Sow to the Spirit (Galatians 6:6-10)
Our lives are not supposed to be arranged by how we feel moment to moment. It is supposed to be arranged according to the principle of sowing and reaping. Remember this, you reap what you sow.
This is one of those things that has become more evident to me of late. At the end of someone’s life, you get to see this principle at work. If they have spent much of their life sowing to the flesh, not caring for their family, picking fights with people, then it is likely the case that they will lie on their death bed alone and disowned by every friend or family member they ever had. Now, some people just don’t make a lot of friends because they are shy. But some people just treat people poorly and so, die alone.
I saw this just last week. I went on a hospital call and talked with a young woman about her mother who was dying. The two of them had disputes throughout her life and they hadn’t seen each other in years. This daughter came out of a sense of guilt and obligation, not to be with her Mom. And no one else came to be with her Mom.
I see this often at the hospital. But I have also witnessed the opposite of this.
I have been in full hospital rooms or bedsides of a person dying that is surrounded by loved ones. They had sown into the lives of those around, in the end, they were surrounded by those loved ones.
In both cases, the person reaped what they sowed. The seed that they sowed was one day reaped.
How hard it can be to live like this, especially today?
We are not told to think long term about anything right now. The only concern we are told to have is my immediate desires.
You want a new car. Go get it. Pay it off in six years. You don’t actually need a new car. You just want one. Don’t think about how this will affect you later. Don’t think about anything but your immediate desires.
You don’t have enough money to eat out. Put it on the credit card. You’ve earned it.
Your child gets into too much trouble when they’re not occupied. Hand them a phone. It’ll be okay. Now they won’t be a bother while you scroll on your own phone.
We’re not thinking using the sowing and reaping principle. But it is sown into the very fabric of reality. Think about it, or you will be faced with a harvest that you don’t want.
Sowing and reaping are farming terms. If you sow tomatoes, you can expect to harvest tomatoes later.
If you don’t sow anything, then you can expect to get nothing.
If you sow wickedness, then you can expect to reap wickedness later.
If you sow righteousness, then you can expect to reap the fruit of righteousness.
That is the point of the sermon today.
Paul has argued that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, accomplished by the finished work of Christ alone.
Any addition to that is a damnable heresy. But, this does not mean the Christ will be without good works. We have also seen that we are transformed by the power of God and so we desire to do good work. And the Christian’s life will be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit and not the fruit of the flesh.
But, as we have seen in the past few weeks, we are at war with the flesh. It’s not as if we just automatically do what we’re supposed to do. It takes work and warfare against the flesh for the rest of our lives. And Christians come together in this warfare, in love and support, picking each other up out of the pit at times.
And now we see that we are to understand that what we reap, we will sow. We sow to the Spirit and not to the Flesh.
The general principle is stated. And then three admonitions are given which are providing for pastors, providing for everyone, and providing, especially for God’s people.
What does it look like to sow to the Spirit. Well, here it is. And whatever one sows, they can expect to reap.
God Will Not Be Mocked, You Reap What You Sow (Galatians 6:8)
The sin list in the last chapter reveals different sins that are not practiced by Christians. Christians may fall into these sins, but they do not characterize their lives. People whose lives are characterized by them are not part of God’s Kingdom.
The Christian is transformed. They desire to follow Christ. There does not exist a Christian that can live for years in rebellion against God and be happy with it. Redemption is not getting your ticket punched and then never dawning the doors of a church again. That would signify that the person was never transformed as the Scriptures say Christians are. Christians are transformed and they desire to follow Christ.
We were rebels against God. And we earned for ourselves God’s justice and wrath. God sent His Son for our redemption. God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the grave three days later. In His life, He accomplished all righteousness for us. In His death, He paid for our sins. And in His resurrection, He accomplished our justification. We are declared righteous based on the finished work of Christ.
We come to Christ just as we are, but we are not left there. We are transformed by the power of God. And our lives will be characterized by sowing to the Spirit. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sowing to the Spirit is a warfare that has been described over the past two sermons. It is a serious battle that we wage until our life is over.
In our lives we will find that we sow to the Spirit or sow to the flesh. And whatever you sow, you will reap. This is a truth that has application to this life and to the life to come. God is not mocked. Whatever you sow, you will reap.
In this life. It can be seen all the time.
If you spend too much money then you’ll end up broke, and/or in debt.
If you don’t disciple your children then they’ll end up being adults that misbehave and they’ll likely cause you all kinds of heartache.
