became apparent that God had something different planned for the church. than his sermon. And God kind of took it in a different direction, and we've seen just people's, their reactions to that, and their blessings to that, and what they've done in their life.
[6:25] And just so you know, Pastor Charles, okay, he's here today. He went through the test, and everything is good. There's no physical reason, or mental reason. There was just, and so he's healthy, and so he's great, and he wants to thank everybody for prayers, and just for everybody's concern during that time.
[6:45] And as people started asking questions, I started writing them out, and it seemed like the questions came in a series of four kind of categories. And so I just want to talk about them really briefly, just because, like we've said, we're on this journey, and we're kind of laying a foundation as a church family on this journey, and what that looks like as we walk with God.
[7:04] And so the questions seem to be in these categories, and I'm just going to read them out as I heard them. I had several friends who were not believers. They're here, and we know that there are a lot of people here who haven't stepped onto their journey as a Christian, that they're on a spiritual journey, but they haven't entered into the family of God yet.
[7:24] And so that's why this church has started, because we want and believe in not taking people from other churches, but reaching people who aren't going to church. And some of my friends and people ask questions, and some young Christians ask these same type of questions.
[7:39] What does it mean when everyone is talking about spiritual warfare or spiritual battle? That seemed to be like one of the categories. And so as we talk about that, just realizing that the Christian life is a supernatural life, that there are spiritual dynamics at work all around us.
[7:56] One of the founding fathers of the colonies, if you're British, America if you're an American, Thomas Jefferson didn't believe in anything supernatural. And so he would take his Bible, and he basically ripped out every passage that talked about supernatural things.
[8:13] Miracles, healings, the Red Sea, all these things. So he just, and so he said, it just can't be, I can't believe in a supernatural thing. But what he realized is when he did that, his Bible was like that thin.
[8:23] Because there wasn't really much left in that sense. And so as we walk on this journey, we realize that there's a spiritual world, and there's a spiritual dimension. And scripture talks about it quite often, that there is, there are angels, and there are demons, and there's Satan.
[8:43] And we learn in Ephesians, as Paul talks, that our battle isn't against this flesh and blood, but our battle is against principalities, and kingdoms, and forces that we will never see.
[8:57] And I think that sometimes freaks us out. We'll see them when we get to heaven, our final destination. And it seems like, you know, even if I were to say right now, as I understand scripture, angels are looking down on us.
[9:11] There are angels in this room. And there are forces trying to cause people to not think and not focus, and miss what God's word has to teach them and say today.
[9:23] And so there's this battle going on all around us. And I think sometimes we take that too lightly, and we forget that there is a spiritual realm, and there's a huge struggle.
[9:35] Our body isn't just physical, our body is spiritual. And whenever we try to separate those two, like I say, how are you doing today? You go, well, in my thought life, I'm doing terrible, but in my physical life, I'm doing great.
[9:46] You know, Jesus would have never understood that language. Because in Jesus, the physical and the spiritual are all intertwined. They all work together. They're all, so when they say, how are you doing? We're saying, how are you doing spiritually?
[9:58] And physically, and all that encompasses you, that's who you are as a person. So there's a spiritual war going on, and John 4 says that God is spirit, and we worship him in spirit and truth.
[10:12] Another question that kind of came up a couple times was just the idea of, well, if all the things are happening around us, we talk about these spiritual things, is everything spiritual? Losing my job, is that spiritual?
[10:25] Is that spiritual? Bumping my car as I'm driving, and I get an accident, is that spiritual? Dropping my milk at the dinner table, is that spiritual? And I think that the scripture says, it's yes and no.
[10:40] That if you look at the timeline of creation, we have this period where God created, and then we have this period where everything fell, and it was corrupted. And then we have this period where Christ came, and he redeemed everything.
[10:56] And then we have this period that we're living in now, it's kind of the in-between times, it's the shadow lands that C.S. Lewis would talk about, that it's just here, but not yet here.
[11:07] We read scripture, and we understand it, but it hasn't yet been fully fulfilled in our lives, and we wonder what God is doing in that sense. And as we look at that, scripture is really clear in Ephesians, that we struggle against three things.
[11:22] We struggle against our flesh, my sinful nature, who I am, my selfishness, all those things that were opposite of what Pastor Troll was talking about yesterday, greed, and envy, and guilt, and shame, all these things we struggle against.
[11:36] We struggle against the fallen world. The Bible says that when sin came into the world, it fractured everything. It fractured creation, that we have these tsunamis, we have earthquakes, we have these things that happen, and people look at them, and they just understand what's going on, and they go, well, if God were good, why would he create a world like this?
[11:56] And you go back to them, and he goes, he didn't. He created a perfect world. But we came, and we made poor choices, and sin entered in, and it fractured all these things.
[12:10] And then we have the spiritual realm, that is Satan, and demons, and Romans talks about that a lot. And the question is, how do we discern what's happening in our life, and in our world? And my answer to that is, I don't know.
