Who are of the household of faith, the Lord blessed the reading of his holy and sacred word. Have you ever felt tired of helping people? You are always trying to do good and trying to extend a helping hand to others, but you do not see the results. It seems as if your effort is useless, it is a waste of time. On top of that, you feel that those people whom you are helping are taking advantage of you. What should you do? Well, this is what we want to learn from today's passage.
You see, this passage is both an encouragement and a warning. In the preceding verses, the Apostle Paul encouraged the spiritual believers to help restore those brethren who had fallen into sins. But as the spiritual believers labor in love, constantly restoring those fallen brethren and carrying one another's burdens, there might come a time whereby they would become tired of doing good and be discouraged. To those people, Paul says, "And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not."
But what about those brethren who had fallen into sins and thinking that they could keep on sinning because of God's grace and they could continue to take advantage of the help offered to them by others? To those people, Paul said, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Notice there are two warnings. Firstly, you are deceiving yourself if you think God will not deal with your sins. If you live under the deception and delusion that you can continue in your sin and be immune to God's judgment, Paul says, "Be not deceived, you shall reap what you sow."
The second warning is even worse. If you are behaving in this way, you are scorning God. You are making a mockery out of God. As Paul said, "God is not mocked; you shall reap what you sow." So, my friends, when people take advantage of our kindness, when people repeatedly go back to their sins despite the numerous times we have helped them, counseled them, and restored them, where we serve the Lord with all our hearts, with all our souls, and when what we receive are only rejections, do not be discouraged so much so that we give up.
The only way we can persevere and continue to serve the Lord with all faithfulness is that we must understand this biblical exhortation: "You shall reap what you sow," which is the title of our message for this morning. Our first point is the expectation of a harvest. Let us begin with verse 7: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Here, Paul used agricultural terms to illustrate his point. If a farmer goes on sowing month after month, year after year, and never expects to reap anything, you would think he is crazy. No farmer will ever do that. He's always looking forward to the harvest time when he will receive the fruit of his labors.
The same goes with an engineer or a doctor who works hard. Why? Because he's looking forward to the time he will receive rewards for all his efforts. The same goes with the students who study hard because they are all looking forward to their diplomas and degrees. In the spiritual context, all of us who are serving God in the different ministries of the church—from the pulpit ministry to the music ministry, usher ministry, bulletin team, PA team, Sunday school, youth leaders, and so forth—why are we serving so actively? Why do we have to wake up early in the morning to prepare the Sunday school materials when we can actually choose to sleep in late? One thing for sure, it is the love of God and the love for the brethren that constrain us. But secondly, there's this expectation of a harvest.
We know that one day we shall reap what we sow, as the Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 5:4, that the day will come when Jesus Christ, the chief Shepherd, shall appear, and when he shall appear, Peter said, "Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Let us look at verse 8 again: "For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." In agricultural terms, basically, the word sowing is an investment. You first begin by planting the seed, followed by a process of watering it, fertilizing it, cultivating it. Then you repeat the process day by day, week by week, month by month, expecting that there will be a future harvest.
In other words, the planting, watering, fertilizing, and cultivating are what you have invested into the seed. But what has that illustration got to do with our lives? Well, we must pay attention to where we have invested our time, our resources, our passions, our efforts, our money because they will reveal to us our values. When we watch carefully where we have invested all these things I've mentioned, they will reveal to us our beliefs. The person who does not believe in God will be investing in things that are temporal; the person who believes in God will be investing in things that are eternal. There are only two fields we can invest in. We can either invest in things eternal, or we invest in things temporal—in heaven or in the things on this Earth, in sin or in righteousness, in the flesh or in the spirit.
What does it mean to sow to the flesh? It does not mean taking care of this physical body; the believer's body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Taking care of this physical body is well-pleasing to God, but this is not what the Bible is referring to. The flesh is this mortal body where the residence of sin still remains in the believer's life. The believer is a new man in Christ, a new creature, but as long as he lives in this mortal body, which is known as the flesh, he would still be troubled by sin. The flesh will work against us to cause us to sin, so to sow to the flesh means to invest in things pertaining to the flesh—all those sinful desires.
