Turn in your Bibles to Galatians Chapter 6. I'd like us to read from verse 1 through to verse 10, and I'd like to consider more particularly verses 7-10 this morning. Galatians Chapter 6, verse 1: "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. But if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another, for each one shall bear his own load. Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith."
Lord, we come to You, we ask that You would come to us by Your Spirit, and that You would bring life, strength, power to our feeble, frail, dying hearts, that we might know that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We ask that You would anoint Your servant, Lord, as I stand to bring Your word, may I bring it in the power of the Holy Spirit, and I pray that Your people would receive the word of God today with hearts rejoicing, hearts knowing that they are hearing from heaven and are receiving that which their soul most needs, and we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.
This section, as I've mentioned over the last couple of weeks, deals with the practical demonstrations of life in the Spirit, what it looks like to walk in the Spirit. Most practically, is that we are called to restore one another, we are called to bear one another's burdens, and last week we considered we are called to share, to give to those who teach us the Word of God. Today, we're going to look at the last of those before Paul rounds off his epistle with a conclusion, and that last one is the call to do good, and really it does encapsulate the whole, right? Because what is doing good but burden-bearing and sharing and all the other things there? This is, you could say, Paul's final argument against what he has been dealing with throughout this entire epistle.
Paul has been concerned, from Chapter 1, as we have looked at quite some time ago now, he was concerned about another gospel that was being brought into the church, that taught believers at Galatia that yes, you must believe in Jesus, but you must also be circumcised in order to really be saved, to really be perfected. And Paul was so concerned about this, and through his epistle, he says this is another gospel, and this gospel and those who preach it should be accursed and cast out from the congregation of the Lord. And he has been then demonstrating and alleging throughout this entire epistle how it is that the gospel of the grace of God through faith alone in Jesus Christ is so much far superior to a gospel of works. And he's been showing and demonstrating that if you pursue a law-works salvation, a salvation that depends upon what you do, you are under the law, you are dead to do the whole law, you are under the law's curse, and you will lead a life, as he says in Chapter 5, that is utterly powerless, a life that would demonstrate and manifest itself in the works of the flesh that will ultimately lead to your destruction and your ruin.
But he says, but if you believe the gospel that I preached to you, which you have received, the gospel that teaches that God, in His mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord, by faith alone in Him, is our righteousness, He is our justification, He is the only hope of our being complete before God and being accepted before God. If you believe this gospel, the gospel of free grace, you'll be united to Christ, you have life in the Spirit, the manifestation of that life in Chapter 5 will be the fruit of the Spirit, and as you walk in the Spirit, you will lead a life that leads you to everlasting life.
And we must not interpret this passage as isolated from the rest of what we've been looking at because you may come to a passage like this and say, "See, if I want eternal life, all I got to do is do good." Alright, so what you sow is what you reap, here we go, karma, mysticism, all these things play into here if you take it out of its context. What Paul is simply saying here is not that you get to heaven by doing good; he's showing us two pathways. The pathway that leads to heaven through the gospel of the grace of God is a pathway of sowing to the Spirit because the Spirit that saves you transforms you. That's what we've been looking at in Chapter 5, so that in your flesh, in your body, there is this warfare, the Spirit lusting against the flesh and the flesh against the Spirit, and God leads His people to sow to the voice and the leadings of the Spirit in such a way that they will be taken all the way to everlasting life.
But there's another pathway, the pathway of destruction, which is marked by those who follow the works of the law, marked by those who demonstrate that life in the works of the flesh. They are those who do not have the Spirit, they are those who are not under the control of the Spirit, and they are those that lead to destruction, and their life is a life of corruption. And he's telling the Galatians, be careful what path you choose. Keep on sowing to the Spirit, keep on by faith believing God's Word.
And so to us, it comes to the same question, isn't it? Which path are we taking, the broad road or the narrow road? This is Paul's argument; he's summarizing his entire epistle by bringing all this together in these words. And he does so by first and foremost giving to us an illustration, demonstrating to us a law, a law that exists in the created order, which tells us of God and His dealings with man. It's an immutable law, an unchanging law, but it is also an agricultural law. What is that law? Well, he says it quite plainly to us, doesn't he, when he says, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked," verse 7, "for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."
