Opportunity, Accountability and Responsibility

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Galatians — iconic scene

Service recording Sunday 1st November looking at Galatians.

Watch the service — 1 November 2026

▶ Jump to the sermon (Galatians 5:13-16) — 0:49:35

Chapters

Galatians 5:13-16

New Testament Reading: Galatians 5:13-16

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” We believe this is God’s Word.

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

The Lord be pleased to bless the reading of His Word to us today.

Sermon Text: Ecclesiastes 11:7-10

Turn with me in your Bibles or devices, or cast your eyes to the front. Our text today comes from Ecclesiastes chapter 11, verses 7 through 10. Hear then what the Preacher says:

The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be futility.

Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

Prayer for Illumination

Let’s pray. Father, again we come to You and ask You sincerely that You would help us, and that You would be pleased by Your Holy Spirit to speak to us from these words of Scripture, so that we might come to understand them better, and that we might go away from this place changed and determined to apply Your Word in our lives, that together we would be a people who bring You glory and honour by our conduct and our life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Drawing the Series to a Close

We’re drawing the year to a close, really, in terms of this series in Ecclesiastes. As you can see from your Bibles, there is only one chapter to go after this, so just a few more times, and then we’ll be winding out into the Christmas season. So it’s my intention that we should finish our series on the measure of a man, working through Ecclesiastes together, over these next few weeks.

Just to get you in the groove, though, I want to remind you of the previous two times we opened up the Word of God in Ecclesiastes, predominantly through chapter 11, verses 1 to 6, to remind you of the lessons we learned and took away from that, and then to add to it today some words of wisdom, so that we’ll be better equipped to bring honour and glory to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remembering the Lessons of Generosity

What we learned from chapter 11 is that if we sow generously in life, we will reap generously. The more you sow, the more you reap. The more generous you are, the more you will reap generosity. No word or action taken for Christ’s sake will ever be wasted. You don’t need immediate returns. We could liken sowing generosity to long-term investments. We don’t see the results straight away; sometimes they come a little later. But nevertheless, all will be accounted for in eternity.

Then we looked at the apostolic application of that principle together, in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 17 to 19, where Timothy is instructed by Paul to instruct the rich to be rich in good works, storing up for themselves riches in heaven.

And truly, for us as a generation living in this place and this time, I know we’ve got an election coming up, and the politicians are banging on about the cost of living and all that sort of carry-on to get your votes. They’re all doing it, and they’ve all got answers as to how you might overcome the cost of living. But the reality, both for our joy and for our sadness, is that there’s never been a richer generation, never been a better-off people, than we are today in the country we live in. That’s just a fact. We’ve benefited from years of biblical application in the Western system, and as a result, if you want to be well off, you can be well off. If you want to work hard, you will get the benefit of it. So we are the rich, and if we are the rich, then surely we should be rich in good works, storing up for ourselves in heaven those riches that are truly important.

Because at the end of the day, you and I are not going to take it with us. It doesn’t matter how much money you stack into the box with you, how much silver, how much gold; when you die, it’s not going to go with you. It will remain in the box, and someone will dig it up and get the benefit of it at a later date. You can’t take it with you, as we say.

Rich people can be and are saved, but by a miracle, and that is the miracle of the church. Look at us; I’ve just accused us all of being extremely rich and well off. We know that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved. And so we’ve got to ask the question along with the disciples, “Well, how can anyone be saved, then?” And the Lord replies, “With man it’s impossible, of course, but with God all things are possible.” The very fact that we have a church in this country, living the way we live with the benefits we have, is surely testimony to that: you still find God’s people, His church, active and living and working in a community such as ours.

Rich people can be saved, but it is, of course, by a miracle. Of course, anybody being saved is by a miracle, because we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. But nevertheless, I believe it’s an especially great miracle when somebody who is well off becomes a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. The rich are therefore always susceptible to fixing their hope on their riches and the uncertainty of wealth. If you don’t have wealth and riches, it’s not something you need to be worried about or are vulnerable to. But because we do have riches, because we are wealthy, we must know that we must never set our hope on them. Our hope should always be on the Lord Jesus Christ, on what He has done for us and the gifts He has given us, and the praise and the honour and the glory belong totally, 100 per cent, to Him and not to us at all.

