Training vs. Trying

Prayer

God Cannot Be Mocked

Paul was one of the young men who went to Capernaum camp with us, Paul’s 22, he definitely has this side to him where he likes to be contrary. We’d be at club, and everyone would be cheering something and Paul liked to be the one throwing the thumbs down.

And we get the whole cabin all ready to go to the swimming pool (swimsuits on, sunscreen), and we get to the pool. I make a point of telling Paul he can’t get in yet because he doesn’t have his sunscreen on. What does he do? In the moment I’m putting my stuff down he’s jumped into the pool.

I saw Paul’s tongue more times than I can count last week.

Now, don’t get me wrong, most of the time Paul was great and listened pretty well. But there definitely was some attitude there. I’m going to do things my way. Not your way. So there!

Now Paul - the Apostle, not our Capernaum friend, warns us against this attitude when it comes to God. When we get contrary to God - I’m going to do things my way, not your way (which is what we call sin). Paul warns us - you can be contrary, but it’s not going to work out well for you.

This is what he means when he says in Galatians 6:7: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

In other words - you cannot avoid the consequences of your actions. God had made the world to work in a particular way, there are natural laws at work. Our bodies are designed to function according to God’s design. You can try to work against that or around that, but it’s not going to work out well for you. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.

But we all do it, don’t we?

Staying up later than we really should seems like a good idea at the time - until that alarm hits and we realize our bodies really do need rest, gotta get enough sleep.

Same thing with eating - that extra serving of food, looks so good, can’t hurt, can it? I can handle another drink. Oh, I can lift that by myself. I always think I can get that last thing done before I leave - and then it puts me in a hurry to get to where I need to go. Try to take on too much and we get stressed. You reap what you sow.

John Stott makes the point that this principle applies to all of life, material and moral. This is principle Paul is laying out here in Galatians 6:7-10...

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Paul is laying out the fact that this principle, you reap what you sow, applies not just materially - to our physical bodies (in terms of sleep, rest, what we eat), but morally as well.

If you sow to the flesh - as Paul puts it, to please your flesh - if you live a life that’s self directed, what I want, my personal happiness, what I think is best - you will reap destruction. That’s the natural consequence. You can’t live that way and achieve a different outcome. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can pull a runaround on God.

If, however, you sow to please the Spirit, you direct your life in a way that you seek to live according to Jesus Christ, his Spirit within you - you will reap eternal life. You will reap full forever life.

Let’s take a moment to recap what we’ve covered throughout this sermon series, because it’s culminating here in this section - today we want to get very practical about how we live a life to please the Holy Spirit.

Main point of Book of Galatians - and our sermon series - is that we want to live a life in accord with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s the message, the word, that is to inform how we are to live

Gospel is good news that Jesus gave himself…for our sins…to rescue us. To live out that message means that we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. We trust God above everything and anything else - including ourselves.

All for the great purpose that Christ would be formed in us. That we might become like Jesus, have fruit of the Holy Spirit cultivated in us - love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self-control.

That requires, as we talked about last week, great intentionality to choose to live by the Spirit, not by the flesh (which is our default). To live according to the flesh is to try to live under our own power, we’re trying to be good on our own. To live according to the Spirit is to open our lives to the power and presence of Jesus in us, he is the one who transforms us, cultivates fruits of the Spirit in us - it’s his power.

Last week we introduced VIM, V-I-M, Vision-Intention-Method. Vision is to have Christ formed us, that above everything else, we would desire to know and be like Jesus (what discipleship is!). Intention is to make that deliberate decision to keep in step with the Holy Spirit, opening ourselves to his power within us.

Which brings us to the M, Method. How do we actually do this, in practice? How do we, on a moment by moment, day by day basis, keep in step with the Holy Spirit, as opposed to living according to the flesh? That’s what we want to talk about this morning.

Training vs. Trying

It all starts with this basic life principle. You reap what you sow. If you want to have Christ formed in you, fruits of the Spirit, you must sow towards that - sow to please the Spirit. Consider for a moment the whole idea of sowing, what this image suggests - at least two things.

One, it is a slow, deliberate process. Unless you’re like Jack and beanstalk and you have magic beans, the harvest will not be immediate. Work to open ourselves to Spirit that his fruit might be nurtured in us is going to be slow and messy and frustrating - at times it will look like nothing’s happening, there’s no growth at all.