[12:24] I mean, sometimes, it's really clear, and sometimes, there's a combination of everything. And I realize, as people, we're very complicated. To say, this is your problem, is probably taking things too lightly, in our world.
[12:42] I mean, sometimes you know, right? I mean, sometimes you've been around somebody for so long, like my wife, I walk past her, and she looks at me, and I turn around, and I go, you were checking me out, weren't you?
[12:56] Well, I know that, because we've spent a lot of time with each other, and we know how each other thinks, right? We know how each other thinks, and that's just, that's just, that's a relationship.
[13:07] Right? And so, we know that, as we spend more time with God, and we spend more time in His Word, and we get into this relationship with Him, we understand when He's speaking to us, we understand when there's something weird here, we understand when things don't seem right, and we know how to pray, and I think community within this is really important.
[13:27] That if you're a part of the community of God, and you're not in the community, then you're kind of like this sheep, and you're wandering around, and you're going to get killed. But God meant for the family of God to come together, and be in a community, and so there's all these dynamics, our flesh, the world, Satan, and all these things are kind of coming in there, and we just need to be aware of that.
[13:48] We don't need to be afraid of that, but we just need to be aware of that, and understand what's going on, and community is very helpful in that time. Jesus told this parable one time, we taught on it already probably three months ago, when he talked about the sower.
[14:01] I made all the mess when I was throwing the corn everywhere, and everybody complained about it afterwards, because it took us two hours to pick it up after everybody left. But he says, you know, the sower sows the seed, and the word of God goes out, and it lands on a hard ground, and this bird, the devil comes, and he takes it away, so spiritual.
[14:20] Then the sower sows his seed, and it lands in the rocky ground, and the ground full of weeds, and concerns, and desires, and greed come up, and they choke it out, physical, in my body.
[14:33] So all these things are happening as God's word is so. Does that make sense? So to say this is physical, and that's spiritual, it's probably a combination of all those things in our world, and we just need to be aware of that as we think about that.
[14:48] Another question people said is, well, how do I handle this? What am I supposed to do? I'm afraid. And I said, don't be afraid. Don't freak out.
[15:00] Walk with God. In Job 1, there's a story of Job is there. God is there in heaven. It says, the sons of God came to heaven, and Job 1, and it says, Satan joined them, which that passage always just weirds me out.
[15:13] I don't understand it. There's a lot of things in Scripture that drive me crazy. And in that passage, God starts the whole book of Job by saying, hey, have you looked at Job? He's a great guy.
[15:25] And the devil goes, well, of course he's great, because you protect him. You do everything for him. Let me get into his life, and he will curse you. And there's a really interesting passage. God says to him, okay, but you can't take his life.
[15:38] And what we see there in that dynamic is that God is in control of everything. Nothing, if you're a child of God, nothing can happen in your life without God allowing it to happen.
[15:54] A hair cannot fall from your head. We're going to study that next week in Luke. That cannot happen unless God allows that to happen in your life. And so we have the confidence of knowing that no matter what's going on around us, if we're walking with God, God is in control.
[16:11] We don't need to fear. So what do you do? Well, when I was a young Christian, I was in Colorado. We were at Colorado Springs. Mark would appreciate this. We were out sharing our faith, and we came on this strip, and there was this occult bookstore.
[16:25] And I was like, okay, I'm going to go in there and share the gospel with those people, and they're going to hear about Christ, and all the demons are going to flee out of there, and I'm going to go, wow, God is great. And so I said, okay, I'll do that.
[16:36] And I started walking towards this door, and I got to this door, and I couldn't move. I mean, literally, it was like this force field was in front of me.
[16:48] And I had never experienced anything like that. And I hesitated for like four or five seconds. I'm like, and finally I just turned around. I said, okay, I'm not supposed to go in there. So don't go looking for demons.
[17:02] Don't go grab a whole bunch of books about exorcism, or what do I do, or how do I speak into that. Walk with God. Spend time with Him. Pray. Be in community. God will take care of you.
[17:16] There's some times in my life when I feel an incredible spiritual attack. I just say, Lord Jesus, I need you. Can you repeat that after me?
[17:27] Lord Jesus, I need you. Lord Jesus, I need you. Sometimes I'll say, Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
[17:45] Can you say that? Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Don't be writing out these long prayers. You got to pray every word just perfectly, then demons will flee.
[17:57] That's just not in the Bible. We're told in 1 Peter, that when Peter was, when Michael, the archangel, was arguing over Moses' body with Satan, he just said, the Lord, the Lord rebuke you, then Satan plead.
[18:16] So don't spend a lot of time talking to the demons. Talk to Jesus because he's our advocate. He's the one that goes before us. He's the one that has the power. He's the one that's going to vanquish the spiritual things.
[18:30] Talk to Jesus. Finally, the question came up a couple times, why do you think this is happening at Watermark now? Well, I don't know. I think there's a battle.
