Sermon Transcript
Well, hey, good morning.
We just have this week and next week left in our Galatians series, which is kind of exciting to end, and it’s kind of sad to end all at the same time. I told you at the beginning Galatians was my favorite book in the Bible. If you’re allowed to have a favorite, if you’re allowed to divide up the Word of God like that, I have a favorite. If I’m not, somebody can rebuke me. That’d be great.
3 months ago when we were at a different part in Galatians, we asked the question, if God accepts us because of what Jesus has done and not because what we do, if we go to heaven because of what Jesus has done and not because of what we do, if we receive blessings because of what Jesus has done and not because of what what we do, if we are forgiven because of what Jesus has done and not because of what we do, then what’s the deal with all the rules in the Bible? Remember we asked that? Why even have the rules in the first place if following them doesn’t produce forgiveness, blessing, heaven, acceptance? And 3 months ago, we said there is more than one answer to that question. At the time, without unpacking the whole thing again, we said the rules show us that we have fallen short and we need a Savior to rescue us.
They scan us and they let us know that we are in trouble. They point us to the cure, which is outside of us, which is rescue in Christ. That’s one answer. Today we’ll look at another answer to this question. And while the answer is simple and intuitive, which means we already know the answer, it’s what we might guess the answer is, we still might push against it when we hear it.
We still might argue when we hear it. Anytime we ask, why doesn’t God want me to… fill in your own blank that you argue with, with God. Why doesn’t God want me to lie on my taxes?
Why does God insist that I— you fill in your own blank again. Why does He insist that I forgive? Why does He make me do that? Those answers are exactly the same as what you would tell a child who wanted to eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and never brush his teeth. What do you tell that kid?
Eating candy for every meal is bad for you. Lying on your taxes is bad for you. It will hurt you. It’s not what’s best for you. In the kid’s case, it will rot your teeth, which will hurt.
You’ll need dental work, which will hurt. The dental work will cost money, which will hurt. You’ll feel sick. Your tummy will hurt. Your health will be threatened from poor nutrition, which means you’ll be subject to all kinds of diseases.
That’s why you can’t eat only candy. Kid? Well then, why do I need to brush my teeth? argues the kid back. Why do you insist that I brush my teeth?
Because it’s what’s best for you, right? There are things in the world called gingivitis, bad breath, cavities, root canals. I know you don’t understand all these, child, but they really will happen if you don’t brush your teeth, so just trust me. And do as I say. I would bet the only reason adults don’t eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner more often is because we understand the consequences if we did.
If we could eat nothing but candy and end up with rock-hard abs like we see on all the fitness commercials, right, the Ab Glider and the Abdominal Crunch or whatever, if we could have those kind of abs, with perfect teeth, no diabetes, more of us would probably eat candy all the time. But that’s not where it leads. We understand we can never reap perfect health if we sow 3-course dinners of candy. Same thing with brushing our teeth. If we could skip it and still have perfect dental hygiene with glimmering white teeth, we would probably skip it more often.
But we can’t, so we don’t. All good parents will point their kids away from massive amounts of candy and will always encourage, and sometimes force, their kids to brush their teeth because it’s what’s best for the kid. Good parents want their kids to make good decisions that produce good consequences. Similarly, God gives us rules because He is a good parent. Pointing us in the right direction so we have productive lives that flourish and thrive in every way.
Just like the child, we never really grow up. We may not always understand the connection between what mom and dad are telling us to do, what God is telling us to do, and the consequence. We may argue with God. We might throw a tantrum. We may say, you don’t know what you’re talking about, God.
Maybe your rule is what’s best for some people, Maybe your rule is what is best for even most people, fine, but it is not what is best for me, we might argue. But if we do not listen, just like the kid, we will bump up against the consequence. We will find out why the rule was there and we will most likely wish we had just followed it the first time. With all of that for intro, we will read over our Scripture for today, which will essentially tell us the same thing. Make good decisions, get good consequences.
