Let’s
turn to Galatians chapter 6, Galatians chapter 6. This is one of those
very important portions of Scripture that every believer should know. In
fact, every nonbeliever should know it as well. But it was written for
us. Galatians chapter 6, verses 7-10; I’ll read it, and then we’ll take a
look at it.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this
he will also reap. 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. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in
due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have
opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who
are of the household of the faith.”
I was reading a book called Rocket Men. I enjoy reading fact rather than fiction; and Rocket Men
is a relatively new book that describes the mission of Apollo 8, the
first manned space mission that orbited the moon. That was back in
December of 1968, couple of months before I came to Grace Church in
February of ’69, and a few months before Neil Armstrong actually walked
on the moon.
It was a massive achievement to do what that mission did. By the time
the rocket had sent the capsule out of earth’s gravitational field and
it was orbiting around the earth. It was a massive accomplishment just
to do that. But there was yet awaiting another even more amazing
mission. That orbiting capsule was going to be jettisoned out of that
orbit toward the moon, only to be drawn in by the moon’s gravitational
field to orbit the moon and then come back to earth.
When they hit the jets and left the orbit around the earth the
capsule reached a speed of 25,000 miles an hour. The moon is moving at
2,300 miles an hour. So going 25,000 miles an hour they had to hit a
target moving 2,300 miles an hour, and begin to orbit. Everything had to
be absolutely perfect.
It’s really an astonishing feat to think about the fact that
mathematicians and scientists could figure out exactly how to do that so
that the mission was flawless and perfect. They intersected with the
moon moving 2,300 miles an hour while the capsule was moving 25,000
miles an hour at precisely the right moment, were drawn into the moon’s
gravity, and went around the moon ten times, and then left again to come
back to earth. That is all possible – it’s not only because of the
scientific efforts of brilliant men - but it is all possible because the
entire universe operates on fixed laws.
Nothing is random. All of a sudden the moon doesn’t speed up or slow
down, or gravity doesn’t alter its force. All that is predictable as the
capsule catapults through space at 25,000 miles an hour is unchanging
and absolute. The reason they could do that and everything subsequent to
that and anything else in the scientific world, whether it’s in that
macrocosm or the microcosm, is because everything in creation operates
on fixed laws. They are inviolable, unalterable, and absolute. We know
that; we see that; we live by that.
Every part of our lives depend on things staying exactly the same.
Things aren’t randomly going off in some fashion that violates law – I’m
talking about physical law; doesn’t happen - because the material
universe is built on absolute laws. That is why we can speak of creation
as under the reign of law. And just as there are physical laws – and
those laws are absolute and inviolable. They are consistent; they do not
vary. They control the order of creation from the smallest single cell
to the moving, catapulting planets and stars throughout the infinite
universe. Just as there are laws that control all of that – and they’re
absolute and unchanging – so there are moral laws.
There are laws in the spiritual realm that are equally fixed and
absolute. To think otherwise is to contradict the nature of the Creator
and His creation. And the Bible certainly affirms this axiomatic,
self-evident reality. All human experience confirms with great force
that the universe is run on absolute, fixed laws, and that God has
structured into His universe physically and morally, naturally and
spiritually, laws that operate inexorably.
That’s what we’re seeing in this brief text that I read to you. Here
is a moral law. Here is one of God’s absolute, fixed principles; it is
stated at the end of verse 7: “Whatever a man sows, this will he also
reap.” Now that is true agriculturally. That is true in farming. That is
true in gardening. That is true in planting anything. You plant a seed,
you get the life that is contained in that seed; that never, ever
changes.
That is true physically: whatever you sow, you reap. But Paul is
making the point here that that is true spiritually, that reality in the
material world is also an analogy that is to be understood in the
spiritual world. So I want us to look at this law and consider its
importance. The divine law stated, the divine law stated in verse 7: “Do
not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this will
he also reap.” Don’t be deceived. Don’t think you can ignore God; this
law will never ever change – a principle that no one can deny, not even a
skeptic. Some passages in Scripture need no other proof than
experience, this is one of them. That’s why we say it’s axiomatic.
In the context explicitly, Paul has been saying to the Galatian
believers and to all of us, “Now that you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit
is in you, and you are led by the Holy Spirit. If you walk in the
Spirit, you will realize the fruit of the Spirit,” verse 22 of chapter
5, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control.” If you walk in the Spirit that is what you
will experience; that’s the fruit. You plant walking in the Spirit, you
harvest those virtues. On the other hand, back in verse 19 of that fifth
chapter, if – opposite to that – you plant deeds of the flesh, you will
harvest immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities,
strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,
envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.
