Galatians 6_ 6-10      Sow What You Wanna Reap

This is a rare full-text transcription.  The standard outline and notes follow at end.


Sow What You Wanna Reap


Rev. David Holwick

Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey

October 1, 2000


Galatians 6:6-10


Twelfth sermon in Galatians series


How many of you have gardens?  Josiah and I had a garden.  I love to grow broccoli.  The neat thing about broccoli is, as it comes up you cut it off and new shoots keep coming up all the time.  But this broccoli is from Shop-Rite [I hold up a clump of store-bought broccoli].  I didn't get any broccoli this year.  I once had a cauliflower that, no kidding, was five times the size of this.  It was huge, and we must have gotten umpteen salads out of it.  This cauliflower comes from Shop-Rite [hold it up].  My garden didn't produce any this year.  Celeste loves anything that is long and green.  I don't.  I don't like zucchini and all that, but this is a cucumber.  I kind of like cucumbers.  This one is wrapped in plastic.  My garden didn't produce any this year.  Do you know why?  I didn't plant it.  If you don't plant it, it doesn't tend to come up.  I am the kind of gardener that if you planted it last year, there should be volunteers coming up but nothing came up.  It seems to be one of those things that you cannot get away from.  If you want your garden to produce you've got to put in the seed and I don't like that.  God bless me, I've got a son who is ten years old and he is going to tear all the weeds out of the garden.  We've got weeds seven feet tall out there, and he is going to do the planting next year.  Good old Josiah!


Well, the reason of course I am telling you about gardens is because of our passage today.  As we get to the end of Paul's letter, like the end of most of his letters we come to kind of a jumble of instructions.  Some people even wonder if he is just giving random thoughts, like I have written my letter but, hey, I better throw this in or throw that in or what about that.  Kind of a random assortment, but others look at this passage and they say, no, I can kind of see a theme in these verses.  One theme I came across I thought was very interesting: maybe they are all connected together by the concept of money.  He begins talking about how to pay a pastor or teacher; you need to pay them to take care of the ministry.  Then he talks about reaping and sowing.  Now there is one other place in the Bible that uses that exact expression - it is in 2 Corinthians, also by Paul, and there it is given as an example of stewardship.  The more you give the more you get.  So there is money involved there.  The final aspect he is talking about here is doing good to all people.  What is the primary way we do good?  By doing charity, by giving them a gift, giving them money.  So they see the theme of money tying it all together.


But as I studied further, I can see money in there, but I think there is another theme that is even stronger and that is the principle of the harvest.  Now of course money is a part of that whole harvest principle, but it goes beyond that.  You will notice that verse 8 has a strong moral emphasis: if you sow to your evil nature than you reap destruction, if you sow to do the good things then you reap eternal life.  That does not seem to be so much money but ethics.  So it seems the theme running through all of it is the principle of the harvest.


The Bible talks about "harvest" many different times.  They were an agricultural society; they didn't just have gardens, they had farms and if you didn't get a lot of produce out of your garden you didn't run to Shop-Rite.  They did not have Shop-Rites back then, even if our local store looks old enough to go back to the time of Jesus [everyone nodded in agreement], they didn't have it back then.  So they were very concerned about the harvest.  Jesus uses a couple of these parables to bring out these principles.  For example, if you want to have a harvest you have got to sow some seed.  So he has a parable about seed being cast into a field and how it falls in different kinds of places (Matthew 13:3-8).  Some of it fell on good soil and some on bad, but only the good soil produced a harvest.  And another principle is if you want to have a good harvest you have got to have good seed.  One of his parables talks about a guy who sows seed but there is weeds mixed into it (those guys must have come over to my garden) and he says that the bad stuff grows up with the good stuff.  So if you want just good stuff you have to use good seed.  So all these different harvest and sowing motives are tied together throughout the Bible.  It seems to be the unchangeable law of God.  So he even said there, "Be not deceived, God cannot be mocked."  It is a very important principle. 