The agricultural law is quite simple and quite plain: that a person harvests exactly what he sows, a law that was established in the beginning of creation by God. You remember when God created the plants, He created the fruit trees, and it says in the scripture, the fruit trees bearing fruit after his kind, and it says, "whose seed is in itself," the idea being that when a man takes the apple from the apple tree and he then eats this apple and finds the seeds in the middle of the apple and the core, he could take those seeds knowing that when I plant those apple seeds back into the ground, with absolute certainty, apples will come from the ground. He is not expecting oranges; he is not expecting mangoes. The law is set in the creation; God's designed it in such a way that the fruit bears the seed in of itself so that there's this reproduction of its very kind. And then when the flood happened, and God made the covenant confirmed to Noah, God also said, "While the earth remains, there will be seed time, and there will be harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease."
And so God says, "Okay, the seed has a law. You plant the seed in the ground, the agricultural law that I've baked into creation, as it were, created into the order, is that what you sow is what you will reap. And I have so designed it that the earth will be in such a way that there will be seed time and there will be harvest until the end of creation." And all of this, through creation, teaches us something about God. It teaches us about God's immutability, the fact that He is steadfast in His dealings with man and unchanging. When the Bible teaches us in Psalm Chapter 19 that the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky shows His handiwork, and day after day it pours out speech, and night unto night, the creation reveals knowledge, this is what Paul's trying to show us.
So he demonstrates with this passage, is saying here is the creation, and it speaks to us of God, it speaks to us of the way in which God deals with man, it speaks to us of the character of God, it speaks to us of the consistency and steadfast nature of God. And here are lessons that Paul is deriving from the created order to teach us the spiritual counterparts, these lessons that we must learn that are clearly set forth in this passage.
And the first of those is this: God is not mocked. God is not mocked; no one will sneer and turn up the nose at God when the harvest day has truly come. They might say now, "Where is your God?" But as the scripture tells us, our God is in the heavens, and He does whatsoever He pleases. One may mock the sower as he goes forth sowing, but no one mocks the farmer or a sower when he comes to reap the harvest of that beautiful crop on his tree. Why? Because when the law of sowing and reaping is fully done, every man and woman will know that God is not mocked. As sure as the farmer takes seeds from the apple and plants apples and expects apples, so shall it be spiritually, says Paul. God will never be mocked; what He says will come to pass, what He performs will last forever, and despite whether or not we see now what we see and we do not understand it and we do not comprehend it, God's dealings are sure and certain, and He will have the final say, and His name will ultimately be glorified in the last day.
And so, lesson two, which ties squarely with lesson number one, is therefore, don't be deceived. You see, don't be deceived because God is not mocked. Paul is saying the danger is not that God's may not come to pass; that's not the danger. The danger is not that you sow apples and you might get oranges, and there's a possibility that might happen. No, no, God won't be mocked; that's not the danger. The danger is with us thinking that if we sow apples, we might get oranges. The danger with us is with us thinking that, you know what, maybe God is mocked, even though we won't put it that way. Maybe I can live as I please and not suffer for that or be judged for that. Maybe I can live as I please and reap good things in this life. Maybe I can enjoy sin and have true satisfaction. The danger is not that God's Word won't come to pass; it shall surely come to pass. The shore is the character of God is, and as sure as the law of agriculture, which reflects the character of God, is played out before our eyes day after day, it will happen. The danger is what men and women think about the law of God; they don't believe it. But the testimony of scripture confirms it time and time again. It confirms it in various ways. Sometimes there's this sowing and a reaping immediately of judgment. Look at the case of Nadab and Abihu; they go into the temple of the Lord and offer strange fire before the Lord, as the Lord had not commanded them, and straight out of the altar comes the fire of God and devours them. God won't be mocked; when you come into my sanctuary, you come in the way that I prescribed.