Now in this section that we’re in in this wonderful book, Paul is
talking to us about how to live the Christian life. In the first two
chapters he defended his apostleship as one who represented the Lord
Jesus Christ and spoke for the Lord. In the second two chapters,
chapters 3 and 4, he defended the gospel of salvation by grace alone,
through faith alone, apart from works. And then in the final two
chapters he’s telling us how to live the Christian life. And here is one
of the essential principles of living the Christian life. You have two
options: you can walk in the Spirit and realize the fruit of the Spirit,
or you can walk in the flesh and realize the fruit of the flesh.
So he wants to warn us that whatever you plant is exactly what you
will harvest. So we look at verse 7 and we read, first of all, “Do not
be deceived.” That’s a very important warning. I would have to say that
most people, including most Christians, are somewhat deceived, to one
degree or another, about the consequences of their sinful behaviors. I
think we tend to believe that because we’re under grace and not law,
because we’ve been forgiven and that’s forever, because we cannot lose
our salvation, because God is so gracious He keeps on forgiving our
sins, because we haven’t contributed to our salvation by our works, we
can’t sustain our salvation by our works, or lack thereof, there’s a
certain impunity with which we can sin. And so, the apostle Paul says,
“Don’t deceive yourself.”
He has been talking like this already in the book of Galatians. Back
in chapter 3, he wrote in verse 1, “You foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you?” In verse 3, he says, “Are you so foolish?” He has
already addressed their foolishness, their potential deceptive
influence.
“Deceive” is an interesting word, it comes from planaō, planaō, from which we get the word “planet” derivatively. Planaō
means “to wander around,” “to be led astray.” And that was a term used,
came through the Latin to the English to describe planets that were
moving. This means “to wander away,” “to be led astray.” That’s what
deception is. In 1 Corinthians 3:18,
“Let no man deceive himself.” So not only can we be led astray and
deceived by somebody else, we’re pretty good at deceiving ourselves. And
that’s the essence of what this says: “Do not be deceived.”
You really don’t need somebody else to be deceived, because you have a
deceptive component in you. Even as a believer you have the remaining
sinful flesh, and Jeremiah 17:9 says, as we know, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” So you have within you a force for deceit.
Obadiah 3,
the prophet said, “The arrogance of your heart has deceived you.” Your
heart is arrogant. Your heart is self-protective, self-promoting,
self-fulfilling, self-aggrandizing, self-defending. Pride is the primary
sin - selfishness. So you have a selfish heart that will want to spin
your life the best way. It’ll want to make you feel the best about your
situation and your behavior. So your heart will deceive you. As long as
you’re still in this world you have that deceptive heart.
In James chapter 1, verse 22, it says, “Prove yourselves doers of the
word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” You can deceive
yourself coming and hearing the Word and doing nothing about it,
thinking because you know the truth, that’s enough. That is a
self-deception. Verse 26 of James 1: “If you don’t bridle your tongue you’re deceiving your own heart; your religion is worthless.”
Self-deceit is a problem for everybody, for all of us, and it tends
to be that the deception kind of runs typically like this: you’re saved,
you’re on the way to heaven, that can’t happen, you’re under grace, the
Lord will never let you go, so there can’t really be too serious
consequences if I walk in the flesh. It turns into a kind of license,
this self-deception. You can add to that the fact that there is a
deceiver in the world. Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20,
verse 3, says Satan is the deceiver who deceives the whole world, who
deceives the nations. So you not only have an internal deceiver, you
have an external deceiver running loose in the world. The potential for
deception is very great.
Listen to 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of
God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the
kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed.” Don’t be
deceived about who’s a true believer. You can be deceived about that.
You can be deceived by choosing bad friends. Listen to 1 Corinthians 15:33,
“Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’” Don’t kid
yourself. If you associate with bad company, they corrupt your morals.
Don’t be deceived.
Don’t be deceived about the church. Listen to Romans 16:17,
“I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and
hindrances contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn
away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of
their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they
deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.” Don’t be deceived by troublemakers in the church, those who tear up unity, those who sow discord, dissension, trouble.
Don’t be deceived by false teachers, Ephesians 4. “Don’t be children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by those who come to deceive you.” And 2 Timothy 3:13
says, “Deceivers will get worse and worse.” We have to live in a very
protective way, because there is the potential for deceit in us, and
there is the reality of deceit all outside us.