Now it is possible to deceive ourselves.  Do you know why?  Because harvests come a long time after the sowing.  And maybe that is why I am such a lousy gardener.  I love going out there to see what is being produced.  I just don't like all the work of bringing that about.  And sometimes if you sow bad stuff the negative payoff is so far in the future it doesn't become a motivation for you.  You think you are going to get away with it.  You deceive yourself.  And yet that harvest is going to come no matter what.  The principle of the harvest has a very long history in the Bible.  In the Old Testament it is often used as a moral application.  For example, Job has a friend name Eliphaz and Eliphaz says, "As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble, reap it" (Job 4:8).  So he is saying there, Job, you got all these problems, you must be the reason for it.  Because there is a principal there, bad stuff only happens if there is a cause to it.  You are the cause.  In Hosea, the prophet says and this is a very famous expression.  "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7)  Then in chapter 10 he gives an even more detailed illustration.  He says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love and break up your unplowed ground for it is time to seek the Lord, until he come to shower righteousness on you, but you have planted wickedness.  You have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception, because you have depended on your own strength" (Hosea 10:12-13).


It is amazing how many of those themes are brought out here in Galatians.  But it is also interesting that almost all the other times in the Bible when it mentions reaping and sowing, you are sowing the wrong stuff, the wicked stuff.  Here he mentions sowing righteousness, you have a choice in what you are going to sow.  Therefore there is going to be alternatives when it comes to the harvest.  Even today we speak of sowing wild oats.  When we think of good stuff we talk about investing but when we talk about sowing we usually talk about the negative aspects of human nature.  But the positive possibilities are so much more powerful; we can see evidence of that even in life.


There was a man named Fleming.  He was a Scottish farmer and he was a poor farmer, because Scotland does not have great soil.  But he was a diligent man and one day he was working out in his fields and he heard a cry coming from a nearby bog.  He put down his tools and went over to investigate and there was a young boy chest-deep in the muck of this bog.  He is sinking down.  I don't know about you but the thought of those movies, the scene where the bad guy is being swallowed by quicksand, that is not how I want to go.  When we hike in the Midwest or Southwest we make the children go first in case of quicksand on the trail.  Now this man said I am going to save this kid, so he pulled this kid out of the muck and sent him on his way.  Well, the next day a real fancy carriage pulls up to his poor little cottage and an elegantly dressed nobleman steps out of it.  He introduces himself as the father of the boy that Fleming had saved.  He said "I want to repay you, you saved my son's life."  He was going to give him all of his money but the farmer said, "No, I can't accept payment for what I did."  This farmer was a man of integrity.  A real Scottish farmer.


At that moment out of his hovel a young boy came out of the door.  The rich guy said, "Hey, is that your son?"  "Oh yes, that is.  I am very proud of him."  He said, "I will tell you what, I will make you a deal with you.  You saved my son's life and I will change your son's life.  I am going to give you enough money so you can send him to the best school he can possibly go to."  And the father agreed to that.  And sure enough his son ended up graduating from the St. Mary's Hospital medical school in London.  And he was an outstanding student and he went on to discover penicillin.  Now someone has said, "What goes around comes around."  When you help someone, when you bring joy to their life there is a payback for that and sometimes the payback is so stupendous that the entire world will benefit.  Farmer Fleming saved a boy and the father's gift of that young boy enables the other son to do something that would help people around the world.


There is something even better to the story.  Years afterward that nobleman's son (who had been stuck in the muck) got pneumonia.  He almost died from that pneumonia but they were able to give him penicillin produced by the son in that little cottage back there and it saved his life.  There is one more thing you might be interested in.  When the carriage came up to that little Scottish farm, the nobleman's name was Lord Randolph Churchill and the son, pulled from the muck, was none other than Sir Winston Churchill.  If that farmer had not gone down and pulled him out, what would have happened in world history?  If that Lord had not decided to pay that poor young boy through medical school, what would have happened to the world of medicine?  Who would be dead that otherwise would have been alive?  We don't know, but when we sow the good, think of the fruit you can get from that(illustration #16414 - but see note at bottom concerning this illustration.)


