Now that we have your attention, would you please
turn in your Bible to Galatians 6, verses 7 and
8. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For
whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from
the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows
to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal
life. It is obvious that the fruit of the Spirit
is not produced in the life of a believer as
thoroughly or completely as he might wish it
were. It is true that the fruit is singular and
that all nine qualities that we have studied
in previous Sundays are aspects of that one fruit.
And it's true also that either the fruit is there
in all of its aspects or it's not there at all,
revealing the domination of the flesh. However,
the degree to which the fruit, with its nine
qualities, is evidenced, varies. It depends upon
one's personality or temperament, upon one's
maturity level, and upon the demands in a given
situation. It is important to understand that
the fruit of the Holy Spirit can be, at least
should be, increasingly evident or apparent the
longer that one is a believer. In other words,
the new convert and the mature believer would
be expected to show differing degrees of fruitfulness.
On our farm, we planted apple trees when I was
a very young child. And I remember waiting until
that apple tree bore some fruit and how happy
we were that first year when there were some
apples on the tree. But the older the tree became,
the more fruit that there was. And so it seems
to me there is a similar phenomenon regarding
the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the life... of
the believer. The more mature one becomes, the
more fruitfulness should be apparent. It is important
also to understand that you and I are responsible
from a human perspective for that increase in
fruitfulness. In agriculture, one can increase
a harvest by sowing more seed. Likewise, in the
realm of the Spirit, The more we sow to the Spirit,
the more produce of the life of Jesus the Holy
Spirit can bring to pass in us. The more we sow,
therefore, the more we reap. We see this peculiar
phrase in verse 8, the one who sows to the Spirit.
What does it mean to sow to the Spirit? Well,
in the first place, what does one sow? Well,
obviously the answer is that one sows seed. What
happens then to seed when it is sown? It germinates
and then produces a harvest of fruit. And so
when the New Testament speaks about our sowing
to the Spirit, it seems to me that God is saying
to us that we are to provide abundant seed. which
the Holy Spirit can use to create a spiritual
harvest of His fruit in our lives. We need to
sow to the Spirit in order to reap a harvest
of His fruit. We sow to the Spirit by taking
actions like confronting sin's expressions in
our lives. It was the prophet Amos of old who
asked the question, can two walk together except
they be agreed? And of course the answer is no.
Fellowship is impossible when two are in disagreement.
Likewise, when I am in disagreement with the
Holy, underscore that, the Holy Spirit who dwells
in me, when I am in disagreement with the righteous,
purposes of God in my life, then I am not walking
by the Holy Spirit. Two cannot walk together
except they be agreed. We have talked before
that God has provided for us to live above the
dominance of sin and the flesh. May I review
with you briefly? that we are identified with
Jesus Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection,
Romans chapter 6. We are indwelt by the Holy
Spirit of God, Romans chapter 8. And the Word
of God instructs us, in light of that, to first
of all consider ourselves dead to sin with its
temptations, to make no provision for the flesh.
and to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against
our souls. The Bible also says that we are to
present ourselves alive to God and the members
of our bodies as instruments of righteousness
for His use. We are further commanded in the
Bible to walk in dependence upon the Holy Spirit.
So my point is, in this brief review, that we
do not have to fulfill sin's desires in us. We
do not have to follow after its enticements.
We have been set free from all of that. And now
the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus
is operating in us so that we can live above
the law of sin and death. But the fact remains
that in spite of all of that, we do sin. Just
as John tells us in 1 John 2, verses 1 and 2,
he says, Beloved, I write these things to you
that you stop sinning. But if any man does sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous one. John is saying, I'm writing
these things to you so that you will stop sinning.
But then he recognized, but if any man does sin,
and we do sin, and we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, who
intercedes in our behalf before the Father. When
we recognize that sin has had its way, when we
see that sin has expressed itself, we deal quickly
with that. We must not allow that to become a
pattern. We must not allow that to become a beachhead
for sin in our lives. The moment that we recognize
sin, we need to deal with it. We need to confront
it at that instant. We dare not accumulate a
load of sins, so to speak, which are left unconfronted.
Occasionally I see on television an advertisement
for a tractor pull. Have you ever been to a tractor
pull? You see those beastly -looking implements,
belching fire, throwing mud and dirt, pulling
these heavy sleds. Part of the contest is that
the further the sled moves, the more resistance
it develops. So it tests the strength of the
tractor. Well, you and I dare not allow the sled,
so to speak, to gain resistance in our lives.