So we must be careful, because we are well off. We might be like the Laodicean church in Revelation chapter 3, which says, “Ah, we’re rich. We’re well off. We have no need. We have no need of God. We have no need of anything.” But their hope was in their riches, and they were rebuked because of it and called to repentance, to open the door to the Lord Jesus Christ, to have fellowship with Him, and to give priority to fellowship with Him rather than going around saying, “Well, I need nothing. I’ve got all that I need.” We don’t want to be like that at all.

If much has been entrusted to us, then much is required. Remember that with the great amount God has given to us, He calls us to a greater amount of stewardship. He doesn’t give us what we have for our own sakes. He gives us what we have so that we might use it for His glory and for His honour. So we’re called to a greater level of stewardship. We are the ones to whom God has given, as it were, ten talents, and so we should invest them into the kingdom so that we gain ten more, five more. But don’t be like the guy who buries it in the ground, no matter how much you’ve got. Don’t be that.

So, give what you’ve purposed in your heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion. When we make things a law, we really defeat the purpose of what the Christian faith is about. We come to the Lord and seek His blessing upon our lives, not primarily because we’re going to get something out of it, as in our salvation, but because we should come to the Lord and bless Him and honour Him in all of our lives, because He’s our Creator. He’s our Creator, and He’s the one who has loved us. He’s the one who sent His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the one who chose us before we ever thought of choosing Him. He is the one who looked at us and saw that we were sinful in our hearts and in our minds all the time, but still extended the hand of grace and of love towards us.

So if we were truly to honour God for what He’s done for us, it would be a silly thing, wouldn’t it, to say, “Oh, I don’t really want to. Can’t really be bothered, but maybe if it looks good, I’ll be generous.” No, that would be silly. The fact is, our Lord has given us so much, even eternal life. Why would we be grudging or withholding? After all, if we have it, it’s only because He’s given it to us anyway. It would be wasteful, wouldn’t it? It would be terrible if we were to give grudgingly or under compulsion. We must always, therefore, give what is purposed in our heart.

Someone phoned me up this week and was talking about a project he’s concerned about, not far from here. He told me that he was a retired gentleman, that the Lord had put it on his heart to do a certain good work, and it’s a big work, and that the Lord had given him the means. And I said to him, “Well, if the Lord has given it to you and you’ve purposed in your heart to do that, then you must do it.” And so it is for you and me. What a good example he is to us. We must give what we’ve purposed in our heart.

And remember this; this is the last of my review points. God’s glory is the end and the purpose of Christ[…]. That’s marvellous; we don’t begrudge them that. But if they are only seeking glory from men, or the good feeling of being good givers, then of what purpose is that? It is for you and me as believers to do everything for the sake and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we do that, we know that we are fulfilling God’s purpose in being generous, which is to extend the knowledge of the Lord and bring glory to Him in every way that we can.

Three Things a Wise Man Gives Attention To

Now, coming to the text we’ve read today, I want to talk about some general points, just three, in regard to this passage. A wise man gives attention, firstly, to the opportunities that God gives him. Secondly, a wise man understands that he has accountability to God in what he does. And thirdly, he has responsibility, not just to God, but to our fellow man and to our fellow believers. Those are my three points.

1. Opportunity

Let’s talk about the opportunities in the text before us. A lot of Ecclesiastes, not all, but a lot of it, talks about the problems of this time, how it slips away so quickly, and how we need to use it because we only have seventy or eighty years in this life. You only need to be my age to realise just how fast that goes by.

But here again, I think he has in mind not so much the general population, which it could well be taken to mean, but particularly the young. Notice again verse 9: “Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood.” So keep that in mind. I know some of you are middle-aged, some of you are less than middle-aged, and some of you are like me, working our way towards the geriatric sector of the community: grey hairs, no hair, and all that sort of thing. But if I could just for a moment focus particularly on everyone who is younger than me, and I’ll have something to say for those of us who are a little bit older as well.

