Series: God Will Make it Grow

Title: God’s Law of Sowing and Reaping

Text: 2 Corinthians 9:6-12

In the United States we have over 20,000 laws, just dealing with gun control.

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/K/4/pub4873.html

We have roughly thirty-five-million laws all together.

http://www.e-thepeople.org/about/news/99874321

We have laws dealing with vitally important issues:

Protecting the innocent from violence and theft.

Punishing perpetrators.

Providing safety on our highways.

 

We have a vast array of laws dealing with every imaginable circumstance:

Where you can walk your dog.

What type of fence you can have in your neighborhood.

We have ludicrous laws:

In Tennessee, "It is illegal to use a lasso to catch a fish."

http://www.work911.com/articles/humorlaws.htm

 

We have antiquated obsolete laws. In South Carolina the law states:

"Every citizen is obliged to carry his gun to church." This is obviously left over from colonial days over the fear of attack by Indians.

http://www.totallyuselessknowledge.com/laws.php

In 1971 the Five Man Electrical Band sang:

Sign Sign everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

A rule and a regulation for everything.

Criminal laws rarely change, but civil laws are in a constant state of flux.

As someone once said,

"We have 35 million laws trying to enforce Ten Commandments."

Unfortunately, the truth is, many of these 35 million ever-changing human laws do not enforce God’s commandments.

Unlike the ever-changing human laws, God’s laws are eternal. God’s laws do not change:

It will always be wrong to misuse the Lord’s name.

It will always be right to honor your mother and father.

It will always be wrong to commit adultery, lie, or steal.

 

God’s laws which govern his creation do not change:

Light in a vacuum always travels at 186,282 miles per second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

At sea level sound always travels at 761 miles per hour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound

Because of God’s law of gravity, small objects are always attracted to big objects. For instance, should you fall out of an airplane – with or without a parachute – like it or not – you will be attracted to the earth.

 

Another one of God’s eternal laws is the Law of Sowing and Reaping.

As God told Noah after the flood,

22"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat, summer and winter,

day and night will never cease."

Genesis 8:22 (NIV)

God said,

"Seedtime and harvest...will never cease."

Sowing and reaping will never cease.

It’s one of God’s eternal laws.

God’s Law of Sowing and Reaping is true:

It’s true in your garden.

It’s true in your moral actions.

It’s true in your generosity.

 

Galatians 6:7 says,

7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

When a farmer sows a single soybean, he will reap around 50 soybeans.

When he sows a single kernel of wheat, he will reap roughly 70 kernels of wheat.

When he sows a single seed of rice, he will reap 175 kernels of rice.

The Law of Sowing and Reaping is as true for your personal life as it is for farmers.

What you sow, you will reap.

Galatians chapter six:

7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

8The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

When you sow, "to please the sinful nature":

When you sow "sexual immorality [and] impurity."

When you sow "hatred [and] discord."

When you sow "selfish ambition [and dissension]."

Galatians 5:19-21 (NIV)

You will reap an abundant harvest of "destruction," desolation, and despondency.

 

But when you sow, "to please the Spirit:"

When you sow, "love, joy, [and] peace."

When you sow, "patience, kindness, [and] goodness."

When you sow, "faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)

You will reap an abundant harvest of "eternal life," in this world and the next.

 

God’s Law of Sowing and Reaping is just as true in your level of generosity.

In Proverbs 11:25 God tells us,

25A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

Proverbs 11:25 (NIV)

Our epistle reading is even stronger. Please turn to our reading from Second Corinthians chapter nine, beginning at verse six:

6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

As Jesus said in our reading from Luke 6:38:

38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Luke 6:38 (NIV)

The Law of Sowing and Reaping.

Plant and you will reap a harvest.

Give and it will be given to you.

The Law of Sowing and Reaping is counterintuitive! It makes no sense to the spiritually dead.

Put a seed in the ground, and God will give you more?

Put the Prince of Life in the tomb, and God will raise Him from the dead?

Give your hard earn money away, and God will re-supply you abundantly?

Yet, it’s true!

God is the source of your supply. He has blessed you abundantly, so that you may be a channel of His endless supply. As Greg said:

You are not God’s reservoir.

You are God’s pipeline.

As you give, God will give to you.

As you sow, God will give you a harvest.

Back to Second Corinthians chapter nine. Verse seven:

7Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

What if I give too much away?

What if I run out?

What if I have nothing left for myself or for others?

Verse 10:

10Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

As you are generous, as you sow, as you give, you will never run out.

God will "increase your store of seed."

Verse 11:

11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

12This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.
2 Corinthians 9:6-12 (NIV)

As you are "generous on every occasion," God promises to provide for your needs.

Specifically, as you are generous in supplying the needs of God’s people through the ministry of His Church:

Not only will God will provide for your needs.

But even more importantly, God will be praised.

"Give, and it will be given to you."

Sow sparingly, reap sparingly.

Sow generously, reap generously.

Years ago, on a stormy night, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia at 1:00 in the morning. They were half drenched from the rain.

The man asked for a room, but all the rooms were taken. There were three conventions in town, and all the hotels were booked. There was not one vacancy in all of Philadelphia.

The night clerk, cheerfully said,

A ...I can= t send a nice couple like you out into the rain at one o= clock in the morning. Would you perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It= s not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night.@

The couple politely declined, not wanting to inconvenience the clerk.

But the young man insisted,

A Don= t worry about me; I’ll make out just fine.@

Eventually the couple accepted his offer.

As he paid his bill the next morning, the elderly man said to the clerk,

"You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States. Maybe someday I’ll build one for you."

The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh. He thought nothing more of it.

Two years later, the clerk received a letter from the old man. It recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip train ticket to New York City, asking the young man to pay them a visit.

The old man met him in New York City, and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. He then pointed to a great new building there, a palace of reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up into the sky.

"That," said the old man, "is the hotel I have just built for you to manage."

The man’s name was William Waldorf Astor.

The hotel he had built for the young man, who had so selflessly given on that rainy night, was the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

God’s eternal law of sowing and reaping:

38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Luke 6:38 (NIV)

Why has God, blessed you so abundantly?

For your provision.

For the needs of other.

For the expansion of God’s Kingdom.

You are not a reservoir, you are God’s pipeline.

During the first century, a man named Monobaz converted to Judaism. He soon became King of Adiabene, in a district in the Upper Tigris region, south of Armenia.

During a famine, the King emptied the royal treasury to save his people.

When his brothers... came to him to argue against giving to the people, Monobaz replied:

"My fathers stored up below and I am storing above...

My fathers stored in a place which can be tampered with, but I have stored in a place which cannot be tampered with.

My fathers gathered treasures of money, but I have gathered treasures of souls....

My fathers gathered for this world, but I have gathered for the future world..."

 

One way or another, in this world or the next, God will reward your generosity.

"Give, and it will be given to you"

Sow sparingly, reap sparingly.

Sow generously, reap generously.