Galatians 6:6

Support Your Church

2^nd July 2011

As we saw last week, Galatians 6v1-5 is about responsibility - our responsibility to help each other and our responsibility before God for our own conduct. As an application of this, the next verse says:

Galatians 6v6
Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.

• If you believe that your church is doing something worthwhile
• If you believe that the pastor of our church is called by God to do what he does, preaching the Bible, caring for the people in the church, and seeking to reach those who do not know Jesus as Saviour
• If you believe that you derive benefit from being involved in your church

Then You will support your church.

And if you don't believe these things, why are you there?

Our church - and our pastor - need our love, our prayers, our money, and our time.

I can see no way that our lives can be legitimately called Christian lives if we deny our church this support. Firstly, if we love God, then we will love His people. As John wrote:

1 John 4v20-5bv1
anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

And secondly, as I've written in recent weeks, we are all called to be involved in the work of witnessing to God's goodness in Jesus Christ. This calling is corporate as well as individual; the church needs to work together.

1 Corinthians 12v27
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Your church needs you. And your contribution (and mine) involves love, prayer, money and time.

The local church is God's chosen instrument for the salvation of the world. What would you rather invest in? What is as important as God's work? Who are more important that God's people?