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THE GOSPEL OF GOD'S GRACE CREATES A WORD CENTERED COMMUNITYGalatians 6:6-10INTRODUCTION We live in a day when it is normal and even expected that we be skeptical of people in authority and especially skeptical of those who claim to speak for God. The highly publicized failures and corruptions of our political and religious leaders coupled with a massive shift in our culture's view of truth have fueled a profound cynicism towards all authority but especially towards those authorities who claim to speak for God. It is a temptation, when we discover that we have been misled by a pastor or have been betrayed by a religious leader’s fall into sin to become cynical and mistrusting and thus refuse to listen to any other person who claims to speak for God. It seems that the safest course of action is the one taken by the vast majority of Americans, don't trust yourself to anyone or any one church's teaching but rather make up your own religious belief system by picking and choosing which things you want to believe. A “cafeteria line” religion has become the norm in the U.S. While the causes may not be the same, yet skepticism towards religious authority is a problem that the apostle Paul must deal with in his letter to the Galatians. False teachers have come into these churches that Paul founded. They came preaching "another gospel which is really no gospel at all" (Gal. 1:6-7). They taught that faith in Christ was not enough but just as God commanded in the OT, all the Gentiles needed to become Jewish through circumcision and obeying Jewish food laws and observing the Jewish holy days. They taught that the only way to go to heaven and to live like a Christian was to believe in Jesus and obey the OT law. We know that many in these churches were persuaded by these false teachers and were beginning to embrace this false gospel. It is due to this drifting from the true gospel into believing a false gospel that motivates Paul to write this letter. This entire letter is based upon the assumption that there is one word from God that is unique and which must be believed and lived out if a human being is going to heaven. What you believe about God and yourself and about the world you live in and what kind of life you ought to live is not a matter of personal opinion. True faith in Christ is not like eating at a cafeteria where I pick the food I like but more like eating a home cooked meal at home where I eat what my mother sets before me. God has not left it up to our own imaginations to determine what he is like and what we are like and what the world is like. He has told us the truth. This word from God has been written down on the pages of the OT and the NT Scriptures. Paul's whole argument has been that the church must be built upon this revealed word. The safety and health of every Christian church and of every Christian is dependent upon our commitment to know and understand this word. We must make it our chief ambition to conform our beliefs and our behavior to what is revealed in this book. It is this commitment to God's word that is behind what Paul says in Galatians 6:6-10. MAIN POINT The word of God is the center of the church’s life therefore Christians honor God’s word by…I. Honoring those who teach God’s word (vv. 6-7) I need to begin here by showing you why it is that I am convinced that Paul is addressing the necessity of keeping the word of God central in the church in these verses. First, we have to explain why Paul, apparently out of the blue, commands the Galatians to financially support those who teach them the word of God. This verse, on the surface, appears to have no connection to what precedes it nor with what follows it. The only reason I can see for why Paul would say this here at the end of the letter is due to the circumstances that exist in the church at Galatia. The churches possess the OT Scriptures. They have been given two conflicting explanations about what those Scriptures mean in light of the coming of Christ. Some have been persuaded by the false teachers, others are wavering between the two explanations and presumably some have remained loyal to Paul. Now this letter from Paul arrives and I think that Paul is confident that the tide will turn in favor of the true gospel. But, Paul is not present to follow up his letter with the kind of personal, pastoral work that needs to be done in order to help the wavering, rebuke the belligerent and solidify the faithful. So who is going to do the ongoing work that needs to be done? Which leads me to ask this question, what happened to all the elders that Paul and Barnabas appointed before they left Galatia the first time? Presumably, they are still in these communities. Perhaps the false teachers have influenced some but most likely others have continued to try to oppose these false teachers. However, it would be difficult for local men to successfully compete with the false teachers from the famous Jerusalem church claiming authority from the original apostles. So Paul, by writing this letter confirms the true message and who the true messengers are. He has now given to the congregation a means for determining if a person who claims to be teaching the word of God is actually teaching that word. He is convinced the church needs teachers, "on the ground" to take the written word and apply it to the particular situation the Galatians find themselves in. They need teachers to help people deal personally with the truth of the gospel. Therefore, Paul tells the Galatians that they should financially support those who teach the word as he has given it to them. The other reason I believe that Paul is seeking to help the church keep the word of God at the center of its life is because of v. 7. First, he commands, "do not be deceived." Isn't that the point of the letter to the Galatians? False teachers who are communicating a false gospel are deceiving them. They need to hold fast to the truth. If they are deceived and accept the false teachers and their false message they will go to hell according to 1:6-9. He warns them here that they should not think that God is not paying attention to what they believe and to what the false teachers are saying. God knows and God will respond to false teaching and false faith. Second, the word, "mocked" is only