Ever hear of something called “jogging in a jug”? “Jogging in a Jug” is a concoction of 4 parts grape juice, 4 parts apple juice, and 1 part apple cider vinegar. Yum, yum! It’s a folk remedy for high cholesterol; a kind of “Drano” for your arteries. Supposedly, two ounces a day of this stuff and your insides will be as slick and clean as a whistle. Now, I don’t know if it works. It’s never been scientifically proven to do anything except cause you to make an awful face when you drink it. But wouldn’t it be great if it did? Just the name sounds appealing: “Jogging in a jug.” Wouldn’t it be great if you could gain all the benefits of jogging without actually having to exercise! If you could lower your cholesterol and improve your health without having to strap on your Nikes and “just do it”. If instead, you could “just drink it”? No getting up before dawn to drive to the gym; no hours of pain on the Stairmaster. Just a shot glass of vinegar and it’s “please pass the jelly doughnuts!”
Take another example. It used to be that if you ate junk food, you got fat. Now, we have Olestra, a fat substitute, so we can eat greasy potato chips and ice cream to our heart’s content without raising our cholesterol. Over the years, we’ve developed a multitude of artificial sweeteners – cyclamates, saccharin, aspartame – so we can drink all the sodas we want without rotting our teeth and expanding our middles. And if you do happen to eat something with actual fat or calories, you don’t need to go to the gym to lose weight. All that sweating and huffing and puffing is so 80’s. Now, you just make an appointment with your friendly local liposuctionist, and for a couple of thousand dollars, he’ll suck that fat right out.
In short, what we’re constantly trying to do is repeal the law of sowing and reaping, sever the connection between action and consequence. Not just with eating and drinking, but in every area of life. It’s a universal human urge: people to want to enjoy the benefits without paying the price. Take money. Why is the lottery so popular? It’s an opportunity to become wealthy without labor. There are other ways to acquire wealth, but they’re not nearly as appealing, because they all involve work. That’s whey we love game shows like “Who wants to be a millionaire?” Just answer a dozen trivia questions, and you’re rich. No years of medical school, no years of working late at the office, no years of sacrificing and saving and investing. Just ten minutes sitting across from Regis and – boom! – instant wealth. Now I’m not knocking game shows or saying that Regis is evil [although he does sort of resemble the devil in those dark, monochrome suits]. But we should ask ourselves why these shows are so popular. It’s the appeal of having wealth without having to earn it. It’s the appeal of breaking that link between work and reward [John Houseman commercial: “At Smith Barney, we make money the old-fashioned way. We earn it.” They don’t run that commercial anymore. Why? People don’t want to invest for the long term. They don’t want to “earn” a good return on their money. They want to take a flyer on some “dot-com” stock that’s going to quadruple their money in two weeks.]
Now, while you may be able to acquire wealth without labor, or reverse the consequences of overeating, there’s at least one area of life where the law of sowing and reaping always applies. And that’s in our spiritual life. Our character, our relationship with God, our relationships with one another, these are ruled by the law of sowing and reaping. It’s part of the moral fabric of the universe. This law can’t be overturned by drinking vinegar; it can’t be repealed by a winning lottery ticket. It holds fast. And so the way of wisdom is not to war against it, but to understand it and live by it and benefit from it. Ignoring the law of sowing and reaping only leads to sorrow and regret. What we need to do is respond to it in a way that’s spiritually healthy and pleasing to God.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” – Galatians 6:7-9 (NIV)
What’s Paul’s first point? “Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.” Some people today are mocking God. Not explicitly – they’re not glaring up at the sky, laughing at God, taunting Him, daring Him to strike them down. But they are mocking Him implicitly, by the way they’re living; by disregarding His claims on their life. Ignoring God, ignoring His law, ignoring His Son Jesus Christ. Living however they please, with no thought or concern about God. They think they’re beating the system. They think they’re “gettting away with it.” They think that as long as they’re clever enough to cover their tracks, as long as they can avoid discovery and exposure, as long as no one finds out, then they can do whatever they want.
