The Sermon for Sunday, July 6th, 2025, the Third Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Isaiah 66:10-16; Psalm 66:1-8; Galatians 6:6-18; Luke 10:1-20
The Text: Galatians 6:6-10
INTRODUCTION
Soviet sport parachutist Yuri Belenko realized he was in trouble when he was three thousand feet above the ground. His main chute had malfunctioned, and his reserve chute was “barber poling” around the main, rendering them both useless.
Kicking his feet to slow the spiral caused by the whipping canopies above, Belenko yelled down to fellow jumpers on the ground. His jump buddies immediately sprang into action, grabbed a packing mat, and sprinted toward the impact point. All the way down, Belenko yelled and tugged at the static lines in an attempt to clear the tangled chutes. Below, his friends stretched the mat taut and waited.
Belenko plummeted into the canvas at bone crushing speed, ripping the tarp from his rescuers’ hands, and knocking them to the ground. When the dust cleared, Belenko lay gasping for breath, complaining only of a sprained ankle and a few bruises.
His jump buddies were there for Belenko at the moment he needed them most. It’s what God wants his people to do for others in need.[1]
– Bud Sellick: The Wild, Wonderful World of Parachutes and Parachutists. Prentice-Hall, 1981
GALATIANS 6:6-10: SOWING TO THE SPIRIT
The verses of Galatians 6 that precede our Epistle Lesson today speak of bearing one another’s burdens in Christ and of the spirit of meekness in which we should interact with our fellow-Christians. These verses also exhort everyone to examine his own deeds and then he will be able to rejoice in himself and not in another (Gal.6:4).
Then in the first verse of our Epistle today, St. Paul lays down the principle that everyone who is taught in God’s word should minister to his teacher in all good things. That means that he should share from some of the material goods that he has and give them to the person who instructs him in God’s word. This sharing is what is meant by “communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things” (Galatians 6:6b, KJV). This was before the days of full-time paid ministers of the Gospel. The principle does not even specify the payment of money to the teacher of God’s word, but the sharing of all good things. It may not always be money. For example, various parishioners in my years of ministry shared produce with me, or meat, and one parishioner who was a farmer, even shared half a sheep with me. The idea, really, is that gratitude for having received the ministry of God’s word should be expressed in some practical way that benefits the teacher.
This principle leads on to a more general principle, the principle of reaping what one sows (Galatians 6:7 ff.). Some pastors and televangelists have applied this principle to financial giving, but here it is not to be understood exclusively in this sense. The principle of reaping what one sows is firstly an agricultural principle. If one sows corn, one expects a harvest of corn, not a harvest of potatoes or carrots. But the principle applies to spiritual things also. What a man sows as he lives his life, he will also reap. Therefore, the person who sows “to his flesh,” that is, conducts his life and his relationships to promote his own selfish goals, will reap “corruption” by doing so, that is, moral decay (Gal 6:8), or moral and spiritual stagnation. The goal of the Christian life is to live for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ who gave his life for us, not to live any longer for ourselves (2 Corinthians 5:15). On the other hand, the person who sows to the Spirit, will reap eternal life from the Spirit (Galatians 6:8). Now this does not mean salvation that one receives as God’s free gift when one repents and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, but it means the fullness of God’s eternal life as result of obedience to God’s will. The Holy Spirit reveals himself as an ever-abounding fountain of life to all who continue in the good deeds that God has prepared for them to do.
How, then, do we sow to the Spirit?
We sow to the Spirit by following the call of the Spirit to obey God, and then we must not grow tired of doing good:
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
(Galatians 6:9, KJV)
Now why does God tell us not to become tired of doing good? Christians tend to give up, if they observe no good results of their good deeds, and they can also fall into the temptation of not believing they will reap a harvest from their good deeds. The prospect of not reaping a harvest from our good deeds is all the more real if we grow tired of doing good deeds, whereas we shall reap this harvest if “we faint not.”
Finally, we are told to do good to all people, especially to Christians, that is, to “the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10c, KJV).
CONCLUSION
Have you become weary of doing good and treating others well? Then keep up the good deeds and your loving kindness, and do not grow weary, so that you may reap the harvest given by the Holy Spirit!
[1] p. 187, Craig Brian Larson & Phyllis Ten Elshof (General Editors): 1001 Illustrations that Connect. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, Christianity Today International, 2008.