Make bad decisions, get bad consequences. God loves us and wants us to have good consequences, so he gives us rules. This is Galatians 6:6-10, which is printed in your bulletin insert there, or it’ll be up on the screen as well. Galatians 6. Let the one who is taught the word Share all good things with the one who teaches.
We will come back to that. I realize you hear that verse and you’re like, how does that fit in with what you just said? It does, we’ll just put it in later, so just hang on. Verse 7, do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap. You sow candy, you reap rotting teeth.
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are in the household of faith. In these verses, we will see that consequences for our decisions reaping what we sowed, can be gradual but are always inevitable. And God’s love is for everyone, especially those in the family of faith.
I’ll say that again because I know some of you are trying to fill in your note cards. Consequences for our decisions, reaping what we sowed, can be gradual but are always inevitable. And God’s love is for everyone, especially those in the family of faith. So, first, consequences for the way we live can be gradual but are nevertheless inevitable. He gives the illustration of sowing and reaping.
What we put in the ground is what we get out of the ground. The harvest will come in. The consequence might be immediate, or it might take a while for that seed to turn into a plant that produces a fruit, but either way, The result is sure, meaning nothing goes unnoticed and no one gets away with anything, which should be both comforting and alarming to us. Comforting because whatever good we have done will eventually produce a good result, no matter what it looks like right now. It’s also comforting because anyone who has wronged us will not get away with it in the end.
But it’s alarming because it means you and me won’t get away with anything either. We may want to push back on that. We may want to argue, but there are some things I’ve gotten away with in the past. Don’t you feel this way? Things I’ve done that I knew that were wrong, but nothing too bad seems to have happened, if I’m allowed to say that.
I didn’t reap what I sowed, so this isn’t true. You might say, sometimes we don’t reap what we sow. Or you could point out, if it’s not you who comes to mind, that unscrupulous sales guy who gets rewarded. He’s sowing lies and reaping bonuses. What about the guy at work who you know is having an affair, but everything seems to be going wonderful for him?
What about the evil dictator who starves his own people? Causes all kinds of chaos in the world, but lives in a palace, and everything seems to be going great. The answer? Not forever.
Evil dictators have an end, and it’s usually not pretty. Tiger Woods’ wife came after him with a golf club.
The Me Too campaign started. And every week it seems like someone else’s harvest is coming in. If people are slimy in one area of life, like lying to get sales, likelihood is they are slimy in another, and eventually that house of cards falls.
The psalmist came to the same conclusion when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. That’s what he called it. He saw good things happening happening to bad people, and it frustrated him. This is Psalm 73, or parts of Psalm 73. He writes, for they, the wicked, have no problems until death.
They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. The wicked are always at ease, increasing in riches. That’s what he sees. And he thinks, all in vain I have kept my heart clean.
And washed my hands of innocence. Have you ever thought that? Here’s this guy cheating to get ahead, and nothing bad ever seems to happen to him, while all the time I’m trying to do the right thing, and I have all these problems. Isn’t there any justice in the world? That’s how he feels.
But he continues, when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a worrisome task until I went to the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end. Truly, God set them in slippery places and makes them fall to ruin. They are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors. Like a dream when one awakes, Lord, when you arouse yourself, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. The psalmist says in the end, we always reap what we sow.
There is no getting out of it. There is a final accounting when everything comes to light and nothing is hidden. He also shows there are only 2 kinds of seed to sow, or to sow, excuse me. It’s either the Lord or it’s nothingness. Our works are either with God or they become like a phantom A dream, just nothing.
We can see the same principle in our Galatians text, verse 8, for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. There are only 2 options, corruption or life. The word corruption here is the same word used in Romans 8, speaking of the decay of the material universe. It’s what scientists call entropy. Everything, you, me, this building, the Earth, the Sun, the galaxies, are all slowly crumbling, running out of energy.
