Baptist Bookworm: Sowing the Seeds of the New Creation

A Sermon for Christ Church, New Southgate & Friern Barnet Baptist Church

6 July 2025

Galatians 6:1–16

There’s a quiet revolution going on in our passage for today

            from Paul’s letter to the Galatians,
and it’s a revolution that echoes down to our world today,
            because it’s a revolution that resists the loud, combative powers
            of religion and politics alike,
inviting instead a Spirit-shaped life of gentleness, generosity, and grace.

We live in a world that thrives on division.
Just open your preferred news-app, or scroll social media,
or listen to debates about immigration, gender,
the environment, or education.

There is so much polarisation, so many lines drawn between “us” and “them.”
Even within the church, we find ourselves fractured
—by doctrine, by tradition, by fear of what is changing around us.

It’s from just such a divided world that Paul’s words come to us today,
not as a clanging gong, but as a gentle summons:

“Bear one another’s burdens…
and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”

And I find myself wondering,
what would it look like if we took that seriously?

If we truly believed that the life of faith
is not about defending boundaries or proving we’re right,
but about sowing to the Spirit—
about being people of compassion, of humility, of new creation?

Paul opens this passage with a pastoral instruction that is disarmingly gentle:

“If anyone is detected in a transgression,
you who have received the Spirit
should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”

It’s a striking departure from the angry tone
Paul has used elsewhere in the letter.

He has been battling fiercely against those
who were insisting that Gentile believers
had to be circumcised to be truly Christian.

But now, as he turns toward his conclusion, his tone softens.
He stops shouting and starts shepherding.

And the word he uses—restore—
is the same one used for mending fishing nets.

This isn’t about punishment or exclusion; it’s about healing.

When someone messes up,
our call is not to cut them off or shame them, but to mend the net.

To gently help them find their way back into community, into wholeness.

This is a hard word in a cancel culture, where failure is often final.
Our world says, “Expose them. Shame them. Cut them out.”
But the Spirit says, “Restore them.”

This also means we have to recognise our own vulnerability.

Paul continues, “Take care that you yourselves are not tempted.”
We’re all fragile. We all fall.

And so we approach one another not from a place of superiority,
but solidarity.

Church, if we can’t be a community of restoration, who will be?

Paul continues:

“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”

This is the heart of the passage.

In a world obsessed with individualism, Paul calls us into a radical mutuality.
Not just, “Look after yourself,” but “Carry each other.”

The burdens are many.
For some, it’s the weight of mental illness or depression.

For others, it’s the daily anxiety of poverty or food insecurity.
Still others carry grief, illness, loneliness, or the exhaustion of caregiving.

The person in the pew next to you may be carrying more than you know.

And Paul doesn’t say, “Fix each other’s burdens.”
He says “bear them.”

Walk alongside. Be present.
Offer prayer. Offer time. Offer listening ears.

Sometimes just staying near
is the most Spirit-filled act we can perform.

But then he adds something curious:
“For each of you have to carry your own load.” (v.5)

At first glance this contradicts what he just said.
            But the Greek words are different.
The “burdens” we are to bear together
            are heavy, crushing weights.
The “load” each is to carry is more like a backpack
            —a personal responsibility.

In other words, we don’t offload our responsibilities onto others,
but neither do we let others struggle alone
with what no one should carry by themselves.

In our culture of burnout and busyness,
this is a revolutionary vision of church
—not as a place we go to consume spiritual goods,
but as a community we belong to, where we all give and receive.

Paul then shifts his metaphor from burden-bearing to sowing:

“You reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”

Sowing is slow work. It’s not flashy.
It doesn’t get you viral fame or immediate returns.
But over time, it transforms the landscape.

And sowing to the Spirit means investing our lives
in ways that align with God’s kingdom:
generosity, compassion, justice, patience, peacemaking.

In contrast, sowing to the flesh
—what we might today call ego, status, or self-preservation—
leads to the withering of our humanity.

Paul is echoing here something Jesus said often:
that the path to life comes through giving ourselves away.

Paul acknowledges this is tiring work.
“Let us not grow weary in doing what is right”, he says.

Because the harvest doesn’t always come when we want it.
Sometimes we sow seeds of kindness or justice and see no fruit.
Sometimes we wonder if our efforts matter.

But Paul insists they do. He says we should keep sowing. Keep praying.
Keep showing up. The Spirit is at work.

There’s something powerful, even subversive,

about Paul’s metaphor of sowing and reaping
in our current ecological moment.

In an age of climate breakdown, unsustainable consumption,
and economic exploitation, his words land with renewed force.

“You reap whatever you sow.”

We know this to be true.
            We’re seeing, globally, the harvest of generations of sowing to the flesh
            —of living as though the earth were disposable,
                        as though people were commodities,
            as though we ourselves were gods.

Rising seas, choking forests, displaced communities.
The world groans, as Paul says elsewhere,
under the weight of our choices.

But the good news is:
it’s not too late to sow differently.