Listen to Ephesians 5:6,
“Let no one deceive you with empty words.” Don’t be partakers with
them. You have to know you have a propensity to be deceived. That is why
faithful pastoral ministry has to be biblical, because the only way for
you to be protected from deception is to know what it looks like; and
the Scripture reveals that.
“Don’t be deceived,” Paul is saying here in Galatians 6. Don’t be
deceived that you can walk in the flesh and it’ll be okay. You don’t
want to be a legalist; but on the other hand, you’re liable to go the
other way, and you say, “Well, look, we weren’t saved by law, and we
can’t be perfected in the flesh.” Paul said that back in Galatians 3:3, “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh?”
So it’s not about works, it’s not about works - it’s about the power
of the Spirit. So my works didn’t contribute to my salvation, they can’t
undo my salvation. Why do I have to worry? This tends toward
antinomianism, toward loose living in the name of grace.
“Don’t be deceived, God is not mocked.” You can’t mock God. God is
not fooled, that means. Or, God is not ignored. Or, God is not
outwitted. Or, you can’t sneer at God; you cannot insult Him. You cannot
violate His holy law and think you’re going to get away with it.
In Jude, verse 17, “Beloved, you ought to remember the words that
were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
they were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers,
following after their own ungodly lusts.’” We’re in the last time. We’re
in the last times of the last time. This is the latest it’s ever been
in human history. And the world is full of mockers mocking God, shaking
their fists in the face of God as if He didn’t exist, sneering at God.
You can’t mock God. This is a culture that mocks God relentlessly. God
will not be sneered at. You cannot mock God.
Now, having said that, “Don’t be deceived” – you’re not going to be
able to mock God; here comes the law, and this is His law – “whatever a
man sows, this he will also reap.” “Whatever a man sows, this he will
also reap.” That’s so straightforward and true that it doesn’t really
need an explanation. But we’re going to get one anyway, because Paul
wants us to understand.
You have a choice as a believer: you can walk in the Spirit, you can
walk in the flesh. Don’t think for a moment that you can walk in the
flesh and not pay the consequence. You can’t mock God and get away with
it. I mean, this is essential throughout Scripture.
You have people like Nebuchadnezzar who mocked God back in Daniel.
And what happened to him? He was turned into an animal. You have
Belshazzar in chapter 5 who mocked God. And what happened to him?
Devastating destruction of his entire kingdom. God will not be mocked.
You have Romans chapter 1, where “the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the
truth in unrighteousness.” They turn from the Creator to the creature.
Romans 1 describes a mockery of God, and the wrath of God is released on
men when they mock God. The wrath in Romans is the wrath of turning
them over to their sin, to immorality, homosexuality, and a reprobate
mind.
Now understand this: the wrath of God has a number of forms. Let’s
start with the final form: eternal wrath. God’s eternal wrath is hell,
where all unbelievers will suffer punishment forever. That’s His eternal
wrath.
The Bible also talks about eschatological wrath; that’s the wrath at
the end of human history. That’s wrath described by the prophets and
described by our Lord in the Olivet Discourse at the end of His ministry
in Jerusalem, and it’s described particularly in the book of
Revelation. There is coming horrendous wrath from God on the earth.
So there’s eternal wrath and eschatological wrath. There’s also
cataclysmic wrath. Cataclysmic wrath is what we see in natural disasters
and plagues and all of those kinds of things though human history,
where in some cases in the past, millions of people died from a plague.
And in the modern time, tens of thousands die in a tsunami, and some die
in a hurricane, or whatever it is. The world, the fallen world, the
cursed world is subject to these cataclysmic events, which are a form of
divine wrath. But eschatological wrath is a period of time in the
future. Eternal wrath is after time has ended, and cataclysmic wrath
kind of comes and goes at points in time and place.
There is another kind of wrath that’s operating all the time, it’s
just going on all the time. It’s cyclical, it’s always in place, and
it’s sowing and reaping wrath: what you sow, you reap. And it just never
stops. It is happening all the time. “Whatever a man sows, this he will
also reap.” Whenever he sows, that’s when he will set in motion the
wrath of God. This is a divine principle. If you think you can violate
it you’re mocking God.
There was a commercial years ago that sort of recognized this. In the
commercial they said, “It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature.” Some
of you might remember that old commercial. That was a recognition on a
sort of pagan level of the fact that you can’t mock God.
Man’s atheistic identification is a mockery of God; and you can’t do
that without consequences. For it’s not just atheism. It’s people who
believe in God and reject His Son are mocking God; or people who have
received His Son, but think they can sin with impunity. That’s mocking
God, and that gets down to us.