But here’s where we trust this basic life principle - and most of all, God (after all, it’s his principle, he cannot be mocked!). We keep sowing those seeds to please the Spirit - and we will become more like Jesus. We will gradually become people who are more full of joy and life and peace and self-control and so on.

If you’ve every grown a garden, so often, for so long, it looks like nothing is happening. Then, all of a sudden, there’s a spurt of growth - it’s happening. I think that’s often the same dynamic here.

The other aspect of sowing is related to this…it’s out of our control. Which is kinda the main point here - sowing to the flesh is to rely on our own control, we’re in charge, we’re trying to make this happen. But to sow to the Spirit is an act of surrender, of trusting God and his grace and power in our life to do the work.

When you plant a garden, there are a lot of things you can do to sow seeds well - prepare the soil (tilling it up, fertilizer), care with which you plant seed (how deep, far apart), then you tend the garden, weeding and watering. But in the end, you cannot control the process - you can’t make plants grow. You can’t make them bear the fruit.

Same way, God makes fruit appear in our lives, it’s his power, his work, to form Christ in us.

Here’s where I want to get very practical about how you and I can sow to please the Spirit. And it involves another critical principle, one I’ve talked about before - but it’s so important I want to make sure we get this. When we think about the M, Method, we want to think in terms of Training vs. Trying.

Trying is attempting to do things in our own power, our effort. This is life in the flesh, on our own, without God. We don’t need God to live in the flesh.

You may remember the other Sunday when I gave the illustration of me trying to go back there and play Steve’s keyboard. As hard as I might try, I would not be able to play even a simple song, much less play Bach or Beethoven.

And this is true across the board, even if I had a great vision of running a marathon, seeing myself running across the finish line, arms raised in victory. And I had great intention, I’m going to do this. Forget it, I’d never be able to do it. They talk about marathon runners hitting “the wall” around the 20th mile, I’d hit mine more along the lines of the 2nd mile.

In order to be able to do these you must train. it requires discipline. Remember, we talked about what a discipline is last week, John Ortberg’s definition: Any activity I can do by direct effort that will help me do what I cannot now do by direct effort. So I can do these smaller things, activities that will help train me to do the large, bigger activity.

Same is true of spiritual disciplines (again, Ortberg): Any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it.

Which brings us to training. How do we train spiritually? What kind of activities can we do what will help us to gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it? Or using the analogy Paul uses here, how do I sow to please the Holy Spirit in order that I might reap eternal life?

John Ortberg offers us some wonderful advice on where to begin, begin with our sin. Where are we falling short? Where are we not like Jesus? It’s helpful to think about the two categories of sin, because that will help us determine what kind of activities, what training exercises, we can do that will be most helpful in opening us up to the power and presence of Jesus so that we might be like him?

First, we have sins of commission. This is sin in way we normally thing about it - when we do things that we shouldn’t do. We engage in sexual immorality, looking lustfully at someone, pornography, fornication. We lie. We color the truth so we look better - or less guilty. To persuade someone to do something we want them to do. We express anger or irritation towards others, wounding them with our tone, our words, our silence. Those are sins of commission.

But then there are sins of omission. Here’s where we fail to do the things we should do. We lack patient or joy or faith or love or willingness to serve.

Helpful to think in terms of these two types of sins because we want to train differently for the two categories of sins. Generally speaking, with sins of commission (where we do things we shouldn’t be doing), we want to engage in disciplines of abstinence. A discipline of abstinence is where I intentional refrain from doing things. As Ortberg says, we want to strengthen our not-doing muscles. Conversely, where we commit in sins of omission (where we fail to do things we should be doing), we want to put into practice disciplines of engagement, where we intentional do things - because we’re trying to strengthen our doing muscles. So, let me give you some examples to flesh this out for you:

Sins of Commission / Disciplines of abstinence

One example might be boasting. It may be subtle boasting, you tend to talk about yourself, to draw attention to good things you’ve done or accomplished, or your children have done. You are looking for the approval of others. To combat this sin, you might engage in discipline of silence or discipline of secrecy (remember the Sermon on the Mount - when it comes to giving alms, don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing). Do a good deed without anyone knowing about it.

