Eternal God, we crown You as King of glory; everlasting Father, we crown You; who will not worship You? Who will not praise You? Father, those of us who are on our way to eternity, we say thank You today, thank You for the gift of life, thank You for our sustenance oh Lord; it’s because You are on our side that we are here oh Lord, thank You for the gift of life, blessed be Your name mighty Father.
Father, as we go into Your word this morning, speak to us oh Lord; speak to us in a way and language that we all will understand; pour Your anointing upon us in this place, fill this place with Your glory, mighty Father; let Your children receive great benefits from what they are going to hear this morning; glorify Yourself in our midst, we shall return honor, glory and praise to Your holy name; thank You eternal Father for hearing us, glory be to Your name King of glory, for in Jesus name we’ve prayed.
Before we take our seats, let’s just take this prayer; it’s a month of our fruitfulness and multiplication – we are going to say Father, in this month of fruitfulness, help me to be generous to those who are in need around me; let my fruitfulness come from my generosity, let it come from my generous spirit, generous giving, generous love; let me sow willingly this month so that I can reap bountifully.
In our Sunday school, we learnt about Abraham and Lot, they gave to angels, they gave to God in form of man and they reaped bountifully. Ask that in this month, Father, help me with the grace to be generous; we are selfish by nature, Father, I need grace to be generous; by nature, I am selfish, help me to be generous by grace so that I can reap bountifully this month. Ask for blessings of God so that you will be generous this month, so that we can receive bountifully from the God who can give all things; blessed be Your name mighty God, in Jesus name we prayed, amen!
Welcome to church! I want to first appreciate our father in the Lord, the pastor in charge of province for the opportunity to bring this message this morning; I pray that God almighty will continue to prosper him, prosper his family, prosper his ministry and that grace to be continually gracious, God will grant to him in Jesus name. Praise the Lord!
Today, we want to look at the message I’ve titled “Law of Reciprocity”; we spoke about this in the morning as well and I can imagine one or two people looking at me and saying they’ve come with their big English, praise God!
I’m going to break it down; it’s the same thing as law of giving and taking; sowing and reaping. Reciprocity can be tongue twisting but don’t worry about what it says, I’m not going to bore you. Let’s look at two major Bible passages we are going to use today – Philippians 4:10-20 and Luke 2: 37 – 38; these are scriptures we are very familiar with, “ But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
13I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. 14 Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. 15 Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. 16 For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.
17 Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.18 But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God. 19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.20 Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen”.
Luke 2: 37 – 38, “And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. 38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem”. Praise the Lord!
The key words we are looking at today are ‘law’ and ‘reciprocity’; what does it mean to reciprocate? It means to behave or feel towards a person or subject in the same way as they behave or feel towards you. Somebody can say her passion for him was unreciprocated; his good gesture was not reciprocated; the way you behave to me, the way I behave to you. Reciprocity on the other means a situation which two people or countries or companies provide the same help or advantages to each other. Countries exchange diplomats; we send our diplomats to Spain, they send their diplomats here; when there’s problem between us and Spain, we send their diplomats back, they send ours back too, that’s what they do in diplomacy, That is reciprocity, and law means system of rules that govern a certain principle.
So there is something positive about the word reciprocity, you reciprocate good things. We mentioned in the morning, you usually don’t reciprocate bad things, if it’s bad, you retaliate, praise God! So reciprocity is positive, it talks about positivity, it’s a positive word.
There’s a story we used to hear in the 70s or the 80s when Idi-amin was the President of Uganda, he visited England and they had a state dinner for him, the queen did so well and the man got up to speak after the dinner and he said ‘thank you Mr. and Mrs. Queen, when you get to Uganda, we shall retaliate’, praise God! Unless you are Idi-amin, you don’t retaliate good things, you reciprocate good things, praise the Lord!
So, there’s a tone of positivity about this word but it’s not always positive. There are times when it all works to give you back what you’ve given to other people. I mentioned in the morning that when you frown at people, there’s a tendency that they will frown back at you, praise God! When you keep frowning all over the place, people will frown back, it’s just natural, and that’s what you get when you go about frowning your face.