used here in the NT but is used about a dozen times in the OT. It is regularly used to describe people mocking God by mocking or ignoring or disobeying God's message and his messengers, the prophets. Paul uses the word here to show that if the Galatians don't financially support those who teach the word as he has taught it, then they are mocking God. He is referring to the false teachers and their false doctrine and all who pay attention to them. They are mocking God by believing lies about him. But you might be saying to me, "But John, Paul says that God is not being mocked, how can you say he is being mocked?" The point of what Paul is saying is not that human beings don't mock God by believing false teachers and ignoring or mocking true teachers but that no one successfully mocks God. That's the point of the second half of the verse. Everyone who mocks God by disbelieving or disobeying the gospel of Christ and those who teach his gospel will reap, as v. 8 has it, corruption. This is one of the most often repeated themes in the OT. Everyone who despises God by disobeying his word as delivered by his prophets will suffer eternal destruction. Proverbs 1:20-33 is one of hundreds of descriptions of this reality. In this poetic passage, "wisdom", i.e., God's word, is personified as a woman crying out in the streets. In part she says, "How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called…and since no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice… I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you… Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease without fear of harm." As Paul has said in Gal. 6:7, “whatever a man sows, that will he also reap.” Thus Paul commands in v. 6 that the church financially support those duly appointed teachers who are teaching the truth as Christ revealed it to him and the other apostles (See 1 Cor. 9:13-14). He is not saying that we are to support anyone who puts himself or herself forward as a teacher. Rather, we are to financially support those who are duly ordained by the church (Such as the elders appointed by Paul and Barnabas at Galatia) and who continue in teaching the truth of the gospel in accordance with the apostolic instruction. The threat that is associated with this command is that if you do not financially support faithful teachers you will reap the consequence of destruction, which is simply another way of saying you will end up in hell. Here is one of many reasons to give money to the church: when you give to the church you are not mocking God. When you withhold financial support you are mocking God by mocking his word through mocking his teachers. Paul is deadly serious. He views having equipped, godly teachers who don't have to work to support themselves but have the freedom to study and teach God's word because the church supports them financially, as the most necessary thing in the church. The most necessary thing to maintain the health and safety of a local church and the Christians in that church is faithful teachers of the word of God. Any Christian that does not make the faithful exposition of the Scriptures the primary test as to what church they will attend is committing suicide. You can attend the most unfriendly church in the world which meets in the ugliest building in town with the worst music in town and is totally unorganized in its various ministries but if it has a pastor who is faithfully teaching the word of God, then you are in a good church. Any church that does not make as first priority finding and supporting pastors and elders who know the gospel, are able to teach the gospel and who view teaching the gospel in public and private as their primary responsibility is a church that is planning on not existing as a true church of Jesus Christ for very long. There are many things that go into making up a good Christian church but there is nothing more important than this. It is a fundamental commitment of our church and a dream of ours that we will be a place now and for decades to come where God's word is faithfully taught. We aim to build into the DNA of our church a primary commitment to the faithful, doctrinal exposition of God's word so that when we are dead there will yet remain in this place the faithful teaching of God's word. It is our prayer that we will be able to financially support additional pastors to instruct us and who will plant additional churches in Rock County where God's word is kept at the center. The word of God is the center of the church’s life therefore Christians honor God’s word by…
II. Obeying God’s word through the Spirit (v. 8) Paul only uses this metaphor of sowing and reaping on two other occasions in his letters and both times he is talking about giving money to the church to support those who preach the gospel and to provide assistance to poor Christians (1 Cor. 9:7-14 & 2 Cor. 9:6ff). However, I don't think that the only thing that Paul is talking about with this metaphor here is simply about giving money. There are a number of differences between this use of the metaphor and those other ones. The two questions we have to answer are what does he mean by sowing to the flesh and what does he mean by sowing to the Spirit? We can answer those two questions by considering both the immediate context and the context of the letter itself. First, I do think Paul does mean for us to view financially supporting certified teachers of the gospel as sowing to the Spirit and withholding such support as sowing to the flesh. Second, v. 9, which says we are to not grow weary in doing good shows that doing good to others, especially to other Christians is sowing to the Spirit and not doing good to others, especially not doing good to Christians is viewed as sowing to the flesh. However, in view of the broader context, it seems to me that Paul is talking about something broader than how we give our money or do good to others. In light of the fact that he has used flesh and Spirit as his summary words for living by faith in self or living by faith in Christ, I think we are to view this primarily in these terms. Every human being is always at every moment of their life either sowing to their flesh or sowing to the Spirit. Think with me about the metaphor itself. When we talk about sowing we are talking about work and about the investment of resources