INTRODUCTION:

1. Sowing and reaping is one of the great themes of the Bible.
2. If a man plants cucumbers, he does not expect to get peas. He cannot plant an apple tree and expect to get oranges.
3. “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.  Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity” (Hosea 10:12, 13).
4. Our Lord often spoke of sowing and reaping (cf. Matt. 13:3-9, 18-30; John 4:36, 37).
5. The apostle Paul often referred to this principle of sowing and reaping (cf. II Cor. 9:6, 7).
6. DL Moody used to preach a message entitled, “Sowing and Reaping.”  Moody said, “No other truth in the Bible is more solemn.”
7. Moody’s messages on sowing and reaping were filled with true stories of sowing and reaping – Marie Antoinette going to the guillotine, and King Henry III of France getting stabbed to death in the same chamber where he had contrived the cruel massacre of the Huguenots, etc.
8. Moody often told a sad story about a crook, who came under great conviction at one of Moody’s meetings and Moody advised the man to go to the authorities and turn himself in.  The man heeded Moody’s advice and went to prison. The story was a heartbreaking story but it had a happy ending as the governor eventually granted the man a pardon and he was released from prison and reunited with his wife and children.
9. Many people accused Moody of making the story up, and at one particular meeting a man stood up and defended Moody. It was the governor himself!

 

I. YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW WHEN YOU GIVE (6:6, 7, 9).

1. "Communicate" (6:6) means to share with the teacher material things such as money, food, housing, transportation, clothing, etc.
2. I have heard it said many times, and I believe it with all my heart: you cannot outgive the Lord (Luke 6:38).
3. Hebrews 13:16, 17 says, "But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you."
4. You can tell a lot about a person's spiritual maturity by how much he or she gives.  Our Lord said in Matthew 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
5. Galatians 6:6 teaches that we have a responsibility to take care of those who teach and preach the Word of God.   Our Lord said in Luke 10:7, "The labourer is worthy of his hire."
6. The apostle Paul referred to this principle several times (I Cor. 9:11, 14; I Tim. 5:17, 18).
7. Galatians 6:6-10 teaches that when we take care of God's servants we will reap a great spiritual blessing.
8. Our Lord said in Matthew 10:41, "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward."
9. How we sow is up to us.  But once we have sowed, we cannot change the harvest (6:7, 8).
10. If every Christian understood this principle, and followed it, there would be more churches built, more missionaries going out, more tracts and Bibles printed and distributed, more Gospel programs on television and radio, etc. (cf. II Cor. 9:6, 7).
11. H.A. Ironside said, "He who seeks only to be benefited by others and is not concerned about sharing with them, will have a Dead Sea kind of a life. It is said that nothing can live in that body of water because it has no outlet, and though millions of tons of fresh water pour into it every week, evaporation and mineral deposits make it so bitter and acrid that it cannot sustain life. He who is more concerned about giving to others than about receiving for himself will be constantly fresh and happy in his own experience and will enjoy all the more the good things ministered to him" (Galatians).

 

II. YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW WHEN YOU SIN (6:7, 8).

1. Galatians 6:7 says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
2. It has been said, "We shall reap if we sow. Sow a thought and you reap an act. Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny."
3. Job 4:8 says, “Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.”
4. J. Wilbur Chapman was in Scotland, and he preached a sermon on sowing and reaping.
5. In the message, Chapman said, "That sin you committed in London, that sin you committed in New York, you will reap what have sown."
6. After he finished preaching the message, his songleader Charles Alexander said he went too far afield to say, "that sin committed in New York," for the people in Scotland had never been in New York.
7. But at the close of the service three men came forward, and one of them said to Chapman, "You have uncovered a sin I have tried to hide for years. I went to New York for five days, and was so far away from home that I thought I might give way. I sinned, and I have covered it over all my life. I thought no one would know it."

 

III. YOU REAP MORE THAN YOU SOW

1. Hosea 8:7 says, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
2. Sowing the wind represents that which lacks substance.  It is a picture of sowing to the flesh (Gal. 6:8). Like all efforts of the flesh, it is futile, worthless, and of no assistance.
3. Proverbs 11:29 says, "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
4. The “whirlwind” in Hosea 8:7 reminds us that you reap much more than you sow.
5. Reaping the whirlwind teaches us that sowing to the flesh is self-destruc­tive.
6. In nature, you always sow more than you reap.  And this is true in the spiritual realm as well. The harvest is always greater than the seed planted.
7. This is a great blessing if we sow to the Spirit, but it is a serious warning if we sow to the flesh (6:7-9). Consider Proverbs 22:8, 9: "He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.  He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor."
8. He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity.  The Hebrew word translated "vanity" means, "trouble, wickedness, and sorrow.
9. He that soweth iniquity shall reap trouble, wickedness, and sorrow.
10. But on the other hand, he that is generous, and gives of his bread to the poor "shall be blessed" (Proverbs 22:8, 9).

 

CONCLUSION:

1. Dr. Howard Kelly was a distinguished physician who, in 1895, founded the Johns Hopkins Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Johns Hopkins University.
2. Dr. Kelly was also a Christian.  In seventy-five percent of his cases, he neither sought nor received a fee for his surgery.  Furthermore, he paid the salary for a nurse to visit and care for those patients who could not otherwise afford such treatment.
3. Galatians 6:9 says, "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
4. If we had more doctors like Dr. Howard Kelly, we would not need any Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare, etc.
5. According to Dr. Kelly's biographer, Audrey Davis, the doctor was on a walking trip through Northern Pennsylvania one spring day when he stopped by a farm house for a drink of water.
6. A little girl answered his knock at the door and instead of water, she brought him a glass of fresh milk.  He chatted with her briefly, then went on his way.
7. Sometime after that, that same little girl came to him as a patient and needed surgery.  After the surgery, the bill was brought to her room and on it were the words, "Paid in full with one glass of milk."
8. That young girl learned the principle of sowing and reaping.