Remember we have learned in Galatians 5:19: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. After which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." In other words, those people who live in habitual sins, no matter what they profess to believe in, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Those people who constantly engage themselves in sinful activities, feeding their minds with evil desires, indulging themselves in ungodly conversations, they are sowing to the flesh and they will reap corruption.
The word corruption is very interesting. It is sometimes used to describe decaying food, which means sowing to the flesh will cause a person to go from bad to worse, just like food will rot and decay. It will go from bad to worse, and the ultimate corruption is eternal death. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). A true believer will not live in habitual sins because the indwelling Holy Spirit will not allow that to happen. But nonetheless, it is possible that he may fall into the sin of sowing to the flesh. When he does that, he may not experience eternal death because, as a true believer, he will not lose his salvation. However, he can still reap corruption as in he will get from bad to worse, and he has to face serious consequences.
My friends, every time we allow our minds, our hearts, to harbor a grudge, think about this, or some grievances, or we allow our minds to be entertained by sinful thoughts, or we wallow in self-pity, we are actually sowing to the flesh. Every time we give in to temptation, or we fail to exercise self-control, or we continue to associate with bad companies, we are sowing to the flesh. We must understand that when we do that, we are reaping corruption; we will get from bad to worse, and there will be serious consequences.
What does it mean to sow to the Spirit? Every believer is indwelled by the Holy Spirit. If you do not have the Holy Spirit, the Bible says in Romans 8:9 that you do not belong to Jesus Christ. If you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, then you are expected to live a life that is in obedience to the Spirit, guided by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit. It is expected of us. We are sowing to the Spirit when we invest our abilities, our resources, our strength, our efforts, our money for the advancement of God's Kingdom. We are sowing to the Spirit when we support and encourage the brethren around us. We are sowing to the Spirit when we crucify and put to death all the sinful desires and we produce the fruit of the Spirit, that is, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. We have learned that in our past messages.
Paul says the believer who soweth to the spirit shall off the spirit reap life everlasting. It does not mean that only when you sow to the spirit you will go to heaven. Every true believer will go to heaven because he is a child of God; he's a citizen of God's Kingdom. Here, life everlasting does not mean the duration or the place but rather the quality. Allow me to explain this: once we are saved, we already have everlasting life or eternal life, but it is not always reflected in our lives because of sin. Sin cannot separate us from everlasting life, but what sin can do is that it can corrupt the reflection, the blessings, and the enjoyment of everlasting life.
That is why when Christians fall into sin, that person can be the most miserable, unhappy, and wretched person in this world. Sometimes the unbelievers will say, "You look so sad, sorrowful, and dejected. Are you sure you have everlasting life?" Why? Because they do not see a reflection of that, but instead they saw a reflection of sadness, sorrowfulness, and wretchedness. That was exactly how King David felt when he fell into sin. Remember, he cried out to God in Psalm 51 verse 12: "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation." He did not say restore unto me my salvation, but the joy of my salvation. He did not lose his salvation, but he lost the joy of it.
That is what Paul was speaking about here. Some of us may have fallen into sins of different kinds. That is why today we are feeling so grieved in our hearts, troubled, and sad. We have not lost our salvation, but we have lost the joy of our salvation. We need to repent, and like David, cry out to God: "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation." My friends, do you think God does not know about us, what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are sowing, whether we are sowing to the flesh or we are sowing to the spirit? He knows everything about us better than we know ourselves, and He wants us to expect there will be a harvest if we sow to the flesh.
God wants us to know that the harvest is that we will reap corruption, we will get from bad to worse, and we have to face serious consequences. If we sow to the spirit, then the harvest is that we will reap life everlasting. We will manifest the fruit of the spirit in our lives; we will be rejoicing and serving God with gladness. We will be blessed with all the spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Our second point is the certainty of a harvest. Look at the second part of verse 9: "For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." In this physical world, a farmer knows that the harvest will come, but he also knows that there are certain things that can affect the growth of the seeds. The weather may be too wet, too dry, or too cold to bring his crops to maturity. All the adverse conditions, like floods—Australia is very prone to floods—and other adversities like droughts, can cause a failure in the harvest. You can put in your best efforts, but all these adverse circumstances are things beyond your control. There may be no harvest for this year, but in the spiritual world, this is impossible; such failure is impossible. The harvest will surely come.