by faith. When a farmer plants his seeds in the spring he is investing his time, his energy, his thinking, his money into that which he believes will become his income in the future. Sowing requires intense, focused attention to this work in faith. He believes that planting these seeds in this land at this time will produce for him more seeds than he planted, at a later date, which will then be the source of his life. A farmer sowing seeds is the ultimate expression of faith. He believes the seeds will grow and produce a harvest and he believes that obtaining a harvest of grain is what he must have to live. When we sow to our flesh we believe certain promises and act in accord with those promises. We can sow to the flesh in a variety of ways. One of the ways to sow to your flesh is to believe that God accepts good people or faithful people and punishes bad people. It is to work hard at being religious or moral in the belief that your performance will determine your acceptance with God. This is what the false teachers in Galatia were doing. They taught that obedience to various laws was necessary to go to heaven and to please God. We are sowing to the flesh when we give money or go to church or help our neighbor or read the Bible because we believe that God likes us better because we do these things. We are sowing to the flesh when we believe that our prayers, our decisions, our sincerity, our good works obligates God to accept us into heaven and to do good things for us on earth. Let me get specific with you by describing two ways I’ve recently been confronted with how pervasive this sort of sowing to the flesh is in our churches. I had a conversation with a friend who lives in another city. One of her sons, who is about 11, was expressing doubt that he was a Christian. This mom told him that he was a Christian because he had asked Jesus into his heart when he was about 4. This didn’t satisfy the young man and so my friend told her son that they should pray together and he should ask Jesus into his heart again and then he would know for sure he had done that and therefore he was a Christian. Do you see what is being communicated? She is telling her son that the way to know he is a Christian is because he prayed a prayer. His faith is in his praying a prayer, not in Christ. This is sowing to the flesh, performing a good deed in the belief that it obligates God to respond. Christ is not in you because you pray a prayer but because you trust Christ. A second example of this religious sowing to the flesh, which has been around along time but has received renewed emphasis recently comes from a very popular Christian teacher in Texas by the name of Joel Olsteen. I guess he has the largest church in America now. His congregation recently purchased and refurbished the sports arena that the Houston Rockets used to play basketball in. My wife has an Internet relationship with a woman who attends his church. She has communicated to Jane that Mr. Olsteen has taught his congregation that when they only speak positively about things they want God to do for them and refuse to speak negatively, then God will, without question, give them what they want. In other words, it is my words that determine what God is going to do or not do. Apparently, he is teaching people to trust their words, not Christ. This is a perfect example of a religious way to sow to the flesh. Your word has no power over God. Your attitude has no power over God. If God is for you it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with Christ. There is no work of man, no word of man, no attitude of man, no prayer of man that obligates God to do good to man. God responds to only one thing in us and that is faith in Christ because only Christ has performed what God requires. Another way to sow to your flesh looks very different from the religious way I just described but is nonetheless the exact same thing. When you believe that living a middle class lifestyle in the U.S. is the way to be happy and then you invest your time, thought and energy in attaining and preserving that lifestyle, that is sowing to your flesh. When you believe that having children who respect you and who make you proud by going to college and getting good jobs and you invest your life in making sure they have all the best opportunities to develop themselves, that is sowing to the flesh. When you believe that the approval of your friends and getting to hang out with them is the most important thing in life and so you invest your time in instant messaging and emailing and text messaging and hanging out at the mall, then you are sowing to the flesh. When you believe that getting to play Internet games is the greatest pleasure and you spend your time and money in equipment and playing the games, that is sowing to your flesh. When you believe that getting high on dope or crack or methamphetamine is the surest way to enjoy life and thus you spend all your time and money pursuing getting high, then you are sowing to the flesh. You are sowing to the flesh whenever you pursue life and happiness apart from God. Sowing to the Spirit on the other hand is to live by faith in Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Scriptures. When you live by faith in Christ you are trusting that God loves you and is going to reward you with heaven, not because of anything you have ever done, thought, felt, or decided but only because Jesus Christ always loved God and people and because he went to hell in your place. If you are a person who has faith in Jesus, then you are a person who has been born of the Spirit. The way you sow to the Spirit is you invest your time, thoughts, energy, and money into the things that increase your faith in Jesus and the faith of others. You sow to the Spirit when you gather your family together to read the Scripture and to pray together because you believe knowing Jesus is better than watching TV. You sow to the Spirit when you give money to support our missionaries because you believe it is a greater joy to help others know Christ than to buy a newer car. You sow to the Spirit when you don't take the promotion because it will take you away from your family too much. You sow to the Spirit when you take the promotion because you believe God has placed you in this position of authority to promote more just and honest business practices. You sow to the Spirit when you use your vacation time to go to Mongolia because you believe sharing the gospel among an unreached people group is a better treasure than spending a week fishing in northern WI. You sow to the Spirit when you determine to wait until you are married to have sexual relations because you believe that the pleasure of knowing Jesus is infinitely superior to the pleasure of sex. Sowing to the Spirit is obeying God's word because you believe that knowing Christ and being like Christ is infinitely better than having the whole world. The word of God is the center of the church’s life therefore Christians honor God’s word by…
