We All Sow...And We Will All Reap - [Galatians 6:7-9]

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And if you would, please turn with me to Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6, if you would stand with me, the most that we can stand, the better it is.
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We're just going to read just a few verses here and pray and then get into the message. Galatians chapter 6,
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I would like to begin reading in verse 7 from the King James Version, where the word of God says, be not deceived.
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God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
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For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.
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And let us not be weary in well -doing, for in due season, we shall reap if we faint not.
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Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would give us the mind of Christ this morning, that you would give us ears to hear.
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Father, I would pray that as we take a look at these words, as we consider life and living, as we consider what life is all about before your eyes and what it is that you've given us in just being able to be alive and to live and to move and to have our being and to have your very word to bear upon our hearts and to bear upon our minds and to bear upon our souls.
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It is our desire that we leave this place a changed people. Father, I ask that you would deal with us as carefully and as skillfully as you always have with the powerful word of God.
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It is a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Lord, it is a fire that consumes.
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It convicts us, it challenges us, and yet, Lord, it also gives us great hope and great joy and peace in believing what you've written, had recorded on these pages.
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So, Father, as we hear the message, I pray that it would be from you, that there would be just a willingness and a readiness to run in the way of God's word this morning for your people and for those that are here that are outside of Christ, that they would not misunderstand this message as do's and don'ts in order to be saved, but they might see that the word of God and the law of God is there to convict of sin and to bring us to Jesus Christ, the only
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Savior of sinners. Help us, Lord, we pray, and as we leave this place, may we be better off than when we came in, and may it be profitable for our souls to the glory of Christ, and we pray in his name, amen.
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You may be seated. As you read the pages of the word of God and you read scripture, you'll see that there are topics, there are subjects, cause and effect.
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You will see actions and consequences. You will see in this case here, it's sowing and reaping.
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We can kind of go to the book of Proverbs that Brother Steve read from, and we can see some of those causes and effects there where we read a verse that says something like this.
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He that meddles with strife, that is none of his business, that is like taking a dog by the ears.
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If you take a dog by the ears, I don't recommend it if you have a dog that's pretty touchy there, but if you do that, you're gonna get bit.
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And a person who meddles with business that does not belong to themselves is gonna get bitten, is gonna be trouble.
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It also says in the Bible there in Proverbs that the churning of milk brings forth butter, the ringing of the nose brings forth blood, and a person who forces, the forcing of wrath brings forth strife.
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Or there's another proverb that says, like wood is to the fire, it fuels the fire, so is a person who's contentious to fuel the strife.
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For our actions, for the things that we do, there are consequences. For what we sow, we are going to reap.
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When we live, and this is dealing in this text here, it says what we sow here in verse seven, that shall we also reap.
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The word sow means to scatter or to plant seeds, and this is a metaphorical language that deals with agricultural sowing and reaping or planting and the crop coming forth.
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But it's, of course, the teaching of this here is dealing with the moral and spiritual aspects of life.
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And it's not a question of will we sow seeds or not? The fact is is that we do sow seeds.
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All of us sow on a daily basis. Every thought or desire is a seed that is sown.
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Every word or deed is another seed we plant. Every whisper, every look, every action is a seed which will sprout forth.
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We are leaving many seeds behind us as we walk on this pathway of life. And the question is not if we will sow each day, but what we are sowing each day.
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And Paul says, whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. So we sow, we sow as we live, we sow as we go.
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Now, the text tells us not only that we do so, but it tells us how we sow.
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It tells us here in verse eight, for he that sows to his flesh shall have the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall have the spirit reap life everlasting.
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So we either sow to the flesh or we sow to the spirit. And I wanna look at the first one there, sowing to the flesh.
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That means seeds that are sown are sinful seeds, if I could put it that way.
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Sinful because the things that we think or say or do dishonor God and are in direct disobedience to his word.
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Sowing to the flesh means sowing from the flesh or to indulge the flesh or to pander to the flesh or to our carnal nature.
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This is a person's life, basically, whose life can be wrapped up in a word with four letters in it,
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S -E -L -F. That person's life is wrapped up with self. It's a self -centered life.
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A person who sows to the flesh lives for the pleasures of self. They live for time alone and not for eternity.
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They live to gratify the physical or temporal appetites. Now, the second person is the person who sows to the spirit.
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And that means the seeds sown are good seeds. Good seeds because the things that that person thinks or says or does honor
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God and are in obedience to his holy word. Sowing to the spirit means the person follows the leadings of God, the
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Holy Spirit. This person governs their fleshly appetites. I remember when I was a child and we used to go over to Auburn where the 146
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Connector is now, there used to be a place there that had miniature golf and go -karts. And I remember one of the things that used to bug me as a kid was the go -karts had governors on them.
