Sermon Tone Analysis

don’t give up - pursuing the Spirit leads to life

Intro me

Who here has had a good habit, one you’ve held on to it for a while, slip away from you?

Maybe it’s exercise.

Maybe it’s diet.

Maybe it’s bedtime.

Maybe it’s practising an instrument.

Maybe something spiritual - like bible reading or prayer.

Who’s had a good habit slip away from you?

I think that’s a pretty universal experience.

It’s so easy to pick up bad habits.

It’s so easy to lose good habits.

Always feels like you’re pushing against gravity, like it’s always pulling you back down to earth, right?

Feels like nothing’s really going to change, always going to find your way back down to the same spot.

But the bible tells us that’s not true if you’re a follower of Jesus.

The Bible tells us we can change - and we will change.

It tells us, even though it’s a struggle, that it’s worth it.

That we shouldn’t give up.

That it leads somewhere.

That’s what we’re going to be looking at today - an encouragement not to give up, to persevere.

An encouragement I think we all need as our world seems to spiral out of control.

We’re nearly at the end of a short letter towards the back of the bible called Galatians which was written to a group of churches in modern-day Turkey.

It was written by one of Jesus’ first followers, a guy called Paul, written to a bunch of churches he had started where, after he’d moved on, other teachers showed up with a very different message - and things were going wrong.

He’s pointing them back to the message he left with them, the good news that Jesus died in our place so we are made right with God - but also the good news that followers of Jesus have new power within - power coming from God’s own Spirit - power to change.

Remember we talked about seeds a few weeks back: the potential they have, but how you have to give them the right environment?

This week we’re all plant-y and horticultural again.

We’re thinking about how you keep on sowing those seeds, and how we can be confident that they will grow.

Come with me to Galatians chapter six - that’s page 1172 in these blue bibles.

Galatians chapter six - big 6 - and we’re starting reading from verse 7 - tiny 7. Page 1172, Galatians chapter six, verse 7. Dustin is reading for us today.

Thanks Dustin.

Now there’s a lot of metaphorical language here - lots of word-pictures in that short passage.

Pictures that would have clicked immediately with the original audience but us modern folk might need a little more help with - because we’re a bit more distant from these things.

Let’s check we understand them before going any further.

So, the main picture is reaping and sowing - or planting and harvesting.

In the ancient world this letter comes from, everyone would have direct experience of this, or at least would have understood it intimately - but we’re a bit more insulated in our modern world so, for the benefit of anyone who thinks bread grows in Tesco overnight in a plastic bag, this is about growing crops for food - grain, wheat.

Sowing is scattering the seeds onto the ploughed ground.

It’s where things start.

Then there’s a whole bunch of waiting.

Waiting, and hoping for enough rain and enough sun - but not too much of either.

And then, months later, after the plants are full-grown and ready, there’s reaping: you harvest the crop that you’ve grown that year.

So built into this picture is a delay, a significant delay.

You sow or plant ... months - or even years pass … then you reap, or harvest.

It’s a tough sell in our modern world, but growing stuff takes time - you have to wait for the harvest.

So as we think together about what this all means, we need to hang on to that idea of waiting that’s built into this word-picture.

Also the picture communicates a connection: If you don’t sow, you can’t reap.

The harvest is a result of the planting, it flows out of it.

And what you harvest grows from what you planted.

If you plant apples, you don’t harvest oranges.

If you plant weeds, you don’t harvest grain.

You grow what you plant.

Delay and connection - these would have been completely obvious to the original audience.

But what is he getting at with this metaphor?

“A person reaps what he sows”, he tells us - but he’s not talking about someone actually growing crops.

He’s talking about something which is like growing crops.

First, he talks about someone who “sows to please their flesh” - what does that mean?

Flesh, here, refers to our ordinary human nature.

Human nature which, the Bible tells us, has been corrupted and twisted so even though there are remnants of the good and noble, it always ends up drawing us to what’s wrong, what’s bad for us, what’s bad for those around us.

Sometimes it’s obvious - like when I’m in a rage and I hit out at someone; I didn’t want to be that or do that; I know that’s wrong.

Most of the time it’s subtle - like when I kid myself that I’m doing something for some good cause when really it’s mostly for my own ego.

Often that sort of twisted-ness can sneak by unnoticed.

“Sowing to please their flesh” means living life driven by the desires of this warped human nature.

Doing what suits me, what pleases me.

And let’s face it, most of the time, that’s how most of the world lives.

The alternative he lays out for us here is someone who “sows to please the Spirit” - he means the Spirit of God; invisible but still personal; alive and present inside every true follower of Jesus.

He’s describing someone who does what suits God, who does what pleases him.

Who lives in the way God wants us to live, who strives for the character God wants us to have.

And if you want to know what that looks like in practice, Jesus is our model, our example.

A few weeks back we were looking at a famous bible passage talking about the “fruit of the Spirit” - we looked at how real change is always inside-out, not outside-in; how righteous actions flow out of good character.

That’s true again here - sowing to please the Spirit doesn’t start with actions we take, things on the outside - it starts with choosing virtue or character inside - virtue or character that flows out into actions.

So when we think about sowing to please the Spirit, we’re thinking not just about living an outward life that’s shaped by the character of God, by what is right and good and true - it’s not less than that, it’s more than that.

It’s also about building the character which that life flows out of.

Ok, so two kinds of sowing.

Remember what we said about sowing and reaping?

Delay and Connection.

Delay.

You sow now.

You reap later.

It’s not instant.

It takes time to see the fruit.

Connection.

You reap because you sow.

And you get back from the ground the same thing you put into it.

You reap what you sow.

Let’s take these principles with our two kinds of seed.

First, sowing to please the flesh:

Delay: When we act, driven by our warped human desires, we’ve sown something.

We’ve started something.

Can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

There’s cause and effect.

We’re going to reap something.

But it doesn’t happen right away.

We might think we’ve gotten away with it.

Might think it didn’t do any harm.

Or that no-one knew, or no-one saw, or no-one took photos, or no-one would pass them on to the police - ahem, Borris.

But it’s just the nature of things that there’s a delay.

Might be short - I’ve had things come back to bite me in moments sometimes.

More often it’s long - long enough we can start thinking we’re out.

But we’ve sown something - so we’re going to reap something.

Then there’s this:

Connection: what we plant is what, in time, sprouts and grows up out of the ground.