Gal 6:7-16
7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. 10 So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.
Final Admonitions and Benediction
11 See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. 14 May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! 16 As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
A priest, a Pentecostal pastor, and a rabbi would get together two or three times a week to drink coffee and talk shop. One day, one of them made the comment that preaching to people wasn’t really all that hard; a real challenge would be to preach to a bear. One thing led to another, and they decided to do an experiment. They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it. A week later they meet to discuss their experiences.
The priest has his arm in a sling and is on crutches. "Well," he says, "I went into the woods to find a bear. I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him, and he became as gentle as a lamb. The bishop is coming next week to give him first communion."
The Pentecostal Pastor is in a wheelchair, with an arm and both legs in casts. In his best fire and brimstone voice he proclaims, "WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don’t sprinkle, Amen! I went out and found me a big bear, and I began to PREACH to him from God’s HOLY WORD! But that ol’ bear didn’t want nothing to do with me. So I took hold of HIM and we began to wrestle - DOWN one hill, and UP the next and DOWN another until we came to a crick. So I quick DUNKED him under and BAPTIZED his hairy soul, praise Jesus! And just like that, he started speakin’ in tongues and praisin’ the Lord, HALLELUJAH! He went out and converted three MORE bears and a mountain lion!"
They both look at the Rabbi, who is covered from head to toe in bandages. Both his arms and legs are in casts, his face is bruised and scratched, and he’s hooked up to an IV. The Rabbi looks at his friends and hoarsely croaks, "I, too, found a bear and started reading Torah. He didn’t seem to mind too much, but when I tried to circumcise him ..."
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In this week’s scripture lesson, Paul warned people against the Judiaisers. Judiaisers are those early Jewish Christians that required the gentiles to be circumcised in order to join Christianity. One of the reason is that they wanted to impressed the Jewish leaders that the Christians also go through the ritual of circumcision, so that they would be accepted by the mainline Judaism. Another reason is just out of their hypocrisy—they want others to submit to the Law that they themselves couldn’t fallow.
What’s dangerous about this practice is that it nullified the need for the death of Jesus Christ for our salvation. Paul said in the earlier part the epistle, Galatians 2:20, “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.”
Paul then wrote the conclusion of this letter by emphasizing that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” Paul is saying that religious rituals don’t mean anything, by a new creation—a transformed life—is everything.
Then he said, “As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” The word rule here does not mean a ritualistic rule, but it is the word “Kanon” in Greek. So Paul is talking about the salvation through grace, not through works or rituals, is the very gospel, the Canon.
Paul pointed out 3 important principles of a transformational life.
1 – Recover from the addiction of the flesh
“If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh;” Sowing is in Paul’s time is like investing. Based on verse six, Paul was actually talking about how to use your money. If you use it for the flesh, you reap death.
If you have seen the news lately about the lines of people waiting in front of the Apple store to buy the first IPhone, you will know how sick, or materialistic, our society has become. Rabbi Edwin Friedman, one of the greatest pastoral counselors ever lived, once relayed in his speech a parable of his interview with Satan. Throughout history, Satan has always been finding a way to redirect people’s attention away from their salvation.
As long as Satan can redirect people’s attention to things, data, and methods, he finds it very successful in keeping people in the bondage of spiritual ignorance and miss the salvation.
Many ways Satan loves to use. He uses processions to distract people to thinking that if only I have this thing, I will be happier. Some of you might notice that there are times you children would tell you that this is the best thing I’ve ever wanted. But a couple of months later, they think this is not the best anymore. Some of them even intentionally destroy it so that they can get a new one. The recent IPhone story has proven Satan’s effective mind control.
I am not blaming the Apple company, but what I am saying is it provides an opportunity for people to escape from the reality—like a drug addict. It is easy to identify addiction to drug and alcohol, but the materialism is very subtle, especially when the news media is after you and broadcasting your opening of the IPhone box live. It is opposite from as if someone is looking at you are and addict and problematic, but they glorify you as you touch that material and sip the invisible drug out of it. When you get that IPhone, it will completely redirect your attention to this new baby and keep you numb from the reality.