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Now, I'm not talking about a person like our governor who sits in a state house in Boston, but it had a little mechanism on the engine that when you push the gas pedal, it only went so far.
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It regulated the speed. It held back the speed. It governed that engine.
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And the problem with the society which we live in is people don't have a governor on their life.
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There's no regulation. There's no self -control. It's whatever you want, do it all. Just go for it.
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It doesn't matter. There are no consequences, but there are consequences when it comes to the things that we sow in our lives because we will reap.
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But this person, this person who sows to the spirit, they have that governor. They plant and they water and they cultivate a proper thought life which leads to a proper life of action and obedience.
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To sow to the spirit means you purpose not to grieve the spirit of God. This person follows the principles of even in Galatians in chapter five, the previous chapter, and in verse 16,
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Paul says, this I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
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Paul says that we ought to walk in the spirit means that we need to live under the influence of the spirit.
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When he wrote to the church at Ephesus in chapter five in verse 18, well, verse 17, he said something along these lines that we need to not be unwise, but to know what the will of God is.
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Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit of God. And you've heard, you've heard it like if a person gets pulled over for DUI, driving under the influence, that drug or whatever it is that they have taken has so overpowered them and has taken away their physical abilities to be able to handle the car properly and to be able to think properly and react properly.
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They're under the influence of that drug or of that alcohol. And where Paul was writing there, he said, don't be drunk with wine, don't be because there is excess, there is outrageous behavior there.
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If you do that, what he wants us to be is to be filled with the spirit or to be controlled by the spirit or to be influenced by the spirit.
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And how are we influenced by the spirit? We're influenced by the spirit by the word of God bearing upon us.
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The spirit of God's, his ministry is to reveal truth to us. And we, as we prayerfully consider
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God's word and read the word of God, God, the Holy Spirit teaches the word of God to us, instructs us, gives us an understanding that we can walk in the way of the spirit of God or walk in the spirit, be controlled by the spirit as the word of God is brought to us.
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So we are not to resist the spirit. A person who sows to the spirit does not resist the spirit, but yields to his every leading as the only way to overcome corrupt and sensual desires of the flesh.
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God's word is telling us in Galatians 5, 16, where to walk in the spirit that there is no better, no better, no safer or easier principle to follow, which will enable us to overcome the passions of the flesh, namely to walk in the spirit.
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And people who choose to walk in the spirit, they sow to the spirit, they yield to his precious influences.
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If we don't, we are no longer living in category one where we're sowing to the spirit, but we are falling back into category number two, where we go falling back to number one, where we begin to sow in the flesh.
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So the first point is that the question is not if I will sow today.
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Don't go thinking whether I am or I'm not going to sow today. You will sow today and I will sow today.
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You've already begun to as you get up this morning and all that you said, all that you thought, all that you did, you and I did, and everything about everything we thought and said and did what's going through our minds now, what we're preparing to do, what our desires are, what we're gonna do when we leave this place today and throughout the day, we will be sowing.
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And not only is it not a question of if we will sow, but there is absolutely no question as to whether or not we will reap because the
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Bible tells us that whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap. We will reap.
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We're going to reap, all of us. It's not that whatever a man sows, that might he also reap, but it is that we shall reap.
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We are going to reap. But what is it that we're going to reap? Well, in verse seven, the
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Bible tells us that whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.
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This is a law of nature. We see it all around us. Many of you have planted your gardens already.
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I'm sure you bought your seeds early enough. And on the seed, you got a picture of whatever it was that's supposed to be inside.
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And you expect that when you put the seed in the ground and water it, take care of it all, that what sprouts up out of the ground is what's pictured on the package.
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You hope that that is the case. If you plant cucumbers, you're gonna get cucumbers. If you plant corn, you expect corn or tomatoes, tomatoes.
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But if you plant weeds, thorns, and thistles, you'll get weeds, thorns, and thistles. And you might say, well, how do you plant them?
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You plant them by not doing anything, not governing. I mean, you're allowing those seeds to propagate from those weeds.
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And in essence, you are helping them. You are planting weeds, thorns, and thistles.
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If that's what you sow, that's what you will reap. And every type of grain produces grain just like itself.
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This is a natural law. In our text, Paul tells us that the same law exists when it comes to our works, when it comes to our lives.