This law is laid out all through Scripture. Listen to Job 4:8, “Those who plow iniquity sow trouble and harvest it.” “Those who plow iniquity sow trouble and harvest it.” Proverbs 1:31, “They shall eat of the fruit of their own way.” Same principle. Proverbs 11:18, “The wicked earns deceptive wages; he who sows righteousness earns a true reward.” Or Hosea 8:7, “They who sow the wind reap the whirlwind.”
In Hosea, tenth chapter, couple of verses I’ll read to you, verses 12
and 13: “Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with
kindness; break up your fallow ground, it is time to seek the Lord until
He comes to rain righteousness on you.” And that’s an agricultural
scene: sowing, breaking up the ground, the rain, and the result is
righteousness. On the other hand, the prophet says, “You have plowed
wickedness, you have reaped injustice,” or unrighteousness. So this is a
biblical principle. It’s in those places and many other places.
The harvest is determined by the planting, like begets like. If you
want wheat, you don’t plant strawberries. The law is true; it’s true in a
moral sense. The fruit of a life is determined by what that life has
planted. A man’s character and condition is the harvest of his habits.
Think about a child, foolishly indulged and encouraged to think only of
its own whims and its own wishes and its own way. And it may be cute;
but the obstinate, stubborn, sullen, self-centered, undisciplined adult
reaps the whirlwind.
One English writer put the law in its moral sense in these words:
“What strikes me more and more each day is the permanence of one’s early
life, the identity between youth and manhood. Every habit, good and
bad, of those early years seems to have permanently affected my whole
life. The battle is largely won or lost before it seems to begin.” End
quote.
No doubt that’s what the Bible had in mind in Proverbs 22:6,
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he was old he’s not
going to depart from it.” This is an inexorable law that works in life.
Witness, for example, the absolute frustration and hopelessness of
psychiatry and psychology to put people together. Why? Because of this
law. The only way that you can get out of the bondage of this law is to
become a believer and to be transformed; and even then the law still
operates. But for nonbelievers, they can only sow sin, and they can only
reap corruption.
So what does psychology or psychiatry do to fix that? Nothing.
Nothing. This is the operating form of divine wrath that is inescapable
for anyone without the knowledge of God through Christ. Only the divine
miracle of the new birth and regeneration can get you out of that total
bondage, and you still have to be aware that you are subject to
deception, subject to walking in the flesh, and reaping what the flesh
sows.
In Numbers 32:23
it says this: “Be sure your sins will find you out.” “Be sure your sins
will find you out.” That’s sowing and reaping. Or Psalm 90, verse 8,
“Have you” – speaking to God – “you have placed our sins before you, our
secret sins in the light of Your presence.” You didn’t fool God. You
may have mocked Him, but you didn’t fool Him, you didn’t hide anything.
Isaiah 3:11, “Woe to the wicked! It will go badly for him, for what he deserves will be done to him.” Isaiah 59:12, “Our sins testify against us.” Romans 2:9,
“There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does
evil.” You do evil, you’re going to get tribulation and distress. So the
law of God is unchanging, immutable, and relentless, as God’s nature is
unchanging and relentless. You cannot escape it; it is a form of
operating wrath built into the world.
You say, “Well, wait a minute. Well, what about forgiveness? Am I not
forgiven?” Yes. “What about grace? Do I not receive grace?” Yes. “What
about mercy? Have I not received mercy?” Yes. Yes.
God, at the point of salvation, intercepts that fully operating law,
intercepts and gives new life, so that now you have the capacity since
being freed from that law to do what honors God, to walk in the Spirit
by the miracle or redemption. You can now reap what Christ has sown. Yet
in your daily life, that principle still operates. If you walk in the
flesh, you’ll harvest the flesh. If you walk in the Spirit, you’ll
harvest the Spirit.
Think about it in a material sense. Salvation doesn’t prevent people
who drink and smoke and harm their bodies from getting sick or getting
cancer. The Christian who gets in a fight may be a Christian, but it’s
not going to prevent him from having his teeth knocked out. If you drive
recklessly and go off the road, have an accident, the fact that you’re a
Christian isn’t going to protect you from the fact that you sowed
irresponsibility and you ended up with the results. If you’re a
Christian and you sin immorally with another person, that’s not going to
necessarily protect you from venereal disease.
Look, the Greeks even saw this law. They didn’t attribute it to God,
but the Greeks invented a god by the name of Nemesis. And Nemesis, they
believed, was the god who watched everybody’s behavior; and when a
person did a wrong deed, immediately Nemesis took off after that person.