[18:42] I think we're in a spiritual battle. I think there's a battle for our hearts. There's some of you in here right now who are wondering, you know, is this church really worth giving all my life to? Should I hold on to my job or some things that give me a little comfort that I can realize right away because sometimes the church doesn't really satisfy me the way I need to be satisfied?
[19:09] There's a spiritual battle going on. We realize that the minute we plan the church here, we realize that we're coming into this area where Satan doesn't want us to be. He's not rejoicing that people are coming to Christ.
[19:24] He's not rejoicing that we're doing a baptism out there. He doesn't want those things to happen like that. And so you have to realize as we walk, as Mark and I were talking this last week, it's kind of like we're this point of this arrow.
[19:36] And we're this point of this arrow and we're penetrating darkness. And when you're in the point of the arrow, you're going to feel a lot of tension and a lot of friction and things are going to be difficult. But you know that it's God who's pushing that arrow through those things in our life and we can trust Him.
[19:56] We realize that when we built a church based on the gospel and community and reaching out where you live, Satan doesn't like that.
[20:09] We realize when we started to preach last Sunday on the fruit of the Spirit and what it looks like to walk with God, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control.
[20:25] Satan doesn't want us to think about those things. And so as we move forward, my desire for us as a church is just to move forward with our eyes open, to be praying.
[20:37] There's a passage right after Jesus comes out of the wilderness, which I think is really interesting. Satan tempted Him. And after Jesus said, it is written, it is written, it is written, which is a great way to realize how we fight spiritual battle.
[20:48] We just go to God's Word. It says that Satan removed himself and waited for an opportune time to come back. I think we as a church have to realize that as we penetrate darkness, as we go into places where the spiritual realm and there are serious battles there, that there's always going to be tension and fighting and struggles.
[21:16] If I brought the 30 people up here who were part of the launch team for Watermark, every one of them would testify to incredible amount of pressure, bad things happening in their life, things going on, like inordinate amount, dreams, sleepless nights.
[21:34] For a year and a half, people have been going through those things. And we've said, that's great because it means that we're doing what God wants us to do and what Satan doesn't want us to do.
[21:48] So as you walk forward, walk forward in confidence knowing that you're a child of God and there's nothing to fear. Now, hopefully I've covered all the categories.
[22:00] If there's a question there that I didn't ask, please feel free to come up and ask me later. We can address those things. But I just felt like it was a great teaching moment and we needed to talk about it and we needed to say, hey, this is what we feel like is going on.
[22:12] This is what God's word says. And we need to be aware of that. Is that okay? Okay. So we're looking at Galatians 5 and 6.
[22:27] We're bringing six years of, six Sundays, it might have seemed like six years. Six Sundays of teaching coming together and crashing at the head.
[22:38] And as we look at Galatians, we're reminded of a couple things. Galatians is about the gospel message.
[22:51] That Paul writes the gospel message in Galatians and he's telling them and us the core, the essence of the gospel. And he says, the essence of the gospel is this. The essence, the core is Jesus.
[23:02] Jesus saves people. Jesus rescues people. He rescues them from slavery, idols, and death. We've talked about it over and over again.
[23:13] Jesus jumps out of the lifeboat. He takes our dead body in the water. He pushes us into the lifeboat. And as he does that, he dies. He dies bringing us life.
[23:29] That's the gospel. Do I need to share it again? We're drowning. We're dead. We're in the water. We have no hope. And it's not like when Jesus jumps in and we go, okay, thanks, give me a boost. And he pushes us into the boat.
[23:41] No, we're dead. And he takes our body and he pushes us into the lifeboat and we come back to life. And as we come back to life, he dies.
[23:53] That's the gospel. Now, the church was struggling with that. The Galatians, as Christians, they came in and they were adding something to the gospel. They said, Jesus plus ceremony equals life.
[24:06] Or Jesus plus good works equals life. Or Jesus plus tithing to the temple equals life. And Paul says, no, Jesus plus anything equals death.
[24:21] Jesus plus anything equals death. The gospel is that Jesus saves us and pushes us up.
[24:32] And when we look at Galatians, we're reminded that Galatians is being written to Christians. And so the first thing you should realize is that even Christians need to be reminded often of the gospel.
[24:45] That the gospel isn't just something that gets us into heaven, out of hell. But the gospel is something that allows us to work and live every day and it changes us. Now, sometimes we just say, well, I've had the gospel, so what's next?
[24:59] Teach me Greek, teach me Hebrew, teach me all the points. And Jesus and Paul are saying, no, guys. The gospel is it. And the struggle, the journey that we go on in life is taking this Jesus plus nothing and applying it to every area of our life.
[25:24] Every area. And so Paul is speaking to the church of Galatians and he's saying, when the gospel comes in, it changes us, it transforms us, and we gotta help each other.
[25:36] We gotta help each other understand that. We gotta help each other focus on that. And we can't lose that point. Last week, Paul talked about that. My wife and Carolyn so always accuse me of making up words as I preach.