The Bible tells us that God will render to every man according to his deeds, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. That does not mean when we preach the gospel, we will surely reap a harvest of a hundred souls. It does not mean when we serve faithfully, the congregation will grow to be one thousand members. This verse is not talking about God rewarding us according to our standards but according to His standard and to the glory of His precious name. The missionary William Carey, he went to India in the 18th century; he preached the gospel most faithfully, but for six years, there was not even one single convert. You can be preaching the gospel all your life and not receive one single soul. But are you still serving to the spirit? Definitely. We believe in the future harvest because God said it: "For in due season we shall reap, surely we shall reap, if we faint not," which means do not give up. The harvest will surely come. It is certain according to God's sovereign timing.
It is true that there will always be a period of time between the sowing of seed and the harvest time. Again, using agricultural terms, when the seed is being planted, it will slowly grow. Then a shoot will break forth through the soil, and then you will see the blades, then the ears, then comes the full corn. The farmer is not disappointed when he does not see the maturity of his crops overnight, but he looks forward patiently to the time when the harvest will come in due time.
Recently, my wife planted some herbs in little pots in our veranda. Every morning when we have our breakfast, she would be looking at her plants. It would be very foolish if she expects the plants to be harvested immediately, all of a sudden, overnight. At times, we do see the labors of what we have done, the fruit, I mean. For example, when we get involved in evangelism and souls are saved, we are so thankful to God, aren't we? When we teach our children in the ways of the Lord according to the Bible, and they walk in the paths of righteousness, we are so thankful to God. So, at times, God allows us to see the fruit of our labors to encourage us to press on and persevere.
But for the majority of our labors, we will not see the fruit; we will only see the reward in eternity to come. For example, especially those things that we do in secret, like the giving of our tithes and offerings, we will not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing.
When we support our mission works in Myanmar and the Philippines, no one knows, only God knows. But will the harvest come? Surely. God said so, “Whatsoever you sow, you shall reap; in due season, the harvest will surely come.” Can we persevere and press on when the reward is only in the eternity to come? Most certainly, we can, because God said it, we believe it, that settles it. My God says the harvest will come in due time. I believe Him. He said He will come; He will come. I will not fail, I will not give up.
So, we must serve the Lord, looking forward to the day our Lord Jesus will return. And when He comes, He will give to us, as the Bible says, the crown of righteousness. Second Timothy 4:8 says, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, Jesus Christ, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them that also love His appearing.” So not only to me alone, not only to you alone, but to every believer who is looking forward to Christ's return. And when He comes, He will give to us this crown of righteousness. Isn't it amazing?
If there is this expectation of a harvest, if there is this certainty of the harvest, then we ought to have this enthusiasm toward the harvest, right? This is our final point: the enthusiasm towards the harvest. One of the greatest enemies of enthusiasm is the lack of perseverance. We all know what it means to start off with great passion and then lose our enthusiasm halfway. Some years back, I had a friend who bought a new gym machine or equipment because he wanted to take care of his body. He was very enthusiastic; he even renovated one of his rooms and made it into a mini gym. But later, he realized that it would take a lot of commitment and hard work, and he was not disciplined enough. He gave up. He was enthusiastic at the beginning, but halfway, he gave up, and his wife would use those machines to hang her laundry. So when I visited him, you know, he was quite shy to show me that the gym room was actually the laundry room. Some of us have exercise machines at home, perhaps the latest treadmills, but soon those machines will end up in the garage collecting dust.
