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Do not lose heart By Richard Wilson

Reminded in the past several months that the Gospel is not a Gospel that is handed down from parent to child.
Neither is a Gospel that is gained by tradition or neither is a Gospel merely of ethics.
But it is the power of God on the basis of what Christ has done upon the cross.
Applying to our hearts the very life of God.
And therefore we are those that are born again not only of the Spirit but we are also walking according to that Spirit.
We've laid emphasis on that in the last several weeks.
The flesh has been crucified. It's not as though we are absent from the flesh but it's crucified.
It's not as though it's dead. It rails from the cross and it deals all sorts of insinuations upon our soul.
But now it is possible for us to walk in the Spirit under the dominion of God and not under the dominion of the Spirit.
Now how do we know whether we are of the Spirit or of the flesh?
Are we under the guidance and the lordship of the flesh or are we under the lordship of the Spirit?
And if we are truly spiritual people walking according to the Spirit then there will be certain tests that we can apply to ourselves.
Now last week we looked at the test of our relationship with one another.
Other people that have been born again in the Spirit.
There is an immediate fellowship that we have and unity we have with other Christians.
And that will be a first look in to see what our attitudes are to other Christians.
Now other Christians can get rid on our goat. They can get under our skin.
But do we continue to love them in the Lord Jesus Christ?
And we are patient in well doing toward our brothers and sisters even though they can be very difficult people.
And boy Christians can be difficult.
And we are prepared to lay down our lives for other Christian people.
We are prepared to be inconvenienced and to serve rather than to be served.
Now that was the first, the first test of spirituality.
Now as soon as you get converted some of us who have been converted later on in life
saw us a marked and dramatic change.
We instinctively love those who love the word of God.
And love Christ of course.
And our affections move away from those affections that we had in our formal life.
Where it was relationships of our convenience.
But now we come into the church, now it's relationships of our true heart.
Because now we've been born again in the Spirit and other people have been born again in the Spirit.
Also have a real affinity with us.
That's why our friends here after 30 or 40 years, I can't remember how long it is.
We just pick up where we left off.
Because we've followed each other's lives.
We have sweated each other's particular anxieties and difficulties.
And there's been an affection among us that is rare.
It's in the Kingdom of God that this sort of thing happens.
So the next one we're looking at is the test of what is your relationship with the minister, the pastor.
And that is going to be a question that we're going to look at today.
How do you treat the minister?
Now that is something that needs to be looked at.
Now this is often said that, I think it was Martin Luther,
a man is not converted until his wallet is converted.
And how do you give that which is precious to you,
to those that should be serviced with those things that are precious to you.
So I'm going to look at that today.
And it's interesting, in the Old Testament we have a description of the people of God's relationship with Moses and Aaron.
In Numbers chapter 16.
And how they became rebellious against Moses and Aaron.
And at the great cost of many of their lives
they failed miserably before God and their spirituality.
And the other passage I'm going to be looking at is the parable of the ten virgins.
How five of those virgins basically missed out
because of their relationship with Christ was not right.
They did not persevere in the midst of their labours.
Well as you come to the concluding parts of Paul's letter to the Galatians.
And we began last Lord's Day in chapter 6.
Now I'll just read that portion that we have as the basis or a test of true spirituality.
The Apostle Paul, as I mentioned earlier, has been delivering a message that is not easy
for the Galatians to receive.
For they had regressed into Judaism again
and just holding onto Christ as a trinket, as a good luck charm, for extra measure.
And Christ our Lord cannot be treated this way.
You are either for Christ or you're against him, you are not anywhere in between.
And he's been describing and coming back to the implications of the Gospel in the believers life.
And he's been doing this in many ways reinforcing and driving home
this central message that Christ is the focus of our life.
And it should be and must be the mainspring of everything that we do.
Now as we are looking to this we realise that the Christian life is a life
that is the empowerment of God in vessels of earthenware vessels.
He uses that image somewhere else.