III. Applying God’s word in hope (vv. 8-10) Three times in three verses Paul tells us that everyone is going to reap in accord with what they have sown. Again, if we just think for a moment about the metaphor, what he is saying will make perfect sense. Every farmer who sows corn in his field in the spring can be absolutely certain that he will harvest corn and not oats from that field in the fall. There is absolutely no way to avoid that fact. Whatever seed you sow in the spring, that is the crop you will harvest in the fall. The other fact of sowing and reaping is that you must wait for the harvest. You can't speed it up or slow it down. The harvest is coming but you have to wait for it. In other words there isn't an immediate result when you plant the seed. Over time you see the plant grow and you can watch the seeds develop but the final harvest is not until the end. You don’t receive the fullness of what you have sown until final harvest. Thus it is in the spiritual realm. If you are sowing to the flesh, then you can be sure that there is a day coming when you will reap from your flesh a harvest of destruction. You will begin to see the plants you have sown grow and develop but the final harvest only comes once and then at the end of the development process. So it is that men spend their lives pursuing religious attainment expecting to go to heaven but will discover at the end of all things when Christ stands as judge that they will be told by him, "I never knew you. Away from me you who practice lawlessness." So it is that humans who spend their lives for the purpose of possessing houses and cars or achieving worldly success or building loving families or enjoying the pleasures of sex will one day stand before Christ, their judge and reap the fruit of their labor. Christ will say, "Tie them up and throw them out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Everyone who is sowing to his or her flesh will end up in conscious, eternal torment in hell, that's what Paul means by the word, destruction. However, everyone who sows to the Spirit, who does not give up or grow weary in doing good will reap eternal life. Paul is not teaching in contradiction to what he has said throughout his letter that God gives us eternal life because of what we do. Rather, Paul is merely expressing what the Bible says all over the place, everyone who has been born of God's Spirit and thus has a new nature lives by faith in Christ which means they believe that knowing Christ and being like Christ is better than the whole universe. Thus, as we've seen over the last three weeks, while we are growing to love God and people more and more, yet we will never love God and people perfectly. We will always need a Savior and will never be accepted into heaven because of what we have done but only because of what he has done. Yet, we are making progress in love towards God and love towards people. We are obeying God's word because we believe that obedience to God is the surest way to be happy. However we know that our ultimate happiness will not be here on earth but at the end of all things when we receive our inheritance, eternal life with Christ. We sow now by faith but in hope of receiving the fruit, the harvest of our sowing, in heaven. We are not looking for the reward now, we are waiting to receive the reward at the harvest, when Christ returns. That is why Paul says in v. 9 that we are not to grow weary in doing good because at the proper time we will reap if we don’t grow weary. That proper time is the return of Christ. What would happen to the farmer who plants his corn and then when he sees weeds growing in the midst of the corn, says, “I quit. I planted corn and now I’ve got weeds and corn. I’m not going to waste my time weeding. I’m going to go fishing.” The moment the farmer stops farming, he can be sure he won’t reap a harvest of corn. That is what Paul is saying here. Everyone who trusts Christ keeps on sowing to the Spirit, expecting to receive the reward when Christ returns, not before. I am convinced that not remembering this basic idea, I must not grow weary of doing good but must hopefully wait for the harvest for a long time after I've sown the seed, is the cause of much grief in the lives of Christians. We want the harvest immediately. We are shocked that there are weeds growing up with the corn and there is drought and we are tempted to quit. Children turn away from Christ, marriages are not what we want, church’s are disappointing, reading the Bible often seems perfunctory, we are as beset by worry now as when we first trusted Christ, our loved ones are injured or killed, we get sick and we begin to wonder, what is the point of trusting in Christ, of doing good for the sake of Christ? We must remember that the harvest is yet to come, not now. The only true faith is the faith that perseveres to the end, that knows the reward comes when Christ returns and not before. We are to be living in hope of the harvest. If you are sowing to the Spirit, you can be sure that the harvest is coming. However, it will not be here until Christ returns so if you're looking for heaven on earth, you're looking for the wrong thing. I've said this before and it bears repeating. Christ didn't die to bring heaven to earth now but to bring you to heaven later. We do not grow weary in doing good, in sowing to the Spirit because we know that we are going to receive a harvest at the last day that corresponds to our sowing. The word of God is the center of the church’s life therefore Christians honor God’s word by…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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