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Our works which fall under the two categories mentioned before, sowing to the flesh or sowing to the spirit, will sprout and grow.
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And we will all have to reap that of which we have sown. We will all reap according to our deeds.
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The law of nature tells us that if we sow wheat, corn, or weeds, we will reap wheat, corn, or weeds.
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The spiritual law of God says that if we sow to the flesh, we will reap one thing. And if we sow to the spirit, we will reap just the opposite.
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First, if we sow to the flesh, God's word, and I want to put it this way, God's word mercifully warns us.
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This is not just a bang, boom, here comes the brother Dave's up there, and there it is again. Wham, it's just coming down like a big hammer on top of him.
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Maybe it is. That's good. God uses his word to help us. But it's the merciful kindness of the
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Lord to give us his truth to warn us that we may not be living properly. We may not be making right decisions.
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We may not be thinking properly. We may be deceived. We may be thinking that we're doing one thing, and yet we're doing another thing.
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We think that we may reap something else in the future where it's going to be totally the opposite. If we sow to the flesh,
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God's word mercifully warns us that we will of the flesh, or the consequences of catering to the flesh is that we will reap corruption.
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Now, corruption in that verse means decay. Like, if you were to put a piece of fruit on the table and just leave it there during the summer without air conditioning for about a week or two, it is going to rot.
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It is going to decay. And it actually, this word, when you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption, it actually means to be brought into an inferior or worse condition.
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I mean, that piece of fruit is in a worse condition than it was when we started. And you and I don't want to eat it afterwards.
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We don't have anything to do with that. And the life of a person who sows to the flesh is in a worse condition after the fact than they were beforehand, because they are brought into ruin and decay.
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And sin brings corruption in the life. And if sin is unchecked, if sin is not governed, it corrupts.
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And it ends up in our lives as a character. We have a character that is worse off than we were beforehand.
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It is the exact opposite of, you've heard the theory of evolution, the theory of evolution, which says that man starts off low and he gets gradually better and better.
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And now he's an elevated, advanced, and highly intellectual being. And if you carry it to its fullest, man can even obtain a godlike state.
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And I think that's why a lot of people like that theory. Not only does it just negates and gets rid of this, no god at the beginning to where it all came from.
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And as a matter of fact, we can just all be elevated, kind of like the Mormon -type teaching. Now God's word tells us just the opposite.
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Man was created in the image of God, a most glorious and wonderful creation. And because of sin, he has fallen to the most deplorable state of degradation.
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The truth, not a theory, is man is not getting better and better. It is just the opposite.
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Man has gotten worse and worse. And it is this daily sowing to the flesh that can now bring man to a more worse condition morally and spiritually.
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Sowing to the flesh means sowing seeds of sin. It means a life which does not honor God. It is a life out of control.
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It is that Nebuchadnezzar life that our brother Lewis, I think was at in Sunday school, Nebuchadnezzar.
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Out in the fields, like an animal, eating. It says that he was insane.
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Basically, that's what it was. And God brought his mind back to him later on.
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He was out of control. And God brought his mind back to him.
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And he was able to live again normally as he had before, but with the recognition that God was the
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Lord. But a person who sows to the flesh is living a life without restraints, a life which is not lived for Christ or for others.
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It is a life lived for self. To sow to the flesh means to please the appetites and desires of the flesh and of the mind.
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This person sows sinful seeds as they walk. And all their thoughts and time and attention revolves around me, myself, and I.
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This person may even know what God requires of them, but they stiffen their neck and turn up their nose and continue sowing evil seeds, seeds of selfishness, seeds of pleasure, seeds of fleshly gratification.
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And our text tells us the consequences of that. That's a word we don't like to hear today.
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You don't like to hear that in our society because really what we hear today is, you live as you please and there are no consequences.
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It just doesn't matter. You're not gonna affect anybody. You don't affect yourself. You don't affect your family. You don't affect society.
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You just live the way that you want to and everything is just going to be okay and nothing could be further from the truth because the
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Bible says, there is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.
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That's the consequences. The wages of sin or the payment for sin is death. When sin has conceived,
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James 1 tells us, it brings forth death. There are consequences in this life and in the life which is to come.
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Every thought has a consequence. Every thought has a consequence. Every thought may lead to a wrong desire and that wrong desire can lead to a sinful action and that action results in reaping and can result in reaping ruin and corruption.
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Think back with me in the Old Testament times in the book of Joshua, there was a man who was in the camp of Israel and God had told them, when you go into Jericho, that do not take of the devoted things that are there.
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All of the material things that were in the city of Jericho when Israel was to go in to conquer that land, don't take any of it.