And is not some kind of new teaching or new ethic
or some movement that can be generated by the flesh.
But it is God himself coming into the heart of the person that is looking to the Lord Jesus.
And he is exhibiting an entirely different kind of life
to that of the natural order of things.
We are now living in the spirit, the supernatural
and that we are those that are accomplishing works that only God can do.
And one of those works is our relationship with the brethren,
that is with other Christian believers.
Brethren if a man is overtaken in any trespass
are you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit
of gentleness considering yourselves lest you also be tempted.
In other words we will restore and heal those that are being overtaken
by some temptation or another.
In other words we are concerned for people's spiritual welfare.
Bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.
We are to express the love of Christ to our brethren
and we are to be burden bearers with our brethren.
For if anyone thinks himself to be someone, in other words if he's got this vain glorious view of himself,
this egoistic view of himself, then this is a corrective to this.
When he is nothing he deceives himself, he's the only person that's really deceiving this whole thing
and they are very difficult people to deal with.
And everyone else knows what he's like but he himself seems to be so self-conceited
that he doesn't see what he's really like.
But let each one examine his own work
and self-examination is something that is very important in a Christian's life
and we are to see what we actually do, not things we think about.
You know, reformed people are very good at this.
They say, well I believe in this doctrine and that doctrine and it comes directly from the word of God,
go home and their lives are in a shambles.
And their daily disciplines and their daily behaviour is not terribly set apart from the world at all.
In fact their lifestyle is quite worldly although their speech is quite godly.
But it's what we do that is the important thing.
And then he will have rejoicing in himself along, because you will see that God has been working in his life
and there is something we can return to God and say, well look, I have lived by faith
and look at the works of God, because these are the works of faith.
But also he will see a whole lot of dead works as well and that will keep him humble.
I haven't arrived yet, God has got a lot to do with my life yet.
And so this balance between a hopeful work of God being performed in our lives
and also seeing the frailty and the fickleness of our flesh.
Now that's what he says here.
He says, in this, for each one shall bear his own load.
In other words, he is not to be a person that is a consuming personality.
You know these sort of people that sort of leash onto other people.
But we have now become people that walk with God, not with the church,
not with dependable personalities around us.
Now we know that these people are very important to us.
But in a sense we've got to be those that stand before God personally.
This is often the things I mentioned last Lord's Day,
that young disciples will become very dependent upon the discipleer.
And they become, almost make a God out of the person that has led them to Christ
and is teaching them the things of God.
And as soon as they become offended by that person,
the very person that led them to Christ becomes the greatest enemy.
Have you had that happen to you?
I certainly have.
Now we've got to learn to bear our own load.
This means in all practical things as well.
In other words we've got to work for a living.
And we've got to take care of our family,
in terms of monetary needs and temporal needs.
And no workies, no eaties.
And it's important that we don't become dependent people in this respect,
but we become people that are actually working and responsibly taking our own load.
And this is also emotionally as well.
People become emotionally consuming as well.
And we need to be stable enough and sensible enough where we can help others,
rather than be those that are always the ones that are leaning on others for their emotional support.
Now we saw this and we need to be in this sort of relationship with one another
and it is a test of our own spirituality.
Whether we are truly spiritual,
whether we are people who are in very practical, down-to-earth sort of terms,
being those that are walking in the Spirit in such a way where we are,
we're going to be those that are going to be involved with those of our brethren
in such a way that when it becomes very difficult and very ticklish
we are going to lay our lives down on the block as it were
and make sure that our brethren are served with the love of Christ
and all the patience that that requires.
Now as we keep on going in this matter,
it goes on and it says there's another second test of our true spirituality
and it's in the relationship with the man of God.
This is a really hard pill for some churches to take.
Let him who is taught the Word of God share in all good things with him who teaches.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked,
for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
And if he sows in his flesh, will of the flesh reap corruption,
but he who sows in the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
And let us not grow weary while doing good,
for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good
especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Therefore I want to look at this particular passage
under the skies, let us not lose heart in our well-doing
and in our perseverance.