The moment that we sense that sin is there, we
need to confront that sin and not allow sins
to accumulate and develop a resistance in our
walk with God. You say, how do you confront sin?
Well, just briefly, I would say this. Number
one, by confessing it as sin. 1 John 1 .9, if
we confess our sins... That is the expression
of the sin within us. If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. To
confess sins means to agree with God that what
we've done is wrong. It means to own up to our
actions or our words or our attitudes. But then
we must go beyond that to consciously submit
to Jesus Christ's lordship again. especially
in that specific area of disobedience, to put
that area under the lordship of Jesus Christ
anew, although sin has recently had its way.
And that way we at least begin to confront sin's
expressions. May I ask you a question? Are the
expressions of sin in your life thoroughly dealt
with on this Lord's Day morning? Or is there
an accumulation of them which is dragging you
down, preventing you from experiencing the abundant
life which might be represented by the fruit
of the Spirit? It is altogether too easy for
all of us, including myself, to allow our lives
to become something like an open dump where the
garbage of sin's expressions have been left undealt
with. And there develop in our lives a... Repulsive
smell and foul odors, unsightly trash begins
to blow around until we confront sin's expressions.
We sow to the Spirit by confronting the expressions
of sin in our lives. Secondly, we sow to the
Spirit by absorbing the Word of God. A life without
regular, meaningful Bible study results in a
lifestyle Without the touch of God, without the
sweet sense of His presence, someone said, the
way we treat our Bibles is the way we treat our
Savior. There are those who say that that is
bibliolatry. I dare to disagree with that. I
think the statement is simply a recognition of
the uniqueness of the Bible, this book. It is
the written revelation of God who has also revealed
Himself in His Son, the Living Word. But this
book is the written revelation of God Himself.
And so my attitude toward the Bible reveals my
attitude toward the Lord Jesus. The Bible inherently
reveals the holiness and purity of God. It authoritatively
establishes His Lordship. That's why my attitude
toward the Bible is so important. I sow to the
Spirit by absorbing the Word. Absorption is a
process that takes time. It requires a thorough
soaking until one thing has assimilated another.
And so it is with absorbing the Word. This moves
us beyond Bible reading. Now that is very important,
and I don't want to in any way diminish that
importance. We need to read the Bible. But it
moves us beyond simply Bible reading to Bible
thinking so that what the Bible says remains
in our minds. It begins to dominate our minds.
It begins to capture our thoughts so that we
consider and ponder and muse the meaning and
application. of the Word of God to our lives.
We sow to the Spirit by absorbing the Word of
God. How much have you been soaking in it recently?
How much has been assimilated into your mind
so that you begin to think Bible thoughts? We
need to be, as Spurgeon said, the kind of people
who, if they bleed, bleed bibline. We bleed Bible,
people who are soaked in the Word. I want to
tell you something. Unless we sow to the Spirit
of God in that way, we will sow to the flesh.
You can count on it. We sow to the Spirit thoroughly
by making time to pray. Time will rarely be just
available for this. We have to work to carve
it out of our daily routines. without a time
when we quietly wait upon God and worship Him,
without a time when we come before Him reflecting
our day's demands and our cares, a time of interceding
for others, then we cannot maintain a walk by
the Spirit, and therefore we will fulfill the
lusts of the flesh. We sow to the Spirit by making
time to pray. Prayerlessness results in a loss
of perspective on life. We begin to see it from
a merely human perspective instead of God's.
It results in a lack of preparedness for emergencies.
Some unexpected thing comes into our lives and
we're caught without power if we're prayerless.
Prayerlessness results in defeat in spiritual
battles. Because you see, prayer builds power
reserves. We've said it before, it bears repetition.
No prayer, no power. Little prayer, little power.
Much prayer, much power. That does not necessarily
mean that we must pray for power. Rather, prayer
is the... Power, rather, is the byproduct of
prayer. As we pray, there is spiritual power
that is generated in our lives. Therefore, we
sow to the Spirit when we make time to pray.
I believe that we need to enliven and to enrich
our prayer times. The danger of our prayers becoming
routine and dull. How do you enliven and enrich
prayer? Let me suggest some things. First of
all, by listening to yourself pray. That can
be discouraging at first. But listen to what
God listens to sometimes. And begin to notice
those meaningless phrases. Those cliches that
you use and throw them out of your prayer language.
There's one little four -letter word that has
slipped into so much of our praying these days.
It's the word just. You ever notice that? Lord,
we just come to you and we just ask you and we
just this and we just that. You can cancel any
word in your vocabulary for a month. Cancel that
one. Especially in your prayer vocabulary. Lord,
guide and direct. I wonder if God can ever guide
without directing or direct without guiding.