And we can throw our lot into what is falling apart, or we can throw it in with the One who is eternal. We can spend our lives investing in what will eventually become nothing, or investing in the life that will last forever. He says you can sow to the sinful nature, which is what’s sometimes translated as flesh, or you can sow it to the Spirit, but there is no in-between. There is no, well, I know this isn’t the best, but is it really that big of a problem?
Nothing is ultimately in that category. There is no middle ground on eternal. Something is either eternal or it isn’t. Nothing can halfway last forever. It either lasts forever or it doesn’t.
It either has an end or it doesn’t. We can’t have any kind of eternal fruit if we are sowing things that aren’t. We can’t reap the fruit of the Spirit if we sow to the sinful nature. Just a few verses before the text that we read for or today, the writer of Galatians, Paul, explicitly listed the acts of the sinful nature and he explicitly listed the fruit of the Spirit, which means in this text when he’s referring to those and he says we can sow to one or we can sow to the other, he is undoubtedly looking back at what he has said before in the earlier section and it’s been a while since we went through that. So, let’s take a look at his list.
First, the fruit of the Spirit, which I know is not news to some of you. If we sow to the Spirit, what happens? Galatians 5:22, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now, here’s my guess, most of us want that fruit. Most of us want the result of whatever we do or not do to be love, joy, peace, goodness, Etc.
We would be pretty happy if we had all of those things in our life. So we often ask ourselves, even though we don’t word it like this, we ask ourselves, what is the seed I can plant, to follow his metaphor, to get love, joy, peace, goodness sprouting in my life? Isn’t that what we’re all trying to figure out? How do I get peace and goodness into my life? We don’t currently have as much of it as we want, so what steps do I need to take to get more?
Here’s my second guess: our answer to that question is why we have done most of what we have done in our lives. It’s why we took the job we did. It’s why we bought or rented what we did. It’s why we decided to date or not date. It’s why we chose our friends.
It’s why we studied hard. It’s why we didn’t study very hard. It’s why we worked out and exercised. It’s why we ate cookies. It’s why we retired.
It’s why we kept working. It’s why we listen to what the doctor says. It’s why we avoid the doctor in the first place. It’s why we got drunk. It’s why we stayed sober.
Whatever decision we made, probably thought it was the path to joy.
Paul’s assertion is that sowing to the sinful nature will never reap the fruit of the Spirit. We will never reap love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control if we invest in acts of the sinful nature. We only get fruit of the Spirit in lasting measure through investing in the Spirit. So, what is it that we’re supposed to stay away from? What is the sinful nature that he’s talking about that will prevent love, joy, peace?
Paul said it’s obvious, which means we already know the acts of the sinful nature, but a few of them include, Galatians 5:19, hatred, jealousy, fits of rage, sexual immorality, idolatry, impurity, drunkenness, selfish ambition.
If we go down those paths, we won’t find peace. And in fact, we will only find destruction and decay in the end. I know, okay, I know it’s tempting to believe some of those actions will produce joy and goodness. I get it. I understand.
We’ve all been there. And they never do. Especially around here, we often think, if only I could accomplish a little bit more, then I would be content and full. That’s selfish ambition, and it won’t lead to the fruit that you want. If only I had what they have, I would have joy.
That’s jealousy. That fruit will also decay. If we hate someone at work or school or home, holding on to that hate will only drag us down in the end. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, I have chosen love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Have you figured that out yet? Hate doesn’t lead to peace and joy.
Ever. All the acts of the sinful nature will at best crumble away with the rest of the world. That’s the best that could happen, the most we could hope for, it just crumbling away. And at worst, it will hurt others for whom we care deeply. On my mom’s side of the family and all the generations before her, They were farmers.
So there were a number of weekends growing up that I went out on the farm with my great-uncles. We’d be riding the combine, tilling up the ground, planting, harvesting. Never once, this will surprise you, did my uncle ever say, I have a whole tractor-trailer full of soybeans. We’re going to plant those in the ground. And in a few months we will harvest strawberries.