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It's God's, all of it. It's devoted. It's a curse to God, as it says in the King James. It's devoted to God.
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And there was a man who, when he went into the city, think of the progression of this. In Joshua 7 and verse 21, it says of Achan that he saw the money and he saw the garments, the clothing.
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He saw them. First, he had the look, but then he didn't let it stop there. He coveted it, it says in that verse.
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And then after he coveted it, he took it. And then after he took it, he hid it. There's this progression and there's this sowing and this reaping.
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And of course, in his life, there were devastating consequences. He and his family were stoned and burnt with fire.
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All died, all of them. The whole family wiped out. And if you could ask Achan today, hey, Achan, was it worth it to disobey
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God? He would say, absolutely no. And the question to us today is, is your sin, maybe to a person who is here this morning, outside of Jesus Christ, is your sin of rejecting
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Jesus Christ worth it? Is your sin of disobeying your
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Lord as a Christian worth it? Here's a helpful tip to keep us in check when we are tempted to sin.
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Think about this. You can fill in the blank here. Is doing this, whatever it is, worth losing my life over?
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Is doing this thing or having this thing worth losing my soul over?
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Is this thing worth losing my reputation, losing my spouse, losing my children, losing my family, losing my church, losing my freedom, losing my job?
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Is it worth it? We have to look at it that way because whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap.
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Think about this. Is having this thing or doing this thing, whatever this sin is, whatever it is that is near and dear to you, is it worth losing your soul over?
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Consider that. People are trading their very souls for something they can hold in their hand.
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How devastating. If sin is unchecked, as I said, it causes us to go so far astray with wrong desires and wrong actions.
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Every word has a consequence. Harsh and bitter words cut like knives. They tear down. They discourage and can ruin a person's reputation.
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Every action or inaction has a consequence too. So as we go, we sow. And since we do so, we shall reap.
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We can't escape it. The harvest is coming. It may be now. It may be delayed. I mean, you plant the seeds.
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It doesn't come up always right away. There is time there, but it will happen because who is behind this law of sowing and reaping?
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It is God, and it is going to happen. He is going to visit iniquity. He is going to make sure things are right.
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He is going to look at our lives, and he's going to consider this sowing and reaping aspect of our lives, and we can't escape the fact that we are going to reap according to what we've sowed.
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If we sow to the flesh, consider the seeds that you're sowing. Just think about that. Sowing as you're going in your life, and I can see it over in chapter five.
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We have the works of the flesh there. People can sow seeds of adultery and fornication and uncleanness and idolatry and wickedness, hatred, strife, heresies, envy, jealousy.
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I'm going to pull the shoulder when mom or dad try to talk. I'm going to pull the shoulder as a child.
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At work, I'm going to whisper in the background and talk about the consequences, sowing and reaping.
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Wife and husband in the house, you know what's right when it comes, when you have an argument, when something is going on, there's a flare -up.
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You know how to treat each other, and yet the daggers come out, and there's that friction, and there's that hatred that boils up.
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Think about what we do when we go out in society and how we treat other people.
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The things that we say. We go to the store and we go through the checkout line, and they give us extra money as we go through.
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They haven't counted the change back to us. The right thing to do is to sow to the Spirit, because that's exactly what it is, to do the right thing before God.
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Thou shalt not steal and give that back to them, because there is a payday one day.
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Every single sow, everything that we do, whatever the word is, whatever we do in secret is going to be broadcasted openly.
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You might think I can dishonor mom and dad. I can disrespect my parents because everybody else is doing it, and nobody's getting zapped by lightning.
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You will pay for it, because it is the first commandment with promise to honor your father and your mother.
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I mean, just think about that. I, as a pastor over the years, have had the unpleasant opportunity, but yet I was there to support different people in the ministries that I've been in to go to the court system and to see, to support the people that were there, but also,
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I mean, while I was there, you see the consequences of one little teeny thing that a person did in their life.
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One little stupid thing. One little silly mistake. One, I mean, the foot just a little bit heavier on the gas pedal than it should have been.
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I mean, the speedometer goes up to 120, Brother Dave. I mean, it goes up there. I mean, can
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I use that? I mean, I'm driving down the street, and they're passing me, I'm going 80, and they're passing me left and right.
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I mean, we justify. And then we pay for that, don't we? A little bit of a touch.
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The gas pedal might be a quarter of an inch or half an inch down than it should be. And I'm just getting that example because it just came to my mind when
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I was thinking the last time I had gone to court, there were a lot of people who said, well, the machine couldn't have been working right.