But what Paul is telling us here is that they’re not getting away with it. It’s corroding their soul. It’s destroying their integrity. It’s eroding the foundation of their relationships, and placing a barrier between them and God. And sooner or later, it is going to come out. Sooner or later, they will reap what they’ve been sowing.
[World Magazine, June 12 1999]. “When Harvard Divinity School dean Ronald F. Thiemann, a Lutheran theologian, suddenly stepped down from his post last November, he said it was for "personal and professional reasons." Last month, the Boston Globe filled in the blanks. It said he had been forced to resign after technicians at the school told Harvard officials they had found thousands of pornographic images on his university-owned home computer. Mr. Thiemann had summoned the workers to install a larger hard disk and to transfer the contents of the old disk to it.”
Did Mr. Thiemann expect to be exposed? Certainly not. But in the sovereignty of God, it did come to light. And the result was a stained career and reputation.
But – What if you don’t get caught? Sometimes the coverup works, doesn’t it? What if you’re never exposed? What then? Well, at the very least, hidden sin weakens our relationship with God. When Christians try to conceal their sin, it distances them from their Lord. It erects a barrier to prayer; it destroys fellowship with Christ. And at worst, concealed sin shows that there was never really a relationship with God to begin with. You see, people who think they’re “getting away with it” may be able to con everyone around them, every day of their lives, until the day of their death. But they can’t con God. There will be a judgment, and all of their deeds, good and bad, will be exposed.
“The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden.” – 1 Timothy 5:24-25 (NIV)
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” – Hebrews 4:13 (NIV)
Everything we sow eventually bears fruit. It’s the law of sowing and reaping. If what we’re sowing is bad, then the harvest will be bad, whether our deeds come to fruition in this life or whether they are exposed at God’s judgment seat on the last day.
“As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.” – Job 4:8 (NIV)
“He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.” – Proverbs 11:18 (NIV)
“Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love . . .” –Hosea 10:12 (NIV)
“Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” – James 3:18 (NIV)
In a large, macro sense, we see this happening all the time. The events of the last few days in Israel have certainly validated this principle. I’m not an expert on what’s going on over there, and sorting out precisely how much responsibility each side bears for the current conflict is beyond me. But I look at what happened to those two Israeli soldiers who took a wrong turn into Palestinian territory. When they were recognized by the crowd, they were attacked and were taken to the local police station. The mob broke in and beat and stabbed them to death. Their bodies were tossed out a window of the station and beaten some more on the ground outside. Finally, through the windows of the police station, one of them waved his bloody hands at the crowd in triumph.
What was the mob sowing? Hate, anger, revenge, bloodlust. What did they reap? Israeli missile attacks from helicopter gunships on several targets in the West Bank, including that police station and the headquarters of the Palestinian authority, more than two dozen people injured, and more than that, Israel and the Palestinians brought to the brink of full-scale war. Sow hate and murder, reap outrage and war, destruction.
Sowing and reaping. Deed and consequence. Let me pause here and ask you a question. What are you sowing in your life right now? Today, Sunday, October 15th? How did you spend your day yesterday? Are you giving any thought to what you’re going to harvest from the seeds you’re planting right now? Are you seeking to please God, sowing seeds of obedience and service? Or are you sowing seeds of sin that will produce shame when Christ returns? Our words, and actions and decisions are more significant than we can possibly know. They echo through our lives and the lives of everyone we meet; they reverberate into eternity.
* What are you sowing in your children’s lives? What are you teaching them? Are you teaching them? What kind of example are you setting? How are you preparing them to walk with Christ?
* What are you sowing in your own spiritual life? Are you reading the Bible? Are you praying? Are you cultivating a relationship with God? Or are you neglecting your spiritual life? What kind of harvest are you expecting? Are you sowing seeds to produce a a strong faith, and joy, and peace? Are you expecting a harvest of Flowers, and fruits and vegetables? Or weeds?
