[Passage]
Galatians 6:7-9
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will 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] Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”
Introduction
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
This past 2009 was a year in which many church members found out the original causes of problems, resolved them, and received blessings.
Since last year, God has given us the issue on the original cause of problems.
And He gave us times of great grace like the Blessings Party, so the problems that couldn’t be resolved by your own strength could be resolved by God’s power.
If some sticky pollutants are clogging the water pipe, we have to get rid of those pollutants first in order to resolve the problem and get the water to flow properly.
Similarly, when you demolished the spiritual walls that were standing between God and you, your physical problems were also resolved.
So, we had so many testimonies last year.
Today, there are some even among the believers who are suffering from tests and trials.
They hear that they will receive blessings when they believe in God, but in fact they are not receiving blessings.
We cannot just receive blessings just by saying that we believe.
The same goes for not only material blessings but also for the healings, our future plans, family problems, and all other kinds of problems.
We can receive answers only when we ask according to the justice of God.
Our church members always learn how to receive answers and blessings in justice of God in detail from the messages preached.
For this reason, though a person may look elsewhere to try to find so many testimonies of blessings it is difficult to find as many anywhere else.
But God said this year, 2010 in particular, is a year of reaping.
It will be the starting year for harvesting the fruits of what you have been sowing with faith so far. It is the ‘hundredfold blessing’ that God promised me and the glory that He would give to our church.
Thus from today, I will talk about the law of ‘sowing and reaping’.
I will explain the general process of spiritual sowing and reaping in the first session, and from the next session, I will mainly talk to you about the specific details of material blessings.
As you listen to the message, you can apply the spiritual principle for not only material things but also for other kinds of blessings.
I urge you to keep these messages in mind and receive the blessings of 2010 that God has promised as your own.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will abundantly harvest from the things that you have sown and cared for in faith so that you will be able to give gracious testimonies.
[Main] Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s passage from Galatians 6:7-9 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will 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. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”
For a farmer to harvest abundant crops, he first has to cultivate the field, sow the seeds, and care for them.
Even if the field is quite large, if the farmer does not sow the seeds, he will not have anything to reap.
On the other hand, if the farmer sows many seeds on a big field and diligently takes care of them, he will be able to wait for the harvest with hope.
For some crops he will gain a harvest pressed down, shaken together, and running over as sown, or for other crops he will reap 30, 60, or 100 times more.
There are some people who work hard, but do not have an abundant harvest.
It means there is something wrong with their method of farming.
Spiritually, some people seem to lead a diligent Christian life, but they do not receive blessings in their lives.
Rather than blessings they have an entanglement of problems and difficulties.
Or, although they do not have some serious problems, they do not receive any significant blessings, even after decades of being Christians.
But the promise of God is never wrong.
Whatever we sow before God, we will definitely reap the fruit of it.
If we follow flesh and sow in flesh, we will reap the fruit of flesh, and if we follow the works of the Spirit and sow in spirit, we will reap the fruit of spirit.
If we do not have any significant fruit of blessing for a long time, we have to check the current state of our faith.
Now, let us delve in detail into how we can receive overflowing blessings as we sow and give glory to God.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in order for us to reap as we sow, we first have to cultivate the field of our heart.
When a farmer is farming, even if the seeds are good he cannot get abundant crops from a bad field.
For example, on a hardened road or paved road, hardly any seed would sprout.
Birds may come and eat the seeds, or the seeds will be scorched by the sunshine.
We can reap a harvest 30, 60, or 100 times more if we sow in good soil.
Much in the same way, we have to sow in a spiritually good field when we sow the seeds of blessings.
Here the field refers to our hearts.
Even though we sow many seeds and care for them, we will not gain a satisfactory harvest compared to the amount of seeds we sow if the field does not have good soil.
So, as the field, we first have to cultivate our hearts. Namely, we have to cast away sins and evil and purify and sanctify our hearts.
(I will talk to you about the details of cultivating your heart-field in the Sunday morning services, so it won’t be explained here in detail.)
As we cultivate our heart-field, we have to do something else at the same time. It is sowing the seeds.