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It wasn't calibrated, that radar gun. It just, you know, scusing themselves, trying to get out of it. But there are consequences.
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There's a law there. The signs are on the road. I mean, it's for us to obey.
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And yet if we don't, we will pay the consequences. What we sow, we will reap. And if we sow to the flesh, we shall, of the flesh, reap corruption.
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And can't you see it? Those seeds are being sowed. Hatred and jealousy and envy and backbiting and cursing and getting angry at people.
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And those seeds are in the soil, and you can see the seeds cracking under the soil, and you can see the ground shifting, and the little sprouts work their way through the surface, and you can see the brown soil change its colors.
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It outgrows from the ground things out of our lives based upon these seeds that were sown.
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What do you see growing there? Well, I ask you, what did you plant? What did you plant?
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Because what you planted, you're going to reap. You and I are both going to reap, because whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.
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Are you afraid to think about it? Do you see thorns and weeds and thistles?
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Or do you see emptiness and misery and pain and barrenness and spiritual drought and death and judgment and eventually hell?
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Is that what you see based upon the seeds that you've been sowing in your past life? Have you sown to the flesh?
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Then of the flesh you shall reap ruin, for God's word tells us, he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.
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A Puritan writer once wrote this, he who sows to the wind of vanity will reap the whirlwind of wrath.
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Awesome statement, sobering statements for us this morning. What is the results? Corruption, ruin, decay, destruction.
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This harvest of corruption is the exact opposite of life everlasting, as we see for those who sow to the spirit.
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In Job 4, 8, 9, we read, they that plow in iniquity and sow wickedness will reap the same.
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But the blast of God, by the blast of God, they perish and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. Solomon wrote
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Proverbs 22 in verse eight, he that sows iniquity shall reap vanity. You sow iniquity, you'll reap vanity.
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What's that? Ecclesiastes, it's the bubble in your hand, there's nothing there, will reap vanity. If someone persists in sowing to the flesh, they will reap vanity, emptiness, temporary happiness, but not lasting joy.
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And even when it looks like it's successful, even a person who lives a life without reference to God and it seems to have so many different things, yet they really don't have true success when it comes to God's spiritual success and spiritual relationship with God and life that has purpose and meaning before God.
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Disappointment, there's what you reap, grief, sorrow, a life without profit, and eventually ending up being banished from the presence of God.
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And then going to a place called hell where the fire does not go out and the worm does not die. Spurgeon once said this in a message,
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Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in England, hell will be the harvest of a man's own sin and conscience is the worm which will forever gnaw at him.
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Paul's words are strong, aren't they? He also goes on in verse, he also says in verse 70, be not deceived.
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Deceived means to cause to roam away from, as in safety or truth or virtue, to go astray, to wander, to be seduced out of the way.
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And here's an example, don't be deceived by the idea that a mere profession of Christianity is enough to save us.
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God is not so much concerned of what we say, that we say that we're Christians, as he is concerned that we act like Christians.
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We act like his people. If we say that we're saved and we constantly sow to the flesh, then we need to examine ourselves and see if we're truly in the faith or see if we truly are saved.
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God will not reward us according to our professions or what we say, but he will reward us according to our practices, what we have done.
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The Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter seven said, there's two types of people, one who hears my words and does them.
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That person's life will be like a person who, like a person who builds their house upon a rock and when the flood comes, it won't be devastated or that life will not be devastated.
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But the person who hears, and that person is the one who's sowing to the spirit. And then the person who hears the words of Christ and does not do what he says, is like another person who builds his house upon sand.
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And when the rain comes and the flood comes, it washes away that house because it has no foundation and great is the fall of that house.
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The two differences here, the two different types of sowing, the two different types of lives.
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Don't be deceived. Our pastor Cooley read this from second
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Corinthians last week, chapter five and in verse 10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body.
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According to that he had done, whether it be good or bad. So it does matter what we sow because one day the harvest is coming.
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There is a payday in this life and in the next life, which is to come. Every single seed we sow is important.
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Now, before, again, I said this at the beginning of the message. This message is not saying, brother Dave, are you saying that if I do good, if I come to church, if I pray, if I stop lying, if I stop cheating, then
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I'm gonna be rewarded with eternal life. I'll be saved. No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that if we believe upon the
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Lord Jesus Christ, if we've turned from our sins, if we've repented of our sin, turned to Christ and believe that he has died and was buried and rose again for us and God has saved us by his grace and we are
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Christians, then what we sow, the things that we sow in our lives, the things that we do, our thoughts, our words and our actions have consequences.