Sowing to the Spirit means reimagining
how we live in the world God has made.

It means aligning our lives with God’s justice.
Not just personally, but collectively.

It means asking: how do our choices affect others?
What does it look like to bear the burden of ecological repentance?
Of climate responsibility?

Sowing to the Spirit might look like divesting from fossil fuels,
            campaigning for food justice,
                        supporting local community gardens,
            or simply learning to live with less so that others can have enough.

It might mean walking alongside those
whose burdens are increased by the injustices of our systems:
the poor, the marginalised, the displaced.

Paul’s metaphor is hopeful.
A seed is small. It takes time. But it carries life.

If we sow generously, intentionally, prayerfully—even in the smallest acts—
the Spirit brings the growth.

A more just, more sustainable, more compassionate world begins to emerge.

Paul now picks up his pen and writes in his own hand

—emphasising the final point.

The troublemakers in Galatia
want the Gentile believers to get circumcised,
not because it’s spiritually helpful,
but because it makes them look good in front of others.

They want to avoid persecution
from the more conservative elements of the Jewish community.

But Paul isn’t having it. He says:

“I will boast only about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.14)

Why? Because for Paul, the cross is the great leveller.
It’s where all our boasting dies
—whether in religion, nationality, gender, or success.

And then he writes the sentence that sums up his whole theology:

“It does not matter at all whether or not one is circumcised;
what does matter is being a new creature.” (v.15)

This is what matters.
Not whether we wear the right labels.
Not whether we look religious.

But whether we are part of God's new creation.
Whether we are letting the Spirit remake us.

This “new creation” is not something that will arrive at the end of history.
It’s already breaking in—here, now,
in people and communities where the Spirit is bearing fruit.

Where burdens are shared, the fallen restored,
the poor remembered, the marginalised embraced.

These are the signs of the new creation,
the inbreaking kingdom of God.

Paul’s declaration that what matters most is being a new creature,

is not just a spiritual affirmation.
It is a radical redefinition of belonging.

In Christ, the old categories that once marked people in or out
            —circumcision or uncircumcision, Jew or Gentile,
                        male or female, slave or free—
            are no longer the measure of inclusion.

What matters is not ethnicity, religious pedigree,
social status, or conformity to cultural norms,
but whether we are being made new in the Spirit.

This is profoundly disruptive.

It unsettles any community—ancient or modern—
that seeks security by drawing boundaries.

Because Paul is not interested
in the maintenance of religious identity for its own sake.

He’s interested in how the gospel
breaks down walls and builds something new.

And that’s as challenging now as it was then.

We, too, live in a world of labels.
Conservative, liberal. Cis, trans.
Citizen, refugee. Black, white, British, other.

Labels that help us organise society
—but also divide us, categorise us, judge us, and exclude.

But in Christ, Paul insists, there is a new logic at work.
            The church is to be the place where these labels are relativised,
                        where no one is dismissed or elevated based on their category,
            where each person is received as a bearer of the Spirit,
                        a participant in the new creation.

This doesn’t mean pretending differences don’t exist.
It means they no longer determine value or belonging.

It means being a community where everyone
—regardless of background, status, gender, sexuality, or history—
is seen as a beloved child of God.

To be the church in this way is not easy.
It asks us to surrender control, to widen our circle,
to trust the Spirit’s work in others.

But it is exactly here, in this kind of inclusive community,
that the cross takes root and the new creation becomes visible.

So what does this mean for us—here, now, at Christ Church?

Paul’s words call us to ask: What kind of seeds are we sowing?

Are we sowing seeds of inclusion, or exclusion?
Are we sowing grace, or judgement?
Are we sowing community, or competition?
Are we sowing gentleness, or aggression?

We are in a moment of great opportunity.
The world around us is asking big questions
about truth, identity, justice, and community.

People are hungry for places of authenticity and grace.
And here, in this church, you have something beautiful to offer.

What if we became a place where burdens are gently shared,
not silently carried alone?

What if we became a place where people who have failed or fallen
find restoration, not rejection?

What if we became a people so deeply rooted in the Spirit
            that the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience,
                        kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
            just kept growing among us?

That’s what it means to be a new creation.
Not perfect, but Spirit-shaped.
Not flashy, but faithful.

And yes, this kind of community will cost us something.
            It may mean carrying someone else’s grief when we’re already tired.
            It may mean stepping into uncomfortable conversations.
            It may mean giving generously when resources are thin.

But Paul reminds us:
“let us not become tired of doing good;
for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest

Which brings us to the Table.

Here, in bread and wine,
we encounter the One who bore our burdens.

The One who sowed his life into the soil of our broken world.
The One who, through the cross, has brought about a new creation.

Here we see the shape of the gospel
—not in outward appearances, but in brokenness and blessing shared.

Communion is not a reward for the righteous.
It is sustenance for the journey.
It is food for the weary, grace for the burdened, hope for the discouraged.

So as we come to this table today, let us come: