The Law of Sowing and Reaping

He that sows to what God's will is will have a real life experience with God. Dr. Tony Evans says one of the most basic concepts of Christianity is a proven principle any farmer could teach you. The harvest will be a reflection of the sowing.

Because what you sow, you reap. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. It's a simple case of cause and effect, but today Dr. Evans will take us to Galatians chapter 6 to explain why so many of us have missed the connection between what we plant and what we harvest, both spiritually and physically.

Let's join him. Just as in the physical universe there are rules, laws, that are predictable and you can count on them consistently being applied, there are laws in the spiritual universe that are likewise. Rules that God has set in motion by which we are to look at life and live life and understand life.

One such rule that God gives in terms of you living your life, me living my life, and we living our lives is the law of sowing and reaping. The context in which this law is stated to us, beginning in chapter 6 verse 1, is a sinning believer who is caught in a sin. In other words, they're trapped in something they can't break out of. Like getting your clothes hooked on something and you can't get loose from it. He says you who are spiritual, you come alongside that brother or sister that's caught in a situation they can't fix and you help unhook them because they cannot unhook themselves. Maybe they want to unhook themselves, maybe they don't even want to or know they need to, but you can clearly see they have been caught.

You come alongside and you help unhook them from what's hooking them up. You who are spiritual, you who understand how the spiritual world works because not every Christian understands how the spiritual world works. So you only want spiritual folk unhooking you because unspiritual folk are going to tie you up more. He says so important is understanding the spiritual world, verse 6, that you are to highly value spiritual input. That's why he says that that ministry that teaches you spiritually that you support that because that's going to be the thing that guides you out of this law or the negative side of this law that we're getting ready to talk about.

Value the spiritual highly, he says in verse 6. So that leads him into verse 7 where he tells us, by way of introduction, do not be deceived. Don't be duped, flimflammed, or hoodwinked.

Do not be tricked. God is not mocked. The Greek word for mock means to turn your nose up at something. It means to snub.

It means to not take something serious that is being presented to you seriously. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Now, I'm from the city.

A lot of you from the city. I don't know a lot about country, but I've seen enough about it and you don't sow corn and get potatoes. You don't sow watermelon and get cantaloupes. The harvest will be a reflection of the sowing because what you sow, you reap.

Not only that, but you have to sow before you reap. You don't get the harvest before you plant. The harvest only comes because you plant it. And so it is in the planting that you get the harvest, but the harvest determines what you're playing. In other words, you know what you want to plant by what you want to get.

So if you want to get a watermelon, you're not going to go buy cantaloupe seeds because that's not what you want. So then expect a harvest from seeds sown in your life. He's talking about our life now, but he's using farming so we get the picture because he comes in verse 8 and says, For the one who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Now you have to understand he's talking to Christians here. He's talking to believers. And he says there are two fields you can sow on in your life.

There are two locations. One field is called the flesh. The other field is called the Spirit, and you're sowing into those fields. The flesh and the Spirit are two realms that you can plant in, sow in, but he wants you to know if you sow in the flesh, you will decay corruption. If you sow in the Spirit, you will live.

He calls it eternal life. The flesh is your unredeemed humanity. When you accepted Jesus Christ, if you are a believer today, you were saved, but there is a misstatement that most people make. My soul got saved. No, your spirit got saved. And in seed form, God took up residence inside your spirit. That was the only thing saved at the moment of salvation.

Your soul, which is your self-life, the reason you know you are you is because you have a soul, the Bible says is being saved. So your spirit is immediately saved. Your soul is progressively saved.

And one day your body will be saved because you're going to get a brand new body. Your soul was contaminated by sin prior to your conversion. So sin is built in.

Follow me. The Bible calls this a sin nature. It is their nature to be independent from God and thus to express itself in life. When you accept Jesus Christ, something miraculously happens, even though it may not be felt. And that is, God shuts down the sin nature.

He says, if you sow to the flesh, meaning you plant in it, you feed it, it will bring about corruption. Anybody remember The Blob? The movie The Blob?