[25:50] So I've heard that there's this list of words, Tobinisms, that Tobin has made. But if I could make up one word, I would say the word is gospeling. Gospeling.
[26:03] Paul says that every day we have to be gospeling the gospel to each other. We gotta be speaking it to each other. When we're down and we're upset or something's happened, we share about what Christ has done.
[26:16] When things are going really good and we're on top of the world, we share about what Christ has done. And we need each other gospeling each other so that we understand that. And last week, as we got to this passage, Paul says that when the gospel comes into you, it changes you.
[26:31] And it makes you loving and joyful and peaceful and patient and kindness and gentleness and self-control. And he says, these aren't just mystical things. But these are concrete things.
[26:45] You don't say, I feel more loving today. But what Paul is saying to the church is, look at your actions and look at your deeds. Are they more loving? If you're married in here, all I need to do is go to your spouse and ask them, how are they doing?
[27:01] Are they more gentle to you today than they were last week? Are they more kinder to you today than they were last year? And Paul says in the Galatians that the answer to that would be yes because as we live out the Spirit, all these things are concrete.
[27:16] And what he's going to share in this passage is basically, as we walk with God, we're going to see three relationships very differently. We're going to see our relationship with God very differently. We're going to see our relationship with each other very differently.
[27:31] And we're going to see our relationship with money very differently. As we walk with God, the Spirit comes into us, the Spirit indwells us, we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we comprehend and we understand the gospel, it changes us, and as it changes us, our relationships with each other, with God, and with money and material things are going to be radically different.
[27:54] And that's what he's sharing to the church. He's saying, this is how you know you're walking with me because these things are different. And so in verses 25, 26, 3, and 4, he says that as you walk with me, the gospel changes the way you look at God.
[28:09] I mean, if I live by the Spirit, I see myself differently. If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. Verse 3, for if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, and in Greek, the word means nothing.
[28:28] If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work and when he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to each other.
[28:41] And what Paul says here is that the minute we forget the gospel in our life, we become boastful and we become envying. And we look at people around us and we go, oh, I wish I had those things. I wish I could do those things.
[28:52] I wish I had that name card. And he would say, you've lost the gospel. But when the gospel comes in, as we see in this church and in our lives, it creates a new image in us.
[29:03] It creates us a new self-image. It creates this new relationship that we have with God that I probably should say that it restores the original relationship. Before we found our self-worth in what people thought about us.
[29:17] Before we found our self-worth and what people said about us. Before we found our self-worth and how people interacted with us and what they did with us and our accomplishments and what Paul says in his passages, if you do that still, you're adding something to the gospel.
[29:35] And you're trying to work for your salvation. Don't do that. Because when the gospel comes in, you see things differently. You see God differently.
[29:46] And what he says is the gospel creates a new image in us. And it's not only a new image, but it changes how we evaluate how we're doing. So as Christians, we no longer look at Mark or Kyle or David and we compare ourselves to what they're doing and how we think of ourselves.
[30:03] But it says we compare ourselves to God. How would you like to do that? We compare ourselves to God in the standard he's put up there. And in verse three, he says, when we do that, we're nothing.
[30:18] Nothing. Nothing. I mean, that's kind of encouraging, isn't it? I'm nothing. But there's a counterbalance to that in the gospel.
[30:29] And what he says is as we understand that we're nothing and we come to Christ and we submit our lives to Christ, we become everything. That the moment we realize that we're nothing, that we've been trying to work in our own way, we've been trying to earn our salvation, the minute we say, God, please forgive me for doing that.
[30:50] I cannot do that. Only your son can do that. And the minute we submit our lives to Christ, Christ comes in and he takes all of his righteousness, all of the things he did, he takes all of those things on the cross and he puts them right on top of you.
[31:06] And so now, you're not only nothing, but you're everything. Does that make sense? So it's the reason Paul could say, I am the least of these servants.
[31:19] I'm the chief of sinners. I'm the worst disciple. But in the same sentence, he could say, follow me as I walk with God. He could say, I'm terrible.
[31:30] I'm having a hard time. I'm nothing compared to God. But look at my life and emulate what I do as I walk with God. And what Paul is telling them and he's telling us is that as we walk with God, the gospel comes in and it changes our identity.
[31:46] It changes who we are. It changes how we come about that identity. And we no longer look at people or circumstances or things around us, but we look at Jesus Christ. And the Bible says that he's done everything.
[32:01] You guys are really quiet. So the way this works out in our world maybe is something like this. The gospel humbles us and it makes us nothing, but it strengthens us by saying that the only person who really matters what they think about us, God, when God looks at us, he goes, amazing.
[32:29] Amazing. So I go into work and I walk into Citibank. I'll pick on Christine. Someone hands me their business card and I look at it and I see all these global manager, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, all these incredible titles there.