We could, as it were, call back Achan, as it were, from the dead, and having him here before us today, if we couldn't say, Achan, when you took the spoils and the Babylonian garments and all these kinds of things that did not belong to you that God told you not to touch, what did you reap? He will say, I reaped the harvest of judgment, and my family and I were destroyed because I sowed to the flesh that day. We could call back the whole nation of Israel, if we could, from the dead and have them all stand before us, those that were in the wilderness that were led out of Egypt by the mighty power of God, were led through the Red Sea, and saw the miraculous hand of God, and they ate manna from the wilderness that fell from heaven, and they ate, they ate quail that fell from heaven, and they also drank water from the rock. We could call them today and this day and ask them, when you murmured against God, when you disobeyed His laws, when you said it was better for us to go back to Egypt, when you saw the Giants in the land and shrink from the commandment of God, what happened to you? And they'll say, we perished in the wilderness, and we did not enter the land of promise. God will not be mocked.
If we were to call the rich man back from the dead with Lazarus, you know the story in Luke Chapter 16, he will say the same. I fared sumptuously, and I had all that I wanted and enjoyed this life, and as it were, I built bigger barns and lived as I pleased and did whatever I wanted with what my substance was and cared not for God. But when God gives us a view into the depths of hell, and this man is tormented, this man cries out, Abraham, send Lazarus back from the dead so we can go tell my brethren not to come here. What is he saying? God is not mocked.
The wheels of God's judgment, as someone has said, move slowly but surely, and God will not be mocked. And so, how does all this work? How does this agricultural principle and law work in the lives of you and I as believers in Jesus Christ? What is being conveyed to us here? How are we to understand this in our experience? Well, "So do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap," verse 8 goes on to say, "For he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life."
The way that this works is that the soul, your soul, is the soil, and in your hands, as it were, are the seeds, the seeds of righteousness or the seeds of wickedness. And in the soul of our soil, both flesh and spirit cry out, "Give, give." This runs right on the back of Chapter 5, verse 17, "The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, there so that you cannot do the things that you please," or we cannot do the things which you will. And what Paul is helping us understand here is that in your heart, there is the flesh crying out, "Give," and there is a spirit crying out, "Give," and what Paul is saying is here is your, in your hand is the seed, here is the word sowing to righteousness or sowing to unrighteousness, to whom will you yield? Galatians, you are yielding to false teaching; you are working towards the pathway of the flesh, and you will end up in destruction. So seed to the Spirit and reap everlasting life.
If you sow wickedness to soothe the flesh, which cries out, "Give, give," and asks of you sinful things, then you will reap corruption, it says. You will of the flesh reap corruption; you feed that flesh, and the judgment will be that you have what you desire, and the flesh itself will corrupt you. You will of the flesh reap corruption; you will decay morally. Your mind, your will, your relationships, your emotional life will descend into such chaos. You will lose discernment; you will lose hope, faith, love, peace will slowly be taken away from you in such a way that all you will have is your, you and your own sin and the corruption that comes right out from your own desires. A man will be filled with his own ways; the backslider in heart, the Bible says, shall be filled with his own ways, and of the flesh, he shall reap corruption, and it will eat at you like a cancer. All the moral virtues that are yours by reason of your study of the scripture and your knowledge of God and of the mercy of grace of God in your life and even the common grace that is displayed to the unbelievers will start to deteriorate in your life more fully and thoroughly, and you will be left with the corrupt nature of the flesh, whose works are disgraceful and harmful to our own selves and to their relationships, as Chapter 5, verse 19, says.
But the alternative to sowing and yielding to the flesh is by responding, by yielding and sowing to the Spirit, which is the idea of walking in the Spirit or obeying the Spirit or yielding to His cry, which says, "Give me, give me, give me your eyes that you might behold wholesome things and do not lust after a woman. Give me your ears so that you might listen to good things and do not fill your ears with lies and corruption and evil words and backbiting and gossip. Give me your hands and serve me and do not use your hands to conduct evil and to harm others and to take from others and with greed. Give me your feet and walk in my ways, and I will lead you on paths of blessedness and away from the places of destruction. Give me your mouth and speak good things, wholesome words, not evil words that corrupt, evil words that corrupt behavior, but rather speak truth and speak with love and speak with charity and speak in such a way that exalts Christ and His word. Give me your mind and use the powers of your intellect for good and not for evil. Give yourself to prayer, give yourself to the word, give yourself to doing good, give yourself to all that I command you to do." So to the Spirit, says the Spirit, and you will reap everlasting life, eternal life.