We do not sow only after we finish cultivating, but we have to sow as we cultivate.
If the farmer sows the seeds only after the cultivating is completely finished, he won’t have any food to eat until then.
We also have to sow the seeds while we are cultivating our hearts.
Then, in this case what does it mean ‘to sow’? To sow is to obey the commands in the Bible that tell us to ‘do’ or ‘keep’ certain things.
As I will explain in more detail along with the explanations on the heart-field, the commands in the Bible that tell us to ‘cast away’ and ‘not do’ are the processes to cultivate our heart.
So, even though we obey these words, we will not receive rewards in Heaven for it.
It is because we are supposed to cast away what we are supposed to cast away and not do what we are not supposed to do.
But because we have cultivated the field into a good field, we will then be qualified to enter into better Heavenly dwelling places. We have to sow in order to receive these rewards.
To sow is to obey such commands as, ‘preach the gospel, edify the believers, love, obey, seek other’s benefits, serve others and sacrifice yourself, give tithes, be faithful, keep the Lord’s Day, and so on.
It is not difficult at all to obey such commands.
As I explained in the sermon, “Christian life is easy,” we might feel difficult because we don’t try enough. If we really have the determination, there will be nothing difficult.
If we keep His commands, He says He will give us blessings and lets us enjoy glory in a better Heavenly dwelling place. So, what could be difficult?
If we don’t do the things that God tells us to do, or if we do the things that God tells us not to do, then, it is to obey Satan.
Then, we won’t have any peace of mind. We will only suffer from tests and trials. Therefore, it will be rather harder to disobey the word of God.
Let me give you an example. There is a person who always leaves home late and being in a hurry he frequently violates traffic rules.
He always has to be on the watch on the streets.
He has to watch out for police or surveillance cameras because he is thinking of the ways to ignore the traffic lights and go more quickly. His mind is in a hurry and he is nervous just in case he sees any police officers.
If he gets caught, he has to pay the fine. He may even crash into other vehicles.
How much more comfortable it would be if he leaves home early and keeps all the traffic rules!
But because he doesn’t change his laziness, he has to live in nervousness all the time.
It’s the same with God’s word.
If we just obey the Word, we would feel so much more at ease and comfortable in our life in faith. The enemy devil and Satan cannot work on us, so our hearts will be at peace and filled with the Spirit. We would be able to receive anything we ask and all things would go well with us.
In other words, it is up to you to decide whether your Christian life will be easy or difficult.
This is the way we have to sow the seeds, and we shouldn’t sow just once but continually.
When farmers grow crops, they sow various kinds of seeds in the different seasons.
They don’t just sow in spring and harvest in autumn; some seeds are sown in spring while some others are sown in summer. They keep on sowing and reaping throughout the year.
We also have to keep on farming until we go to Heaven.
We have to cultivate the field, sow the seeds and grow them, and again repeat the same cycle, so that we can continually sow and reap at the different times.
Also, until we reap what we sow, there must be our toil and effort in taking care of it. If we do not care for what we have sown, we won’t have much harvest.
We have to catch the worms, fertilize the soil, supply the water and care for the crops until we harvest them.
Then, what does taking care of the crops really mean? First, it is to attend worship services.
Hebrews 10:25 says, “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
We can listen to the word of God and learn the will of God when we gather with brothers in faith and attend worship services.
Also our faith can increase as we share the grace in fellowship with the believers.
If we were actually farming, we would first go to an experienced farmer and learn from him.
We cannot learn everything in just a couple of days. In order to be good at it, we have to learn the methods of farming over a course of many years.
Speaking spiritually, we have to continuously learn the heart and will of God by attending worship services in spirit and truth.
We can then understand the rules of sowing and reaping so that we can become first class farmers.
Next, we have to sing praises and pray to God. Through praise songs and prayers, we have to receive the fullness, inspiration, and strength of the Holy Spirit.
If the farmer is very weak, how would he be able to do his farming?
In spirit also, we can diligently cultivate our heart-field and continuously sow the seeds and care for them.