Time

Time is short. You know, the one thing that disturbs me most about young people today is the time they waste. I don’t want to diss gaming and those sorts of things. But yeah, actually I do, because honestly, it can become quite an addictive thing. Even I know that if I’m looking to kill half an hour, the best way to do it is to go onto YouTube and scroll. There’s some funny stuff there; it can keep me amused for ages. But if that’s a problem for me, and I’m not inclined to screens at all; I tend to stay right away from them, use them for the bare minimum, and even delegate to those around me if I possibly can. But it disturbs me that young people today are wasting their lives on stuff that is going to be of no benefit to them in eternity. So just be careful.

Now, I don’t want to diss gaming, because I know that being a gamer also helps you in your work and in the way you think, and there are all sorts of good things about it. I think we can say that. But it’s something to watch, that we don’t waste our lives. There are other things we used to waste our lives on, but today that’s the big one among young people. Just be very, very careful, because every hour, every day that you waste on it is a day you’re never going to get back again. So just remember that, young person: time. You have an opportunity given to you. God has given you time, and if you’re young, you’ve probably got more time than if you’re old. Don’t misuse it.

Youth

Of course, you have youth as well, and youth is a wonderful thing, is it not? Youth carries with it excitement. It carries with it adrenaline. It carries with it lots of opportunities that perhaps I never had, or that the generations before me never had. For you, the world really is your oyster. You can travel all over the world. You can get jobs here; you can get jobs there. You can use whatever gifts God has given you anywhere in the world now, and still be working for one place. This is the internet; these are the days in which we live. Some of us older folks have learned to work at home, but really, you don’t need to be at home. You could be in Samoa. Twenty-eight degrees there at the moment, by the way. Not a lot warmer than here. I could have been in Samoa, and I could still be working away, as people there were, ticking away on their machines. Those are wonderful opportunities that you have, and you have them because you’re young.

Energy

The other thing you’ve got is more energy. I go out and walk the dog for an hour in the morning, and it nearly kills me. I’ve got to climb up that hill every day when I come back. I sit at the bottom of it and take a deep breath, and I’m like Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress: this Hill Difficulty I covet to ascend. And I suck in some big ones, and I walk up that hill. But I can remember when I was younger, I would have run, skipped up that hill. It wouldn’t have been a problem. When you’re young, you do have a lot more energy.

That’s not the case for everyone. Some of us have health issues and don’t have energy. But let me tell you this: whatever energy the Lord gives you, He holds you accountable for, not the energy He doesn’t give you. Remember that too, if you are struggling to have energy in life. Whatever energy God gives is what He expects you to use, not what He doesn’t give you. Not all of us have great health, and not all of us are made to be athletic types, but whatever He’s given you, use it for His glory.

Desires

The last under opportunities is desires. The very fact that we have desires in life means that we have unfinished lives. We’re not yet what we want to be. That’s what a desire is: something you want but don’t have now. And young people particularly have desires. I know I had desires when I was younger, perhaps more than I do now, and maybe that’s just me being ground down. I don’t know.

But I used to have a lot of desires, and some of them conflicted. The most important one I can tell you about is that when I was younger, I felt that I wanted to be two things. On the one hand, I wanted to be a shepherd, a sheep farmer, and on the other hand, I wanted to preach the gospel. Which desire should I follow? The choice was mine, but which desire would I follow? So as a young man, perhaps in my early twenties, thinking about what I would do with my life, the conclusion I came to was that I would either be an average farmer and maybe an average preacher (maybe I’m still an average preacher), or I had to give myself to one thing or the other.

So when we talk about doing what you desire, we need to work out what the best desires are, for ourselves and for honouring the Lord Jesus Christ. And it turned out, of course, that I ended up preaching rather than farming, simply because I was slightly more afraid not to preach than to preach. Slightly. There wasn’t much in it. There wasn’t much in it. Nevertheless, here I am preaching.

2. Accountability

The second thing our text talks to us about is accountability. In 1 Peter 4:17, the apostle says this: “If judgment begins with the household of God, what will it be like for unbelievers?” So you can see that the Apostle Peter is talking about two sorts of judgment, one for believers and one for unbelievers.

