There is series self-help of books on almost any topic you can imagine that are aimed at those with less than average technical knowledge or higher education. In fact, they say in the titles of these books that they are especially for dummies. So here, is the same manner, is a message about how to live in obedience to Christ, overcome difficulties and experience victories, just for dummies!
To begin, we want to look a Galatians 6:6-10 to discover some simple truths that we can apply in our lives:
But let him who is taught in the word share all good things with him who teaches. Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let’s do what is good toward all men, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.
I. Anyone who receives instruction in the word
The first thing we encounter in this scripture concerns anyone who is taught in the word. Notice it is not addressed to anyone who hears a word of instruction but to the one who receives the instruction. What does it mean to receive? It means to take delivery, accept, or to pick up. This is not a passive activity. Most people are in the habit of passively listening to preaching as a form of entertainment rather than an opportunity to discover some new teaching that challenges them to go beyond their current level of Christian maturity. We must not fall into that habit. When each of us was born we came not as mature adults but as infants without any experience or knowledge of this world. It is the same when we are born into God’s kingdom. To exercise our full potential as members of God’s kingdom we need to grow spiritually as we partake of the spiritual food of God’s word. It is just as Jesus answered Satan when tempted him to turn stones into bread in Matthew 4: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,’’ Matthew 4:4. So if you feel weak in your walk with the Lord, make sure your daily diet includes God’s word.
The word that Paul used for ‘word’ is logos – the revelation of God‘s purpose, character and promises that we can rely on. So, like physical food, we take in the word of God, but not casually as the Apostle James counsel us,
But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25
So we must receive God’s word, digest it and allow it to become part of your being through obedience and application. Thus, our first principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: we must continually receive (accept, incorporate and apply) instruction from God’s word.
II. … share all good things with him who teaches
Next, notice that there is an obligation for the receiver of the word of God. As we receive and allow the word of God to produce good things and blessings in our lives, we should not forget the instructor. Remember the parable of the sower? The sower sowed the word and he later received a harvest. This brings us to the second principle of successful Christian living for dummies: When good things are produced in your life through the teaching of God’s word, remember to share those blessing with the ones who taught you. Good teachers should be encouraged and rewarded for their faithfulness.
III. Don’t be deceived: God cannot be mocked
Verse seven in Galatians 6 begins with a warning: Don’t be deceived. Paul makes this warning because it is possible to be deceived into thinking that one can ignore God’s word. Some people may say in response to what God has said, “I do not believe that.” Yet, they do not understand, God’s word is true whether one believe it or not. There are many people today who are very liberal in their thinking; that is, they do not follow established norms and customs. When these people deal with God’s word they pick and choose what parts of the scripture they feel comfortable with and disregard the rest. Yet, they are fooling themselves. God will not allow them to mock and ridicule him.
One example of a person who tried to mock God was a woman by the name of Madelyn Murray O’Hare. She was a well know atheist in the U.S. She was responsible for getting prayer removed from public school classrooms. Yet, she and her family were murdered by a business associate who sought revenge for being caught in a theft of funds from her organization. It seems that when she put God outside her life she also threw away the morality and ethics that make for a safe and orderly society. So while some may not receive God’s word, other will ignore and disregard it. Which leads us to the third principle of successful Christian living for dummies: going against the principles of God’s word leads to failure, difficulties and ultimately destruction.
IV. A person reaps what he sows
The Apostle Paul then comes to the topic of sowing and reaping. Sowing is a universal truth that every farmer understands. The farmer wants to produce a crop but first he must put out the seed of the particular crops that he desires. Paul understood that this principle applies to each of our lives in the same way. Each of us are sowers. What do we sow? We sow thoughts, words and actions. Where do we sow? We sow into the lives of others, to ourselves and to God. What we sow determines our crop or harvest we receive. Thus, the forth principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: what one get out of life is dependant entirely on what he or she habitually or consistency sows.
V. He who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption
Who are we seeking to please with our sowing? We have a choice. We can please or yield to the sensual, selfish, disobedient and carnal part of our human nature, that part that was left over from our old life when we were separated from God, but what will that result in? Paul tells us a harvest of destruction, decay and ruin. It is because the wages or results of sin are death.
So, you may ask, what behaviors please the sinful nature? Paul mentions these behaviors earlier in chapter five of Galatians:
The acts of the sinful nature or the flesh are obvious:
· sexual immorality – fornication, adultery and incest
· uncleanness – immorality
· lustfulness – contempt of what is proper, lustfulness
· idolatry-the worship of the creature rather than the Creator
· sorcery -a secret tampering with and worship of the powers of evil
· hatred-the opposite of apage love
· strife- discord, quarreling, rivalry, contention; the natural outcome of hatred
· jealousy – desires to have the same or the same sort of thing for itself
· outbursts of anger – fierceness, indignation, wrath, hot anger
· rivalries and divisions – intrigue, faction, contention, strife; it is the fruit of jealousy
· dissensions – a disunion or standing apart
· heresies – a self-willed opinion, which is substituted for submission to the power of truth, and leads to division and the formation of sects
· factions-divisions, a party or disunion
· envyings – ill-will, spite, desires to deprive another of what he has
· drunkenness – habitual intoxication
· orgies – consequence of drunkenness
· and other similar practices)
These things may please you for a short time, yet they do not satisfy. So the fifth principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: Failure, misery and destruction will fill our lives if we continue to please our carnal nature.