Well there is one branch of Christianity that really loves this principle, we kind of generically call them the Health-and-Wealth crowd.  You have to turn to channel 197 or something like that to hear these evangelists, and even though they are a running joke for many Americans, the things they say really do sink into the souls of some people who are searching.  One of the things they say is (as I always heard it), "God wants you rich."  But I studied an article and according to the scholar this is not actually what the Health-and-Wealth evangelists are saying.  What they're saying is God wants people to be blessed.  He is willing to bless you, if you in turn will share so others can be blessed.  So they say underlining it is actually a principle of philanthropy.  God wants to help lots of people and he is willing to channel that help through you.  I read that Tilton, one of the famous practitioners of this message, said that when he was a young man he followed this principle and gave his shoes to someone who didn't have shoes.  And by the end of that week he had five pairs of shoes!  He says, "I have given five watches away and I got a Rolex on my arm now, it just popped on my arm!"  I think Rolexes don't just pop on your arm.  It almost seems to be if God blesses you and you bless others, they kind of want to be at the front of the line in that second group getting blessed there.  They argue that the more you give the more you are going to get.  And biblically I would have to say that is true.  I am not going to press that in a very crass and mercenary attitude about material things, but there is a general principle that, yes, whatever we are sowing in life that is what we are going to reap.


And the apostle Paul applies that principle in three different areas.  The first is Christian ministry.  Paul talks about someone being instructed and that was and is one of the primary responsibilities of a pastor.  Almost no one had heard of Jesus outside of Palestine in Paul's day and someone needed to tell them the story.  Now if you think about it even if you grew up in a non-religious home, as I did, you knew who Jesus was.  I knew basics about the Bible because it pervades the culture.  But these people knew nothing.  It was brand-new information and so there had to be people who invested their time in teaching.  And Paul says these people have sowed the Word in you therefore they should expect the harvest of a livelihood.  You should pay these church workers.  Which is a little self-serving for me to present but Paul put it here first.  At my very first church in West Lafayette, Ohio, some old grumpy people in the neighborhood who never went to church told me, "We don't go to church anymore 'cause we went to church back when you paid the pastor with a chicken or a potato or a lump of coal.  That's back when they were pure."  I looked at some of the records back then.  They were pure because they got new pastors every year and a half.  And in the business record book it would even say they had a deal there, you know how churches often pledge, well in that church in Ohio 100 years ago they pledged for one thing, to pay the pastor.  Each person would say I will give them 10 bucks and all that.  Then you could read the business minutes for the next year and they are voting to send Joe around to collect all the money these people promised and never paid the guy so we can send it on to the next church he has moved on to.  And so they ended up with dislocation and there was no stability.


This is a church that has taken care of its pastors.  We had one for 42 years, one for 27, one for 4, and I have been here for 11.  That is some longevity there.  And so the principle is that if someone is sowing they ought to be able to reap.  And some churches think, well it is such a crass system.  Aren't we supposed to be spiritual?  So they tried something in New Zealand: they took all these pastors in one big group, I think they were Anglican, and they decided instead of having them earn a salary and compete with each other, they were going to pay them all the same but adjust it for circumstances.  If you are single you get, say, $20,000, if you have a spouse you get $22,000, add a kid and it is $25,000.  In a way it is pure socialism - from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.  But it didn't work.  Somehow our reimbursement must be tied to with results.  It is interesting that the apostle Paul in one of the other passages where it talks about paying a preacher, he uses a principle from the Old Testament.  He says, "If an ox is threshing your grain, crushing your grain and separating it from the husks and he bows down to take a mouthful, what is that farmer supposed to do?  Let him munch away, he is doing the work, he deserves to eat from it" (Deuteronomy 25:4 // 1 Corinthians 9:9).  The biblical principle doesn't just apply to cows.  It applies to preachers as well.  Which means if your pastor is working as hard as an ox then you have to pay him, otherwise you have to negotiate I guess.  But Paul describes the relationship here, that if you are instructed in the Word, you should share with your instructor.  The word koinonia means fellowship.  So it shouldn't be that kind of thing where we say, all right, here's your paycheck, but instead it should be the idea that we are helping one another to build one another up.