For unbelievers, that’s easy. The judgment is this: if you’re found in Christ, believing in Him, then you’ll be saved. If you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s no possibility of your salvation. That’s quite a simple judgment, isn’t it? Sheep to the left… no. Sheep to the right, goats to the left. Whatever.

But the Bible speaks of another judgment, the judgment of believers, where God, as it were, gives credit and gives a prize to those who serve Him faithfully, to those who give their lives and their hearts to the cause of Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Saviour. In fact, towards the end of Matthew’s Gospel, where the Lord talks about the sheep and the goats and the dividing of them, the difference with the sheep was that they had given just a cup of cold water to the saints. In other words, God is taking account of that. God knows our lives. When we do something for His glory and for His honour, it’s noted down in the heavenly records, and there shall be a reward for it.

If judgment is coming for us even as believers on that basis, then it helps us to understand that we do have, as believers, for our lives and our conduct, the things we do, the things we say, the things we think, a sense of accountability towards God. That’s a help to us.

3. Responsibility

Thirdly, responsibility. In Galatians 5:13, the passage we read, the apostle says to the believers in Galatia, “Don’t use your freedom to sin.” He covers this argument again in Romans chapter 6, where he says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Now we’re believers, it doesn’t matter what we do; we just go for it and live the lives we want to live no matter what. Sin here, sin there, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter, we’re saved anyway. That’s what he’s arguing against, and he says, “No, no, no. That would be an impossibility. We have been baptised into Christ. We have been incorporated into Christ Jesus our Lord.” So for a person to say, “I’m saved,” and then go about sinning for the rest of their life without any sense of accountability or responsibility to God would really be an oxymoron. It would be a contradiction.

So you and I, as believers, have a responsibility. As Ecclesiastes says, “Young man, during your childhood, let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.” It’s not a problem for you and me, if we’re true believers, to understand that we are still responsible to God.

But not only are we responsible to God; in an indirect way, we’re responsible to the world in which we live, to live lives that glorify God. Otherwise, when people look at us, they won’t see the God of the Bible, the righteous, loving, holy God. They’ll see a tyrannical, terrible God, and that would be a bad impression to give to the people around us, would it not?

Applications

Can I make just some quick applications of the passage before us, then?

First of all, take care not to waste time or procrastinate through life, particularly if you’re younger. Get on with life. Don’t mess around too much in life. Enjoy what God has given you; He’s given you many toys and many things to occupy your life with. But there are more important things you need to give priority to, and the most important is your relationship with the living God: to understand the Word of God, to know the Word of God, and to develop a life that is formed and moulded by the Word of God. Take care not to waste too much time in your life. It will go by quicker than you think.

Secondly, the goal is to use whatever God in His providence gives us to the best of our ability. Take stock of what God has given us, whether talents or abilities, and use it for God, because God in His providence has given it to you for His glory and for His honour.

Thirdly, goals in life are an aid to achieving success. Make good goals in your life. Whatever your desires are, identify them. If you’ve got conflicting desires and you know what they are, weigh them up, and weigh them up in the light of Scripture. Every decision we make in life ought to give reference to the mind of God. What would He want? There was a fashion a few years ago for wearing bracelets, wasn’t there, with “What would Jesus do?” on them. It’s not a bad idea, but we don’t need a bracelet to remind us of that. What would Jesus do? That’s the question we ask when we’re pursuing our desires and what God has given us to do, and the opportunities He’s given us: the time, the youth, the energy, whatever it is. Remember this: every decision we make in life ought to give reference to the mind of God. That’s what we do as believers. What would Jesus do? What would our Father in heaven think if we did this or did that? Sometimes there’s no clear answer. Just take the best answer and go for it. Just go for it.

Lastly, everything we pursue in life ought to take into account the message we give to others around us. Are you demonstrating the Lord Jesus Christ in the community in which you live? Probably not as well as you ought to. Certainly I’m not. Let’s pray that the Lord would make us better, and make our lives a clear message to the world in which we live. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Father, thanks again for the blessing of Your Word. Thanks for these Scriptures, as we come to the next few weeks to finish this series on the measure of a man. Lord, we pray that You’d be with us and help us to finish well. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.