This Sunday I will be preaching on Galatians 6:1-10 with a special emphasis on verse 9.
I am results oriented. I like to see the progress I'm making, which is why mowing the lawn has a certain appeal to me. There is something wonderfully satisfying about that strip of uniformly cropped blades next to the untidy overgrown tangle of green next to it.
But there comes a point late in the summer when I feel like sabotaging my lawn mower and giving up in disgust. The grass never gets the message, never stays put at the height that my revolving blades have set for it.
That frustration is bad enough when it takes a week for the grass to get shaggy again: it would be unbearable if it only took a few minutes after I'd passed over it to grow back to its previous height.
That's what it feels like when we throw our best efforts at healing the world and making war on the sin lurking in our dark corners. Throw everything you have at the hunger in the world, and even if you were capable of filling all the bellies in a two mile radius at lunch you'd be facing the same amount of hunger again at dinner. Throw everything you have at the sin in your life; pull all the weeds of wrong thinking and wrong behavior; get done, turn around, and discover that it only took a minute of inattention for all those weeds to grow back thicker and more deeply rooted than before.
But Paul tells us not to grow weary, and assures us that we're going to be glad and rewarded if we keep it up. If that's the case, the good we do has got to be about more than the good that gets done.
Call to Repentance
1 Peter 2:11
Call to Worship
Psalm 111
OT Reading
Proverbs 3:21-32
NT Reading
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
Message
The Good Done
Galatians 6:1-10