This god got on the trail of the wrongdoer, and sooner or later, the
Greeks said, Nemesis would catch up and pay vengeance.
This is the pagan Greek culture recognizing that there are moral laws
in the world that work. They attributed them to Nemesis when they
should have been attributed to God. And though we are forgiven and
though we are headed for heaven, as long as we’re in this world, living
in this world here and now, this law is still operative. What you sow
you will reap.
This is David, man after God’s own heart. Wrote all those beautiful
psalms; a true worshiper, whose life is marked by outrageous sin; and
always the consequences, always the consequences. The eternal
consequences have been settled, temporal ones have not. So that is the
law stated.
Verse 8, the law is explained: “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.” Sows to his own flesh: the act
of choosing to gratify the cravings of your fallen flesh. Flesh is
always the starting point for sin.
James 1, verse 14, “Each one is tempted when he’s carried away and
enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to
sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be
deceived, my beloved brethren,” – James is writing to believers – “my
beloved brethren. Don’t be deceived.”
When you start with lust and it gives birth to sin it can bring forth
death. This is the harvest of the flesh. Sow to the flesh, and from the
flesh you will reap corruption. It’s a word that means “decay,”
“disintegration,” “degeneration,” or even the ultimate corruption, which
is “death.” If the flesh is indulged, as we saw in verses 19 to 21, the
fruit is corrupt: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery,
enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissentions,
factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing. Those are only samples.
To sow is simply to pander to the flesh. John Stott wrote, “Every
time we allow our mind to harbor a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain
an impure fancy, or wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh.
Every time we linger in bad company, who’s insidious influence we know
we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up and
praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a
risk that strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to
the flesh.”
Some Christians sow to the flesh seemingly every day and wonder why
they don’t reap a harvest of holiness or usefulness. Let me make it
simple: holiness is a harvest. Holiness is a harvest of sowing to the
Spirit, not the flesh. Sow to the flesh, you harvest corruption. In the
case of the believer, this corruption is simply the corruption of your
Christian experience: the loss of peace; the loss of joy; the loss of
worship, service, usefulness. The world knows this; they get it.
Years ago I read about Oscar Wilde who was a homosexual but kept it
hidden; and eventually his life was a total disaster, and he wrote, “I
had forgotten that what a man does in secret he will one day shout from
the housetop. I was fascinated by poetry as a young man. I read the
poetry of Lord Byron, who his whole life sowed to the flesh. And he knew
what the harvest was when he wrote these words: ‘My days are in the
yellow leaf, my soul is soar with sullen grief; it is as if the dead
could feel the icy worm around them steal and shudder as the reptiles
creep to revel o’er their rotting sleep.’”
This is the despair of one who sowed to the flesh. It’s how the world
lives. And really, in a sense, it’s all they can do. But as believers,
why would we do that? Do we think we can mock God? Are we deceived? No,
you sow to the flesh, it’s inexorable. It’s a law; it’s an operative
principle. You sow to the flesh you’re going to end up with corruption
in your life. Sow to the Spirit, that’s going to produce – I love this –
eternal life. “The one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap
eternal life.”
“What do you mean, ‘Will from the Spirit reap eternal life’? Don’t we
already have eternal life?” Well, we possess eternal life, yes. We
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ve been given eternal life. This
isn’t talking about future heaven. We have that secured; that’s already
ours.
“What do you mean, ‘Reap eternal life’?” We’re talking about here and
now, right? This is where this law operates. This law isn’t operating
in heaven; this law operates here and now. And whatever it meant when
you sowed to the flesh, it means when you sow to the Spirit. And since
that’s here in this world, and since the results are showing up here in
this world, this is also here in this world, and the results will show
up in this world.
“Well, what do you mean we’re going to reap eternal life?” What Paul
means is we’re going to reap the full blessings contained in that life
which is already ours in Christ. And what are those blessings? Love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control, other blessings. The Christian who sows to the Spirit
reaps the full blessing, the plentitude – all the satisfactions, all the
joys of eternal life, enjoying peace, joy, love, patience, goodness,
kindness, being conformed to Christ. So the law is explained.
Thirdly, the divine law having been stated and explained is now
fulfilled in verse 9, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due
time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” At this point, some of the
Galatians, and maybe some of you are thinking, “Hmm, I’ve been sowing a
lot of good things; I’ve been walking in the Spirit. When does the
harvest come?” That’s what this verse is addressing.