Enthusiasm is good, but its greatest enemy is the lack of perseverance. The longer things go on, the less enthusiastic we become. That is true of us in so many areas, but we hope that it is true only in trivial things like treadmills and exercise machines. They are trivial because they do not have eternal values or eternal significance. But sadly, our problem with enthusiasm is not only in trivial things alone but also in spiritual things pertaining to eternity.
Let us pause for a moment and consider this: what about our so-called enthusiasm for spiritual things? At the beginning of this year, some of us would have made some resolutions. We want to have our regular choir time. We want to pray and read the Bible. We want to equip ourselves with biblical knowledge. We bought a new Bible and good Christian books. We make plans to attend Bible studies. Some of us would join FEBC online courses. We want to start new ministries, to be involved in new ministries. We want to do evangelism. We want to get involved in missions, and so forth. But today, as we look back, we realize that there was enthusiasm, but only at the beginning, and we never continue in those things. We lose enthusiasm not only in trivial things but in spiritual things as well, and this is very serious.
Verse 9 tells us, “And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.” Have you ever encountered someone who says to you, “I'm tired of doing this, I'm tired of doing that,” and then you start to wonder, how can a person be tired of something he or she has never been doing? Or how can a person be tired of something that he or she is only doing once or twice? Here, the idea of being tired and weary of well-doing is that you are doing it again and again, even when others have given up. Nobody is doing it; you alone still press on and do it, and it comes to a point whereby you are tired, you are exhausted.
What does it mean, well-doing? Whatever the Apostle Paul had commanded the Galatians in this book, we have come to almost the end of this book, so whatever had been commanded by Apostle Paul to the Galatians, all those things are considered well-doing. Let me give you some examples: to hold firmly to the Gospel, to hold firmly to the truth of God is well-doing; to resist false teachings and false teachers, even if they come in the name of the Gospel, in the name of God, we do not just accept everything they say as true; in fact, we would test their doctrines and examine it in the light of God's Word, that is well-doing; to live our lives in the power of the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, producing fruit of the Spirit, that is well-doing; to restore brethren who had fallen into sin, to carry one another's burdens as we walk the path that Jesus Christ had commanded us to walk, that is well-doing.
My friends, all that I have just explained or said—are they the characteristics of your life? If they are not, then you better start now because these are the characteristics of the Christian. If you have already been involved in all these things that I've mentioned, and it comes to a point whereby you are tired, you are exhausted, you have been doing it again and again, others have given up halfway, but you are trying, struggling to press on, Paul says, do not lose your enthusiasm. Let us not be weary in well-doing. In other words, do not be tired of holding on to God's truth. Do not be tired of resisting false teachings and false teachers. Do not be tired of restoring fallen brethren and carrying one another's burdens. Do not be tired of walking in the Spirit, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, which would include whatever things that are right and good, like Bible reading, spending quiet time with God, serving God, worshiping God. We must never grow tired of all these well-doings.
The danger of losing enthusiasm is that you and I can still be going through the motions. Outwardly, we are still attending church, we are still worshiping, we are still listening to the preaching, we are still giving our tithes and offerings, we are still singing hymns, but where is the heart, where is the passion, and where is the perseverance? We can be like the Church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:4, where God says, “Thou hast left thy first love.” The deeds are still there, the motions are still there, but the heart is missing. Can you imagine a wife or a husband saying to the spouse, “I'm doing what I'm doing to you out of duty, out of obligation, I'm only going through the motions, but my heart is no longer there.” It is so sad, isn't it? Yet, we can do that to God. May the Lord forgive us.
Rather than losing it, the Bible exhorts us to keep doing it. That is the only way to keep our passions burning for God. Look at verse 10: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them which are of the household of faith.” The original word for opportunity is sometimes translated as time. God has given to each and every one of us a definite time, an appointed time, and every opportunity that is given to us is determined by Him. So while we still have breath in our lungs, while God is still opening doors and giving us opportunities after opportunities, the Bible tells us, let us do good unto all men.
