Week 39:
The bit where I introduce:
Have you heard people say or quote from the bible you reap what you sow, meaning you will always get what you deserve.
There are some Bible verses we know so well that we stop asking what they mean.
“You reap what you sow” is one of them.
It has become almost a cultural saying, a kind of spiritual version of what goes around comes around. Do good things and good things will happen to you. Make bad choices and eventually those choices will catch up with you.
And sometimes, that does seem to be true.
But what happens when it isn’t?
What do we say to the person who has loved generously and still gets hurt? To the person who has tried to live faithfully and still experiences loss, illness, betrayal or injustice? Or to the person who seems to do very little right, yet somehow their life appears to go from strength to strength?
If “you reap what you sow” means that everyone eventually gets exactly what they deserve in this life, then the bible itself gives us plenty of reasons to question that idea.
The bit where I refer to the Bible and ask a few rhetorical questions:
There’s a couple of verses: Psalm 73 and Galatians 6:7
Psalm 73
A psalm of Asaph.
1 Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.[a]
5 They are free from common human burdens;
they are not plagued by human ills.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity[b];
their evil imaginations have no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice;
with arrogance they threaten oppression.
9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.
10 Therefore their people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance.[c]
11 They say, “How would God know?
Does the Most High know anything?”
12 This is what the wicked are like—
always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.
13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure
and have washed my hands in innocence.
14 All day long I have been afflicted,
and every morning brings new punishments.
15 If I had spoken out like that,
I would have betrayed your children.
16 When I tried to understand all this,
it troubled me deeply
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
20 They are like a dream when one awakes;
when you arise, Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.
21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
27 Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.
Galatian 6:7
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
(Reap and sow means to experience the result, often a bad one, of something that you did in the past)
Psalm 73 doesn’t resolve the tension by pretending that life is fair in the present; Asaph finds his footing by bringing what he sees into the larger reality of God’s presence, justice and ultimate purposes. And Jesus himself reminds us that suffering isn’t always a neat equation between behaviour and consequence.
So, when Paul writes in Galatians 6:7, “A man reaps what he sows,” he isn’t giving us a formula for explaining every good or bad thing that happens to us. But if we look at the next verse Galatians 6:8 gives us the context for what Paul means by “reaping what we sow.” He contrasts two ways of living: sowing to the flesh, allowing our self-centred desires and patterns to shape our lives, or sowing to the Spirit, allowing God’s Spirit to shape our choices, character and direction. Paul says these paths ultimately lead to different harvests, destruction or eternal life. This isn’t a formula suggesting that every good choice produces an easy life, or every bad choice produces an immediate consequence. Rather, Paul is pointing us towards the deeper and ultimately eternal significance of the way we choose to live.
There is a truth here, but perhaps it is deeper, slower and more sobering than “you get what you deserve.”
Because being a christian thankfully isn’t ultimately a story about getting what we deserve.
It is a story about grace.
Galatians 6:7 is a genuine warning that our choices matter: what we repeatedly sow into our lives shapes what we become and, ultimately, what we reap.
But Paul is not giving us a simple formula that says good people will always experience good things, and bad people will always suffer. The bible itself challenges that assumption, faithful people suffer. People who seem to live good and faithful lives still experience devastating loss, illness and injustice. And death itself is not evidence that someone has somehow reaped what they sowed. “You reap what you sow” is therefore not the same as “you always get what you deserve.”
Our choices have consequences, and the bible points beyond this present life to an ultimate reality where God will bring justice and where those who belong to Christ will receive eternal life. Yet this sits alongside grace: we do not earn God’s love or salvation through a perfect life of good behaviour. We are responsible for what we sow, but we can ultimately trust God with what we cannot understand, control or explain.
So where is the reaping, I hear you ask? Paul points beyond the simplistic expectation of immediate earthly consequences. the bible gives us an ultimate promise: God will finally bring justice, and what is hidden now will not remain hidden forever. Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is this: our choices matter more than we sometimes want them to, but our suffering doesn’t necessarily tell us what we’ve done wrong.
What I take from this is: grace doesn’t mean our choices no longer matter. We are saved by grace, not by earning God’s favour through good behaviour. Yet we are still responsible for what we sow. We cannot manipulate God or treat His grace as permission to live however we please. What we repeatedly sow shapes what we become and ultimately, the bible tells us, there will be a harvest.
What we sow matters. Grace means we don’t have to live in fear of getting what we deserve.
The bit where you get to think about stuff: Questions for the week.
Have I wished people who have wronged me to get what they deserve? How does grace challenge that response?
Where in my own life have I made choices I wasn’t proud of, yet hoped I wouldn’t have to face the consequences of what I’d sown?
Where or with whom in my life right now can I practice grace?
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