And as we measure whether we are losing heart or not
and whether our spirituality is vibrant and one that is pressing forward
to our upward calling, as the Apostle writes in another letter,
we are those that can be measured of our attitude toward the pastor.
Now I would suggest to you, and I don't say this as a pastor,
but I say it, and it's not easy for me to speak like this,
but the Word of God is there and we've got to say it,
sharing with the man of God is the responsibility of the congregation of God.
And it means in all things, the central instrument in God's purposes
among God's people is the shepherd, whether we like it or not.
And I know that people don't like these days this kind of one man ministry.
It's almost a heresy that we might have a single man that is going to be the pastor
or the shepherd, the under shepherd within the congregation.
And so we have this kind of collaborative ministry now
where everyone does what's right in their own eyes.
This is not found in the Word of God.
Certainly the whole body life has all sorts of applications within the body
and we are to be involved with one another and ministering to one another
as God gives us the spiritual gifts and as we are concerned
and as we are obligated to one another in the love of Christ.
Now that is absolutely imperative.
But you will find that in the New Testament Church particularly and the Old Testament Church
there was these men that were called of God to minister the Word of God
in the congregation of God's people. They were to be the evangelists.
They were to be the people that were set aside for the ministry of the Word.
Jonathan Edwards, the great Puritan revivalist of New England in America
who saw literally thousands of people come to know the Lord through his ministry of the Word
said that the first instrument of revival
is theological training of those men that are called to be pastors and teachers.
And this is where we have gone wrong.
In almost all the theological training institutions
they have corrupted and have become university directed
and some of those theological institutions are the worst bodies that we find on the face of the earth.
Never was my soul so challenged when I was at at Ridley College.
It was the worst place on earth to be and I nearly lost my faith in the midst of it.
I saw young men, some 60 to 80, men going through my years
and almost none of them, except about four of them, would I have as my pastor.
Many of them were just there for the trip rather than for the call of God.
Now you might find that to be very judgmental but I find that to be true.
The quality of the ministry of the Word of God amongst you
will largely depend on how I'm going with the Lord.
And I confess that in the past year
I'm glad we haven't had a large congregation because I couldn't have handled it.
And I'm glad that in this period of trial for me
that I've had a valuable group of people that I can administer
and you have administered to me in a most amazing way.
You may not have expressed it but I tell you Anne knows how I wrestle
with the position that I find myself in.
I say this openly and confess it to you.
It has been very very difficult with the cares of having to do tent making
and having to balance so many other pressures, it has been very very difficult.
And in the midst of it I have shared with the difficulties
that some of you had to go through yourself.
You know the work of just providing in this modern world is very difficult
to press on and maintain a spirituality that is alive and aggressive
and ready to take on this world. Very difficult.
As we come through it though,
I'm just saying to myself, well the reason why I'm working so hard this year
is maybe I'll be able to buy some time next year for more full-time ministry.
And it looks as though that can happen.
So here the shepherd, the good shepherd, is a central figure in the economy
and the manner in which God works among his people.
And the quality of the church, God's people, is very dependent
upon the quality of the shepherds among her.
It's very hard to get above the the lackadaisical behaviour of the shepherds of God's people.
If they are not in the Word and at prayer, I go to ministers, seminars and conferences
and I gradually get around some of the folk there
and often there's only one or two ministers that really impress me
concerning their own devotional life.
If I ask, how long are you praying formally on your knees each day for your congregation?
There's an embarrassed silence. It may go on for weeks
in terms of their own closet ministry for their congregation.
You know it'd be a lot better for them not to go running around after this or that committee
and spend that time in prayer on a regular basis in their studies on their knees
for specific people in the congregation.
Now how can a congregation be blessed if the pastor is not giving a lead at this point?
Very often these pastors are just living on the loafing and fat of the land
rather than really dedicatedly living for the spiritual welfare of their congregations.
