Galatians 6:9 (ESV) … “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Of course, sowing to the Spirit isn’t easy. In fact, it’s often quite hard. This is because sowing to the Spirit involves self-denial. And self-denial requires putting to death the self, which is never an easy thing to do! Besides, the flesh, with its self-serving desires (cf. 5:17), and the world, with its sin-inducing, ubiquitous presence (cf. 1:4), only compounds what’s an already difficult task. As a result, believers often grow weary when attempting to sow to the Spirit.
Weariness in well-doing or sowing to the Spirit is another reason why Christians fail to give. Perhaps they have in the past, but somehow they’ve run out of gas. Now, for whatever reason, their strength to give is gone, and so they decide to stop and rest awhile.
This is a very common experience for believers, which is why this passage includes a word of encouragement to stick with sowing and not give up. “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (v. 9). This statement has application to all of life, whenever we grow weary in doing good. But within the context of this particular passage, we ought to take it as an encouragement to persevere in providing financial support to the ministry of the local church.
And the key, Paul says, to not growing weary is to keep your eyes fixed on the future, God’s end-time harvest. We get ourselves in trouble when we allow ourselves to get too immersed in our own troubles. Instead, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones encourages:
We need to look ahead, to anticipate, to look forward to the eternal glories gleaming afar. The Christian life is a tasting of the first-fruits of that great harvest which is to come.… Go on with your task whatever your feelings; keep on with your work. God will give the increase, He will send the rain of His gracious mercies as we need it. There will be an abundant harvest. Look forward to it. “Ye shall reap.”
Remember our Lord Jesus Christ. His entire life was devoted to sowing to the Spirit and not the flesh—indeed, every single moment of every single day. And he was sustained by constantly keeping his eyes fixed on “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). This is how Jesus endured the cross and a myriad of other hardships and sacrifices.
Is the joy of the harvest in view for us? Do we have our eyes fixed on what is to come? Are we seeking the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God? And is our mind set on things above, not on the things that are on earth? Or have we forgotten that if we’re Christians, we’ve died? Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God, so that when Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory on that great day (cf. Colossians 3:1–4).
And what a glorious day that shall be! For we will discover that what we reap is completely out of proportion to what we’ve sown. The sacrifices we’ve made in this life will appear small, even to the point of insignificance, on that great and majestic day![1]
[1] Wilson, T. (2013). Galatians: Gospel-Rooted Living. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.) (pp. 217–218). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
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