VI. He who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life
Destruction and ruin need not be our destiny in life. Paul reminds us of the alternative that Lord Jesus has made available to us through the new birth. Building on what we have learned so far, we take the instruction we received concerning God’s word. We sow it in our lives and yield ourselves to it. Then it takes root in our regenerated spirits. As we apply the word, it permeates our thoughts and becomes demonstrated in our words and actions. We demonstrate it in our relationships with others and our relationship with God. What will happen? We begin to experience a harvest of eternal life; that is God’s kind of life which reveals his attributes of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control: An abundant and satisfying life. As Jesus said in John’s gospel, “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly,” John 10:10. This then is the sixth principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: The abundant and satisfying life that Jesus died to give us becomes a reality as we continually yield to the desires of the Spirit over the objections of our carnal nature and keep our lives lined up with the word of God.
So you want to have this abundant and satisfying life? Then stay lined up with God’s word. Keep on receiving it daily into your life. It will keep you in step with God Spirit and away from fulfilling the desires of the carnal nature.
Let look at an example of sowing to please the Spirit. In the book of Romans Paul discusses how we are to overcome sin in our lives: “For the death that he [Christ] died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. 11 Thus also consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 6:10, 11. So we take this verse and sow it into our life by committing it to memory and meditating on it. And then when the opportunity comes to sin we say to ourselves, “I am dead to that temptation; it has no hold on me.” Thus we are able to resist temptations because we have lined ourselves up with the Word of God and we reap the benefits of living set part to God.
VII. Let us not be weary in doing good
Doing good…are you doing any good? This first relates to what we spoke about earlier: receiving the word and sowing to please the Spirit. It also deals with the purpose that God has for each of our lives: we are to be involved in demonstrating the goodness and love of God just as Jesus did: Luke tells us in the book of Acts:
…that spoken word you yourselves know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; even Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. Acts 10:37, 38.
Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them,” Ephesians 2:10. Has God been speaking to your about the assignment that he has for you? Have you been putting your assignment off? For each one of us there are good works to accomplish that will help others and bring glory and thanksgiving to God. So we should not neglect that part of our life because as we shall see, there is return for our labor. Our attitude should be like Jesus’ as writer of Hebrews encourages us: “For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls,” Hebrews 12:3.
No doubt many of us will become weary in doing good. We may become tired, disillusioned or drained. This not about a physical condition of the body but an attitude that develops over time in the heart. Yet, we must guard against this so we do not fall short of purpose that God wants to achieve through us and the abundant life that Jesus has in store for us. Remember, Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel: “He who finds his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it,” Matthew 10:39
Our motives also come into consideration here. What is your motive for obeying and serving God? Again, God can not be mocked. If we are motivated by anything less than a genuine desire to love and obey the Lord Jesus then we are likely to loose our interest in pursuing his purpose for our lives.
So then, the seventh principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: Our passion for God should manifest itself in excellence in living for God and involvement in doing well for others. We resist the impulse to give up because we know we serve a high purpose than ourselves.
VIII. We will reap in due season…
We will reap…now we get into the area of manifestations of God’s presence and work in our lives. What is a manifestation? It is a sign or demonstration or an appearance or an expression. Now notice the progression in this passage in Galatians. First we start with accepting and obeying the word, and then we learned about sowing and reaping. Then we were taught about sowing to the please the Spirit that results in reaping eternal live. And now we get to the topic of reaping a harvest. Many people want to reap yet they skip over receiving the word and sowing it and then waiting for the harvest.
Now Jesus did not have any problem receiving a manifestation of God’s presence in his life when one was needed. When he prayed, people were healed. When he commanded demons they came out of those who were possessed. If the occasion called for turning water into wine or feeding 5000, Jesus was in a position to receive the manifestation that demonstrated how his Father was the focus and delight of his life. But some my say they do not want a manifestation of God’s presence in their lives. Well, when you are sick, do you want to receive healing? When you are faced with debt do you want provision? When you are anxious, do you want to receive a peace that passes understanding? Or when God gives you a dream that is bigger than you can handle do you want finances? Where do you want to be in your relationship with God when one of these issues comes? You want to be in a position to receive. If you are not there then you need to continue in the all things we have discussed. This is the good that Paul urges us to continue doing.
And in this quest we need to have expectancy that the good that we do will bring results-supernatural results. This is where faith comes in. God gave us the promise: sow and we will reap; sow to please the Spirit and we will reap the God kind of life. A result is coming and when will it arrive? At the proper time: a time or season that is correct, appropriate or suitable. But the result will not come if we loose faith and give up. We will miss the harvest just like we would miss a package waiting for us at the post office because we failed to pick it up having wrongly assumed that it had been lost in the mail.
So the attitude that Paul encourages us to have is one of certainty of the coming harvest. It is already on it way. It not a question of if it will come but when. Thus our eighth principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: our labor in service to the Lord produces a sure harvest; only abandoning our purpose would prevent us from receiving that harvest.
IX. As we have opportunity, let us do good…
As we have opportunity… Be certain that there will be opportunities for service. God will bring you opportunities. So be ready to do good. Do good to whom? Do good to all people, but especially to believers, because we are all members of one body.
Thus, the ninth principle of successful Christian living for dummies is: no matter how small or insignificant you may think that you are in the body of Christ, there always will be opportunities for service and for demonstrating the love of Christ that only you can fill.
So there you have it: nine principle of successful Christian living. So don’t be a dummy. Instead, receive them, meditate on them and put them into practice.
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