Galatians 6:8

Galatians 6:8

Sowing to the Spirit.

I. The natural man has no desire for immortality. This is the desire which is always assumed in the New Testament as lying at the root of all spiritual life, of all growth in holiness. If a man is to sow to the Spirit, he must first believe in spirit; he must believe that he is a spirit, that he is not a mere part of this world, to vanish away and perish like the herb of the field when his day here is over. But the natural man has not this first great spiritual desire. The natural man is without the proper desire for immortality; the spiritual man, as is ever conspicuously put before us in Scripture, has this desire strong in him, and it is the beginning and the foundation of the religious life which he leads here.

II. But this is the second point that we come to, viz., the sowing to immortality, the laying up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that we may attain eternal life. Those who are convinced of the truth of, and who earnestly desire to reap, this everlasting life, must sow to everlasting life. As soon as the soul is really seized with the desire for everlasting life, the sort of actions which it takes interest in, and which attract it, and which it wants to do for the sake of its own individual prospects and hope of gaining this eternal life, are not any actions connected with profit or greatness in this world, but simply good actions. It is the strong wish to do righteousness, to do duties to God and man, which accompanies the strong desire for immortal life. Why? Because we know that it is goodness alone which is the enduring and immortal thing in man, and that by it alone can we fasten ourselves on to eternity and "lay hold on eternal life."

J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional,p. 203.