What is eternal life? If you think of eternal life as only in terms of heaven, you've missed it. Eternal life speaks of the quality of life that we may enjoy even now while we're on earth. Eternal life is heaven in your soul, heaven begun below, in such a way that you will have heavenly sunlight shining in on your soul. You will have life, as it were, in the Spirit. You will have a quality of life that is a life that is a blessed life, as the Beatitudes points out, a life that is incomparable to the life of those who are corrupting all around us because of their life of sin. When Jesus prays in His high priestly prayer, "And this is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Eternal life is knowing God; it is communion with the one true and living God. It is having God invade your life by His mercy and having forgiveness and mercy and fellowship with God in Christ is eternal life. And those that sow to the Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ and continue to obey the voice of the Spirit of God in their lives by yielding to His commandments, they taste more incrementally and more fully heaven here below, and their life is otherworldly. They're not earthly; they're heavenly-minded, and they're rejoicing in God their Savior, and they think, man, the world looks at them, says, "What are these people? These people, heavenly creatures, if we could say, they're new creations in Christ. God has done a work here below that He's going to do in heaven." What is the new creation of the new heavens and the new earth, but has it not begun already in His people? Yes, from heaven, He came and sought us to be His holy bride, but He came from heaven to give us life and everlasting life now, which means today, this very day, you can taste heaven in your soul.
And Paul is just not saying, yes, one day you'll get there, and it's true, you have heaven now, you have it then. This is the promise of God, but he's saying this is something you reap now, just like people who sow wickedness now will of the flesh reap corruption now. So those who sow to the Spirit now will of the Spirit now reap life everlasting now.
Paul's instruction here is teaching us that sowing and reaping, or sowing at least, is the season of opportunity. He's saying today is the day we must believe; today is the day we must sow; today is the day we must live for God; today is the day we must invest in the kingdom of God; today is the day where we must risk our lives for the sake and name of Jesus; today is the day that we must preach His gospel and show love to our neighbors; today is the day that we must pray, go, and serve. And what Paul is trying to suggest to us here, it is not the reapers who decide what the crop will be; it is the sowers who decide what the crop will be. He's really bringing us into this thing, isn't he? He's saying you sow, and this is what will happen, and he's bringing us in on the surety of this law, this immutable law. The truth is, if you sow to the Spirit, you will 100% reap life everlasting because God is not mocked.
And the exhortation in this passage is to not grow weary in doing good. You see, he gives the illustration of sowing and reaping, but he says in verse number nine, this is actually where the exhortation is. The exhortation is built upon the illustration, and the exhortation is quite simple: "Let us not grow weary while doing good," which, what that means is, sowing to the Spirit is exactly that very thing; it is doing good. And he's saying to the believers here at the churches of Galatia, "Do not grow weary in doing good." Why say that? Because there is this time lapse between sowing and reaping. Even though we taste of the harvest and some of it in this life, sometimes our experience of that is lacking, and sometimes God, in some areas and in some ways, doesn't let us taste the fruit of some things until we get to glory. And because of the time lapse that exists between sowing and reaping, there's this element introduced here in the text that says, "Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season, in one's own time," which is the time appointed to us of God, "we shall reap if we do not lose heart."
What this means is, once the time lapse comes in here, once the illustration of sowing and reaping, Paul interjects here and says, "Yes, let us not grow weary while doing good," because there is a time that exists between that, and we can feel weary. He says this very thing teaches us then that we need faith. That's essentially what that means. The time lapse introduces to us this element of faith so that you can't just click your fingers, and the thing's gonna happen straight away, right? The farmer sows the seed, and he waits, and sometimes the fruit of his labors, well, more actually, all the time, the fruit of his labors is not immediately seen. Now, God, in His grace, sometimes speeds up the whole process for us so we can have a good feed on that fruit, but we have to understand that intricately involved in this law is this time lapse that teaches the believer to continue to trust in God.