If they were there would be a tremendously big change within the local congregations.
If I could spend more time on my knees for the congregation here
I'm sure there would be a difference.
I think the congregation themselves would be praying more in sleep
if I was praying more in sleep.
The distinction between preaching and teaching is found very clearly in the Westminster
form of presbyterial government which this church is constituted under.
And the place of the preaching, the specific preaching and teaching
within the congregation is paramount.
It is where the focus of the ministry must be found.
And for God's purpose to accomplish this is we must pray that the Lord of the harvest
would send out labourers in the midst of the harvest.
There are a lot of men in my generation that was called by the need
and that's not called by God, they're just responding to a need.
Or some of them have been called because they have eloquent tongues
and therefore they think they can get away with it in the church
and all they are is teachers and not preachers, they don't minister to the conscience at all.
Many of them have, as soon as they weren't paid for a couple of weeks
they left the ministry, they were hirelings and they weren't pastors.
And in God's good grace that didn't happen with me.
As soon as I stopped being paid I kept on preaching even harder.
And I wouldn't allow my call to the ministry to be governed by how much pay I was getting.
But that was the very point that needs to be expressed here.
The man is called, he cannot sit on the Word of God that he has received from the Lord.
He must preach it, even as preaching in the highways and the byways.
If he's forbidden to preach within the churches he will preach like Whitfield in the coal fields.
He must preach the Word of God.
If a man is called and a good test of your calling, if you are called to the ministry of the Word of God
you cannot constrain yourself, you must preach.
You must unburden your soul that the Lord has given you.
And so it is important that a man that is called of God must be involved in the ministry.
We must ask God to raise up men, not women, men of the Word of God.
And the women are there to support the man of God in this ministry.
And so a spiritual health of the congregation depends largely upon what happens to us in the ministry.
And anything you can do to relieve his burden and he can administer our needs better
must be done by the congregation.
And therefore it says here, quite clearly, let him who is taught the Word of God share with,
in all good things, with him who teaches, or teaches or preaches.
That is the basis by which the pastor is actually supported by the local congregation.
Not by bequests, not by investments, as in some denominations,
but by the loving, sacrificial giving of the members of the congregation.
And that is a fair measure of the spirituality of the congregation.
And as we do our part in that and as we involve ourselves in that
it relieves the minister to be able to do the work of prayer and of preaching
and the spiritual work that is so vital for our spiritual condition.
He's able to do more visiting, he's able to do more preparation
and he can be involved more fully in the work of the Word of God as he is being supported.
Paul the Apostle, who was living on the missionary scene, made tents.
But he made tents in a manner in which he could get involved in the community.
And to that extent he was hand strung.
And therefore other congregations supported him in that ministry,
so that he could do more fully and more completely.
In Pilgrim's Progress, that wonderful book of John Bunyan's,
the most noble and the most glorious figure in that book is not Christian,
although he's wonderful, he's not hopeful, he is pretty good too, but evangelist.
He is the man that really brought deep, deep respect upon my soul.
He seemed to be there just at the right time for Christian to receive something from evangelists.
He seemed to be the person that seemed to just come and go in that person's life
where Christian was just so helped at vital points in his Christian life
and it was just the person he needed and he had the wisdom of God every time for Christian.
And so it is, as we share with the man of God,
it is also an expression of our spiritual condition as well.
And the exaltation is to share all good things, both material and spiritual.
I find many ministers do not entrust themselves to their congregations
for spiritual uplifting as well,
and because they come somehow feel they're above the congregation,
a terrible attitude to have.
But I tell you that the people that I get the most solace from
is the members of this congregation.
I talk to them, they talk to me,
and they minister to my heart in ways that are just beyond description.
You may not be very many, you may not consider yourself very highly,
but that's how I see you.
My spiritual peers in the things of God.