The second area he applies this principle to is Christian holiness.  And that is where the harvest principle has that moral undertone and we all know about sowing to the flesh.  It is much more popular than sowing to the Spirit.  But even after you become a Christian you still have that old nature and you can sow all you want.  What kind of material do you look at?  You are planting seed.  How are you investing your money?  How do you give to different charities?  That's planting a seed.  And it grows and grows and grows.  What kind of people do you hang around with?  You are planting seed that will eventually produce a harvest.  Now if you sow to the flesh what do you get?  Destruction.  But if you sow to the Spirit he says you can watch yourself grow morally and spiritually and you reap eternal life.  Now that is not to say that you earn your salvation but if you are the kind of person who is sowing after the Spirit, that shows your faith is genuine.  You will be revealed as the kind of person who has always belonged with God in heaven because you have accepted that true nature.


The problem with the harvest is that it is not immediate.  We talked about this in my Sunday School class today.  Would you prefer a world where consequences followed immediately after actions?  Would you like that?  When a child disobeys do you say, stop doing that or I will spank you next month?  How does that work?  If you say, stop that or I am going to spank you right now, then it has a little more motivating factor built in.  What if God treated us like we treat children, and spanked us immediately when we did something wrong?  Would you be more moral?  Actually I think you would hide in a closet afraid to look at or do anything because you are going to get zapped immediately.  The beauty of the Bible is, even though there is this principle of the harvest, God doesn't always give us what we deserve.  And we should be thankful for that.  He gives us much better than we deserve.  But it often takes awhile.  There's that lagging time.  And because of that lag people think they are getting away with something, when they are not.  And sometimes even if you are doing good apparently there is that tendency to get discouraged and to give up.  So Paul has to tell them twice: Don't get weary.  Don't give up, but keep on doing it.  Sometimes you help people over and over again and nothing seems to change but we don't know what fruit is going to come years from now.


And so his third principle is what I call Christian do-gooding.  He says, "Do good to all people".  Nowadays it is kind of interesting that this expression has become a very negative term, a mocking term.  Who wants to be called a do-gooder?  Nobody does.  It has that kind of connotation of someone trying to do good in their tiny little areas and they are smug about it, they are criticizing everyone else for their sins.  But Christians ought to be people who are doing good all the time.  And we should try to good to all people because Jesus wants to save the world.  So there is no one out there that doesn't deserve our help.  As a matter of fact the Bible says that the people that are the hardest to love, when you give to them it is actually a bigger blessing because you may turn their heart around completely.  So we can love people we hate, people we despise and those that despise us.  We can love anybody.


But he does say we need to make God's people a priority.  And it is interesting.  He describes the Christian fellowship as a family.  How close do you feel to other Christians?  You can kind of assess it this way - would you die for someone in your family?  If they needed a kidney, would you give a kidney to your sister or brother?  Yeah, we would.  Would you do it for your Sunday School teacher?  Hmmmm...  Well, ideally the spiritual bond ought to be stronger than the blood bond.  If you really love Jesus there should be a commitment you have to other Christians.  So if I need a kidney, I will know who to call, right?  We have to be careful about this, because I know he says we ought make it a priority, like when I am out in the business world, I like to do my business with Christians because I know they are going to be tithing to their church and building up that church (at least you hope so).  You like to keep it in the family and yet it is so easy to get insulated if all you think about is your own family. 


Back in the 1960's & 1970's many Westerners assumed that the church in China had been annihilated.  This period was called the Cultural Revolution and no news came out of any surviving churches.  The pastors had been arrested, the churches closed down.  Maybe they had one or two open in the big cities but they were totally under government control.  We did not realize at the time that there were hundreds if not thousands of house churches.  In one southern province of China there were over 400 house churches which had a loose association.  One of these house churches was led by Rev. Yeong.  In 1963 their province experienced a severe famine as only China can have famines; 50 million people die in some of their famines.  Well, the news came to them that 20 house churches over in the next commune were in a really bad way.  Everybody was bad off in his own area but the next town over the harvest had been almost nothing and the people were in danger of starvation.  So Rev. Yeong told his church people, we need to do something.  We are Christians and these are brothers who are hurting.  So they all began collecting extra food and they came up with eleven bags of dried food and they invited those other churches in the other commune to come over and they shared this food with them and they all held hands and sang praises to God.  He told them this is New Testament Christianity.  This is what it is all about.  Everyone had this joy in their heart.  Well, the next week when they came to their house to have a service, the local communist officials were waiting for them.  Really lit into them - Look what you have done, you have helped out these Christian brothers and sisters in this other commune but there are non-Christian members of your own commune who are without food now because you took it away from them to give to your friends.  Is that right?  The pastor was chastened.  He said it taught them a deep lesson, that Christians must be open to all people.  We must learn to love as Jesus loved.  So it is important to watch out for our own, but be careful, that we don't get so selfish about it. (illustration #975)