So that when Abraham sowed to the Spirit when he heard the call of God who said, "Get up out of your family and out of your kindred and out of your country, and I'll show you the place where I'll tell you," Abraham got up, and he left, and he sowed to the Spirit; he obeyed God's call. And when God told Abraham, "Look, look at the stars, look at the sand of the sea, so shall your seed be, sons and daughters, kings, and everything will come from you," and Abraham believed God, and it was counted on for him for righteousness. But where was the land? Where were the sons and daughters? Where were the kings that were coming from his loins? But Abraham believed God, and it was counted on for him for righteousness. He believed God would not be mocked, and he rejoiced to see the day, and he saw it by faith because he believed God. You see what's happening here? He's sowing obedience, although he's not reaping the harvest, and in this case, not even fully in his lifetime. But nonetheless, by faith, he sows, he sows, he sows, and he's like that farmer in the book of James that we hear of in James. It says, "Be patient, therefore, brothers, into the coming of our Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until he receives the early and latter rains. You also be patient; establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, take, brothers, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord." What's he saying? They spoke in the name of the Lord, suffered in the name of the Lord, not all of them saw the fulfillment of what they spoke in the name of the Lord. That's patience, sowing in obedience to the Lord. This is, "Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful." You're already saying, God is compassionate and merciful; He will fulfill His promise; He will not be mocked. If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap everlasting life, but you must have the faith of our fathers, the faith of the prophets, the faith of Job, the faith of Abraham, the faith of men and women like Sarah, who heard the Word of God, who obeyed the Word of God, who continue to sow to the truth of God, and despite the fact that they did not see all that God had said in their lifetime, they believed God would not be mocked, and they reaped everlasting life.
Do not be weary in doing good, it says, for in due season, we will reap most certainly and most surely if we do not lose heart, if we do not give up. So what are we then to do? We are called in this text of Scripture to do good no matter what and to never give up. We are to walk in the Spirit, restore our brethren, burden bear, share, fulfill the law of Christ, walk in love. This is our whole duty, and we must do this no matter what. We must do this good that God has called us to do to all men, as he says in verse number 10, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all." Now is a time of opportunity; now is a time of sowing. Do good to all; continue to do the will of God and fulfill the will of God in the lives of everyone around you. Love your neighbor as yourself, and do not lose heart. Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and do not lose heart. Honor your father and mother, and do not lose heart. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, and do not lose heart. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands in the Lord, and do not lose heart. Servants, be faithful to your own masters; you that go out to work and obey your masters in the Lord, and do not lose heart. Do not be weary in doing good. Hear the voice of the Spirit who cries, "Give, give your obedience and your life to me," and yield to the Spirit, and do not lose heart. Do good to all, especially to those of the household of faith. Why especially to those of the household of faith? Well, we all belong to the same family, and if you can't do good in the home, forget doing good out there. The truth of the matter is, we live in the same household, spiritual family of God. If one cannot provide for his own household, he's worse than an infidel. Take that for your own physical household, but extend that spiritually to the Church of God. And charity begins at home, and right here, if we can't do what God calls us to do with those who love God also and those that are brothers and sisters in Christ, how on earth are we going to do good to those that are out there that hate God, don't love God, don't submit to His law, and don't like you because you are Christ's messenger who tells him about this in a need for Christ? Right, so yeah, it is like it says, if you, if you want to turn the other cheek to your enemy, you better start loving your neighbor here now and your brother and sister here now. I mean, if your brother and sister with a little statement of the way that look at you can throw you, you know, wild for a whole week, and you're filled with rage and anger, anger, and envy, then forget it; you're done out there in the world. Especially to the household of faith, this is, as it were, the inner circle of the people of God, those who belong to God, those who share the name of God. We are the children of God; let the goodness begin here, beloved. Let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who's born of God knows God. And if you cannot love your brother, you're not of God. And it's amazing how much philanthropy and work and good stuff goes and pours out in the unbelieving world, and you wonder sometimes if it's because of the praise of man that results from there because it gets the media attention. How many of us as God's people are willing to love one another?
