Is God Clueless?

Galatians 6:6-10

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Introduction

Optional Intro: Do You Get It?

Tell the story of me putting Peanut Butter in Pat’s shoes

We all love a good joke – but only if we get it. Punk’d only worked if the celebrity wasn’t in on it; if they were clueless. In fact, what makes these jokes funny to some people is that it makes other people seem and feel clueless. It was fun to see how famous people would react when they didn’t know there was a camera, and they felt out of control. To put it another way, it mocks these people because they have no idea what’s going on.

It’s not usually a terrible thing when we get pranked by a practical joke or excluded from an inside joke, but it is a burden when we have this feeling with our everyday lives. We feel like we’re missing out on life because we’re trying to follow God and live by His instructions, and it doesn’t seem to be helping us at all. On the other hand, we see people who are trying to fool God by saying they love Him but living however they want, and those people seem to be the most popular and most successful and happiest. These people are getting ahead to the point that it looks like God is clueless about how the world really works.

Seeing this leaves us with some burdensome questions. Is God clueless? Is God in on the joke, or is He on the outside looking in? Does He get what’s going on in our lives and our world? Let’s see what our next statement of what God Is Not has to say about this question of whether God is clueless.

Read Galatians 6:6–10 “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Background

The book of Galatians is the Apostle Paul’s great essay on grace. He wrote this letter to a church or group of churches that were experiencing some confusion about what it meant to be Christian. Throughout this letter, we see Paul emphasizing how the good news of the Gospel is that salvation comes only because of God’s grace, not because of our works.

What is Grace?

The gift of God’s favor and love, which is freely given and cannot be earned by us.

But in today’s passage, Paul turns the corner to encourage people to do good things. He does this not for the sake of salvation but for two reasons. One is that doing good to everyone blesses everyone, and another is that doing bad leads to consequences because you reap what you sow. And as he makes these points, Paul makes a memorable statement of what God is not.

God is fully Aware V.7

Paul has spent much of Galatians talking about how we are saved by grace and grace alone. But that emphasis did not mean that Paul didn’t care about our actions and our efforts. As he began to conclude his letter, he zeroed in on the importance of us doing good, both for ourselves and for the people around us.

Paul used the picture of reaping and sowing to make his point. This is a pretty simple picture. If you sow carrots, you reap carrots. If you sow corn, you reap corn. And this principle applies not just to agriculture, but also our lives. If you sow sinful thoughts and actions, you will reap the consequences of sin. But if you sow the things of the Holy Spirit – like the fruits of the Spirit Paul listed in Galatians 5:22-23 – you will reap eternal life.

As he painted this picture of how life works, Paul made this God Is Not statement for people who thought that God might be clueless: God is not mocked. In other words, God created the world to work this way, and we are fooling ourselves if we think we can fool God by beating His system. God is not clueless – He created the world to work the way it does, and He knows how the world works. You can’t trick Him, you can’t fool Him, and it’s not a game worth trying to play. No one (not even Ashton Kutcher) can punk God, because He knows what’s going on in the world and our lives. He’s not the fool – we are if we think we can beat the system.

Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

You could emphasize that God is aware of our actions and that no one can mock God by thinking they can escape the consequences of their actions. It's an encouragement to live honestly and with integrity, knowing that God sees everything and will respond accordingly. Perhaps highlight the importance of aligning our lives with God's truth, as ultimately, we will harvest what we plant.

Our Choices Have Consequences V.8

Galatians 6:8 “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

Paul used the picture of reaping and sowing to make his point. This is a pretty simple picture. If you sow carrots, you reap carrots. If you sow corn, you reap corn. And this principle applies not just to agriculture, but also our lives. If you sow sinful thoughts and actions, you will reap the consequences of sin.

Big opportunity to explain fruits of the flesh and the spirit

Fruits of the flesh-

Galatians 5:19–21 “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Fruits of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

There is a choice between sowing to please our flesh or sowing to please the Spirit. You could explore how each choice leads to a different outcome—corruption or eternal life. Here, the focus might be on evaluating where we invest our energy and resources. Perhaps, challenge your audience to consider the eternal impact of their daily decisions and encourage a life led by the Spirit.

Godly Persistence is worth it V.9-10

Galatians 6:9–10 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

John Bunyan is one of the most influential Christian writers of all time. But this simple farmer did most of his writing, including his classic allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, at a time when he felt most useless. John was a preacher in England in the 1600s at a time when there was severe persecution against those who did not adhere to the Anglican church. During this time, John was imprisoned twice, which severely limited his ability to preach. But on at least one occasion, he gave up the chance to get out of jail because he refused to promise not to preach anymore. So he stayed in jail for years on end. However, it was during one of his incarcerations that Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, a book which has ministered to Christians all around the world for hundreds of years.

As John sat in prison, he must have wondered if God was clueless. It seemed like God was getting pranked by so-called religious leaders who were persecuting those who didn’t believe exactly what they did. But God knew what He was doing. God was giving John the time and opportunity to write a book that would become a Christian masterpiece. Like the apostle Paul, John Bunyan did some of his best writing in prison.

It’s easy to look at our temporary circumstances and pronounce them permanently useless. We often lose the big picture of how God might use us to reap what someone else, long ago, has sown. Or maybe you’re frustrated that all you’ve ever done is sow, with no reaping. Although it may not have looked like it at the moment, John was able to reap a harvest of incredible impact from the seeds he sowed by writing in prison. Look at your circumstances from a perspective of trust in God, and see where it takes you. 

Maybe emphasize the importance of perseverance. This verse serves as an encouragement to believers to stay steadfast in doing good, knowing God's promise of reward. You might suggest persistence and resilience in faith are key even when the results are not immediately visible. Perhaps use this as a call to not grow weary in actively maintaining faith and doing good work.

Conclusion

We should reap what we’ve sown, which is bad news because we’ve all sown more than our share of sin. But although God is not mocked, He chose to be mocked so that we could reap what we did not sow. As a result, we can live in grace instead of sin. We can have eternal life instead of a life of corruption. Our lives have changed forever. So let us now sow good, not just for our benefit but so that others can discover they can reap God’s grace as well. 

70 Christians murdered in the Democratic republic of the Congo.

But on the other hand, you have people who say they are Christians. But there is no evidence they are a Christian in what they say, do, act. But it seems God is blessing them. Is God just Clueless of what is really happening in the midst of the world?

1.     Have you ever felt as though God was clueless? What situation made you feel that way?

2.     In the passage today, what did Paul say God is not? Why is this God is not statement significant to us?

3.     What picture did Paul use to describe his point here? 

4.     What is the general principle of sowing and reaping?

5.     Why did Paul say we should not weary of doing good? To whom did Paul say we should do good?

6.     Why did God choose to be mocked? Why did God need to do this?

How does grace change the principle of sowing and reaping? How does grace change our lives?