Sometimes I think that the greatest harvests are the harvests that are outside your typical family or little farm.  You start looking elsewhere and you can get tremendous fruit.  I don't think I saw this any more clearly than when we went to Haiti, because on my own I have been supporting the mission in Haiti for 20 years now, but this is the first time I went there.  It seems like you give and you don't know what happens, but we saw people who probably are alive today because people here have been helping them out little by little.  Because in Haiti, starvation is a very real possibility for anyone in these poor neighborhoods.  We saw kids who have grown up in the schools and they graduated and have jobs now because somebody in the United States was sending 25 dollars a month.  By building a two-family house we have obviously made a big difference in these families' lives.  So little things we do can have a tremendous fruit.  Who knows if one of these little kids that we put in school in Haiti discovers the next miracle drug.  No one knows.  All you can do is do what is right, do what is generous, do what is good.  And see what God showers down.


=========================================================================


Rev. David Holwick  ZE                            Galatians sermon series

First Baptist Church                                      Communion

Ledgewood, New Jersey                              

October 1, 2000                                      

                                                       Galatians 6:6-10


       SOW WHAT YOU WANNA REAP



  I. Garden woes.

      A. Poor garden this year.


          [hold up broccoli]  I love broccoli because when you cut off

             a stalk, new ones pop up.  I have had great success with

             broccoli, but not this year.  I had to buy this at the

             supermarket.


          [hold up cauliflower]  I once had a cauliflower that was four

             times the size of this one.  We used it in salads for half

             a summer.  But not this year.  I had to buy this at the

             supermarket.


          [hold up cucumber]  I have had bushels of cukes from my garden,

             but not this year.  I didn't get a single one.  I had to

             get this one at the supermarket.


          Why did I have such rotten luck in my garden this year?

          [Most of the congregation responds - Because you didn't plant

             anything!  --not exactly true: my pigweed is six feet tall.]


          Why can't gardens be like supermarkets - you want something,

             and just go out and pick it?

          Why do I have to go through this hassle of planting?

             Because God's law of the Harvest is not negotiable.


      B. Overall theme of passage:

          1) Random thoughts?  Many think so.

          2) Money can provide an overriding theme of these verses.

              a) Support pastors/teachers.    6:6

              b) What you give, you get.      6:7-8

                  1> Paul uses same metaphor in 2 Cor 9:6 in context

                        of stewardship.

              c) Charity.                     6:9-10

                  1> "Doing good" means giving aid, probably money.

          3) Harvest principles.

              a) Money is part of it, but principle goes farther.

              b) Fits in better with verse 8, which seems moral more

                    than financial.


      C. God's principles are true, and practical.

          1) Ignore them at your peril.

          2) Follow them and you will be richly blessed.


II. Reaping what you sow.

      A. Bible principles of harvest:    [especially in Jesus' parables]

          1) Seed must be sown to have a harvest.

          2) Good seed is required for a good harvest.

          3) Lots of seed is required for a big harvest.


      B. It represents an unchangeable law of God.

          1) Prefaced with a command and a statement.

          2) Possible to be deceived.

              a) We like to think we can get away with something.

                  1> Plant bad seed and nothing happens (for a while].

              b) Harvest is rarely immediate, but it comes.


      C. Harvest principle has a long history in the Bible.

          1) Moral application in Old Testament:


             Job 4:8

                 Eliphaz, Job's "friend":

                 As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who

                    sow trouble, reap it.

                 [Traditional theology that was false in this case.]


             Hosea 8:7

                 They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.


             Hosea 10:12-13

                 Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of

                    unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground;

                 for it is time to seek the LORD,

                    until he comes and showers righteousness on you.

                 But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil,

                    you have eaten the fruit of deception.

                 Because you have depended on your own strength...


              a) Note that what is usually sowed is evil.

              b) Even today we speak of "sowing wild oats."

              c) There is another possibility...