If you save money and invest money then you’ll end up having money when you are old.
If you abuse drugs and alcohol then it will result in terrible hardships in your life. Marriages struggle or break. Families dissolve. Finances struggle.
If you are addicted to porn, then it will wreck your marriage.
If you don’t work then you won’t eat.
If you work hard at something, you’ll be rewarded.
If you commit adultery it will destroy your family and your life.
Certainly failing in these ways is an offense to God. But my point is that you see the results of these things here in this life. And as I read these things, most of you knew all too well what I was getting at. God is not mocked. Whatever you reap, you will sow.
This can be illustrated by discussing the path to prosperity in America according to statistics. The path is simple. Graduate High School, work, get married, have children, stay employed, stay married. That’s it. It’s not abnormal. It’s not that you’ll be rich, but the chances are very good that you’ll prosper in America if you do these things.
What is that? That is reaping what you sow.
This also has application to the life to come. As Paul tells us elsewhere.
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2Corinthians 5:10 ESV)
Our own church’s statement of faith puts it this way in The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 Heading X: Last Things
“God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.”
Christians will not be condemned to eternal damnation. All those who are His people, their lives conform to His ways. The pattern of their life will be walking in righteousness. Christians will be with Him forever. They have been united to Christ and will never be separated from Him. Their name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and will never face God’s wrath and condemnation.
But we will stand before God one day. Our works will be judged by Him and we will have to give an account for everything that we did in this life.
We live all of our life before the Lord. He sees all that we do, say, and think. We long to live a life that is pleasing to Him. And so, even for the Christian, we think in terms of eternal rewards.
We will stand before God one day and give an account.
What will Jesus say of your phone addiction?
I once heard John Piper say,
“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.”
You have been given children to care for and raise in the fear and admonition of the Lord. What do you think Jesus will say about all the time spent on your phone or video games and not them?
Remember, throughout all your life. You reap what you sow.
Give to the One Who Teaches (Galatians 6:6)
You can read between the lines a little bit here. Why would Paul say this?
The general principle is that of sowing and reaping. Why would he talk about giving to the one who teaches?
Well, it was apparently a problem. The churches of Galatia were likely not doing this well and it led them to falling prey to the false teachers.
When good pastors are forced out of ministry, they are not usually replaced with better ones. Time after time I have heard stories of pastors being mistreated in churches. And time after time I’ve heard that those churches struggled for many years to follow.
If he preaches and teaches God’s Word with accuracy and applies it to the church well, then he is feeding you. He is delivering to you the food of God’s Word after hours of prayer, study, and preparation.
Now I want you to notice something significant. Providing for his needs is sowing to the Spirit according to our text today. It is sowing to the Spirit and not sowing to the flesh.
I want to say loudly and clearly that I have no complaints right now. I am preaching this because it is in the Book of Galatians, not because I am hard up for cash. But the application of this is giving. And I would be remiss if I just stepped past this.
In his commentary over this text, Martin Luther discussed this very thing.
“When Satan cannot suppress the preaching of the Gospel by force he tries to accomplish his purpose by striking the ministers of the Gospel with poverty. He curtails their income to such an extent that they are forced out of the ministry because they cannot live by the Gospel. Without ministers to proclaim the Word of God the people go wild like savage beasts.” Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
There is a relationship that exists between the pastor and the Church.
He is to feed God’s people.
Last Saturday, I was at the church, cleaning some stuff when I got a call to visit someone from the hospital. I made a mad dash home because I had 30 minutes to go from sweating profusely to the front doors of Baptist Health. I came home, showered, got dressed, made it in 35 and no one said anything. When I got into the car I realized that I’d forgotten my Bible. I quickly shut the door and muttered to myself, “I don’t have anything to offer if I don’t have that.” And I spent the drive to the hospital thinking about that.
In that Word, properly expounded and applied, life is given to the congregation. Grace is held out before the church in the message of the gospel.
Holy living is explained and applied.
Sowing to the Spirit is extolled. And the people of God are fed the Word of Life.
“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.” (Proverbs 29:18 ESV)
The meaning of prophetic vision is given in the second half of this Proverb, “the law”. We would understand this to be about God’s Word.
Where God’s Word is not preached, taught, read, and lived out, the people cast off restraint. Or, as Luther said earlier “go wild like savage beasts”.
There you have rainbow flag waving churches.
And there you also have Christians that are so biblically illiterate that they don’t know how to please the Lord with their life.
A pastor is to sow. And this should result in a congregation that honors the Lord.