And when you meet strangers in public places or maybe public transport system abroad (thank God for Blue line in Lagos state now), maybe in Lagos state too when you are going on the Blue line, you meet somebody, he greets you, and smiles at you, there is a tendency that you would want to smile back. People do that abroad, especially in a country like England; if it’s cold, they would say chilly, isn’t it? Yeah; or warm today? They want to engage you, they want to talk to you, they want reciprocation, they want you to speak back – good things to them; anybody that says that to you and you frown, everybody will look at you and say what’s wrong with this person; or you say what’s good about the morning? So what they want back from you are sweet words, smiles, reciprocate their good gestures.
What you give is usually what you receive, that is the law of reciprocity. Why do we need to study this law? Why do we need to study this principle? We need to study it in order to appreciate the love of God in our lives. Right from our creation, if up to the time of our redemption, the story of God with us is the story of love, story of compassion – caring, compassion and relationship.
And thank God for our Sunday school today, one of the reasons I believe God created man is to have companionship, to have relationship with man; that was why when He visited Adam and Eve in the afternoon, He was like where are you? I’ve come for our usual meeting and because they know they were not right, they went to hide. So God wants us to reciprocate His love for us and as we come to the part of the service when we’ll be asked to reciprocate this love by coming to Him, giving our lives to Him.
Another reason we study this subject is for us to learn to live in harmony with our fellow men. That’s why we don’t go about kicking people, slapping people, fighting people, causing trouble all over the place; we need to live in harmony. When people live in harmony with us, we need to live in harmony with them; we need to work with neighbors that are friendly, we show friendliness to them. to do otherwise would be a form of insanity; I’m friendly with you, I play with you and all you do is to just curse me, say wrong things to me, maybe somebody needs to examine your head or maybe something is wrong somewhere that is eating you up.
So if somebody smiles at you and you respond with a frown, you appear strange and that person unless he’s so committed to living in love will likely frown or keep a straight face the next time you meet, praise God!
Some of us Christians like to quote a passage in the Bible in Romans 12: 18, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men”. We tend to say well, I’ve tried my best, I’ve done what is possible, I tried to live with him he’s a horrible boss, he’s a horrible colleague in the office, all the Bible says is that if it’s possible, as far as it lieth in me, I should just try my best, he’s just a horrible person.
(NLT) “Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone”; so you’ll just say you don’t know my colleague, I’ve done my best o, it’s now tit-for-tat from now on, that is not the way of God. Hebrews 12:14 tells us that we should follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which we shall not see God. So in spite of their difficulty, in spite of who they are, still continue to be so good to them, whoever they are; that woman whose shop is by your side in the market, continue to show it.
Thank God for our Sunday school again, that’s the way you will reflect Christ, that’s the Christ they will see, praise God! You are the Christ they will see, so be mindful of that. We need to be careful about what we do; some of us are very good at retaliating, they are very good at keeping records of wrongs – that was how you did it 2 years ago, you’ve come again, it’s always September you do this thing, it’s September again, records of wrongs, praise God!
I used to be in that category in the days, when I used to say to people that I will not start any quarrel but if you start it, I will give it back to you and I’ll give you full measure, press down, shaken together, praise God! But that is sinful, that is not right, thank God I’ve grown out of that by now, because I know that we carry wrong in our hearts. I know some relationships that have been spoilt because you give back to that person, praise the Lord!
Somebody did something to me one day, called me on phone and said something wrong to me; someone I held in high esteem, elderly person, because I couldn’t speak back, I couldn’t give him the same way he gave me, I went back to my seat, wrote about 3-4 pages of letter and I tore him down thoroughly and I sent to him, praise God! Of course, I regretted it later in life because it spoilt our relationship permanently and that is very horrible, because when I look back, I just feel ashamed of myself that why did I do this? But that’s not the way we should behave, it’s a very wrong way and I thank God that God had delivered me from that, I don’t know about you, maybe you should ask God to deliver you as well.
Because some of us are still angry in our spirits, we still abhor anger. I told them in the morning about an experience I had just this July when I was away for my medicals and I had to take the cardiology test; there was a delay, high brow hospital here in Lekki and I was delayed for about 4-5 hours, not me alone, maybe 4 or 5 of us. The lady that was doing it took all the time in this world, something that when I did last year took 15 minutes, she was taking about 1 hour to do for these people and we were all a bit angry, we complained; I thought I wasn’t part of those that were really making noise because I took it easy eventually.
