By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett -Asbury Free Methodist
January 5, 2025 – Galatians 6:7-9
It is the first Sunday of the new year. Often this is a time when I begin a new series. I am not going to do that this year. Instead, between now and lent I am going to speak on different issues that I believe we need to be reminded of.
Today I want to look at the principle of sowing and reaping. Scripture is steeped in this life principle but a lot of us miss it because we don’t want it to be true. Either that or we are unable to apply our understanding of it to everyday life. Whether or not we are oblivious to it, it affects our lives in profound ways.
Here are our theme verses for today
Galatians 6:7–9 (NRSV)
7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
This is one of those profound principles from the word of God that you ignore at your own peril. But it is important to understand that it is a principle not a math formula. Life isn’t so straight forward so that if you always do the right thing, things will always turn out alright. If I do “A” and “B” I will always get “C.” That is math – not life.
A principle is more like a manual that came with your car. If you read the manual, it will tell you to do an oil change every 5000 kilometers. You don’t have to do that. You can drive 40, 50 or 60, thousand kilometers without changing your oil. But if you do that, it will eventually catch up to you. Your engine will wear out. Your car will have a lot shorter life span than it should have had.
Principles are like that. You can disregard what God has said in his word. It may even feel, for a time, that you are getting away with it. But it eventually catches up to you. You reap what you sow.
If you sow love and kindness you tend to get friendship. But if you never reach out to people and always expect them to reach out to you, you tend to end up alone.
If you continually sow laziness you tend to end up broke. If you sow seeds of lust in your mind, you tend to end up with broken relationships. If you sow gratitude you tend to end up with joy.
Like I said, this is a principle. It is the way life usually works. It doesn’t work like that all the time. You can sow hard work and end up broke because you worked in the wrong way or for the wrong company. But generally speaking, you reap what you sow.
This is especially true in your spiritual life. If you sow to please your sinful nature you are not going to experience the fruit of the Spirit. If you sow to please God you will find yourself blessed by God.
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I have known Christians who disregarded this principle of reaping and sowing because “after all” they would say, “we are saved by grace.” We don’t reap the penalty of our sin. Jesus paid for our sin. In our salvation we didn’t reap what we have sown.
That is true. God’s love and God’s underserved favour are not earned. They are freely given by God. God forgives you out of his goodness, not because you have earned it.
But here is the thing, God saves you from the penalty of sin not the consequences of sin. I am not recommending this – but if you go out this week and steal something. God will forgive you from the sin of stealing. You can have your relationship with him restored by confessing your sin to him. But God does not promise to shield you from the consequences of sin. Namely the stress of wondering whether or not you are going to caught. Then getting caught, arrested, charged and sentenced. God saves you from the penalty of sin not the consequences of sin. You reap what you sow.
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Galatians 6:7–8 (NRSV)
7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
If you are a farmer or a gardener, you are going to grasp this metaphor faster. I grew up on a farm. Here is what you need to understand about sowing and reaping.
You will get out of the ground what you put into the ground. If you plant grass seed, you get grass. If you plant corn, you get corn. If you plant an apple tree, it doesn’t turn into carrots, it becomes an apple tree.
If you are at gardner, you will understand that there is a significant amount of time between sowing and reaping. You don’t plant tomatoes today and get them tomorrow. You don’t plant in acorn today and get an oak tree tomorrow. Things take time to grow.
The other thing that you will understand as a gardener is that the plant that grows doesn’t look anything like the seed. A carrot does not look like a carrot seed. An apple tree does not look like an apple seed.
The last thing that is helpful to remember is that if you sow a few seeds, you will get a few plants. If you sow a lot of seeds, you will get a lot of plants. You reap in proportion to what you sow.
If you keep these four things in mind when we talk about sowing and reaping It will help you when we start to talk about the specifics of life.
- You get out of the ground what you put in.
- There is a significant time between sowing and reaping.
- The seed does not always look like what you reap.
- You reap in proportion to what you sow.
In 2025, this will be true for you.
- You get out of the ground what you put in.
- There is a significant time between sowing and reaping.
- The seed does not always look like what you reap.
- You reap in proportion to what you sow.
Let’s look at some specifics.
Job 4:8 (NIV)
8 As I have observed, those who plow evil
and those who sow trouble reap it.
If you sow trouble, you will reap trouble. Maybe not right away. It might not look like the trouble you have sown. But you will reap trouble. The more trouble you sow, the more you are likely to reap.
If you sow gossip and slander and hatred it is going to come back on you. If you sow dissent and jealousy and envy – it will come back on you. You get out of life what you put into life. There may be a time lag between what you sow and what you reap. What you reap may not even look like what you have sown. But you will reap it – and it tends to be in proportion to what you have sown.
Here is how I have observed this happening. People who gossip and slander other people often expect others to do the same to them. This leads them to be defensive and inauthentic. They wall others out. It affects their relationships in a very negative way. That makes them into the kind of people who are easy to talk negatively about.
They get out of life what they have put in. But gossip and slander tend to corrupt the soul over time. So, there is a time lag between sowing and reaping. There walled in defensive life looks different from the gossip they spread. But they reap what they sow.