[32:46] Maybe I go, wow, I need to work harder. I need to be where she is. I need to get all those titles behind my name.
[32:58] Man, I really envy her. And as a Christian, the minute I do that, I de-gospel myself. I don't know if that makes sense.
[33:10] I mean, I still have my salvation, but I'm like this train. I'm hooked to the engine. And the minute I say, man, I wish I could do that, boop! And I've lost the power of the Holy Spirit.
[33:21] I've lost the power of the gospel. I mean, I've de-gospeled myself. And so I need people around me to come alongside of me and say, dude, you've got to come back to what Christ says about you is true and don't get down on that because you're a child of God.
[33:39] Or maybe I look at my name tag and I pass it to somebody and I'm like a billion titles and I pass it to Christine now and I look at it and go, hey, deal with that. Well, I brought in pride, right?
[33:54] Verse 26, first one was envy, now it's pride. And the minute I get proudful, I de-gospel myself. And someone needs to come alongside me and say, dude, you're getting really prideful about that, but that's not who you are.
[34:10] When you pull out that name tag, the only title that really means anything in God's world is a child of God. Tobin, a child of God.
[34:22] John, a child of God. Christine, a child of God. That's the only title that means anything. And if we rely on any other title, we de-gospel ourself and I'm going to get in trouble when I say it, but we just, we de-gospel ourself.
[34:36] You come home today and your kids get this letter and Harvard University says, we think your kids are amazing and we're going to give up half of our endowment to get them into our school.
[34:50] Incredible. And you're like, but my kids are only eight years old. Who cares? We want them. You've done such a great job in educating your kids.
[35:01] You should be really proud of yourself. But the minute you do that, what happens? You've taken your thoughts and ideas off of Christ and say, this is who defines me.
[35:13] This is what I look at. This is who I am. And we put it on our kids' education. There are a lot of us in here who are de-gospeling ourselves on our kids' education, guys.
[35:28] But that doesn't define us. And in the same way, you might have one of my kids and they're getting rejection letters, you know, hey, we know your kid's eight years old, but don't even think about it.
[35:42] Maybe a football scholarship, but that's about it. And I get all sad and depressed and I walk around and I just feel terrible. What a terrible parent I am.
[35:56] My kid didn't get into Harvard and they should have got in by now because they're almost nine. But the minute I do that, I de-gospel myself. And I take my focus off of Jesus and I put my focus on my kids and the education.
[36:10] And all these things that the world says is important. The question we have to ask ourselves is what are we de-gospeling ourselves with? What is it that draws our attention away from Jesus and says that's more important?
[36:31] Paul goes on and he says, if you're walking in the Spirit and God's power is in you and the Holy Spirit is with you and you understand what's going on, that's gonna change how you see relationships with other people. Verses one and two, he says that, he says, brethren, if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, which means you're walking with God, not that you're incredibly mature, but you're walking with God, restore, it's a Greek word, it means to set a bone.
[36:54] You have a dislocated ankle or arm or a broken bone. He says, restore them, bring them back together. And as you do that, be careful, be gentle, look to yourself because you might be tempted one day and do the same thing.
[37:11] We can go on and on about this passage, but he's saying that as we understand the gospel and as we walk with God, it changes the way we look at relationships. And when we see people sinning, we don't just look at them and go, I knew they would do that.
[37:25] I mean, they talk about those things all the time, but I knew they were gonna, I knew they were fake. And the minute you do that, you've de-gospeled yourself and instead of focusing on Jesus, you're focusing on that person and their failure.
[37:37] And Paul says, no, the way we change when we walk with God is we look at people and they're failing and we come alongside of them and say, dude, do you know what you're doing? Stop doing that.
[37:50] You're sacrificing your family for your job. I mean, you say it's all about yourself, but you're really, it's really not because it's about your ego. You're de-gospeling yourself.
[38:04] But you do it gently. It doesn't say go to non-believers and say, you're going to hell. That's probably not the best way to talk to people who don't know Christ. But he's talking about people in the family of God and when you're in the family of God like this, you come alongside each other, you encourage each other, you gently restore each other.
[38:22] He goes on and he says, if you're in the family of God, another thing that changes your relationship is that you bear each other's burdens. And the word here, and the word picture is very powerful, it's very unique, and it basically means you come alongside of that person, they have this borrows, they have this huge burden on them that's killing them.
[38:39] It might be economic, it might be social, it might be sin, it might be something going on in their family, it could be health issues, it could be a million things. But he says, to have compassion, to help them, to de-burden them, you have to come right beside them.
[38:57] And you have to get underneath that load. And you have to know what's going on in their life. And sometimes, I confess as Christians, we just, I don't do that, right? I say, I'll pray for you, dude.
[39:09] But I don't take the time to get into their world and understand what's happening in their life. And Paul says, we have to do that, we do that. That's the action of us becoming Christians. Because that's what Christians do.
[39:23] Christians come alongside each other and they help each other and they pick each other up. And be careful when you do that and be gentle when you do that. But you need to do that.