But when it was my turn to go in there, by the time they put all the things on me, the lady just said we can’t do this thing today, you are angry; I said why, she said the way this machine is running, it’s showing that you are not calm; I said no, but it’s okay, I’ve accepted that you guys delayed me; she said no, we cannot do this test, just get up from the bed, sit down, let’s wait 15 minutes, let your spirit just come down a bit; it took about 10- 15 minutes for me to calm down and said okay, let’s go back and then it was okay at that time. From that day, I said to myself, you are still an angry spirit, what is wrong with you? Because I actually thought out of the 4-5 of us that were delayed, I was even the most behaved out of us because I didn’t talk, I didn’t do anything, but I was boiling inside, apparently from what the machine showed; I actually thought that I had accepted it, I didn’t make any noise.
So we need to be careful how we abhor anger because it can kill us, it can destroy us; that machine showed me that day that this spirit is still not gone completely yet. So we need to be careful how we react to people, even when they show us hatred, let’s show love back in our own interest, praise the Lord!
The passage we read in Philippines 4:19, we use it when we take offering in church, we usually quote verse 19 alone; if we back up a little bit, we’ll see that Apostle Paul prayed that prayer in Philippians 4:19 because of what they did for him in the church at Philippi. They gave to his need and he said because you did this, my God will supply all your needs; he was reciprocating their good gesture, that’s what this law is all about. He prayed from his heart, he said ‘my God will give to your needs according to God’s riches in Christ Jesus’, and that is immeasurable.
Not by any man but by Christ Jesus; so it’s not about ‘you give me I give you’, it’s much more; it’s spiritual, praise God! Paul prayed that prayer from his heart and that’s what God will do for those who give willingly and generously in this month of fruitfulness that we are in.
Proverbs 11:25 says the liberal soul shall be made fat: And he that watereth shall be watered also himself; and when I checked in the Bible, it shows that watereth and watered mean different things in Hebrew language; when you look at it in English, so many words of our English language are like that too, praise God! The difference in the original Bible language – waters means maybe to give me a piece of cake to eat; watereth means I give you a banquet back, that’s what it means in Hebrew language. When you give that little one, what God gives you back is just almost always immeasurable.
I mentioned it in the morning and I think I should mention it as well that that’s not the reason for us to now be being cunning with God; you don’t go to God and say since they’ve preached in the church that if I give, I will get back, you now go ahead giving with the wrong motive or with a carnal motive, praise God! it doesn’t work that way with God; He doesn’t only sees our hearts, He hears our thoughts and that is what is fascinating about God; when you begin to know and understand that God hears your thoughts, praise God! And if we know that, we’ll be more careful about the way we relate with God knowing that He hears our thoughts; as you are thinking, He’s hearing, you have not even voiced it out, praise God!
So you can’t just say because he said that, I’m going to give my 006 Corolla so that God can give me Lexus 460 back, it doesn’t work that way, your motive must be right; it must be that God needs that car and you are just giving it, just like the widow’s mite, it was all what she had, praise God! So I can’t just go and bring one car in my house that has not been touched for the past 7 or 8 months to say take, so that God can give me something bigger back, it doesn’t work that way, it’s a law of giving and receiving.
Obededom (in 2nd Samuel 6: 10 -12) allowed his house to be used to keep the ark of God and he received blessings – great blessings. We’ve been asked times and times again to open our house for house fellowship; there is a benefit for all these things, that’s what reciprocity is all about. But before we close today, we want to look at some examples from the Bible, but I also want us to look at the way this law works in the relationships between parents and children, or (maybe to be more general) youths and elders.
In the African society – in Nigeria, we regard elders highly, we live by the reason of old age, they have had our respect; and one of the reasons we give respect to old age is because of experience of life associated with their age, wisdom and calmness of their old age. For the young and not-so-young, we need to know that the law of reciprocity will apply in our relationships with elders.
Proverbs 19:26, “He that wasteth his father, and chaseth away his mother, Is a son that causeth shame, and bringeth reproach”, may that not be your portion or my portion in Jesus name.