          2) Good seed can yield a tremendous harvest.


       The man's name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer.

       One day, while trying to eke out a living for his family, he

          heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog.

       He dropped his tools and ran.


       There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy,

          screaming and struggling to free himself.

       Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow

          and terrifying death.


       The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's

          sparse farm.

       An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself

          as the father of the boy Fleming had saved.

       "I want to repay you," said the nobleman.  "You saved my son's

          life."


       "No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the farmer replied,

          waving off the offer.

       At that moment the farmer's own son came to the door of the

          family hovel.


       "Is that your son?" the nobleman asked.

          "Yes," the farmer replied proudly.

       "I'll make you a deal.  Let me take him and give him a good

           education.

        If the lad is anything like his father, he'll grow into a man

           you can be proud of."


       And that he did.

       In time, the farmer's son graduated from St. Mary's Hospital

          Medical School in London and went on to become the man who

             discovered penicillin.


       Someone once said, "What goes around, comes around."

       When you help someone else you are bringing joy into your life

          also.

       Farmer Fleming saved a boy, the boy's father gave a gift to the

          farmer's son, who in turn gave a gift to the world.


       And here's where the story gets even better: Years afterward,

          the nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia.

       And what saved him?

          Dr. Fleming's penicillin.

       Ironic, isn't it?


       Oh, one more thing you might be interested in.

       The name of the nobleman was Lord Randolph Churchill ... and his

          son, the one who was saved by the farmer, was none other than

             Sir Winston Churchill.

                                                                   #16414

       [see notes for important information about this illustration]


III. "Health & Wealth" twist.

      A. It is usually condensed to "God wants you rich."

          1) However, these preachers are not quite this crass.

          2) They say the true basis is philanthropy.

              a) God wants to bless all people.

              b) He will bless you, so you can bless others.

          3) The more you give to others, the more you will get from God.

              a) (If your giving happens to be to one of the preachers,

                     so much the better!)


      B. The more you give, the more you will get.

          1) True principle but not iron-clad.

          2) Wrong to have mercenary attitude about harvest.

          3) Sow good because it is in your new nature.


IV. Paul applies the harvest principle to three areas.

      A. Christian ministry.

          1) Ministers should be supported by congregation.

              a) Pastors sow the word of God, they should reap a

                    livelihood.

              b) The gospel is worth something.

              c) Support is a "fellowship" between teachers and pupils.

          2) Pay according to effort and results?

              a) New Zealand experimented with paying pastors

                    according to their need (number of kids, etc).

              b) Makes more sense to consider effectiveness as well.

                  1> He should work as hard as an ox.  1 Tim 5:17-18

              c) Keep in mind that some of the effectiveness is not

                    known for years, if ever (in this life).


      B. Christian holiness.

          1) Sowing to the flesh.

              a) Our lower nature remains with us after conversion.

              b) Sinful relationships, sinful habits.  [Expand...]

              c) Sow to the flesh and you will not reap holiness.

          2) Sowing to the Spirit.

              a) Leads to moral and spiritual growth.

              b) End result is eternal life.

          3) The problem with harvests is they are not immediate.

              a) If your actions produced instant fruit, you would

                    live differently.

                  1> (You'd probably hide in your closet out of fear.)

              b) But they don't.

                  1> We sow to the flesh and feel pleasure for a season.

                  2> We sow to the Spirit - and nothing happens.

                      A> So Paul has to encourage us - don't become

                            discouraged, don't give up.

                      B> In God's good time there will be a reward.


      C. Christian do-gooding.

          1) It has become a mocking name for religious people.

              a) Be proud of it.  We want to produce good.

          2) Do good to everyone.

              a) God's mission encompasses the world.

              b) Christianity is best revealed when we do good to those

                    who don't deserve it, who can't pay us back.

          3) Make God's people a priority.

              a) We are described as a family.

                  1> (sometimes we act too much like one!)

              b) We should have a bond that is stronger than blood.

              c) But be careful not to ignore outside needs.


          Back in the 1960's and 1970's many Westerners assumed the

             church in China was destroyed.

          Instead, there was great spiritual strength and courage.

          In the southern provinces one Christian group alone had

             400 house churches.