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Now, the verse that I read in 2 Corinthians 5, we're not gonna be judged according to our sin. That was judged upon the cross in Christ as our brother said at the
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Lord's table, all of our sin taken out of the way, cast behind God's back.
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He will not remember our iniquities anymore, but we will be judged according to how we've lived this life in service to God, sowing, reaping, the consequences that are there.
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Now, a person who is outside of Christ, a person who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ, does not have forgiveness of sins, you will reap what you sow also based upon the deeds, the actions that are done in the body.
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Every single seed we sow is important. Everything we do has eternal consequences. As you look behind you, what kind of seeds are you dropping?
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Be not deceived, listen to God's word and obey it. Act quickly upon what you hear. Don't be deceived by Satan's lies because what he says doesn't matter.
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What God's word says does matter because what Satan wants is for you, he has come to kill, to steal and to destroy.
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That's his desire. Christ has come that we might have life and that we might have life abundantly.
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Difference there, for us to sow to the spirit versus sowing to the flesh. Don't be deceived by your own heart either.
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Sometimes our minds can be our worst enemies like I talked about earlier where we can try to rationalize or justify or excuse away our sin, we need to be careful.
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Sometimes we know what God wants us to do and we hesitate. We want to pamper ourselves, we get lazy and we listen to the flesh instead of the spirit and to get away from our responsibilities and duty of serving the
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Lord, we begin to justify our wrong desires and sinful attractions. We begin to explain away what we know is right and we roam away from the safety and truth and virtues of God's word.
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And we don't even see that we've been deceived. Let me ask you this question. Have you ever said any of these phrases?
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I know what God's word says, but be careful because what we're sowing after that is what we will reap.
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What about, I know what God wants me to do, but under the circumstances, maybe God will understand or overlook it.
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No. How about this one? My life and my behavior isn't hurting anyone.
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Tell that to Achan and his family. How about this one? I know that it may appear bad, but I'm doing it for the
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Lord. If so, you may be deceived by your own hearts. Your flesh has controlled the situation.
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The seeds have been sown and the harvest is coming. Listen to what Spurgeon said about sin and sowing and reaping.
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He says, sins of lust bring disease to the body. Sins of idolatry cause men to do cruel and degrading things.
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Sins of temper have caused murders and wars and strives and misery. And sins of appetite, especially drunkenness, cause misery and ruin homes and delirium.
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But aren't you so thankful that when, you know, brother Dave, this is a, man, it is hot.
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And this is a bad picture. Aren't you glad for the word but in the Bible? For he that sows to this flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.
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But he that sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.
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The end of the story isn't there sowing to the flesh, but that God by his grace, when he changes us, he enables us to be able to sow to the spirit, to live a life that's different than our natural tendencies.
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And he that sows to the spirit, here's the good word, will reap life everlasting. Sowing to the spirit means sowing seeds of righteousness.
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It means a life which honors God and a life which is lived for Christ. It is a life which daily attempts to put the word of God into practical steps of obedience.
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I hear the word of God and I desire to apply it. And I'm trying to apply it. And I'm attempting by God's grace to walk in the way of God.
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It is a life where the person who sows righteousness, as Hosea wrote in 10 .12,
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sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the
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Lord till he come and rain righteousness upon us. This is not a life lived to please the flesh or self, but just the opposite, to buff it or to beat down the flesh, to govern our passions, to say no to ourselves.
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Bible says in the Proverbs, he that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.
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When the walls are down, the enemy can come in like a flood. And we need to govern ourselves. We need to exhibit self -control by saying,
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I ought to obey God, not what others tell me, not what the world is trying to push at me with all its advertisement, or not what my carnal appetites crave for.
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Self will not be the center of the person's life who is sowing to the spirit. And I see in this person's life seeds of usefulness and serviceableness to others.
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The focus of this life is the glory of God. It is hearing and doing the words of Jesus Christ. The well -being of other fellow men is important.
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The result of it is glorious. He that sows to the spirit or yields to the spirit shall, get that word there, shall, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.
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Not just the length of that life, but the quality of that life. The life of God within the soul, the life abundant, super abundant, different than a life that has lived in miserable squalor when it comes to sowing to the flesh.
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I look over the fields of the lives of those who sow to the spirit. What do you see? As they sow, as they go about, they sow just the opposite at the end of chapter five.
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They sow in love and joy and peace and long suffering, goodness, meekness, kind words.
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They give that cup of water in Jesus' name. They will go to the hospital when they find out that somebody in the bulletin, it says that somebody needs to be visited.