Job 4:8 (NIV)
8 As I have observed, those who plow evil
and those who sow trouble reap it.
Let me take you to another scripture that give us four types of seed.
Luke 6:37–38 (NIV)
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Don’t judge – or you will reap what you sow. Don’t condemn, or you will reap what you sow. Forgive and you will reap what you sow. Be generous and you will reap what you sow.
Don’t judge. Matthew 7 expands on this idea.
Matthew 7:1–2 (NIV)
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Let me say a word about judgment before we get to sowing and reaping. The bible has a different view of what judgement is than does our world. In our world, if you say any type of behaviour is wrong, you are being judgemental. That is unhelpful. How would you parent if you told your kid that everything they did was right?
When the bible talks about judging people, it is talking about judging their motives. When someone does something we don’t like we have a tendency to impute bad motives. They are selfish, or uncaring, or spiteful, or evil. They don’t care. They are lazy. They are this or that. When you judge people’s motives you are doing what you shouldn’t do. If you do that you will be judged in the same way.
I have never found a happy person who was a judgmental person. You will notice that in Luke judging and condemning are written in parallel. We often move from judging to condemning quickly.
I have noticed that when we are judging others, we tend to judge their weaknesses against our strengths. We would never do what they are doing. We would never be like they are. We condemn them. But these kinds of people tend to be very harsh with themselves. They expect and receive the condemnation of others.
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Back to our Luke verse.
Luke 6:37–38 (NIV)
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Forgiveness and giving are also in parallel. Generous attitudes towards other – like forgiving others’ faults bring people who are generous towards you. Being generous with your time, talent and treasure has a way for coming back to you.
It may not come back quickly. It may not be in the same form. But your generosity will allow God to be generous to you.
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I think you get how it works. So, let’s go back to our text and think about the upcoming year.
Galatians 6:7–9 (NIV)
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Paul uses the term “sow to please their flesh.” Your flesh is the part of you that wants to rebel against God. It is the part of you that wants what is bad not good. It is that part of you that wants to live life outside of God’s boundaries.
How do you sow to the flesh? How do you sow to the Spirit? The way I think about it is that there are things that you do that turn your face away from God and things that you do that turn your face towards God.
I think it is helpful to view these things on a spectrum. There are things that are out at each end of the spectrum. If you do things that feed your lust or anger or hatred that is going to destroy your soul. You will reap destruction. On the other side of the spectrum there are the things that please the Spirit. Things like prayer and bible reading and church and fellowship and serving.
But most of our lives are lived, not on the edges but in the middle. That is why thinking about which way your face is turned, either towards or away from God can be helpful. When you are doing housework your face can be turned towards God or away from God. When it is turned towards God – you are doing what you are doing for him. When it turned away from God you are cursing and complaining about the people who made the mess.
When you are at your job or working along someone else – your face be turned towards God or away from God. Depending on where you face is turned will depend on whether you are sowing to the Spirit or the flesh.
When you are reading or watching the News. You can turn your face towards God – and pray. You can turn your face away from God and complain and grumble about our leaders and the state of the world. How you watch the news affects your soul.
How you talk with others can affect your soul. I am not talking about whether or not you have explicitly spiritual conversation or not. But conversations have a way of turning our face towards God or away from God. You can have a conversation where the content is true but it turns your face away from God. When it is overwhelmingly negative for no purpose – that will turn your face away from God.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV)
11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
There is so much in this life to be curious about. Sow to the Spirit.
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I was a farmer. I am not a gardener. But my friends who are gardeners start to get excited at this time of year. This is the time of year where you start to think about seed catalogs. You start to think about what you would like to grow in your garden.
Some of my friends have wonderful imaginations. They can see in their minds eye what their flower garden will look like even before they plant a bulb. They can imagine what it will look like in spring, in summer and in fall.
They understand that if they order the seeds now and plant them at the appropriate time that they are likely to get the garden they want. For my friends who grow vegetable gardens, they plan out what different parts of the garden will hold. They think about how much they want to plant and harvest. A person can plant too many green beans you know. They can see in their minds eye what kind of harvest they hope to have.
You are the gardener of your own soul. You will reap what you sow. So, think about the kind of garden you would like to have in 2025. If you want to harvest strong connection with God, then you need to so the things that will foster that connection. If you want your life to be overflowing with blessing, then generously sow blessing. Give and it will be given onto you.
You cannot sow trouble and reap peace. You cannot sow hatred and reap love. You cannot sow envy and jealousy and reap contentment. You cannot sow bitterness and reap wholeness. You reap what you sow.
What do you want your soul to look like in the coming months and years? What you do matters. What you sow matters.
- You get out of life what you sow into it.
- There is a significant time between sowing and reaping.
- The seed does not always look like what you reap.
- You reap in proportion to what you sow.
If you keep on sowing what you are sowing you will keep on reaping what you are reaping. If you are satisfied with the harvest then give thanks. If there are some things that you would like to see happen in your life then ask yourself if you are using the right seed.
Here is God’s promise to you.
Galatians 6:9 (NRSV)
So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.