Allow me to read First Peter 2:15. The Apostle Peter said this: “For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” In other words, the best way to put a stop to all the criticism against Christianity and win the person over to Jesus Christ is not through a carefully articulated argument but through our testimony of well-doing. We want the people to be so influenced by our lives that they want to know the Savior whom we profess to believe in. Have you ever lived your life in such a way that your friends, your colleagues, your classmates will look at you and say, “I want to know the Savior whom he or she professes to believe in?”
Let us do good, especially unto them who are of the household of God or faith. As important as it is to do good to the unbelievers, however, it is especially vital to demonstrate our goodness to the household of faith, which means the believers. Why? Because we love God. And how do we know we love God? Because we love those who belong to God. Let me read for you First John 4:20-21. John says, a person is a liar if he loves not his brother whom he has seen. How can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. And if someone says, “I do not love my brother, I do not love the believers,” what is his situation? First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love our brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”
Think about this, it’s very serious. He is abiding in death, which means no matter what
he professes, no matter what he says, he is an unbeliever. That is the reason why it is so important that you and I must do good to all men, especially those who are of the household of faith, the believers, because there will be an indication that we are believers. Believers love other believers; it is natural. If you have several children, you will not be surprised if one of your children said to you, “Daddy, Mommy, I love my sister, oh, I love my brother.” You will say that is the right thing; that is a natural thing. The same goes with believers loving other believers; it is natural.
My friends, when we plant a durian seed, we do not expect to harvest apples. All of us would understand this logic in the natural world. But yet, we do that all the time in the spiritual world. By that I mean people who sow to the flesh, they live in sin, they have no regard for God, they do not care about God's Word, they do not think about God's glory at all, and yet they expect to receive spiritual blessings. On the other hand, people who sow to the Spirit, they are disappointed when they do not reap worldly benefits. This is the irony. Do you realize that this is the problem with many professed Christians who are serving God? They are discouraged, they are disappointed. Why? Because they do not receive the acknowledgments, the recognitions for the things they have done.
So, if they are involved in the refreshment team, when no one commends them that the food is good, they are discouraged. When they are involved in arranging the flowers, no one commends them again; they are disappointed. When they play the piano, no one notices them; they are depressed. My friends, they have forgotten that they are sowing to the Spirit. When we sow to the Spirit, we do not expect recognitions, acknowledgments from men. Sometimes they do come, but we should never be focused on that.
A word of encouragement to all those who are serving in the different ministries of this church: sometimes we do receive commendations. People may walk up to us and say, “Well done, that was a good service.” We thank God for it. A word of encouragement is important, but it is not the priority. We do not serve to hear good words or commendations from men. We serve to hear only one commendation, and that is from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself—that our Lord Jesus will say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” This is the only commendation we want to hear from our Lord Himself, and that day will come, because the Bible says, ye shall reap what you sow.
The Lord has taught us three very important things today. We must expect a harvest, and we must also know that this harvest is certain. It will surely come, because God said so; in due season, it will come, whether in this life or in the eternity to come. And if we know that there's this certainty of a harvest, and we know that we ought to have this expectation of a harvest, then we ought to be enthusiastic toward the harvest. May the Lord grant to us this passion, this love for Him, this desire to glorify Him, serving Him in every moment of our lives, always thinking about His glory, until we see Him face to face, because this thing that our Lord has taught us—“Ye shall reap what you sow”—is deeply embedded in our minds, in our hearts, and lived out in our lives. Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy Word that Thou hast taught us. Indeed, ye shall reap what you have sown. As believers, we are sowing to the Spirit, the indwelling of Thy Spirit in our hearts, Thy precious Word that Thou hast preserved for us, that we can hold in our hands to read. We want to read, we want to be taught, guided, and led by Thy Spirit, that whatever we do, we invest in things eternal, not on things temporal. We do not want to sow to the flesh because we know that it will reap corruption; it will cause us to get from bad to worse, and we have to face serious consequences. O Lord, we want to serve to glorify Thee, with our eyes focused on Thee. Help us to remember these words that Thou hast taught us: that there's this expectation of a harvest, there's this certainty of a harvest, and we ought to be enthusiastic toward the harvest—all to the glory of Thy precious name. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.