[39:37] And if you don't do that, you de-gospel yourself and you start looking at them and you don't look at Jesus. But he's saying, we're a family, we do it together, we need each other, we gotta help each other. And Paul says, if you're walking in this, community is messy.
[39:52] I mean, community is hard, it's difficult, it's messy. When we said Watermark Community Church, we realized everyone needs community, everyone needs to be known, but people don't embrace it very well because it's messy and it's difficult and it's hard.
[40:05] But Paul says, if you're walking in the Spirit, if you're a child of God, if you're mine, then you are going to be a part of a community and you're gonna come alongside people, you're gonna help them when they sin, you're gonna help them when they're under burdens and you're gonna carry those things for them.
[40:27] In fact, he said there's only one burden you can't carry and that burden is your salvation. your salvation because Jesus carried it for you at the cross but everything else you can't because I've already carried everything and because I did, you can.
[40:54] Christ was crushed carrying our burdens so that we can help each other. The minute we forget about that, Paul says, you've allowed the Judaizers to come in and the Judaizers come in and they say, you're a sinful person, bad, get out of here.
[41:14] You're a broken person, you have this burden here, let me give you more. Tithe more, read your Bible more, do these things more. And you say, are you gonna do that? No, I'm not doing it but I'm giving you to do it. Paul says, no.
[41:27] The gospel brings freedom and it brings change in our lives. Finally, Paul says in this passage five through ten and we're just flying through this guys because I wanna come back to this at a later date because I don't wanna keep you past two o'clock.
[41:42] Paul says if you understand the gospel and if the fruit of the spirit is living out in your life and if the Holy Spirit is changing you and if you're walking with him then you're gonna view money very differently.
[41:55] Five through ten, he says you're gonna view money and there's nothing that talks about a person's heart more and quicker than their view of money. Jesus talked about it 45% of the time he preached.
[42:08] And for some reason as pastors and as churches we are really afraid to talk about it and I think that's just really terrible because it puts these burdens on people and we don't ever discuss it in church but Jesus says and Paul says that when you become a Christian you look at money differently.
[42:28] He says in his passage that you're generous that you sow money and it means this idea is throwing it out there. You throw your money to your teachers. You throw your money to the church. You throw your money to spiritual things.
[42:39] You throw your money to those in need. You think of your relationship with money differently because God has given you everything and you realize it's his and he wants you to be a good steward of that. And so as we walk with God one of the ways we know that we're walking with him and he's changing us is we think of money differently.
[43:00] We use it as a tool to increase his kingdom. He gives us two warnings there two very powerful warnings. The first warning is you reap what you sow.
[43:13] He says every one of us is planting seeds with our money and with our time and with our gifting. Every one of us are planting seeds and he's saying be careful what kind of seeds you're planting because if you're planting a fleshly seed it's going to reap to your flesh.
[43:32] Plant spiritual seeds. He gives a second warning. The second warning basically is this. Sometimes planting spiritual seeds takes a long time. Sometimes you plant a church and you don't see hardly anything going on there and you keep preaching the gospel and you keep preaching the gospel and you keep loving people and you keep sharing with people and you don't see any change at all in people's lives.
[43:53] You don't see people coming. You don't see growth. You don't see all these things that you think maybe they should happen and Paul says be careful and be gentle and be patient because if you plant my word if you plant the money if you plant the seed I promise you that it will grow.
[44:12] you can trust me because I'm in on this. Don't get discouraged when things don't happen the way that you think they're going to happen because he says the harvest is sure and it will happen and God's timing is perfect.
[44:27] Paul he's encouraging all of us he's encouraging all of us he's saying just because you're free of the law just because you walk in grace it doesn't mean you don't have responsibility.