In my own limited number of years, I’ve seen people sow and reap; relationships between elders or parents with their children; I’ve seen my friends, my colleagues being paid back in their children, what they did to their parents, their children doing it to them, praise God! I’ve seen this practically, I’ve seen friends that their children did things to them what I know they did to their parents because we grew up together; and I was forced to say to one or two of them that but that was how you behaved when you were young too, you are just reaping what you sowed.
So we need to be careful, what should we do? We should amend our ways, (that’s the whole purpose of discussing this topic) so that whatever we are doing wrong in this area, maybe we don’t visit our parents (for those who still have at home) or our elderly ones, maybe we need to show more care to them, especially if we are expecting that from our own children or younger people, we need to sow properly so that we can reap at the right time.
We need to show more concern for the aged and elderly; we need to help them; we need to support them physically and spiritually, because we are by God’s grace going to be like them one day; what you sow is what you are going to reap; it’s going to be corn-for-corn, maize-for-maize. I’m sure you know the process and trouble of sowing; the trouble it takes to sow cocoa is not the same trouble to sow tomato or maize, you need to do more.
So if you want cocoa harvest, you need to plant the cocoa with all the patience that requires, with all the troubles that is required, you need to be ready to go through the trouble for the type of harvest you want.
And we know that parents, even here in Nigeria – Africa, they’ve been seen to give things from their legacy to aids, to charity and leave their biological children out; and some will say well, I’ve trained them, I’ve sent them to school, all the things remaining, I’m going to give to charity; I’ve done my best for these children. I pray that we will not because of what the children did, do that to them; if you want to do it, not because you are angry with them, praise the Lord!
So let’s look at some few examples from the Bible; the example of Ruth is very germane here. Ruth refused to leave a widowed mother-in-law to her misfortune; she stuck with her in spite of the woman saying you can go home, don’t worry.
There were two of them; one eventually agreed to go and she didn’t do anything wrong; she did what was morally right – showed concern for mama; but Ruth stuck with her, she refused to budge even when the woman said you can go back home, and she reaped from her sowing, praise God! She not only got another husband, she received added grace to be one of those that Jesus Christ and David came through to life, that was a wonderful payback for someone who sowed.
But it was not all nice and pleasant on that dark afternoon (or evening) on the way to Bethlehem; it must have been a sad day when mama Naomi was going back to Bethlehem, the lady said I will go with you. I’m sure the three of them were probably crying, but she stayed on, she was sowing, she was sowing her cocoa, she was sowing her rubber plants, she was sowing that cash crop that can bring harvest, and it’s always like that when you are sowing that type of seed – hard, terrible, and tough. Maybe someone is going through that time at this time, you keep sowing and it looks like nothing is coming out, the word of God for you this afternoon is that stay on, be persistent, you will dig to Rehoboth soon; that is the word of God for somebody this afternoon – don’t give up, continue, be persistent, praise the Lord!
Another example we can use is the example we saw in Philippians 4:10 -20 that we read; apart from the fact that Paul prayed for the Philippi church, one of them took the gift to him and the story in Philippians 2: 25 – 30; the man was ill, he almost died during the journey, Epaphroditus, you can imagine the kind of prayer Apostle Paul must have prayed for him that is even above the Philippians 4:19 that we all like to quote, he must have gotten something more than Philippians 4:19 for his trouble; he was ill, he was sick, he was almost dying and he got a mention in the Bible; that is reciprocity, that is getting back a recompense for your good deed, praise the Lord!
Let’s just look at Mordecai; we know the story very well, Mordecai did a good deed for the king, he revealed the plot to kill him and the king did not do anything immediately and that’s the way of God; you might have done something good and you have not even seen any recompense, God is reserving your blessings for when you will need it most, He’s keeping it for when you will really need it; He has said in His word that I owe you one, I will release it later, praise the Lord!
So don’t worry if it looks like that good deed is not getting any recompense, it may be that God is waiting for the right and appropriate time just like He did for Mordecai. When it was time, when he needed that thing most, the king could not sleep and he had to do that good deed for him, and he did not just have mastery over his enemy, defeated his enemy – Haman, he even became one of the top aides of the king, right from being a gateman, he became a top aide of the king, King Ahaseurus.