Another example would be lust. You are improperly desiring others, those who are not your spouse. You’d want to engage in discipline of abstinence. To do as Job says, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.” Make a point of averting your eyes when it comes to sexualized images. When something pops up on your screen look away. If you struggle with pornography, use software like “Covenant Eyes” - accountability partner who can see every website you visit.

If you have made an idol of something give that thing up (or intentionally limit your use of it). If you spend too much time on your phone - it might be social media, it might be watching videos, put the phone away for set amount of time. Go on a media fast. I realized that I was making an idol of money when I was becoming hyper-attentive to our household finances. So I engaged in discipline of abstinence, so I would only check on our income and expenses twice a week.

There are disciplines that will help you train to become more like Jesus instead of whatever sin it may be you’re engaging in: judge too quickly, anger or malice, deceitfulness, pride.

Sins of Omission activities / Discipline of engagement

Sin of omission might be lacking joy in your life. If your struggle with the sin of joylessness, you’ll want to engage in discipline of celebration. That might involve taking an afternoon or day to simply do things you delight in. It might involve practicing thanksgiving - celebrating God’s good gifts in your life. There’s a number of things you can do here - recite the verse daily, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will be glad and rejoice in it.” Unplug for a week.

Another sin of omission would be not being attentive to God. Living life without him. So, what disciplines of engagement - what activities could you do to be with God, to be attentive to his presence in your life. Discipline of solitude is one. Daily reading of Scripture - as an exercise to hear God speak to you through his Word. Set an alarm so that every hour you take a few moments to meditate upon God and whisper a quiet prayer to him. Strengthen that muscle of being open and aware to the presence of God.

If you struggle with impatience, then intentionally put yourself in a situation where you have to wait. Choose the longest line at the checkout. Slowest lane of traffic. You may think, that’s stupid, why would I waste time like that? Problem is, it’s that mindset that has made us impatient people, always in hurry. But our goal is to have Christ formed in us, to be like Jesus - who was often busy, but never hurried. Never impatient. And that is well worth the extra time spent waiting in line. After all, we serve the Everlasting Father, he is not short on time.

So, here again, if you lack love for others, find yourself unwilling to serve others, that faith muscle is weak - there are disciplines of engagement you can take on to open yourself to the power and presence of the Spirit in you. This is what it means to sow to please the Holy Spirit - so that we might reap eternal life.

Here’s what I want to challenge you to do this week:

Prayerfully consider one area of sin in your life. And this is essential - ask the Holy Spirit to come and guide you in this. Remember, we’re not trying to do this on our own, but by keeping in step with the Holy Spirit. Ask the Spirit to reveal to you where he is working, that you’re ready to join in with him in this. As the Spirit brings something to mind, consider where this is a sin of commission or a sin of omission?

Commit to an activity that will help you “gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it”. If what you struggle with is a sin of commission, then you’ll want to engage in practice of abstinence, refraining from doing. Likewise, if it’s a sin of omission, then take on a discipline of engagement - do something. I’m more than happy to help talk through what disciplines might be helpful for you.

Put this into practice this week. And my hope and prayer is that this wouldn’t be just a one week deal, but a regular practice. Because we want to cultivate a life of training to become like Jesus, orienting our lives towards Spirit.

Inspiration…I wish I could express to you what a joy it was to be at Capernaum camp last week. I almost shed tears when we first arrived and we were making our way through the line of work crew welcoming us, cheering our arrival. Just to realize how our Capernaum friends were being celebrated.

The whole week was a taste of the Kingdom of God. Everyone being loved and included and embraced. Atmosphere of joy - laughter, singing, dancing (Ryan got so into dancing he toppled over). One of kids had Valium prescribed for when he gets agitated - we never had to give it to him, much to his mother’s surprise.

Here’s thing - it was all motivated by the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, this wonderful gift of grace - all so that we might experience full forever life. This is life that Jesus is inviting us into, and we cannot achieve it on our own, we can’t make it happen. A man reaps what he sows.

If you and I want to reap full forever life, a life rooted in the love and grace and joy of Jesus, we must sow to please the Spirit. To engage in practices that will open us up to his power and presence in our lives. I hope you’ll join me in doing that.