I didn't like the new one, the old one, when I was a kid, the old one. The one thing falls down from space, the thing cracks open, Jell-O comes out, the man reaches in with a stick, the thing rounds up the stick, goes up the man's arm, he goes to the doctor, and when the doctor comes back in, the thing has totally encased the guy. And then you remember when it ended the movie with the movie theater and The Blob is in the movie theater and it comes from the back of the screen and people are screaming and this thing has gone from this big to a huge thing, a city block big, because it needed to feed. And it would feed on anything it could grab that it could encase. So your flesh is looking for things to feed on. So when it sees a desire that is independent of God, it moves toward that desire in order to feed on it. And if it can get that desire to act on that desire that's independent of God, it feeds and therefore it grows. But when it grows, all it did was increase the desire. And so it continues to grow and to grow and to grow, not only growing in size but growing in appetite.

Because The Blob not only fed, it kept wanting to feed because it liked being fed. When you sow to that, he says, what you want to understand is that it results in corruption. The word corruption means decay, like when milk goes sour or meat or bread. It's going sour. It may look fresh right now, but over time it goes sour and that which was to seem like beneficial on the front end is going south on you because it leads to corruption or decay. So to feed the flesh, that is, satisfying desires independently of God, engorges the flesh, increases the appetite, and results in a downward trend leading to life's decay.

And most of us, if not all of us, on some level, knows what it is when we thought it was good on the front end and it wound up decaying over time. Your flesh is your unredeemed appetite that's independent from God. He says there is a second field, he that sows to the Spirit.

That's a whole other realm. He that sows to what God's will is will also have a harvest. And that harvest will be life. What does he mean by life? He's not talking about going to heaven. He's talking about life now. You will have life. Jesus said in John 17, this is eternal life that they may know you. We'll have a real life experience with God. So do you want a decaying life, the consequence of decay, or do you want a God-growing experience, the consequence of the Spirit?

The answer is obvious, but Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with more about where each of those choices might lead. Right now, though, as the Urban Alternative celebrates 40 years of ministry, Dr. Evans is here to share a memory with us. You know, I remember preaching on the street corners when I was in college. I'd go to the bus stops, and while people were waiting for buses, I would stand out in front of them like it or not, and I would preach the gospel to them and ask for anybody who wanted to accept Christ right there on the street corner. You know, I look back at that and say, did you do that?

And yes, I did, and I would do it every Saturday, go out with some of my classmates, and I'd hit the corner. So I remember that God was laying the groundwork, even in college, in giving me a boldness to proclaim His word, which has never left me. Dr. Evans and our entire staff continue to be committed to that calling.

But your ongoing faithfulness and generosity are what make it possible. So as our way of saying thanks for your contribution right now, we'd like to send you all six full-length messages on CD or digital download in Tony's current series, Consequences, which explains how to recognize and avoid the dangers of disobedience. We'll also include Tony's powerful booklet, 30 Days to Overcoming Emotional Strongholds. Drop by tonyevans.org today to make the arrangements, or let one of our resource team members help you by giving us a phone call day or night at 1-800-800-3222.

We really appreciate it. Dr. Evans, we'll come back with part two of our message right after this. Far too many of us want to throw in the towel before we've thrown up the prayers. Dr. Tony Evans says Christians have a habit of underusing or overlooking our most valuable spiritual resource. Grace is available, but only at the throne, and you can only approach the throne through prayer. You can deepen your connection with the Lord through our in-depth course on Kingdom Prayer at the Tony Evans Training Center. You'll discover how God has wired the world to work by prayer and experience for yourself how it connects heaven with earth and time with eternity.

You'll not only gain a new understanding and appreciation for prayer, you'll actually pray in transforming ways you've never experienced before. The course is intense, but you can work through it at your own pace and get all the help you need through our online forum. And, of course, there's custom content from Tony not available anywhere else. Connect with the Tony Evans Training Center at tonyevans.org. It's like having a seminary on your smartphone or other device.

Start today, tonyevans.org. Let's go a little deeper. If you'll see chapter 5, same book, Galatians, chapter 5, verse 16, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident. So if you want to know who you've been sowing in the flesh, just look at the list of deeds and see where you fit. While the flesh and the Spirit are in the same general location, you and me, they don't get along. You see what verse 17 says? The flesh sets itself up against the Spirit, and the Spirit sets itself up against the flesh. Can't we all get along?

No. He says these two are at war with one another. So here's how you know you are growing spiritually. You know you're growing spiritually when the desires that used to control your decisions are no longer controlling your decisions, even though they still may be there.