The result is you reap what is of the flesh you sow to the flesh. The result is a problematic life and a problematic family.
Another more subtle addiction, according to Edwin Friedman, is data. Satan lures people to think the more data we have the closer we are to heaven. In fact the more data we have the further we are from heaven because just imagine how much time you need in maintenance of your data. The data addicts thinks, if only I get a little more information, I can rest assure for the rest of my life.
When I bough my first computer, it was an IBM PS/1, and it came with 40 megabytes of hard drive and I thought I will never every used that up. Now even my notebook computer has 100 gigabytes and it is getting full. The danger is that I must not let us suck me into that 100 gigabits of information. If I were to sort them out, it will take another 100 or more lives. Data has a lot of power and you can become addicted to it. Some people focus on accumulating data in order to avoided facing the inner problem.
The third kind of even subtler addiction is the addiction to the methods and techniques. Just like these Judiaisers, they are addicted to the method—for them the method for salvation is circumcision. This week have a world class concert call the Planet Earth. I am not saying it’s a bad thing, because if it is bad like alcohol and drugs, it’s no longer subtle. I have found out that some people can cry for the environmental justice and become extremely active to this method in order to avoid dealing with the inner spiritual problems.
If Edwin Friedman were alive today, I am sure he will be concerned with the situation. He would say that we are trying to cure the symptom but not the disease. Surely symptoms must be taken care of as long as we don’t miss dealing with the disease.
Then what is the solution?
2 – Sow to the Spirit
We are sowing seeds all the time, with our actions. You are either sowing to the Spirit of to the flesh. Jesus wants us strive first for the kingdom of God, that means that we must first sow to the spirit.
Paul says that we must to sow to the spirit and we will reap the spiritual fruits. If you sow your time, money, and efforts to the flesh, at the end of the day you still find yourself empty. Those IPhone owners are no longer satisfied with what comes with it, but they are now swarmed to the Apple website to download newer software for the IPhones. It just suck you into never ending cycle of spending.
Paul said don’t try to mock God, thinking that you can sow to the flesh and still reap the fruit of the spirit. You reap what you sow and never think that God can be tricked. If you sow to the spiritual purpose, the Bible says you will reap the fruit of the spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and self-control.
Madame Chiang Kai-shek once wrote:
"If the past has taught us anything it is that every cause brings its effect, every action has a consequence. We Chinese have a saying: "If a man plants melons he will reap melons; if he sows beans, he will reap beans." And this is true of everyone’s life; good begets good, and evil leads to evil. True enough, the sun shines on the saint and the sinner alike, and too often it seems that the wicked prosper. But we can say with certainty that, with the individual as with the nation, the flourishing of the wicked is an illusion, for, unceasingly, life keeps books on us all. In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions. Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurturing for growth and development. Thus also, day by day, we write our own destiny; for inexorably...we become what we do."
Some people might say, I am too old and have sow too many wrong seeds. But there is always another season for you to sow the right seeds.
The good news is that if you strive for the kingdom of God, you will get everything else. That’s the greatest secret of the entire universe. If you seek the flesh you lose your spirit, but if you seek the spirit, you get everything else as bonus.
3 – Face the Deep Change
“For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” The deep change is everything. Robert Quinn says we either face the deep change of slow death. Everyone avoids dep change because dee change is terrifying. It is terrifying because it requires letting go of control. When you surrender your control to Jesus Christ, you become a new creation.
The Bibl says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” 2 Cor. 5:17.
When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night and asked what he needed to do to receive eternal life, Jesus told him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” In here Jesus is saying the same thing like Paul said, a reborn life is everything—a new creation is everything. We always want to define salvation through religious rituals, but Jesus defines it through a new creation.
We know that Paul was a new creation. Before he met Jesus Christ, he went about persecuting Christians. When he met Christ, he became a new creation, an entirely different person.
In one sense, human beings are like caterpillars, everyone has to go through a transformation or metamorphosis. But most people avoid that process and ended up remaining a caterpillar all their lives.
Let’s not remain a caterpillar. Verse 16 says, when we become a new creation, we are blessed with peace and mercy.
May God bless you all, Amen!