[44:38] you have a responsibility to the people around you. You have a responsibility to love to be patient to be joyful to be in community to use your money wisely for the kingdom of God to care for people that are struggling don't think just because I'm free I'm free I'm free I can do anything no Paul says no your freedom has this amazing responsibility that I've given you and you need to look at these things differently because if you don't then maybe God's spirit isn't inside of you and I don't want you to fool yourselves in the thinking that you're in the family of God but the fruit that you're producing is not love joy peace patience kindness gentleness self-control where do we go from here so what now maybe this week we should ask ourselves some questions maybe we should ask ourselves the question where do I find my self-worth do I find it in how people think of me and what they say about me do I find it in my bank account do I find it in the watch I wear or the car I drive or my family and the kids and the schools my family gets into is that where I find my self-worth
[46:17] Paul says the minute you do that you've de-gospeled yourself and you've missed the power of God's word what would you do this week if you came into your office and you were fired in the most embarrassing way possible they stopped you at the door took your phone and just smashed it took out your credit cards and your access cards just cut them in half so get out of here how would you react how you react shares where your heart is and what you're holding on to besides the gospel now I'm sure it's good to be disappointed because that would be terrible but that's not my identity if one day I were up here and I could no longer preach that wouldn't be my identity or I could no longer speak or I could no longer do something that's not who I am in Christ and in Christ
[47:28] I'm evaluated truly and fully and that's the only person that's important for me to be evaluated by how do I react when I see my brother in sin when you see someone in blatant sin they're cheating on their books they're doing something unethical they're a Christian and you know dude this is going to destroy your company it's going to destroy what people think of you it's going to destroy your reputation what do you do do you just look at them and kind of wink and walk away because you're afraid one day it might happen to you or do you come alongside them and say dude this is not good and not only are you hurting your reputation and your company's reputation but you're hurting Jesus' reputation how do you react when people are in sin around you my experience is most of the time in the church we ignore it and we just think it will go away how do I react when a needy person is coming walking towards me you're walking down the street and this guy you know he's emotional he has a lot of baggage he's just going to talk for 25-30 minutes about himself and your first response is just to run away how do you react how do you react when you get that phone call and you know someone needs money and you know exactly that's what they're going to ask you for and they're a brother in Christ what do you do
[48:49] Paul says to the church of Galatians that as we walk with him we change and we look at all these relationships differently love joy peace patience kindness maybe we should ask the question when was the last time I gave away money that I was going to use to buy something cool or a trip when was the last time I gave it away to the church or a worthy cause or a needy person because Paul says into the church that if we're walking with him and the fruit is being manifested in our life we're going to be free and generous with our money and we're going to give those things away and we're going to help people in need and we're going to even sacrifice and the scary thing about serving and coming underneath people that's humiliating sometimes and it's scary and it's unknown and Paul says well how are you going to do that and what are you going to do with your money what kind of seeds are we planting in our life right now as I pray through this sermon
[50:00] I realize there's two different types of people in this church right now there's some people who are on this journey and they're just kind of asking questions they're not followers of Christ yet somebody's brought you here maybe your wife has dragged you here or your kids have dragged you here and my prayer for you guys is that you would realize that there's a God who is crazy about you he sacrificed everything to bring you into the family that he's the only way that you're going to find self worth and satisfaction in your life and you're going to try and your money and your finances and your titles and your family and all those things you're going to look for but the scripture says that all those things will eventually fail you and my prayer for you is that you would realize that that you would come to Christ that you would come ask us questions ask the people who brought you questions engage in those things and realize that the only relationship worthy of anything is a relationship with God but he's the only one you can be truly measured by and if you measure yourself by anything else you're going to fail and it's going to disappoint you and it cannot sustain the weight of your soul it cannot sustain the weight of your soul and I realize that there's some of us in here we're Christ followers and we're walking with God and for me
[51:24] I just want us to realize as we leave here that the gospel is as deep as it gets it's not learning Greek or Hebrew or how to construct all these things but it's taking that gospel message putting it into my life and allowing it to live through me every day that when I go into hard situations I go patience Lord Jesus I need you when I walk around people that are unloving or unlovable or hard to love I go Lord Jesus I need you help me love this person when I'm seeing a need financially but I'm looking at my pocket and say well if I really do this it might put me tight I might not be able to go buy that Rolex I want to buy I just don't know if I should do that Lord Jesus this is your money what do you want me to do with it my prayer as a church as we go on this journey is that we would take the gospel and we would push it deep into the foundation of our life and on the road that we walk on and every day we walk we gospelize each other and talk about how amazing God is and how great he is and the minute we see somebody de-gospelize as a de-couple we say hey remember what Christ has done for you he loves you don't evaluate yourself over your job or your title or even how your marriage or your kids are doing because the only person that really matters is Jesus and he loves you and he's given everything for you he's taken you out of the water pushed you in a boat and he died doing it and that's how
[53:05] Paul ends Galatians as we're on a journey we walk and it's not just this thing we write down love, joy, peace but it's something that's lived out every moment of our life and we change we do that in community Father we thank you for this day we thank you for your goodness I just thank you for my brothers and sisters here I thank you for the power of your spirit that changes us I thank you that we don't fear in the spiritual battle that we don't need to worry about what's going to happen next because we know that you hold all those things you hold next in your hand and so we can trust you and so we come before you as a church in Galatia did and we confess that we try to add things to your son we try to add businesses in power in titles in acceptance in articles in whatever and Father we just confess and we repent and we realize that we've de-gospeled ourself and we've lost the power of your spirit living through us and changing us so Lord we just come to you as a church and we just pray that your spirit would fall heavily upon us that you would change us that we would see things differently we would not see things the same way we did when we came in here but we'd see your love and your power and your desire for us in so many greater and different ways