He never said that because that’s not the way it works. If you plant soybeans, you’ll get soybeans. And as crazy as it would have sounded for him to say, I’m going to plant soybeans and get strawberries, that’s what we do. We say, I’m going to plant selfish ambition, sexual immorality, jealousy, and I will reap joy.
That’s not the way it works.
It also doesn’t work the other thing that we do. My uncle also never said, I’m going to plant these beans really meticulously. I’m going to get the soil just right. I’m going to cover them up to the right depth. I’m going to make sure they have water.
I’ve put a lot of effort into it, but I really hope they never sprout.
Please, God, don’t let anything come up. Never said that, but we do, right? I’m going to sow the sinful nature all over the place. I’m going to put a lot of effort into doing things that I ought not, and I really hope there’s no fruit from that. Just let it die in the ground.
It’s not the way it works.
If we sow to the sinful nature, we will harvest the fruit of the sinful nature, which is decay. On the other hand, if we do good to others, verses 9 and 10 of our original text, if we don’t become weary in doing good, which is quite a chore, we’ll discuss that in a minute, but if we continue doing good. We will at worst, this is the worst thing that will happen, we will at worst temporarily help someone. And at best, we could make a difference for eternity. Let’s think about the opposites of all the acts of the sinful nature.
If we just inverted those, what would we have? Forgiveness, humility, sexual fidelity, purity, selfless ambition, sobriety, putting God first instead of putting something else first, which is what is meant by idolatry. If we take those paths, the worst thing that will happen is we will temporarily make life better for us and those around us. That’s the worst. And the best, if through our good works we point to God, if through our good works we point to relationship with God, We point to forgiveness in Christ.
Those good works might be part of what God uses to build toward forever love, forever peace, forever joy. We really might be doing something that actually lasts for eternity and doesn’t crumble away with the rest of the material universe. This is where verse 6 fits back into our conversation. Let the one, verse 6, let the one who is taught the word God’s Word, share all good things with the one who teaches. If you are a Christian, someone, or more likely several someones, taught you about God and has made an eternal difference for you.
They were planting a seed in you, and now you are the harvest. They sowed you, so now it makes sense for you to share with them. That can take many forms. You can give them words of gratitude. You can give them some type of gift, financially support their lives, or just tell them what God is doing in your life now as a result, or partially as a result, of their efforts with you.
I can tell you, being in professional ministry, and certainly preachers are only a small percentage of all the people who teach God’s Word in the world, But just since that’s what I do, I can tell you the best days are when someone comes back and says, this changed in my life as a result of something you did or said. I’m always like, wow!
That’s the harvest. But then here’s the cool thing, when you who are part of the harvest go back to the sower and share with them, that sharing in itself is a new act of sowing. You sharing with the sower is sowing back into the sower. So now you are the new sower, and you will reap your own harvest back from the person that you shared with, who was the original sower. And it can just build back up on itself, and everybody feels really encouraged.
Now, all of that is wonderful, and those are things we probably all basically inherently know we ought to do. Forgive instead of hate, be humble instead of jealous, be pure instead of impure, be selfless instead of selfish, go back and share gratitude. We all know we should. That’s probably not news to anyone here today. There’s probably no one who’s been like, oh, I’m supposed to forgive, let me write that down.
I know you’re not doing that. But if it’s all so obvious, why must he say, let us not grow weary in doing good, verse 9, when we try to live that way? I mean, none of us want to be hateful, jealous, selfish and immoral. None of us want to live like that. But at the same time, isn’t this strange?
We know, like he does, trying to be better than that can get exhausting.
So, how do we get the forever joy, the forever love, the forever peace? And how can we do good without growing weary? What can transform us from being selfish to selfless? How do we sow the Spirit like he recommends? First, what it’s not.
It’s not trying harder to be good.