          One of these house churches was led by Rev. Yeong.

             In 1963 their province had a severe famine.

          News came to their group that 20 house churches in the next

             commune were so short of food that starvation was likely.

          Rev. Yeong told the church and they began scraping together

             what they could spare.


          Finally they got together some eleven bags of dry food, each

             weighing about 70 pounds.

          The neighboring churches came to get the food, and before

             they left, everyone held hands and sang praises to God.

          Rev. Yeong told them this was New Testament Christianity and

             everyone was inspired.


          When they gathered at their next worship service, communist

             officials were waiting for them.

          They accused the Christians of food stealing and sabotaging

             the system of distributing food.

          The communists told them that they had shown more concern for

             the Christians in the neighboring commune than for fellow

                villagers in the same commune.


          As one of those who was punished in the incident later wrote,

             "It has taught us a deep lesson - that Christians must

                 learn to be open to people.

             "We must learn to love as Jesus loved."

                                                                     #975

                  1> I want to support other believers.

                  2> But I don't want to become so ingrown I neglect

                        greater needs outside our family.


  V. All are planters, all will harvest.

      A. Our church has planted seed in Haiti.

          1) Our team saw dramatic results from modest investments.

          2) Families are literally saved from starvation.


      B. We are planting seed in evangelism.

          1) Some of it will result in eternal life.


      C. You are planting seed right now, good and bad.

          1) Is it seed that will bear fruit honoring Christ?



=========================================================================

This sermon borrows heavily from the commentary by John R.W. Stott,

"The Message of Galatians," IVP, in the 'The Bible Speaks Today' series.


SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:


#975    "Households of God on China's Soil," by Raymond Fung, WCC Mission

           Series, 1982, page 14.


#16414  "One Act of Kindness," Rev. Shelton Cole, http:/www.sermon.org,

           from the Fredericksburg Illustration Collection, 6/1999.22.

           Another version, derived from "The Speakers Library Of

           Business" and quoted in A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul

           (1996), has Winston Churchill floundering in a swimming hole

           due to cramps and the son rather than the farmer saves him.

           See #4531; also #12615, #13278 and Tan #5226.  This

           illustration has really made the circuit!  Unfortunately, on

           October 6, I found out it may be a complete fiction.  See

           article at bottom.


These and 16,500 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,

absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html

=========================================================================


COMMENTARY SUMMARIES:


James Montgomery Boice, Expositor's Commentary


The Use of Money


  I. The second area life of the Spirit is applied in practical way.

      A. "Harvest" theme goes beyond money, but focus is on money:

          1) Verse 10 returns to theme (doing good Ä giving alms).

          2) Verse 7 is a proverb used financially in 2 Cor 9:6.

          3) The collection for Jerusalem is on his mind.  2:10

      B. Three uses of money:

          1) Support of Christian teachers.

          2) Using money to build up the life of the Spirit.

          3) Spending money to help others, particularly Christians.

      C. Overall principle - reaping is in proportion to sowing.

II. Support the ministry.

      A. Should not be a grim duty.

      B. Support is a "fellowship" between teachers and pupils.

III. Benevolence in general.

      A. We sow what we reap.

          1) Immutable law of God.   (emphasized by "cannot be mocked")

          2) Especially true in Christian living.

              a) He is still dealing with money.

              b) He has just spoken of spiritual character.

          3) Principle has broader application: use of time, mind, etc.

      B. Weariness can hinder good sowing.

          1) Results of harvests can take a long time.

          2) Two imperatives:

              a) Don't be weary.    (become discouraged)

              b) Don't faint.       (give up)

          3) (Paul thinking of his own ministry in Galatia?)

IV. Do good to all.

      A. Give charity to all if rich, to Christians if income limited.

      B. Family of believers.

          1) It is a relationship that transcends all others.

          2) Includes all who believe.

      C. Time and opportunity.

          1) "Kairos" is right time, occurs once before it is lost.

          2) Harvest cannot come before God's time.


______________________________


John R.W. Stott, "The Message of Galatians," IVP, 'The Bible Speaks

   Today' commentary series.


Galatians 6:6-10


  I. Unifying theme of verses: reap what you sow.

      A. Principles of harvest:

          1) Seed must be sown to have a harvest.