If we don’t have the fullness of the Spirit, it is difficult to just sit in the worship service.
Even though we know the word very well, we wouldn’t be able to either keep our hearts or overcome the world if we did not pray.
We are apt to be tempted by the enemy devil and Satan because we stop praying. We fall into tests and temptations because we don’t pray.
On the other hand, even those who are tired after working hard for the whole day will receive renewed strength if they receive the fullness of the Spirit through praising and praying to God.
We can successfully cultivate our heart-field only when we have the strength to win the battle against the enemy devil and Satan. Then we can sow the seeds there and grow them.
Next, to care for what we have sown, we have to rejoice and give thanks in all things. This is what it means to have faith.
We diligently cultivate our heart because we believe that we will enter New Jerusalem, the best of the Heaven’s dwelling places.
Also, we believe we will receive honor and rewards in Heaven and also reap the fruit of blessing on earth for whatever we sow; so, we can work with joy and thanks.
Farmers who are full of hope for the harvest are able to work with joy and happiness.
They sing while working, diligently catching worms, and pulling out the weeds.
If they work with greater joy, then even very laborious work won’t feel very hard.
If we always rejoice and give thanks in all things, the enemy devil and Satan will depart from us.
Then we will be able to vigorously march towards Heaven without looking at the world.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we worship, pray, rejoice and give thanks in taking care of the seeds, flowers will bloom.
The flowers will give out their fragrance. If our heart has the spiritual flowers blooming, we will give out the fragrance of Christ.
Namely, our heart will increasingly have the heart of God, so that people around us will feel the fragrance of Christ.
Then, they will say, “If all believers are like you, I want to also believe in Jesus.”
If we can hear such remarks from others, it will be very easy to preach the gospel and evangelize our families.
As what we have sown takes bloom, then it will finally bear the fruit. Namely we will bear the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.
We will bear such of the spiritual fruits as the Beatitudes, the fruits of spiritual love, and the fruits of light.
If we bear such spiritual fruits in our heart, it becomes the evidence that we love God.
In John 14:21, Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
Those who love God and harvest the spiritual fruits by keeping His commandments will be loved by God.
If children are very obedient and then ask for something of their parents, the parents would want to give their children anything they ask.
To those children of God who love Him, God the Father will answer to all their prayers.
For this reason all things will go well with us and we will be healthy as our soul prospers.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, up until this point, I have explained the general ideas about the rules of sowing and reaping.
Namely, we have delved into the process of spiritually cultivating our heart-fields, sowing the seeds, caring for them, and reaping the fruits.
It is the basic principle of receiving material and spiritual blessings to cultivate our heart, and sow the seeds and care for them according to the word of God.
As we sow and take care of the spiritual things, we can sow and care for the respective seeds in order to receive financial blessings or to fulfill other kinds of needs.
From the next session, I will be speaking about the methodology in sowing and reaping for financial blessings.
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the essence of our life in faith is to change our heart into good soil.
By the truth we have to change our heart into light, into righteousness and into goodness so that we can gain the image of God in us.
From the time when men committed sins and lost the image of God, they became no different than animals.
The land produced thorns and thistles, and people had to live in the curse and with calamities.
But we were set free from the curse of sin and hardship for we were forgiven of our sins through the price paid on the cross.
Now we can live in blessings.
But even though we say that we believe in the Lord and we rely on His cross, we will still be subject to the accusations of the enemy devil and Satan if we do not cultivate our hearts.
According to the rules of the spiritual realm that say we are slaves of sin if we obey sin, we will still be under the control of the enemy devil and Satan if we do not cultivate our hearts.
There is a wall of sin standing between God and us, so we cannot receive an answer even if we cry out in prayer.
Also, even though we ask and pray, we cannot harvest blessings if we do not properly sow the seed and take care of it. Through the messages that will be preached, I hope you will diligently cultivate your hearts and diligently sow according to the will of God.
In doing so, I pray in the name of the Lord that, towards the end of this year, 2010, you will all be able to say that you had a year of abundant harvest!
[AMEN!]
