When you plant a garden, you work hard to prepare the land. You till it, you get all of the weeds out, and you prep it perfectly to be able to lay your seed in a prime spot to grow and flourish. After a long day of planting a variety of plants, like tomatoes, corn, and squash, you sit back and wait for the plants to break through the ground so that you can see if your work has paid off. But the work does not stop there. If you quit watering your garden as soon as the plants came up, if you quit seeding your garden, if you neglected the garden for the rest of the year, then you would be disappointed when the time of harvest came. You would have trouble picking through the weeds and your plants would not have grown adequately due to the neglect that you have shown it. In other words, what you have sown, you will reap. You may have sown a seed, but you did not water it, or put it in a place to grow. But if you got rid of the weeds, you watered your plant regularly, and you took care of the garden then you could rest assured that the tomatoes, squash, and corn would all grow to be a bountiful harvest at the end of the season.
Paul tells us in Romans 2:5 that God will “render to each one according to his works.” For unbelievers, this is a daunting task because there is no amount of good works that can make us good. There is nothing that we can do to escape the harsh reality of the desperate state that we are in. We are sinful and fallen, separated from God. Paul tells us that the life we have sown will be judged fairly by God. God is just in his judgement of sinners. Likewise, Christians will also be held accountable for their actions. If the seed of salvation is planted in our hearts and we neglect to obey God then we will be held accountable for every action. This means we will be held accountable for every word we say, every post we type on social media, every way we treat our neighbors, every bit of gossip that comes from our mouth, and every thing that we look at wrongfully. We will be held accountable for how we maintain our seed.
This passage is intimidating to us. It scares us. Pair it alongside other passages of scripture, such as Hebrews 10:26 and James 2:14, and we can see that how we live matters. What we do, especially if we say we have been enlightened by the gospel, matters. If you read further along in Romans 3 then you will see that no one is good, no one is righteous. If we stopped here, we would feel hopeless, knowing that we are not righteous or good and God is going to rightly judge. Luckily for us, we have a loving God who is patient with us and is kind to us. He tells us in Matthew 11 to come to him, all who are heavy laden, all who labor, and he will give you rest. There is no burden that we carry that is bigger than our sinfulness. There is nothing that weighs on us more than us trying to earn our salvation. Jesus says that if we take his yoke upon us, that he will give us rest. He will give us rest from our burdens, including the weight of our sin. He will give us rest from the weight of trying to work for our salvation. This comes from believing in the gospel, that the Son of God came down from heaven, lived the perfect life, took the wrath and judgement that we deserved on the cross, and he defeated death and sin by raising from the dead on the third day. If we have faith in Jesus Christ and what he has done then God will give us rest. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. Through him, our seed can grow and the Holy Spirit will help us to maintain it so that we can give a good account of what we do.
Discussion:
Paul tells us in Romans 2:5 that God will “render to each one according to his works.” For unbelievers, this is a daunting task because there is no amount of good works that can make us good. There is nothing that we can do to escape the harsh reality of the desperate state that we are in. We are sinful and fallen, separated from God. Paul tells us that the life we have sown will be judged fairly by God. God is just in his judgement of sinners. Likewise, Christians will also be held accountable for their actions. If the seed of salvation is planted in our hearts and we neglect to obey God then we will be held accountable for every action. This means we will be held accountable for every word we say, every post we type on social media, every way we treat our neighbors, every bit of gossip that comes from our mouth, and every thing that we look at wrongfully. We will be held accountable for how we maintain our seed.
This passage is intimidating to us. It scares us. Pair it alongside other passages of scripture, such as Hebrews 10:26 and James 2:14, and we can see that how we live matters. What we do, especially if we say we have been enlightened by the gospel, matters. If you read further along in Romans 3 then you will see that no one is good, no one is righteous. If we stopped here, we would feel hopeless, knowing that we are not righteous or good and God is going to rightly judge. Luckily for us, we have a loving God who is patient with us and is kind to us. He tells us in Matthew 11 to come to him, all who are heavy laden, all who labor, and he will give you rest. There is no burden that we carry that is bigger than our sinfulness. There is nothing that weighs on us more than us trying to earn our salvation. Jesus says that if we take his yoke upon us, that he will give us rest. He will give us rest from our burdens, including the weight of our sin. He will give us rest from the weight of trying to work for our salvation. This comes from believing in the gospel, that the Son of God came down from heaven, lived the perfect life, took the wrath and judgement that we deserved on the cross, and he defeated death and sin by raising from the dead on the third day. If we have faith in Jesus Christ and what he has done then God will give us rest. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. Through him, our seed can grow and the Holy Spirit will help us to maintain it so that we can give a good account of what we do.
Discussion:
- What is our state before the gospel?
- How does the gospel give us hope?
- How should we live if we have been enlightened by the gospel? How has God equipped us to help us grow?
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