So let us do good; this is the opportunity to sow to all men, yes, but especially to those of the household of faith. And do not delay and do not ignore this time of sowing obedience because you have this time only to sow. So many of God's people come to the place in their lives where they know something is right to do, but we do the silly thing of weighing up whether it's the best course of action to get the problem. If God says it's the right thing to do, there's no need to wait up. The faith element is here, isn't it? If God's word is authoritative and true, and God says this is what I ought to do, and I'm confronted with the situation that is a clear pathway forward of obedience and sowing to the spirit, there is no need to pray about it; there is no need to wait on the Lord for it. This is the time of sowing; do good to all men. In fact, the spirit is crying out in you, "Do good," and as the spirit cries out in you, "Do good," you ought to just do good. But you know, we like those guys in the book of Ecclesiastes; they're not sure if they're going to sow because they look to the wind, and they look to the clouds. But Ecclesiastes teaches us the lesson: "Cast your bread on the water, for you will find it after many days. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap." You see, the problem here is stopping regarding how your obedience is going to end up profiting you and how your obedience is going to end up coming back into your bank account or be a good that's repaid to you. Do not let that hinder you from stepping out in faith. Cast your bread on the waters; stop observing the wind; stop looking at the clouds; do right. Do right, though the stars fall, said one man. Do right, though the heavens fall. Do right because it is right to do because God has commanded us to obey Him, and we must believe this with all of our heart, with all of our soul, mind, and strength.
And I love what Ecclesiastes says, "This is because you don't know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with a child." Can someone explain that to me? Tell me how a woman with child, it starts with an embryo, and then you get bones, this thing that has no bone mass in it, as it were. And in Ecclesiastes, he says, "You don't know the way that the spirit comes to the bones with a woman with a child." And then he says, "So you do not know the work of God who makes everything good in His time." You see, the thing here is you sow, you sow, you sow. Stop looking to the wind; stop looking to the clouds; you do what is right to do because you don't know the work of God. God is sovereign; God is on the throne. You don't know how it is that you might sow here and reap there, and things might happen this way, but you cast your bread on the waters; you live by faith, and you consider Jesus Christ, who demonstrated this obedience of faith like none other, one who lived his life in accordance with the will of God perfectly, who said, "My meat, my food, is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work," who lived his life in complete, utter, full, uncompromising obedience, sowing as it were to the spirit all the days of his life. And He sowed as it were His own lifeblood into the ground. You know, and as all the disciples forsook Him, they probably wondered, "Hey, how's this sowing gonna produce any fruit? A Messiah who got popular is now dead; no one's at the cross except for a couple of the women and John. I thought He was meant to be the great one who brings in the kingdom of God, and the whole world will bow before Him and submit to Him, and He'll overthrow the Romans." Sowing to the spirit, as it were, in the life of Jesus, didn't all look that profitable at every period of His life. But as He sowed His lifeblood into the ground, He reaped the harvest of souls, of which you and I are a part. And He said, "Unless the corn of wheat fall to the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." And there, the Son of God, in obedience to the will of the Father, laid down His life fully and completely, and He reaped the harvest of souls. And He went on, for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and God raised Him from the dead and then gave Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. You know what happened? Jesus sowed to the spirit by faith; He yielded Himself to the will of God, and God exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name. He reaped, if you want to talk about everlasting life, He reaped the glory that was given to Him by God.
And the writer of Hebrews tells us, "You see all those people in Hebrews chapter 11 that live by faith? Let me tell you of one who did; His name is Jesus." Yes, look to Abraham; yes, look to Moses; yes, look to Sarah; yes, look to the biblical characters, but never take your eyes off Jesus. "Therefore, seeing that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely to us, and let us run with endurance, just like Jesus, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and He's seated now at the right hand of the throne of God." He says, "Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." You're saying you're getting weary of doing good? You look at Jesus, and you keep looking at Jesus.