As the Levite of the priesthood was supported by the people
and the Levites had no inheritance in the land,
but they were supported by the people because they were the central
vocal point of God's voice in the congregation of Israel.
And so it is for us that we are,
the people of God are to support their pastor,
who is his primary responsibility,
is not teaching at school, is not to run businesses,
but his prime responsibility is the congregation of God's people.
And also we find in verse 7 the investment of the heart.
For it says in verse 7,
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked,
for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
For he that sows to the flesh, will of the flesh reap corruption,
but he who sows to the Spirit, will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Wherever your heart is, that is where your life is,
places.
You're constantly investing in all sorts of places.
Some of you are investing heavily in your children,
as you should.
Some of you are investing heavily in your mortgage of your house,
that's quite legitimate.
Some of you are investing heavily in trying to get your first car,
I'm not upset about that, that's good.
But where are you really investing in terms of your spiritual values?
Wherever you are investing, that's where you shall reap your thing.
And if you are investing in everything of this flesh, this natural world,
remember the fire will burn it up in the end.
If you are building with wood, hay and stubble,
it will be burnt up in the end.
Now there's times we have to invest in those things.
It's proper that we do have a house,
and we do have essential things that are needed in our daily walk.
But, do we need to live above?
Or do we need to have adequacies
that are going to be sufficient for our needs at the time?
And this is a question that every one of us, including me,
must be very conscious of.
What are the purposes of our temporal investments?
Are they to actually build platforms so spiritual investments become the priority?
I had, as just an example, I had a great vision to be able to evangelise Forest Lake.
So I thought if I set up a tent making ministry in the commercial area of Forest Lake,
like Logos Educational Services,
I would come across many many people that I could speak the Gospel.
So I went to the bank and invested heavily into Logos Educational Centre.
Because I reckon I was going to reach a lot of people at a very personal level,
at a needful level, about the Gospel.
And I thought, now particularly if I had all Christian teachers in the centre,
they would have also the same opportunities.
You know what I found? Zero, nothing.
Didn't have one opportunity to share the Gospel.
Because people apparently had other agendas to follow.
Now I don't know what the purpose in that is, I believe the Lord led us into it.
But that was the basic reason I thought,
first of all I could buy some time back and get a good support from that basis,
and also I could reach into the community we are actually living in.
And almost nothing came of it.
But that's where my heart was.
That's where I wanted to go.
And that's what I wanted to achieve.
Instead the whole world opened up to me instead.
And now we are ministering in China rather than here.
I don't know what the reason for that is.
But nonetheless the Lord is the providential God in all these things.
My heart wanted these things.
That's where my heart was laying.
It was not because I wanted to become wealthy.
I don't want to become wealthy.
Because I have a wife that will give it all away anyway.
And that's good.
I can be quite honest.
And that would be the best thing for it, if I became wealthy.
But the real desire was that I might be able to build the ministry of the Gospel through evangelism
into the community that I was in.
Now it's not true that everything was absolutely failing,
because one or two people were folded into fellowship groups and that sort of thing.
But it certainly wasn't a tremendous opportunity to see the body of Christ here be built up.
It hasn't happened.
And although I seem to be overburdened with tutoring every afternoon, working at school,
and it actually brought greater distress on me.
But wherever your heart is, you shall reap.
And with patience as we work with these things,
the Lord is able to bring about his results.
And as we live by faith, one thing I do know,
as we live by faith and we persevere in those things,
in the fullness of time God's will will be done.
But if we don't step out in faith, how can God work?
He'll work somewhere else rather than with us.
And we must be careful in these things.
So let's just see wherever your heart is, so your investment is.
And finally I just want to say a final word here, beware of spiritual stagnation.
For it says here that in verse 9 and 10,
and let us not grow weary while doing good,
for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
Therefore as we have opportunity let us do good to all,
especially to those who are of the household of faith.
The Christian life is a lifetime of Godly construction.
We are those that are constantly constructing and developing
and being renewed day by day in the things of God.