[54:32] Father I pray that we would see the person right next to us as a person on that same journey who needs to be gospelized every moment of the day that we can to encourage them and to point them to your son who's done so much to bring us here so Lord we just we just give you all we ask you to come in and fill those spaces that we've torn out and passed to you and to change us we love you and we need you we pray these things in your son Jesus name amen amen can you be seated just for one minute one of the amazing things about being in Hong Kong is you get to meet people from everywhere which is incredible they come in from different countries and cultures and even Australia and it's fun to meet people like that and yeah I hear you and so but then the sad thing about it is people leave right so people head out and so
[55:39] I'm going to embarrass somebody but I just think they're the bomb and so I want to ask Carolyn So if you come up here for a second Carolyn you don't know if you don't know her Carolyn I've known since we've been here and Carolyn has been a community group leader a care group leader at Island and at Watermark forever and I mean it seems like and I remember she's one of the first persons I met we talked about community groups and care groups and just her passion for discipling people and bringing God's word and it's funny because she's she's stubborn and she's spunky and we get in these discussions and she's like well I don't want to do that but if you're going to do it tell me to do it I'll do it I'm like okay you need to do it which I love about her but she's she's without exception never complained there were times we got together and she would pray and she goes God where are the men in my group because there's just no men who are stepping up to lead my group and years we prayed for male leadership to come alongside of her and she just stayed in there faithfully serving and I just thought she's the bomb and so this is her last Sunday right and so she's moving to Shanghai to work and I just wanted this is what community is all about and so
[57:03] I feel like in some ways we're commissioning her to go up there and be stubborn and lead small groups wherever God has put her and share the gospel with people and the neat thing is that as she leaves God has raised up three guys to lead her group and so which I thought was amazing so it's a huge answer prayer right I feel like I was like dude it's like so and so your group is being left in capable hands probably not as capable as yours but so I'm gonna I'm just gonna pray for you and when do you actually fly out next Saturday next Saturday okay and so are you gonna still work with Disney up there okay spreading the magic with Uncle Walt and all the actors everybody's an actor right everybody's a cast and so let's pray for Father I just thank you for my dear sister Carolyn I just pray for her I pray for her heart I pray for community I pray just for her faithfulness I thank you and we rejoice in just how amazingly you've made her and brought her together and just her passion to glorify you and so we pray
[58:08] Lord as she goes that you would be with her that you'd go before her that you'd bring brothers and sisters around her to encourage her and to gospelize her every day with just the amazing message of your son and so we love her and what a blessing she is to us and we pray that she would be a massive blessing to the next people in that church and so we send her out in your power and your spirit and we love you Amen Thank you Thank you Okay Did I mention this?
[58:45] I didn't mention this Next week we're not here If you come here there'll be a bunch of lawyers here and you'll be bored Okay So you don't want to be here Next week we're at ISF We're there for the next two Sundays So Cyberport has kicked us out So there's directions in your bulletin It's only like two minute walk from here So don't come here If you know someone who's in the church but they're not here today remind them We'll be at ISF for the next two Sundays We need you to be there and to be a part of that Also we're not passing around offerings So as you respond to what God's done in your life take one of these blue purple envelopes and just it's God's money Give back to Him and what you give we'll use to reach people and to reach people Also my wife's going to come up One of the dreams we had at the church is when we came in that we were praying that people would come in as consultants and help us in the journey and because we need a lot of help and so Mark and Carrie Tedder have been consultants with us and equipping and we spent yesterday on a junk trip not that you can see my face burned and all that stuff and so this is their last Sunday so there's some of their CDs are still available out there on the table you can grab one up we have this one actually they made it in Beijing the door project and so we just want to honor them and thank them for being a part of what they've been in our church and so can you come over here
[60:17] Carrie I've known Mark and Carrie for a long time we met in Beijing at BICF and so they tried to recruit me to be the pastor in Beijing and we tried to recruit them to come down here and be worship leaders so we won kind of right and so we just wanted to give you this is a statue that means a lot to me and it's it's a statue of Christ washing Peter's feet and it's just of being servants and you guys are amazing servants and I'm just always humbled by just it's been so good to have you here and so we just yeah we love you guys and want to give you that and thank you for loving us and pouring into our worship team yeah yeah yeah thank you thank you okay and then so with that let me pray for us and we'll see you next week at ISF and I hope that you're encouraged by how amazing
[61:22] God is don't get de-gospelized this week and make sure you gospelize people around you with God's love and his passion for you Father we just thank you for this day we thank you for your goodness in our life and your mercy we thank you for friends like Carolyn I'm sure there's many others who are leaving who've been a huge part of this church we pray that you would be with them they are missionaries we send out we pray for Mark and Carrie as they go to Beijing from here to help them with the worship there we pray that you would go before them in the midst of all this Lord we're just ever mindful of our frailty in the battle around us and we're so thankful that you brought brothers and sisters to be with us on this journey that they come alongside they lift us up they carry our burdens they point out sin they encourage us they spur us on to walk with you I just think people look at the church and they're weirded out by how amazingly you bring us together through the power of your son and so we embrace that we pray that we pray that you would be honored and glorified through that and we love you we love you we pray these things for your son in Jesus' name amen see you next week