* What are you sowing in your relationship with your spouse? Criticism? Neglect? Disapproval? You shouldn’t be surprised if those seeds produce a harvest of thorns and thistles. Or are you sowing encouragement, and praise, and attention? The harvest of those seeds is love.
* What about your relationships with others? Are you sowing peace, or discord?
* What are you filling your mind with? How are you spending your time and money? What kind of seeds are you planting in these areas? What kind of fruit are you expecting?
Here’s they key. We don’t have a choice as to whether the law of sowing and reaping is going to apply in our lives. “A man reaps what he sows.” We don’t have a choice whether the seeds we plant are going to bear fruit. And we don’t have the option of harvesting good fruit without first planting the seeds. The only choice we have is what kinds of seeds we’re going to plant. The choices you are making today, the actions you are taking today, with respect to your family, your marriage, your children, your relationship with God, your time and money – these will bear fruit; either good fruit that will bring you joy, or bad fruit that will bring you heartache and sorrow. You have to decide: Which will it be?
Now at about this time, I expect that some of you are starting to form some objections, some questions. Because this law of sowing and reaping, although absolutely true, is not necessarily simple in its application. For example, sometimes the “good fruit” doesn’t look all that good to us. We do our best to obey God, we pray, we read the Bible, we speak the truth, we seek peace with others, we stay faithful to our spouses and we love our kids. And yet, things still go wrong. Conflict, bitterness, angry words, betrayal, tears, sorrow. What gives? I thought that if I sowed good things, I would receive a good harvest. Let’s look again at Paul’s words:
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” – Galatians 6:7-9 (NIV)
What do we see? Paul thought it necessary to caution us against becoming weary. He spoke about reaping a harvest “at the proper time.” Why? Because sometimes the harvest doesn’t come when we expect, or when we desire.
* Sometimes the "harvest" takes months, years, decades.
* Your children -- You may say something that you forget, but which sticks with them for years afterward. [Boswell’s father – “A day wasted”]
* Sometimes the harvest comes too late for us to see it. [Moses died before entering the promised land.]
* Sometimes we’re unaware of who we’ve influenced; the fruit appears when we’re not around to see it.
* And, in some cases, the harvest just doesn’t come in this life at all. Our reward is “Well done, Thou good and faithful servant.”
Here’s another thing: not only does the fruit sometimes appear at a time we don’t expect; sometimes it appears in a form we don’t recognize as good fruit. We were expecting strawberries and we got potatoes. Sometimes the result of obedience is not an improvement in our circumstances, but a strengthening of our faith and a refining of our character. God, in His wisdom, defines that as good fruit, even though we may be looking for something else.
So, what should we be doing? Just doing whatever we feel like, and hoping for the best? A garden treated that way would produce nothing but weeds. We need to reflect on how we’re living, we need to consider what kind of seeds we’re planting with our life. We need to work diligently to plant the right kind of seeds, so we won’t be disappointed at harvest time:
“A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.” – Proverbs 20:4 (NIV)
We need to place our trust and confidence in God. Only he can produce a good harvest. It’s by His power and grace, and not because of our effort, that good fruit comes.
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. – 1 Cor. 3:6-7 (NIV)
Finally, what about the bad seed we’ve already sown, the sins we’ve already committed, the months or years that have been wasted? Well, you may have to endure the consequences of your sin. You may need to accept that you’re going to be reaping some bad fruit. Maybe you’re experiencing that right now – maybe you’re suffering the consequences of your past actions. Maybe you’re even reaping the fruit of someone else’s wrong choices. The important thing to realize is that there is a higher law that supersedes the law of sowing and reaping. And that’s the law of love, the law of grace. That’s the promise of forgiveness and eternal life to all who will place their faith in Jesus Christ. In Christ, the punishment for our sins is removed and our guilt is completely erased. We are no longer under God’s condemnation; our sins will not bear the fruit of God’s wrath and anger and judgment. Although we may still experience the consequences of our actions in this world, Christ will make sure there is no harvest of judgement in the next.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