And Jesus said that the house is built upon the rock of God's Word.
And when the storms come across it and the winds blast against the house that is being built,
it will stand. But if we are building our house on sand,
other than the Word of God and the truth of God,
we will find that that house will come down very quickly.
And we know as we go along in our Christian life,
now that I've been a Christian for many years,
I've seen many people who have started in the Christian faith,
but have not founded their building upon the Word of God.
But they've founded their building upon ecstatic experiences,
or some other thing that was taking their heart.
And we must be those that build directly according to the Word of God,
and build our lives into every aspect of Christ.
There are many encouragements on the way.
We will find as we are working hard, and often the sweat is hard,
we will find many encouragements along the way.
And in these last six years, since we've been here, so seven years,
Anne and I have just been absolutely overwhelmed by the encouragements we've had along the way.
Okay, the congregation has not grown very much,
but there's been a steady stream of people through the congregation,
that have been under the ministry of the Word of God.
And we should be very encouraged by that.
But in the midst of it, sometimes we've had our back against the wall financially,
so deeply, and we've found literally tens of thousands of dollars
come our way over the years that we've been here.
Quite amazing.
On one occasion, as we were coming from Newcastle to here,
one of our dear friends who was suffering very deeply from bipolar disease,
and he was just a wonderful fellow.
Very hard to live with, and his wife must have been a saint of the greatest order.
But you know, that fellow was sacked.
He committed his funds to just support us through this time that we're going through,
and he was sacked.
And you know he tithed his severance pay to us.
Now that kind of love toward us was more important than money itself.
And I don't know how he did it.
But he went back at home to Northern Queensland,
and he's been through a lot of hard times.
And I don't know, the Lord will reward him for that kind of love.
And he's been through hell and back since he's left Newcastle.
And I just pray that he will be kept in the Lord, in the midst of his trials.
Apparently, when you go through depression of his order,
your whole personality changes, you go into this black hole of depression.
I don't know how he handles it, but the Lord is with him in it.
And I know the love of Christ is on his heart when he's done an act like that.
My friends, such examples have made us look like pygmies in spiritual things.
And that's just one example of many examples in these past six years,
where we've had to live by faith in a manner that I've never had to be testament before.
And yet, as we are those that attempted to lose heart, as I mentioned earlier on,
we are tempted to lose heart.
We constantly come back to what, in the faithfulness of God,
is constantly, he gives, he lifts us up,
he gives us a fresh vision of the work that we're involved in,
and we're encouraged yet for another couple of days.
And then he comes and lifts us up again as we need it.
In these last months we've seen something like that happen again.
Let us not be those that are weary in doing good.
I know that the Christian life is probably 10% inspiration and 90% perseverance.
And we have just got to keep pressing on.
Illustrations such as a man putting his hand to the plough,
he must not look back, but press on.
And we need to do that.
And a lot of people think that you can get quick fixes and spiritual instant pills
that somehow will jackpot you out of the suffering and the difficulties you're facing.
God wants to be faithful through the suffering, through the difficulties.
God wants to prove himself that he is one who is upholding you in the midst of your trial.
And as we are found faithful in the midst of the trial,
then we can see our true spirituality shine through.
I just want to say to each one of us, don't lose heart.
Look to the Lord and keep pressing on.
Because if we keep pressing on, the time will come when we'll come through the tunnel
and the light will shine so brightly we'll be able to look back and say
these trials were but for a short time.
Look how much better I am now as a result of living by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't lose heart, press on.
Don't be like the five virgins that were slumbering and sleeping.
Don't be caught slumbering and sleeping.
Pull yourself together to the word of God and restore your heart in the word of God
and strengthen that which remains and press forward.
Because as you do so, it is amazing, your whole disposition changes
and your ability to be able to put one step forward in the weeks to come
is going to be sufficient for you.
My grace is sufficient says the Lord.
I will never leave you or forsake you.
The Lord will perform his good works in you.
Amen.