By Jason Smith

I remember like it was yesterday the drive back from the coast with two of my long-time buddies, Andy and Daniel. We were seniors in high school, and we had just completed our annual trip to Lincoln City, Oregon. As we rounded the bend of the highway, the Toyota Camry I was driving suddenly lurched and sputtered. Very quickly, I realized the gas pedal was no longer responding and we rolled to an undignified stop on the highway’s shoulder.

Gulp! I told the guys I didn’t know what went wrong, but very quickly the truth began to dawn on me. The fact is, I had been putting off an oil change for several weeks now. And, as it turns out, car engines really do need oil to run well. In fact, as any mechanic will tell you, it’s a simple matter of physics: without lubrication, the metal parts of your engine are bound to overheat. And when they overheat, they begin to warp and wear down.

Because of my automotive negligence, not only did I have a hearty portion of embarrassment to swallow, but I also needed to come up with the cash for a new car.

Simply put, some things are bound to self-destruct if you don’t operate them according to their intended use. If you doubt this, just try using your smartphone as a wheel chock. This is not just true of the physical realm but the spiritual realm, too. God designed your soul for a relationship with Him. Just as cars cannot run without gasoline, human beings are dependent on the life that comes from God.

When we try to do life apart from God, we are bound to self-destruct. And yet, according to the Bible, many people don’t live as if this were true.

In Galatians 6:7-8, the Apostle Paul warns, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

Paul says, “Don’t be fooled about this,” because, honestly, a lot of us are. In fact, on our own, we all tend to fall for this lie. What lie? That God can be mocked without repercussions. Every single one of us has, at one time or another, believed that we can actually outsmart God. Don’t believe me?

Every time we knowingly disobey God, we are essentially saying to God, “I would make a better god than you.” The essence of sin is making a bid for the throne of the universe. To disregard God’s law is to choose self-sovereignty rather than live under His perfect rule.

Here’s the problem: Going down this road of self-rule never ends well. There is an unalterable law of reality that you will reap what you sow. And God created us to live under His rule, not our own. Paul says, “Don’t be deceived about this one, guys.” You can be wrong about the weather, who will win American Idol, or most of the questions on Jeopardy! But don’t be wrong about this.

One of the most popular falsehoods of our time is this idea that I can do whatever I want without ever being held accountable for my actions. But Scripture everywhere denies this.

“God will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” (Romans 2:6-8, NIV).

God is immeasurably merciful and patient, but this remains God’s universe. Not ours.

“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, NIV).

Notice: God will judge the world, but He will do so with perfect “justice.” No one will be able to say on that day, “But I didn’t know” or “This isn’t fair.” We will all know God to be the perfectly just Judge that He is.

Let this truth be emblazoned across your heart: God cannot be mocked. If you think you can fool God, you’re only fooling yourself.

The mighty Goliath tried to test this truth when he taunted the armies of the living God (1 Samuel 17). How did that work out for him? He’s forever remembered for being slain by a young shepherd boy without any real military training. Herod encouraged people to worship him as a god. How did he fare? “Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died” (Acts 12:23). Yikes! I don’t care who you are, that’s got to be one of the worst ways to go! Throughout Scripture, this same truth is repeated: You and I will reap what we sow.

What does it mean to “sow to please your flesh” (v. 8)?

John Stott writes: “Every time we allow our mind to harbor a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain an impure fantasy, or wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up and praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk which strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh. Some Christians sow to the flesh every day and wonder why they do not reap holiness. Holiness is a harvest; whether we reap it or not depends almost entirely on what and where we sow.”[1]

We may think all our sowing to the flesh won’t have consequences. We may rationalize and downplay the seriousness of the secret sins we harbor. Eventually, however, what we have sown will come to full bloom. If you take the elephant across the old wooden footbridge too many times, eventually it will collapse.

Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t just leave us with this hard truth. If it did, karma, not the gospel, would be the final rule of the universe. We would forever see God in heaven, frowning down on us with arms crossed, saying, “Well, you had it coming.”

But the gospel of Jesus Christ points us the way to find a new life and a new beginning. We don’t need to stay locked up by the shame of our past. The point of this warning about mocking God is to lead us to the foot of the cross at Calvary, where God’s love poured out for rebels like you and me. When Christ shed His blood on the cross, He was in fact reaping what we have sown. This was only possible because of grace. He died in our place and suffered the consequences we justly deserved.

Hear this promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8). To confess means to get honest before God, humbly prepared to live in a new direction.

Because of Christ’s cross, God does not rule as some kind of karmic dictator. Instead, He reigns in grace, inviting everyone who has arrogantly tried to take His throne to kneel humbly before His throne (Hebrews 4:16).

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[1] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians: Only One Way, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1968), 170.

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