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They will, when they know that somebody's sick or somebody is down and out, they will make that meal and maybe send it over to the house or they'll show up on the moving day or whatever it is.
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The kind word from their mouth, the little card, the email, just being helpful to other people.
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Considering what the word of God says, even forgiving others as God has forgiven me, that I will treat others as God has treated me.
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You see those seeds being sown, seeds by the thousands left as they walk through their life and the shells of those seeds crack open and the ground moves and the shoots push their way up through the surface.
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The soil quickly changes color and I see the fruit. It is vastly different than those who've sown to the flesh.
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Instead of emptiness, there is fullness. Instead of vanity, there is purpose. There is moral fortitude and brilliant character in their life.
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Instead of sorrow, there is joy. And I see their harvest in this present life, comfort and peace, true satisfaction, assurance, the smile of their
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God upon them, the indwelling spirit of God, serviceableness in their life, spiritual service being rendered, lives being changed, souls saved, and God is so pleased.
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Now, I gave you the example of Achan who sowed to the flesh. Let me give you an example of somebody who sowed to the spirit.
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In the book of Hebrews, you don't have to turn there if you don't want, but in the book of Hebrews in chapter 11, in that chapter, it speaks of that without faith, it's impossible to please
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God. So there's this correlation, there's this idea of the person who wants to please
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God, of course, has to be a person who lives and walks by faith. And it gives examples of that throughout this chapter.
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And there's a man in here called Moses. And here's a man who could have sowed to the flesh. He could have stayed behind.
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He could have remained the son of Pharaoh's daughter in the position that he had had. But it says in verse 24, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction or to endure to be ill -treated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
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Did you notice that phrase there? It says that Moses purposed to suffer reproach to sow to the spirit so that he could reap life everlasting, rather than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a short time.
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Because that's what it is. Our life here upon earth, very short time. And if you sow to the flesh, that's all you get.
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That's the heaven you get. It's that long. That's it. The heaven is this long.
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It's your life upon it. I mean, anything that could be considered heaven. That's the best part of your life because the person who sows to the flesh will reap corruption.
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And of course, outside of Christ, that person ends up eternally banished from God and lost. Now in the opposite,
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Moses did just the opposite. He said, in my short lifetime, I'm gonna suffer. I'm going to sow to the spirit.
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I am going to choose the people of God. I'm gonna esteem the approach of Christ, greater riches than the treasure of Egypt.
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And he says, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who's invisible.
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He lived in a different realm, sowing to the spirit, walking in the ways of God and walking with God.
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And of course, we know of Moses, a man of faith, a man highly regarded by God. The friend, he was a friend of God.
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He was the one who God himself, you just think about that. We heard that last week or the week before that God is the only one that I know of where God, at the end of his life, took him and took care of his funeral and buried
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Moses all on his own. What a relationship he had with the Lord. What a life that he, and what he reaped from his life.
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I also see the reward of those who sow to the spirit and are spiritually minded when they die. What happens when they die?
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When Christians die, the flight to heaven on angels' wings. The gates of heaven open wide.
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The street of pure gold is their pathway. Mansions personally prepared by their Savior. The glory of God, rewards, thrones, bliss, crowns, choirs, heaven, eternal life, and Jesus himself face to face.
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I can wrap it up in this. I can say it in this. It is simply summed up as comfort in this life and eternal happiness when we die.
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But I'll move on real quickly for the last point. Don't be deceived. We will sow what we have reaped, but also
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God is not mocked. It tells us here in verse seven, God is not mocked.
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That can be translated, it has something to do with the idea of the turning up the nose and scorn to sneer at.
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It doesn't mean that people don't sneer at God or turn up their nose. Happens all the time. It happens every day in our society.
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The phrase means that man will not and cannot get away with turning up his nose to the
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Lord. Another way to say this is God is not fooled. You can't hide the quality of your seeds from God and you can't change the consequences of the seeds you've sown after you've sowed the seed.
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Why? Because God knows it all. He knows our real character. You can't pretend to be someone who is sowing in the
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Spirit while all along you are sowing in the flesh. God's eye will pierce through the facades and he will judge righteously.
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And if you sow to the Spirit, you don't have anything to fear, brethren. If you sow to the Spirit, you shall of the
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Spirit reap life everlasting. And as you're sowing, don't be weary as it says in verse 9 in well -doing, for in due season, you think, it'll never get over.