Naaman and the slave girl; Naaman got a recompense from his large heartedness, his good nature, praise God! He was a general in the army, and we know the way soldiers behave, even the lower ranking soldiers look down on civilians, not to talk of a whole general; he allowed civilians to talk to him, he allowed his household to relate with him and because of his large heartedness, he got the blessings of his healing. I believe we know the story very well, so we don’t need to spend much time on that.
How are you behaving in your household? Are you the Lord of the manor that nobody can talk to? Are you the type of people that when the gateman sees you, he has to bend down? And these are the first point of attack if anything is coming to your house, you don’t relate well with them; Christmas day is just like any other day, you just come to church and go back, you don’t believe you should do something.
Let’s learn from Naaman’s example; we gain from our large heartedness, we gain from our good nature, we sow and then we reap back; if we sow good, we will reap well; even when he got to Elisha’s house and he said go and dip in Jordan River and he didn’t want to do it, it was one of his aides again – maybe his aide-de-camp or his batman that said oga, do this thing, but Naaman benefited from his good nature, and you will benefit from your good nature in due course in Jesus name.
Last example I want to look at here is Jacob and his children; some of Jacob’s children misbehaved especially Reuben. Reuben went into one of his father’s concubines and it was like Jacob did not do anything, but when it was time for reckoning, Genesis 49: 3-4, Jacob cursed Reuben, Reuben paid for his wrong action. You will always get your recompense, whether it’s positive or negative; no matter how it appears late, Reuben got his eventually, Genesis 49: 3- 4.
And of course David and his children generally; David got back his lack of parental control, he did not bring his children up well; he ruled the nation well but didn’t bring up his children well, and we know his story very well, how he suffered; Absalom threw him out of the palace; thank God for God’s grace that brought him back. It was because they were not properly brought up; if he had dealt with Absalom properly when he killed Amnon, maybe that would not have happened.
So as we bow our heads to pray today with what we’ve done just to explain the fact about sowing and reaping about the fact that whatever you do here on earth, you will see the benefit, the recompense; and I thank God for the choir where they sang about the fact that eternity is the benefit of righteousness, that’s all about what we have been saying this afternoon and we didn’t check with one another when we were picking that song.
So that’s the whole essence of what we’re talking about today – what you sow, you will reap; that’s law of reciprocity. My prayer for you is that yours will be positive and it will not be negative in Jesus name.
As we bow our heads to pray today, are you willing to reciprocate the love of God for you? He died so that we can be free of sin; He came as man, God incarnated because of us, are we willing to reciprocate that gesture today, that love this afternoon as we bow our heads to pray.
Are you here, you’ve heard about the love of God, you’ve seen the love of God, are you willing to reciprocate that love? Are you willing to release yourself to Him, to that love of God? Are you ready to surrender to the lordship of God, because judgment is coming, it’s as clear as night and day, He will come; whether it’s today for you or for me or tomorrow or 10 years, 15 years time, I don’t know; but it has been said concerning you that on the 10th of September, somebody spoke concerning this and you did not take the opportunity as we bow our heads to pray.
Are you here this morning, willing to reciprocate the gesture of Jesus Christ because He died for you? Eternity is the benefit of righteousness, of holiness, you need to give your life to Christ, you need to reciprocate His good gesture for dying for you; the sinless died for the sinful, you need to not let that grace be taken for granted.
Father we thank You, we give glory today; we give praise, we give honor to excellent name; thank You for the message You’ve sent to us today; Father we pray that as we continue to sow, we will reap good fruits. All who have sowed evil, Father we pray today that even as we leave this place, that that evil will be uprooted and in its stead, good plants will blossom so that they can reap good harvest in the name of Jesus Christ.
We thank you eternal Father for Your mercy and favor over us; thank You for Your son that has come forward to reciprocate your good gesture in his life, all of us here also have been blessed one time or the other by Your grace and favor, we pray that we shall not be children given to ingratitude, but we shall be children that will give back concerning what You’ve done for us. Thank You heavenly Father, blessed be Your name mighty God, in Jesus name we prayed.