It’s not just invert the acts of the sinful nature and do the best we can. It’s not that. Because He says, if we sow to the Spirit, we will reap eternal life, verse 8. So, whatever sowing to the Spirit is, the result of doing it is eternal life. And the whole letter to the Galatians, and the whole point of Christianity while we’re at it, has been receiving eternal life.
How to receive eternal life is through what Jesus has done and not what we do. So, he can’t switch it now and all of a sudden say, we need to do certain things in order to get it, because that would undermine his entire point. Now, of course, behaving, like we have said, behaving well will make life better for us and those around us, but it is not sowing the Spirit. It cannot prevent us from growing weary. And it will probably actually make us grow weary.
It will not produce the forever love, peace, joy that we want. So, what will? That brings us to our second point. We only had 2 today. This one is far shorter.
Don’t get nervous. Seeing God’s love for all people, and especially those in the family of faith, will help transform us. So first, God’s love for all people. Where do we see that in this text? We’ve actually been dancing around it the entire time.
God designed the world in such a way that there are consequences for the way we behave. Regardless of what someone believes about God, that person is still subject to the systems of the world that God built. So for example, if we are hateful and unforgiving, we will find ourselves more lonely, isolated from community, and more likely to have poor health as studies have shown. Blood pressure goes up, we don’t sleep as well, etc. When we harvest that destruction for sowing hate and unforgiveness, it pushes us to act in more compassionate and forgiving ways.
And God made the world to be like that because he loves us. What if he had made the world in such a way that greed and selfishness lead to internal peace and long life? A whole lot more people would be a whole lot more awful and the world would be an even more terrible place to live. But because God lovingly made the world with pressure to be nice, more people are. The principles of sowing and reaping to an extent restrain evil in the world and promote goodness because the more evil people act, the more unhappy they are, which sometimes brings them closer back to center.
Everyone gets that benefit, and everyone gets it because God loved us too much to let us run around completely unchecked. He’s a good Father. He basically built the world in such a way that there are incentives for us to help those around us, both internal and external incentives. That in itself is probably enough to begin, but it only begins, it only begins to melt our hearts if we are growing weary in doing good. We know God wants us to love, forgive, be humble, be pure, keep sexual fidelity, and be selfless, not because He’s some meanie with unnecessary rules, but because He loves us, and He loves those around us, and He wants the best for everyone.
It’s like the kid who doesn’t want to brush his teeth. If he sees brushing his teeth as some oppressive rule, he’s less likely to do it. But if he can internalize and understand this rule as part of mommy and daddy’s love for him, he is probably more agreeable to doing it. He is not less agreeable at that point, he is more likely to follow along. So, seeing God’s guidelines and consequences as part of His love for us will start to melt our hearts, but it probably won’t bring us all the way home.
And it is still not sowing the Spirit. For that, we need to see God’s special love for those in the family of faith. What’s that? It’s the colossal exception to the reap what you sow principle. It’s the glaring instance when it didn’t happen.
When it didn’t come close to happening. The only time in world history when reap what you sow was turned on its head, and the sower received the exact opposite of what he deserved. When Jesus went to the cross, he had only sown goodness and faithfulness his entire life, yet he reaped the punishment of sin for the entire world. He took all the sadness and despair that we deserve so that we can partake of the Spirit which He deserves. He reaped what we sowed so we can reap what He sowed.
The more we buy that, the more we see that, the more we trust that, the more we believe that, the more that sinks in, The more we will be sowing the Spirit. That’s sowing the Spirit. And the more forever love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will come out of our lives. The more we see what He gave up for us, the more our hearts will be transformed to do the good that the world so desperately needs. It won’t so much be us growing weary from trying to be better.
It will more so be that we are so changed by His enormous sacrifice that goodness becomes our pattern to everyone, especially those in the family of faith. Let’s pray together.
Father, I do pray that we would be able to see Jesus That He reaped what we sowed and that we can reap what He sowed, Lord.
Let His sacrifice and substitution sink into us in such a way that we can live out what You want us to do for our good, for those around us, and ultimately for Your glory. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