And the Church is to sow to the Spirit and provide for him.
What does this mean?
It means that if you spend all your time and effort sowing to the flesh and he ends up impoverished because of it, then you will reap what you sow.
He is to sow the Word of Life diligently. And the congregation is to sow, and thus provide for him.
This can, and has been, taken to extremes.
A friend of mine told me about a pastor and church staff that used this text to say that the pastor should be living well beyond anything I can imagine right now. He lived in a mansion. He drove a Lexus. He wore the Rolex. And his church still sent out letters to the congregation about how they needed to provide for him.
That is an abuse of God’s people, plain and simple. The pastor that sows to the flesh at the expense of God’s people will receive His reward.
The Christian that sows to the flesh at the expense of the pastor will also receive their reward.
Do Good to All People, Especially God’s People (Galatians 6:10)
Do good to all people. I believe our little church is doing their best at this right now. We have the food pantry, we give to organizations like Bethlehem House, Life Choices, Compass Academy, and of course the Cooperative Program. Cooperative Program dollars go to mission work and different programs that help those in need. One of those is Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, which goes to these floods and other natural disasters.
And you should attempt to do good in your personal life as well. Help your neighbors. Help loved ones. Be there for your family.
And do good, especially to God’s people.
We are to sow to the Spirit and do good to all people.
I am so thankful for Ruth and Amber, who got us started with eh Food Pantry. We had discussed doing something for the community in the Book of Acts. And they researched it and made it happen. The church got involved, put the shed together, and we have helped families since then.
Those food boxes have fed families in desperate need of food this year. And it is wonderful.
Money given to Life Choices has been used to save the lives of children and provide for young families in need. And women and children have been helped at Bethlehem House.
And it is my hope that we can do more of that in the future.
But we should also remember that things are different when you’re part of the family.
If I get a phone call from someone in need that is not part of our church, then I will help them if I can. I usually direct them toward organizations that we give to. And, there have been occasions when we have given them a food box.
But when one of our people struggle, we will rally around them and help. We will figure out how to get them what they need.
Collections might be taken up. We’ve done that here.
The Benevolence Fund might be used to help.
Meal trains are provided and your freezers become overloaded.
Rides are given if they are needed.
We are family here. And you are not like everyone else.
And that is how it is supposed to be.
That is what it means to sow to the Spirit. Again, if you spend all your time gratifying yourself and not helping others, then you will reap what you sow.
Our money and resources are not supposed to just terminate upon our selves.
If you spend $160 a month on coffee and $300 eating out, and then can’t help a neighbor in need then this is a problem. If you can’t say “no” to yourself every now ant hen so that you can help others, then you will reap what you sow.
This is one of the things that I really appreciated from Dave Ramsey. I went through his class over a decade ago and it did help us with saving and budgeting. But his end goal for attaining wealth was so that you could give.
Some of you may need to go to war with your spending, so that you can sow to the Spirit. In fact, the work of getting out of debt would itself be sowing to the Spirit, especially if it moves you toward helping others.
There is application here to our church offering. Our church has a benevolence fund that hasn’t been added to in a couple years. Praise God we haven’t had to use it. And the circumstances that we underwent a few years ago made this one of those things that was cut. It is an account and not a line item, so money is there. But at some point it will need to be added to again.
We give percentages to the Cooperative Program, Bethlehem House, and others. This means that if our church takes in less money, then we give less money to those groups.
And here is where I want to leave this topic. Sow to the Spirit and be generous. Help those in need, especially your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Keep Going For You Will Reap What You Sow (Galatians 6:9)
It is often easy to get started and then get side tracked. I know that I can do that at times. But we are encouraged to keep sowing to the Spirit because one day we will reap what we sow.
I am proud of this church. Trials came and you persevered. Keep going. If that was a test for how you would behave in the future, then I’d say it went well. Continue to persevere.
As Christians, we understand that this is a lifelong sowing and many of the rewards will come after our life is over.
We raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. That is very difficult in the short term, but with a big pay off later.
We help our neighbor, which is an inconvenience now. But there is a payoff later.
We sacrifice some things now because it will pay off later.
Conclusion
Sowing and reaping is woven into the fabric of our world. You reap what you sow. I’ve pushed and pushed this idea today in many areas. It would be difficult for a single person to walk out of this building not feeling guilty over something they’ve done.
What are you to do?
Repent, trust Christ for forgiveness. And sow to the Spirit.
R. Dwain Minor