Maybe this morning, you are not looking to Him by faith, in that I say that you are one who has not even yet believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and been saved and has yet been saved. You're thinking about, "Yes, I may come to Christ one day, but I've got other things that I need to do first." Yes, I would love to sow my faith, as it were, to the spirit that brings conviction and brings life, but I got a lot of things that I want to do first. There's places I want to go; there's people who I want to see; there's relationships that I want to be had. There is sin that I wanna still enjoy. My friends, the Bible teaches you today that the way of the transgressor is hard, and that sin is only pleasurable for a season, and if you sow to the flesh, you will only reap corruption, and you will never truly be satisfied, and you will reap a harvest of corruption that may take a lifetime to really work out the consequences of. And so, my encouragement to you is you take your faltering faith, and you place it in Jesus Christ the Lord. You say, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief." You say, "Lord, I believe that You won't be mocked, and I believe Your promises that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." And I believe that salvation is by grace through faith. I know this truth, but God, save me. Save a sinner like me. Rid me of my sin; rid me of my guilt; rid me of believing lies to think that there's more in life to satisfy than having You. You are the water of life; You are the bread of heaven; You are the light that lights up the world and comes into the darkness of man. Shine that light into my heart, dear Jesus. Don't make more excuses of a convenient time that will be more appropriate. Today's the most convenient time for you to come to Jesus Christ. "How shall you escape if you neglect so great a salvation?" You know, today, if you hear His voice, as the scripture says, harden not your hearts because there may not be a tomorrow, and today is the day of your believing. Today is the day where you must plant your feet upon that rock and say, "I'm gonna sow my remaining faith, as it were, the faith stirred up in me, the faith given to me by the Holy Spirit at this moment. I'm gonna pour that out into the promise of God, and I'm gonna believe on the Lord Jesus Christ."
For those of us, or for those of you perhaps, who think maybe at a more convenient time, you must remember the words of Jeremiah, who said that the harvest is now past, and we are not yet saved. The time of opportunity is now, and you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.
Dear brothers and sisters, maybe you are today weary in doing good. You're tired of fighting for your marriage or the battle of raising your children in a corrupt and wicked world and society, and the difficulties that exist. You think to yourself, "Wow, this is hard," and you're wondering what's going on. Maybe today, you're waiting for God's provision, and you've been praying for something in your life for years and years, and you still have not seen it come. Perhaps it is a child; perhaps it is the fact of a relationship that you've been waiting for, and you are growing weary in waiting on God and His provision. Perhaps you've been evangelizing and preaching to your family and to your friends and to your neighbors, and yet you have not seen, as it were, the fruit of the harvest of your labors, and you feel like giving up. This word to you from God says, "Never give up." No matter how weary you are, no matter how tired you are, believe the truth that God will never be mocked, and if you sow to the Spirit, you'll reap life everlasting, and God will make sure of it. Never give up. Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold of eternal life.
One of my favorite stories is about that mighty man of God who was David's mighty man called Eleazar. And the Bible says that Eleazar was fighting with the children of Israel, and the children of Israel retreated, and they went back, and they ran away from the Philistines. But the Bible says in 2 Samuel 23:10, "He," that is, Eleazar, "rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clung to the sword." His hand was weary, but his hand clung, or the NIV translates it, froze to the sword, "and the Lord brought about a great victory that day, and the men returned after him only to strip the slain." You know what happened? He was a mighty man of God who, by faith, said, "I'm weary, my hand is almost slipping from the sword," but he clung to the sword; he did not let go of the sword, and God gave him the strength. I believe this is a miracle; God froze his hand to the sword, and he fought the battle and won, although all others retreated.
You see, the lesson we need to pray is, "God, I'm weary; make my hand stick to the sword." I'm tired. Be honest with God; be honest with Him this moment about your difficulties, your struggles, your hardships. Be real with Him about the fact that you are weary. Cry out like David, "Lord, I'm tired," but as you cry out, believe that God won't be mocked and say, "God, may my hand cling to the sword. I will never let go of the sword, and may I fight the good fight of faith." As your days are, so shall your strength be, says the Lord, and you can trust Him this very moment that He will strengthen your feeble hands and make strong your weak knees, and you will continue to do right by the grace of God, by sowing to the spirit.
"He that sows precious seed weeping shall doubtless come back rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves with him." Yeah, now's the time of sowing, but it's also a time of weeping, but God will not be mocked; you will come back; the word of the Lord will be fulfilled in your life because He will not be mocked. Let us pray.