“Let us not lose heart in doing good,” because you can be pouring
your life into walking in the Spirit and wondering why things are
difficult in your life. “Don’t lose heart in doing good, in due time we
will reap if we do not grow weary.” Due time is God’s time, in God’s
season.
Christians frequently act like children with reference to this
harvest. They want to sow and reap the same day. So some of the
Spirit-filled believers are saying, “I’m sowing. The sowing is hard, and
I’m getting tired, and I don’t know if I’m seeing what I expected to
see.” This is for you: “Do not lose heart. Do not grow weary.” And “do
not lose heart” comes from engkakeō. Kakeō is “to sin.”
Don’t sin by becoming discouraged and entertaining fleshly
discouragement. “Don’t lose heart” is a term used sometimes by a farmer
who begins to slacken because he gets weary - he’s worn out, he’s
fatigued. Don’t do that.
The end of 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul says, “My beloved
brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, knowing your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” Keep doing it -
abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing your toil is not in vain. God
will bring the harvest. No place for weariness, no place for spiritual
laziness. God has been faithful to us, we need to be faithful to sow the
seeds of righteousness.
“Don’t lose heart in doing good,” “doing kalos,” “real good”;
“outward, manifest good.” This is the result of the fruit of the Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit is attitude: love, joy, peace. Those are all
attitudes, and they result in actions, good actions. “Keep it up. Don’t
grow tired. Don’t grow lazy. Don’t turn away.” “Be like Christ,” Hebrews
chapter 12. Even though it was a hard road, He never grew weary, but
moved ahead because He saw the prize that was set before Him.
“Reward will come” – back to verse 9 – “in due time, in due time” –
God’s time; God’s season – “and you will reap if you don’t grow weary.”
Reminds me of the letter to the churches in Revelation about not growing
weary. There’s a full harvest if you’re faithful. Don’t turn away,
continue abounding in the work of the Lord.
Second John 8
says, “Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have
accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.” That’s talking
about heaven. Keep moving. God will give you a harvest here and now, and
a reward in the future.
Finally, the principle has been stated and explained, and its
fulfillment promised. Finally, the divine law is applied in verse 10,
“So then,” – or “therefore” – “while we have opportunity,” – let me stop
on the word “opportunity.” When we see the word “opportunity,” it kind
of feels like a moment in time. It kind of feels like an event. “I had
the opportunity.” We use it that way in our speech. But the Greek word
here, kairos, is not referring to a moment in time, or an event, or an intersection of circumstances. Kairos means “a season,” “a period,” “an era,” even “an age,” rather than chronos, which is clock time – minutes and hours.
So while we are in this season. What season? The season between our
salvation and our glorification, okay. “While we’re in this season,” –
this “fixed time,” this “fixed time” – “let us do good to all people.”
That’s where we start. “Do good,” – “the good” literally in the Greek –
“the good,” “the good” he has spoken of: love, joy, peace - all those
things - all that is virtuous, all that is noble, all that is honorable.
And the whole New Testament is just full of verses that call us to this living goodness. First Peter 2:15, “Such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.” Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
The New Testament is full of calls on us to do good, to silence the
critics, to manifest the transformation that Christ has wrought in our
lives, to be lights in the world. This is the heart of our Christian
testimony. So while we are in this season of life, let us do good to all
people; let us be known by our goodness, known by our goodness.
In Titus 2:7,
“Show yourself an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine,
dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the
opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.” Or
verse 14, “who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed,
and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for
good deeds.” Down in chapter 3, verse 8, “Be careful to engage in good
deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.” Verse 14, “Our
people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.”
This is the heart of our testimony, to sow righteousness, to sow in
the Spirit, to sow good deeds, “especially” – he closes in verse 10 –
“to those who are of the household of faith,” of the faith, the Christian faith – especially believers, especially fellow believers. We should do nothing but good to one another, nothing but good, never anything but good.
“So then,” Ephesians 2:19,
“you are no longer strangers and aliens, you’re fellow citizens with
the saints, and you’re of God’s household.” You’re part of His family
from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name. You’re
God’s family. You need to show good to the family.
So the call was clear. There’s a law operating in the world. You
can’t get around it; you can’t avoid it; it works. The whole universe is
built on laws, physical and moral. God’s moral law is summed up in, at
least in this aspect, “What you sow, you reap.” That ought to be the
motivation for living your life, walking in the Spirit, that you might
reap the fruit of the Spirit.
Again, I say, you sow in the Spirit, you reap holiness. Holiness is the harvest of righteous sowing.