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It'll, I mean, one more step and I have another burden that's come my way, another trial, another struggle, another time that I've got to labor for the
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Master. Well, labor for the Master from the dawn to the setting sun because there will be a payday and God will be faithful to uphold
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His Word and you will reap life everlasting. You might think, it'll never happen.
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It's not going to come to me. Let me tell you, from last Sunday to this
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Sunday, brethren, we are one week closer to heaven, one week closer to glory and keep on sowing and keep on doing that which is right before God.
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But the person who tries to sow to the flesh and then try to claim something from God, try to live a life that is sinful and claim that we're going to get heaven from that, you can't fool
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God. You try to do that and it insults God's power and His knowledge. They may laugh at God, but God will expose it before all of creation.
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No one will ever fool God by saying that they are a Christian and yet deny the Lord Jesus by constantly sowing to the flesh.
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Jesus knows whose are His and whose are the children of the wicked one and He knows the quality of the fruit hanging on the limbs of our lives.
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I'm going to close with a quote by William Arnott. Listen to this carefully.
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Suppose a man should collect a quantity of small gravel. There's a little pieces of gravel out on the walkway.
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If you went out there and picked it up, the little gravel. If he was to take that and he was to paint it carefully so that it looked like grains of wheat and then sow it in his fields in the spring, expecting that he would reap a crop of wheat like his neighbors in high school, the man is crazy.
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He is a fool to think that by his silly trick, he can evade the laws of nature and mock nature's
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God. Yet equally foolish is the conduct and far heavier the punishment of the man who sows wickedness now and expects to reap safety at last.
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Sin is not only profitless and disastrous, it is imminently a deceitful work.
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Men do not of set purpose cast themselves away, but sin cheats the sinner out of his soul.
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But here's the good part. But sowing righteousness is never and nowhere lost labor.
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Did you get that? Sowing righteousness, sowing to the Spirit is never and nowhere lost labor.
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Every act done by God's grace and at His bidding is living and fruitful. It may appear to go out of sight like the seed that is in the ground beneath the furrow, but it will rise again.
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So what does Arnot say? Sow on, Christians. S -O -W. Sow on,
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Christians. I just love that. I love that phrase. Sow on, Christians. And Arnot finishes by saying, sight will not follow the seed very far, but when sight fails, sow in faith and you will reap in joy soon.
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Many of you are sitting here and you're thinking, wow, okay.
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I heard this message. I heard these words about sowing and reaping.
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The point of the matter is, is we've heard this, now what are we going to do about it? When we leave and we stand up and we walk out the door, will our lives be affected by what we heard?
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I trust that it will because this is the very Word of God which comes to us and tells us of the consequences of the thoughts and of the actions and of the words of our lives.
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You may be caught this morning in the chains of sin's prison. You are lost without Jesus Christ and you can't do anything but sow to the flesh because that's your natural tendency with the heart that you have.
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You need a new heart. Only God can do that. You need Jesus Christ because with him, you, as it were, get a new bag of seed.
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You get new capabilities. You have power over sin and the ability to be able to sow in righteousness because of the
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Savior's work of salvation in you. You need to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and call upon him and be saved.
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And those of you that are here this morning, look, if you will, this afternoon at verse nine. Don't grow weary.
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Don't fret. In the well -doing that you're doing, you think it's not going to happen. You plant the seeds and nothing's coming out.
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It's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It will happen. You shall reap. If you've sown to the
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Spirit, you shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And keep toiling on, keep watching, keep praying and laboring till the
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Master comes. And it most certainly will be worth it all when we see Jesus, our precious Savior, face to face.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven,
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I thank you that you are such a merciful God, that you give us your truth.
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We don't have to guess how it is that we're to live. But your word explicitly tells us about life and about living, about this life and about the next.
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And here we've heard about sowing and reaping. And I pray that if there are my brothers and sisters in this room that are struggling with temptation, they're struggling and living a life that just seems kind of dull and apathetic and empty and powerless.
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It might be because they're cherishing and holding on to some sin or some thought or some bitterness, something might be there that is blocking fellowship with you, is hindering their prayer.
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And maybe they're just trading their reputation, their good name for something that is not worth it.
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And I pray that you give them strength and grace to overcome. That they might be able to repent and confess their sin and you will be merciful and kind to forgive them their sins, to wipe the slate clean.
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And from this day forth, they'd be able to begin to sow to the spirit so that they can look forward with hope of reaping life everlasting.
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Oh, Father, we look to you and we ask that you'd please, please remember us and help us in this time of need.
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And we just thank you for the time that we've been able to spend in your word. In Jesus' precious name, amen.