As We Have Opportunity

Most of the good you’ll ever do won’t be planned. It simply shows up. That’s the way Paul talks about doing good. Today, we officially begin the last quarter of this year’s vision plan. And before we talk about building each other up, we’re going to spend this month on the neighbor, the stranger, and the person who has no claim on us at all. Paul prayed: may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone.

1. As Opportunity Comes

   1. Galatians 6:10: Therefore, as we have opportunity, .…

      1. Opportunity: a season, a window, the right moment for a certain thing.

   2. Proverbs 3:27: When it is in your power, don’t withhold good from the one to whom it belongs.

      1. The good you have in your possession belongs to someone else.

      2. Paul says: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do, Ephesians 2:10.

   3. James 4:17: So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it.

2. Good is something you work.

   1. Galatians 6:10: …let us work for the good of all, …

      1. Everybody in this room is in favor of good. That costs nothing.

      2. Good, in the New Testament, requires a little sweat equity.

         1. Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.

   2. The two different words for good in these two verses:

      1. Galatians 6:9: Let us not get tired of doing good, .…

         1. That which is fine, noble, admirable, the sort of thing you’d want people to see.

      2. Galatians 6:10: let us work for the good of all, .…

         1. This is the good (the action) that actually helps somebody.

   3. Then: let us work for the good of all, … The scope is wide.

3. The tired part comes later.

   1. Galatians 6:9: Let us not get tired of doing good, …

      1. Tired: means to lose heart, to run out of the will to keep at a thing.

         1. 2 Thessalonians 3:13: But as for you, brothers and sisters, do not grow weary in doing good.

   2. Galatians 6:9: we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.

      1. Giving up means to go slack, to come unstrung, to collapse.

      2. Matthew 15:32: …I don’t want to send them away hungry, otherwise they might collapse on the way.

4. The harvest is on God’s calendar.

   1. Galatians 6:9: we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.

      1. Its own season, … as we have opportunity.

      2. Two seasons in two verses. One of them is ours. The other one belongs to God.

   2. 1 Corinthians 3:6: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

   3. Galatians 6:9: If we don’t give up.

      1. Compare to 1 Corinthians 15:58: Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

5. Look to Jesus.

   1. Acts 10:38: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were under the tyranny of the devil, because God was with him.

   2. John 4:6: Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.

6. Conclusion Who’s the opportunity you already know about?