Galatians 6 Lesson

Opening Remarks

As you all know, we are changing up the way we do Wednesday nights this year to correspond to our Foundations reading plan. Tonight we are doing the first day of Week 11, so you will already have one day complete for your week by the time we are done tonight. We are going to work through our P.H.E.A.R. method tonight the same way that you are going to do it when you read the Word throughout the week, and I have a lot that I want to say tonight so let’s not waste any time.

First, we are going to read the entire chapter, and then we are going to pray, and I am just going to jump straight into the text that I want to highlight and explain it. In the ESV Bible app, it takes 2.5 minutes to read through Galatians 6 at normal speed, which is less time than it takes to listen to most songs. Let’s read it:

6 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.

6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 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. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

[Brief prayer]

H and E: Galatians 6:7-10

So when I was reading this chapter, every single time the Spirit kept bringing me to verses 7-10. In the preceding verses Paul is explaining how the body of Christ is to care for the burdens of one another, and if those burdens are transgressions, you still need to help one another, but be careful in doing so and put your trust in Christ’s strength to help others and not your own strength. In verse 7-10, he is capping off this commandment with a principle to encourage the church to care for one another: if you sow to the flesh, you will reap corruption, but if you sow to the Spirit in doing good works and caring for the body the way Paul is talking about, you will reap life and blessing from the Spirit if you do not give up. Paul concludes this section by saying “let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith”, knowing that God has promised to reward those who consistently seek to take care of one another.

Here in a second, when we get to the “A” section of the H.E.A.R. process we are going to focus on the idea of “reaping what you sow”. Many of you are familiar with the idea of this concept, or have heard the phrase before. This is an idea that’s taught often not only in the church, but even appears often in secular media and contexts as well. But we need to pause here real quick and talk about one very common misconception about this passage and this idea: when we talk about “reaping what you sow”, we are not talking about “karma”. Our modern world often uses “karma” as “getting what you deserve”, not only is that not what actually karma means, it is not the same idea that Scripture is talking about. If you went to any practicing Hindu or Buddhist and asked them to explain the idea of “karma”, they would not tell you that karma is “getting what you deserve” - the shortest way I know how to explain it is that karma, in Hinduism, is what ties together your previous re-incarnated lives with your current life to determine your future re-incarnated life. Karma is not an acceptable or appropriate word for what I am talking about tonight and what the Bible is talking about; it is not a Christian concept and, as Christians, it should have no place in our thinking.

A: Apply

Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about A: application. Normally, when we get to this section, we encourage you to ask three different questions:

What does this passage say about God?

What does this passage say about the world?

What does this passage say about me?

I encourage you to write that down and ask those questions as you work through your Scripture reading this week. For tonight, and for this passage, I am going to take a different direction and get a little meta about what it is we are even doing here.

This is our second night of Redeemer Youth for 2021, and we paused Redeemer Youth for nearly a month and a half because of Covid. Not only is January the month of “New Years Resolutions”, but this is the first week where many of gave it your best attempt at reading the Bible five days a week after going a couple of months where our group reading plan was paused. I know some of you here got off to a great start and did five days, and I know some of you didn’t get a single day and are maybe feeling discouraged or defeated at the thought of being able to do this. Wherever you’re at, I want to take what Paul is writing about “reaping what you sow” and talk a little bit about unrealistic expectations with reading the Bible and our habits.

I’ll just get straight to the point here: I think many of us here (including leaders and adults) have unrealistic expectations when it comes to reading the Bible. I think many of us in here expect that each time we read the Bible that it is going to be this mystical, ethereal experience, and that everything is going to click and make sense and that you’re going to come away a completely different person than you were before. Sometimes that does happen. Sometimes you do come to the Scriptures and leave different than before you started. But if you expect that to happen every time you read the Bible, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment because that is not what happens every time you read the Bible. I know for some of you in here the reason why you have a hard time reading the Bible is because you expect that to happen and wonder what’s wrong when it doesn’t happen like that. The vast majority of times you read the Bible it will be a relatively normal and seemingly uneventful experience, and that is perfectly okay.

Think about a particular skill or hobby that you’ve been doing for a long time - for many of you, that’s sports, or playing an instrument, or doing some kind of art. For you who play a sport, how weird would it be for someone to show up to practice on day who’s never played on a team before and expect to play like someone who has years of experience and skill? For those of you who play an instrument, how weird would it be for someone to show up who’s never played an instrument before and expect to play a full piece on their first attempt? For those of you who do art, how weird would it be for someone who’s never taken a drawing lesson to be able to draw realistic portraits of people? None of these are realistic. Yet we often approach the Christian life, and specifically things like reading the Bible and praying, with these same unrealistic expectations, and then give up when our unrealistic expectations aren’t met. We often expect that we should be able to get the most out of our lives as Christians with minimal effort, but like Paul says: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap.

