Gifts Gladly Given (Galatians 5:25—6:10)

Brace to you in peace from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Our text this morning is our epistle reading from Galatians chapters 5 and 6.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

We hear again these words: One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.

Thus far the text.

At the outset, I want to say something because whenever a pastor stands up and reads a text about giving, especially in the middle of a building campaign, I think everybody in the pews braces himself a little.

So let me be clear: this is not a fundraising pitch, and it's certainly not a complaint against your stinginess.

Pastor Dalphway and I have said to each other on many occasions how blessed we are to serve a congregation as generous as this one is.

You have already given and continue to give liberally towards this building campaign.

You have over the years showered us and our families with gifts of love, and you have made many sacrifices for the maintenance of our church and our school and for the spreading of the kingdom of God in general.

But on this particular Sunday, the lectionary has handed us this text, and it's an opportunity worth making the most of, because even a congregation that gives well still needs to be encouraged so that our giving continues to be what God wants it to be: cheerful and free, rather than grudging and anxious.

And the first thing to notice about the Apostle Paul's counsel to us is that it is not optional.

One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.

That's a command.

Plain as day.

Earlier in the same letter, Paul's made sure that nobody in Galatia thought that they could earn their way into God's favor by something they did.

Salvation's by grace, through faith, apart from works of the law.

Having nailed that down, Paul then turns right around and gives commands.

Bear one another's burdens.

Do good to everyone.

Support those who teach you the faith.

That's not a contradiction.

It is the shape of the Christian life.

What Paul calls, even in our passage today, the law of Christ.

Christ bore your burden first.

He carried the full weight of your sin to the cross and did not set it down until it was finished.

Every gift we give after that, every burden that we carry, is an echo of what Jesus has already done for us.

So we do not give in order to get on God's good side.

We give because, thanks to Jesus, we're already on it.

But how easy it is to develop a sleeping conscience when it comes to the care of other people's souls and their salvation.

All too often we live our lives as if we have fulfilled our duties so long as there's nothing the policeman can arrest me for.

Beyond those things, it's entirely up to me whether I belong to a church or not, or whether I share in the burdens of my church family or not.

But the Apostle Paul reminds us we do not live exclusively according to the laws of the land or everybody's opinion of us.

We live under God's word.

What God's Word demands of us, that we should do, whether anybody else demands it of us or not.

And that we should sacrifice or give up some of what God has blessed us with for the sake of spreading the gospel, is God's own clear command.

St.

Paul says so in 1 Corinthians 9.

The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

In other words, a pastor should not have to depend on a side hustle in order to pay his bills.

Instead, the people that have received such benefits from the men God has sent them should in return provide for them.

And I wish I could say that this were every Christian church's attitude toward its pastors.

Good friend of mine, an official in a different district of the Missouri Senate, this would never happen in the Texas district.

He's had on a regular basis to go out to vacant congregations and explain that the length of their vacancy has not a little to do with their unwillingness to pay their pastor more than the poorest member of their congregation.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

If we sincerely want God to send laborers into his harvest, if we mean it every time we pray, thy kingdom come, we do everything we can so that God can answer those prayers.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

If we truly love our neighbor, don't we have a duty to ensure that our neighbor has God's word?

Not just our neighbor, our own children, our descendants.

Help! Help! So that the sound of the gospel of Jesus Christ might ring in this place and in all the world and reach the ears and hearts of everyone.

And that brings us to the second thing, which the widow's jar in our Old Testament reading so beautifully illustrates.

Notice what her small gift actually did.

It fed Elijah, yes, but Elijah was in Zarephath for a reason.

He was the Lord's prophet, carrying the Lord's word to a people desperate to hear it.

And her flour and oil became the means by which the word of God kept being spoken in that place.

Her scarcity became the channel of somebody else's life.

And that's what Paul means when he says to do good to everyone, especially the household of faith.

What we give toward our school and towards that new fellowship hall and towards the ordinary running of this congregation becomes the means by which people receive something we cannot manufacture any other way.

We start the service, confessing ourselves to be poor, miserable sinners.

This is our natural condition, what we are without Christ.

No amount of wealth or honor or earthly joy can overcome the objectively miserable condition every one of us sinners is born into, so long as we lack the best and most necessary thing, the peace of God.

The rest of the heart, the rest of the conscience.

In this distress of sin, which so many don't even recognize in themselves, it means heaven and salvation are closed to them.

It's as if the world is headed blindfolded into an abyss.

But those who receive the truth, that God is gracious toward us through his Son Jesus Christ, that through him our sins are forgiven, that by our baptism and faith we can have clear consciences before God and know that he loves us as his own dear children.

While that message is not going to make the poor person rich, or the sick person healthy, or the obscure person famous, it will give such comfort in their troubles that they may be happy even in the midst of misfortune.

They'll have the hope of life even in the midst of death.

These are the glorious things that the Word of God works.

And you who contribute with your offerings are participating in that work.

You play a part in the fact that eternal comfort was brought to someone in their darkest moment.

You play a part in the fact that someone going through this veil of tears was transformed by the peace that passes all understanding.

You play a part in the fact that the burden of sin and guilt was lifted from a sinner brought to repentance and faith.

You play a part in the fact that heaven was open to a new or returning believer, that a lost soul was saved for eternity.

And as if that weren't enough to know that your small earthly gifts, which you can't take with you anyway, produce such an astonishing blessing, Paul says in words that are both a warning and a promise: whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

So to your own flesh, to your own comfort and stockpile, and that's exactly what you'll harvest.

Something that rots and decays.

So to the spirit, so to the things that outlast you, and you reap a life that doesn't end.

Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we don't give up.

And no, this isn't some kind of spiritual investment scheme.

Alas, I've heard it preached that way all too often.

Give more, get more.

That isn't it.

Paul isn't promising your bank account will grow because your offering did.

He's promising something better and stranger.

Nothing given in faith toward Christ's kingdom is ever actually lost.

Even when it looks from where we're sitting like it disappeared into the ground.

And that's the same promise underneath the gospel reading.

Jesus tells us not to be anxious about our life, what we will eat or drink or wear, because the Father who feeds the birds and clothes the grass of the field knows what we need.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Because you see, anxiety and generosity have a hard time coexisting.

A person gripped by the fear of scarcity is gonna clench his fist.

But a person who trusts that the father already knows what she needs opens her hand.

And I hope that's the kind of giving this congregation continues to lean into.

Not giving that watches the account, nervously wondering if there'll be enough left over, but giving that flows freely.

Because it already trusts the Father, who has never once let our jars run dry.

The same Christ who fed a widow through a famine, who has fed you and me through the forgiveness of every sin we have ever committed, will bless not only our gifts, he will bless our own lives eternally.

So freely.

In due season you will reap.

Amen.

In the peace that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.

Amen.