I don't know. Those two words just kind of go
together, don't they? Lord, guide and direct.
We could go on and on. There are so many clichés
that we use. Enliven your prayer time by throwing
out those meaningless ones and use some fresh
language. By the way, one way you can do that
is by reading prayers of other people. There
are some books of these available, especially
books of Puritan prayers. are available these
days. And that will give you some new language
to use to make your own prayer time fresh. Secondly,
let me suggest that you can enrich your prayer
time by saying less and listening more. Gordon
MacDonald, in his book of last year called Ordering
Your Private World, says, I found that my prayers
often seemed disconnected. that I was not able
to concentrate or even stay awake. I often wondered
if I could ever develop a vigorous worship and
intercessory life. The journal provided a vehicle
for writing prayers when my spoken prayers lacked
cohesiveness. His suggestion is that we all keep
a prayer journal. He goes on to say, a key contribution
of the journal became its record of not only
the good moments, but the bad times as well.
These became special passages to look back upon.
My own journals are spiral -bound notebooks,
he says, which I purchased at an office supply
store. I can complete one of these notebooks
in about three months. I write in my journal
almost every day, but I'm not overly disturbed
if an occasional day passes without an entry.
And what is in there? An account of things that
I accomplished in the preceding day, people I
met, things I learned, feelings I experienced,
and impressions I believe God wanted me to have.
I include prayers if I feel like writing them
down, insights that come from Bible reading and
other spiritual literature, and concerns I have
about my own personal behavior. I love to record
things I'm seeing in the lives of the members
of my family. All of this is part of listening
to God. As I write, says MacDonald, I am aware
that what I am writing may actually be what God
wants to tell me. Enliven your prayer time by
saying less and listening more. Third, by finding
a quiet, restful time and place. Remember that
your prayer time is not a business call on God.
It is a conversation with your Heavenly Father.
And it should be in that kind of a spirit. Fourthly,
by making periodic changes in your prayer routine,
your manner. Avoid the sameness of things and
dullness which often sets in. And number five,
you can enliven your prayer time by using the
Word to prime your pump. In other words, use
the Bible to lead you in your praying. Pray through
the Bible. Allow its own phrases to generate
thoughts in your minds that you can echo then
back to God. That will probably lead you into
more praise and less prayer or actually asking
of requests. So we sow to the Spirit by making
time to pray. Number four, we sow to the Spirit
by establishing transparent relationships. One
of the genuine hindrances to spiritual fruit
is the reclusiveness that most people have regarding
inward feelings, hidden struggles, secret defeats,
silent questions and unspoken fears. We all become
Howard Hughes when it comes to this part of our
lives. We withdraw from the public. into our
little rooms and lock the doors. We learn to
adeptly build facades of pleasantness and confidence,
of everything's okay here kinds of responses.
But the truth is, and God knows it, that things
are different than that. And the illusion or
the duplicity that we adopt with others does
two things, or three things actually. First of
all, it retards God's work to free us from those
things that bother us. And then secondly, it
limits God's message through our lives. God wants
to say something special in our lives by those
problems that we have. When we refuse to get
them out where we can deal with them, it limits
God's message. And finally, when we won't be
open with people, It misleads people and compounds
their own battles with the same things. That
does not mean that we need to be public in the
sense of a worship service with all of our problems,
but we do need, each of us, to establish a transparent
relationship of at least one other person. Establishing
an honest, what you hear and see is what I am,
relationship. with a peer is an important step
towards spiritual maturity. We sow to the Spirit
when we are willing to do this. You say, how
do you do it? Well, I would encourage you first
of all to pray regarding that person. Ask God
to lead you to that one or two or three people
that could be a part of this peer group with
whom you could be transparent and gut -level
honest with. And then begin to build a friendship,
if it's not there already, a friendship with
trust and mutual confidence and respect. And
then at the point when you get the green light
from God, take the plunge and open yourself up
to that other person. Or at least stick your
foot in the water if you can't take the plunge.
But begin to be transparent. Until you can open
yourself up fully. And then fourthly, commit
yourself to help each other with your own struggles.
The result of that, the result of doing that
will be almost an immediate sense of relief.
There will be in your life almost immediately
a breath of fresh heavenly air and a freedom.
perhaps what you've never known before. That
is the truth. If you are serious about sowing
to the Spirit and thus reaping eternal life from
the Spirit, then I want to exhort you and encourage
you to do that by establishing transparent relationships.