But let’s look at the incredible promise here in the middle of verse 8 and into verse 9: “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.” God himself promises that if we “sow to the Spirit”, which is a phrase that simply means when we live obediently to Christ, that from God himself we will reap eternal life in due season if we do not give up. When Paul says “eternal life”, he isn’t saying we earn our salvation by reading our Bibles; he is echoing Jesus’ own words when Jesus said in John 17:3, “and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” When we build habits of Scripture reading, prayer, and worship, we sow to the Spirit, and when we continue to sow to the Spirit, we will continue to know and grow closer to God, and this is the eternal life Jesus has purchased for us.

And to go back to our other hobbies for a second: we see this principle at work in every other hobby or activity or skill. Just like it’s unrealistic to show up to a band rehearsal and expect to be to play a song on an instrument you’ve never played before, it’s equally unrealistic to expect that you can get to the point of being good at something without faithful practice and habits. All of you who play sports know that the only way you got to the level of play you can do now is through hundreds of hours of ordinary, boring, and seemingly pointless practice sessions to where you’re able to play your sport and fully enjoy it. All of you who play instruments know that it took countless repetitions of changing chords, playing scales, rhythm warmups, and dozens of attempts and learning a song before you were able to have the satisfaction of playing it. For me personally, I started learning the Hebrew language this time a year ago for school; my first semester was miserable, my second semester was a little bit better, and now I’m on my third semester and it’s taken nearly a year of studying Hebrew grammar and vocabulary 10-15 hours a week for me to be able to say “I love Hebrew” because now I can read and study the language. We need to have realistic expectations about what to expect when we read the Bible, and we also need to have realistic expectations about what happens when we commit ourselves to developing habits of reading the Bible; like every other skill or ability, and as God makes clear in this passage, we will reap in the proper time if we do not give up, and our habits will pay off! As we have said over and over again here at Redeemer Youth, we don’t expect perfection with our Scripture reading, we expect faithfulness, because it is when we are faithful to reading Scripture that we will eventually come to enjoy reading Scriptures.

R: Respond

Now, with all that said, how do we respond to what this passage is saying here? I am going to suggest three possible responses for you to consider:

First, examine the things you do habitually. What are your habits that sow to your flesh? What do you need to do to repent of those? What are your habits that sow to the Spirit? What do you need to do to grow in those?

Second, examine your expectations. Are you expectations unrealistic when it comes to reading the Bible? For this week, some of you maybe need to say “I’m going to read the Bible five days this week regardless of what happens or doesn’t happen when I do. I’m not going to stop reading the Bible if I don’t get the response or experience I’d like to get.”

Third, examine your faith. Do you believe that God will keep his promises? Do you believe that if you commit yourself to habits of Scripture reading that God will make good on his promise to reward you with a better knowledge and enjoyment of Jesus Christ? For this week, some of you maybe need to resolve that you’re going to press into Scripture reading because not only has God commanded it, but God promises to reward it, and that you’ll see the fruit of your labors over a period of time with these habits.

Now in all this, I need to make one thing very clear: Scripture reading does not save us. If you come away from tonight thinking that you can save yourself by reading the Bible five times a week or that Scripture reading is necessary to earn or keep your salvation, you need to understand that is not what I am saying. We are saved by placing our faith in Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection for our salvation; we are not saved in what we do for him. As we talked about last week in Galatians 1, we cannot save ourselves by keeping the law or any other law we set upon ourselves. Scripture reading does not save us, but if we are saved, we should want to read the Scriptures. We should want to know God’s word. We should want the eternal life God has promised us from sowing in the Spirit. And if that genuinely doesn’t interest or excite you, maybe ask yourself why that is. For some of you in here, the reason you struggle to love reading the Scriptures is because you need to practice the habits that will help teach you to love Scripture reading; for some of you in here, the reason you struggle to love reading the Scriptures is because you don’t actually love Jesus - you love your sin, and you don’t want to turn away from your sin and believe and submit to Jesus as the Lord of your life. If that’s you, and you want to know what it means to repent and believe in Jesus, talk to your leader, or to me, or to Andrew - we would be more than happy to talk to you about what it means to become a Christian. But if you are a Christian, I want to exhort you to faithfulness, because God promises to reward your faithfulness if you continue to be faithful in reading the Scriptures.