          2) Good seed is required for a good harvest.

          3) Lots of seed is required for a big harvest.

      B. Applies to spiritual and moral realm.

          1) Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.   Hosea 8:7

          2) Immutable law of God.

              a) Prefaced with a command and a statement.

              b) Possible to be deceived.

II. Application of principle.

      A. Christian ministry.

          1) Ministers should be supported by congregation.

              a) Those who receive instruction.    see Luke 1:4

              b) Pastors sow the word of God, they should reap a

                    livelihood.

          2) Possible abuses.

              a) By the minister.

                  1> He should work as hard as an ox.     1 Tim 5:17

              b) By the congregation.

          3) Correct relationship - koinonia or fellowship.

      B. Christian holiness.

          1) Instead of a battleground, flesh and Spirit are two fields.

              a) Aspects:

                  1> The harvest depends on WHERE we sow.

                  2> The harvest depends on WHAT we sow.

              b) Our outcome depends on our behavior.

                  1> We are not helpless victims.

                  2> We must walk by the Spirit.

                  3> We must sow to the Spirit.

          2) Sowing to the flesh.

              a) Our lower nature remains with us after conversion.

              b) Sinful relationships, sinful habits.

              c) Sow to the flesh and you will not reap holiness.

          3) Sowing to the Spirit.

              a) Leads to moral and spiritual growth.

      C. Christian well-doing.

          1) Some incentive is needed.

              a) We will not reap on the same day we sow.

              b) However, the harvest will come.

          2) The nature of the harvest.

              a) No description is given.

          3) Do good to all.

              a) Many opportunities are available.

              b) Patient well-doing will be taken as evidence of saving

                    faith.

III. Conclusion.

      A. Harvest always follows sowing.

      B. In none of the three spheres can God be mocked.



=========================================================================

http://winstonchurchill.org/ffleming.htm



DID SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING SAVE CHURCHILL'S LIFE?


The Churchill-Fleming Non-Connection: The story that Sir Alexander

Fleming or his father (the renditions vary) saved Churchill's life has

been roaring around the Internet lately.  We must have had fifty emails

about it.  Charming as it is, it is certainly fiction.  The story

apparently originated in WORSHIP PROGRAMS FOR JUNIORS, by Alice A. Bays

and Elizabeth Jones Oakbery, published ca. 1950 by an American religious

house, in a chapter entitled "The Power of Kindness."


According to Bays/Oakbery, Churchill is saved from drowning in a

Scottish lake by a farm boy named Alex.  A few years later Churchill

telephones Alex to say that his parents, in gratitude, will sponsor

Alex's otherwise unaffordable medical school education.  Alex graduates

with honours and in 1928 discovers that certain bacteria cannot grow in

certain vegetable molds.  In 1943 when Churchill becomes ill in the Near

East, Alex's invention, penicillin, is flown out to effect his cure.

Thus once again Alexander Fleming saves the life of Winston Churchill.


Dr. John Mather writes: "A fundamental problem with the story is that

Churchill was treated for this very serious strain of pneumonia not with

penicillin but with 'M&B,' a short name for sulfadiazine produced by May

and Baker Pharmaceuticals.  Since he was so ill, it was probably a

bacterial rather than a viral infection as the M&B was successful.


"...I suspect he was given penicillin [for later infections] Also,

Churchill did consult with Sir Alexander Fleming on 27 June 1946 about

a staphylococcal infection which had apparently RESISTED penicillin.

See CHURCHILL: TAKEN FROM THE DIARIES OF LORD MORAN (Boston: Houghton

Muffin 1966), p. 335."


Official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert adds that the ages of Churchill

and Fleming (or Fleming's father) do not support the various accounts

circulated; Alexander Fleming was seven years younger than Churchill.

If he was plowing a field at say age 13, Churchill would have been 20.

There is no record of Churchill nearly drowning in Scotland at that or

any other age; or of Lord Randolph paying for Alexander Fleming's

education.  Sir Martin also notes that Lord Moran's diaries, while

mentioning "M&B," say nothing about penicillin, or the need to fly it

out to Churchill in the Near East.


Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick

Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Create HTML Help, DOC, PDF and print manuals from 1 single source