Finally, we sow to the Spirit by disciplining
ourselves to rest. This may seem like a rather
strange one, but I think it's not. You see, I
believe that God established the principle of
Sabbath for mankind. Now, I can hear someone
say immediately, yes, but we're not under law
today. I fully recognize that there was a special
significance for Israel in observing the Sabbath.
and that that no longer applies to the church
in this age. But please remember that the Sabbath
was established long before the law of Moses
was ever given. The Sabbath was a part of the
very process of creation itself, for the Bible
tells us that God rested on the seventh day.
Again, I want to quote MacDonald in this area.
I get the feeling, he says, we are a tired generation.
Evidence of that fatigue abounds in a multitude
of articles about health problems related to
overwork and exhaustion. Workaholism is a modern
word. What is strange about our general fatigue
as a people is the fact that we are such a leisure
-oriented society. We probably have more time
for leisure than we ever had before. Is the contemporary
form of exhaustion evidence that we no longer
understand genuine rest, which is different from
the pursuit of leisure? What an interesting question
he poses. But Donald then in his book goes on
to suggest three insights into making a meaningful
Sabbath for a Christian. What does it mean to
have a Sabbath? Well, it means to have a time
when you first of all look backward. When you're
able to ask yourself the kinds of questions like
these, what does my work mean? For whom do I
do what I do? How well am I doing my work? Why
do I do this? A time of reflection when we look
backward. A Sabbath also includes a look inward
when we can ask questions like these. What do
I believe? What standard of truth helps me make
decisions in the midst of life's pressures? I
like the particular phrases that... Mr. MacDonald
uses in his book, he calls this Sabbath a recalibration
of spirit, and in another place, the fine -tuning
of my inner navigational instruments. There are
people today who are in big rushes, but they
don't know where they're going, because they
haven't considered questions like these. As a
Christian, I need also a Sabbath when I can look
forward. When I can ask, what is my mission in
life? Where am I headed? Not to regularly ask
this question, says MacDonald, is to leave yourself
open to mistakes of judgment and direction. One
important aspect, by the way, of the Sabbath
is the worship of God with one's Christian family.
That is public worship. The Lord Jesus Christ
was the most busy person, if I may use that term
in the right sense, who ever walked the earth.
No one ever felt more pressure than he did in
every aspect of life. And yet we never see the
Lord Jesus Christ forsaking that time of worship
on the Sabbath in the Jewish synagogue. Part
of Sabbath for the Christian, then, is public
worship with the people of God, doing exactly
what we're doing this morning, a time when we
can have that look backward and inward and forward
and ask these questions of ourselves. It's essential.
But it goes beyond that to include personal rest
and tranquility. Do you have even three hours
a week? which you spend not in mere leisure,
but in rest, in reflection, in evaluation, looking
backward, looking at what you're doing now. What
do I believe? What's important to my life? What
am I going to be doing in the future? Where am
I headed? What does God want me to accomplish
in life? I believe that you and I sow to the
Spirit, folks, when we discipline ourselves to
rest. There may not be a harder discipline for
any of us than this one because of the kind of
world we live in. I want to challenge you to
sow to the Spirit in this fifth way by disciplining
yourself to rest. Do you remember that Jesus
did that with His disciples? On a particular
busy time and occasion in his life, he said to
them, come apart and rest a while. And that is
what he's calling upon some of you to do. Some
of you are not walking with God today and you're
finding yourself giving to the flesh because
you are frankly just worn out. There may not
be a greater enemy of the walk with God than
fatigue. You and I sow to the Spirit so that
the Spirit then can produce His fruit, His harvest
in our lives when we discipline ourselves to
rest. The point that I'm making this morning
in this conclusion of the series on the flesh
and the Spirit is this. You and I can walk according
to the flesh and reap its ugly works in our lives.
and become corrupted. We can sow to the flesh,
and the result is that the flesh even produces
a greater harvest of its ugliness in our lives.
Or we can do what we are exhorted to do here.
We can sow to the Spirit. At least by taking
the five actions we've talked about this morning.
And when we will dare do that, then we will see
what it means to reap from the Spirit eternal
life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that
you will remove from us contentment. with the
status quo. Deliver us from satisfaction with
lukewarm Christianity, which makes our Savior
nauseating. And teach us what it means to sow
to the Spirit, so that we may then reap from
the Spirit. eternal life, the quality of life
that You call the fruit of the Spirit. For then
we shall be fervent and boiling hot for the Savior.
Lord, make us truly a Spirit -filled people.
We pray in Jesus' name.