Because something has happened that has given you power over yielding to the desire that has not yet gone away. He says you must sow in the Spirit and not in the flesh if you want life. Because if you sow in the flesh, you are bringing decay, rottenness, corruption into your experience, whether or not you know it or whether or not you've seen it yet. That leads him to one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. Therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit, because we're talking about laws, of the life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh. You made New Year's resolutions. You promised you weren't going to do it anymore. You didn't go on for counseling.

You didn't done all that, and nothing changed. God did it, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering to sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, watch this, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk to the flesh but according to the Spirit. The law of gravity is unalterable. It cannot be changed because it's a physical law. Regardless of how you feel about gravity, you don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, you don't have to want it, because the law is the law is the law, and what goes up must come down. So how you feel about God's law of the flesh, it don't matter, because it's the law of sin and death.

That's the way it is. And so there is a consequence when you abut the unchangeable law of the flesh. And then he says in verse 13, For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die.

That's corruption. You gonna die, ultimately physically, but certainly spiritually. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.

There's the hope. The hope is from today on you can sow life and not sow more death. Many of you got up this morning because you set your clock. If you set it because you want to get up at eight o'clock or whatever the time is, it was on purpose. He says if you are going to deal with the right field, it must be on purpose. You must intentionally set your mind on God's thoughts about a matter. Spirit is God's thoughts about a matter. The flesh is setting your mind on your desire, independently of God. You must intentionally set your mind on God's way of thinking on a subject.

Once you set your mind on it, you will begin to discover once you act on what you set your mind on. Because if you set your clock, but you still don't get up when it goes off, it was a waste of time to set your clock. But if you set your clock and you get up, the clock did its job and you got the benefit.

When you intentionally set your mind on God's way of thinking and then act on it, you have just sown in the Spirit's field. The problem is that folks will say, well, I tried that last week and nothing happened. You and I didn't get fat by eating one dessert. We get fat because we keep eating and we keep eating. We keep feeding the bodily flesh and the bodily flesh expands. And then we looked at some television diet that promises in five days you're going to lose 50 pounds.

We looked at some diet. Well, guess what Galatians 6 says? It says, in due season, you'll reap if you faint not.

No farmer plants today and then expects a harvest tomorrow. You cannot have fed the flesh for 10 years and expect because you came to church today that your whole life is going to change, consequences are going to disappear, and God is just going to be all over you. It doesn't happen that way. He says, in due season, there is a seasonal time. The consequences of the flesh don't show up overnight. There's a gap from something you did five years ago and it's showing up five years later.

There's a gap. It's a season. So to fix your direction, it's a season of feeding your mind with God's way of thinking and acting on it and allowing God's processes to work to bring about a change in the appetite, a change in the addiction, a change in the emotion, a change in the circumstances that he allows. There must be a season. Well, what do I do in this season while I'm waiting for a new harvest on the field of the Spirit to override what I've been planting in the flesh? He says, until your season comes, do good.

Okay? That's what he said. Don't do nothing. Do good.

What does he mean? Minister to other folk while you're waiting on God. Do good, verse 10, as you have opportunity. Do good. Do good. Do good. Don't do nothing while you're waiting on a new harvest from a new planting.

You stay busy ministering to others because as you do that, you are shortening your time, whether actually or whether emotionally, for your harvest to come and by harvest we mean the new experience of God at work in your life, irrespective of the consequences that you may be experiencing or may continue to experience, God is at work in your life. Dr. Tony Evans, wrapping up a message he calls The Law of Sowing and Reaping, part of his current series, Consequences, a look at the dangers of sin and the path toward redemption. Remember, the full-length versions of all six messages in this collection are yours as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. Along with it, we'll include a copy of Tony's popular booklet, Thirty Days to Overcoming Emotional Strongholds, designed to help you break the destructive patterns that infect your relationships with others and with God.

This is a limited-time offer, so don't put it off. Draw by our website, tonyevans.org, where you can get all the details and make the arrangements. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222.

Team members are standing by 24-7 to help with your resource requests. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. When people think of the wrath of God, all kinds of traumas and tragedies come to mind. But next time, Dr. Evans will explain God has another kind of wrath that's not quite as obvious, but every bit is devastating. Find out what it is when you join us on Monday. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.