Galatians 6
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Today we are finishing up our series through the book of Galatians. The main theme of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a powerful affirmation of the doctrine that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Paul challenges believers to reject legalism, embrace the freedom that comes from faith in Christ, and live by the Spirit, bearing the fruit that reflects their new life in Christ. Through this message, Paul seeks to unify the church and strengthen their commitment to the true Gospel.
Last week we learned that this freedom is not to live our lives how we want, but we are called to be free from death and destruction which is a result of living our lives according to our flesh.
12 There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
Therefore as followers of Jesus we are called to keep in step with the Spirit of God. When we are in alignment with the Spirit of God, we will produce a life of spiritual fruit.
I don’t believe that when it comes to Scripture and how things are written that they were just wrote out without any divine plan as to how it was written.
For example, Galatians 5 Paul writes out the fruit of the Spirit that is produced in a life of a believer. I don’t find it coincidence that Paul starts out with love.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Love is the foundation of our walk with Christ. We are called to love God first and foremost and then love others. When we produce love, we are doing what we were created to do. Bear the image of God.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Jesus said,
35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love is vital in our walk with Christ. Especially when it comes to what Paul is going to say next in Galatians 6. If love is not the motive, the flesh will take over and we will not bear the image of God.
Let’s dive in.
Carry One Another’s Burdens
Carry One Another’s Burdens
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to Carry one another’s burdens.
In order to do this, there must be a genuine love as the motive. Especially when it comes to someone who falls into sin.
1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Notice Paul said, “Those who are spiritual”. What does it mean to be spiritual?
Spiritual - one who is filled with and governed by the Holy Spirit
Paul is suggesting that ONLY those who are filled with and their lives are governed by the Holy Spirit should do the restoring of an individual who has fallen into sin.
Notice he said RESTORE not CONDEMN.
Why is this important? Simple. Love.
One who is not filled with the Holy Spirit and their life is NOT governed by the Holy Spirit, will not produce the kind of love that is necessary in order to restore this person back in their walk with God. In fact they will not produce restoration, but condemnation.
Flesh will be the foundation and motive of restoration, not love. When flesh is involved, so will be judgment.
Judging others without God in the middle of it can result in hindered prayers.
The prophet Isaiah writes about how their prayers were hindered because of judgment.
9 “Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
What is the yoke that God is asking them to remove? The pointing of the finger. Judgement. With judgement comes speaking wickedness against others. When you speak ill of others there is no love being produced.
There is a lot of pointing the finger in our culture today. Pointing of the finger is an act of the flesh. Flesh brings condemnation. Flesh brings death and destruction.
Jesus has a desire to bring life. It is through love that life was given. It is through love that redemption has been made available to all.
Paul gives to us what love is.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
If love is not the foundation of the restoration, it means nothing. All you are doing is bringing oppression on those you are trying to correct and bring back into alignment with God.
You cannot carry other’s burdens without love. The burden of their sin, or any other burden cannot be carried without love.
Without love you cannot fulfill the Law of Christ. What is the Law of Christ? Love God. Love others.
Those who are spiritual restore those who have fallen in love. If you don’t love others, you cannot restore others the way God calls you to.
Pride Issues
Pride Issues
If we as followers of Christ do not live in with the foundation of love, we will walk in the flesh. Paul continues with a warning.
3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
When we walk according to the flesh, trying to restore others in the flesh, we will fall into pride. Pride is part of the religious walk.
Listen to this story that Jesus shares.
10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12 ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’
13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
14 “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
If you ever want to know if you are being religious, check your pride. This story is pretty clear to me. No deep spiritual insights. Just plain and simple. Those who think they are better than the next person because they sin differently than others are full of pride and are being religious.
Paul explains how to avoid this trap of being better than others.
4 But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.
Paul is saying keep an eye on your own stuff. Stay focused on who you are in Christ. Don’t be impressed with yourself because you THINK you got it all together.
I have found it hard to focus on what others are doing or not doing when I am focused on carrying my own cross. This helps me in two ways.
I see others through the lens of the cross. Love and grace.
I won’t fall into the comparison game.
When you are focused on working out your salvation and you see others in a fallen state (and you will), you will look upon them with love and compassion. Why? Because you have been there. I have noticed in all the years of serving God, that the new Christians, the baby Christians, typically show more love and grace towards those who have fallen. Maybe as we mature we tend to forget where we came from. Not that we glorify it, but we remember where God found us so we can see others the way God seen us.
Paul did this regularly.
12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service,
13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;
15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
Notice that Paul recognizes that he was shown mercy in his own sin and then he proceeds to call himself the chief of sinners. Was Paul really the worse sinner of all? In his eyes, yes. Because of this he is able to see others through the lens of the cross. He was shown mercy at the cross and not compare himself with others.
How many times have we done the opposite? When we operate in the flesh and not in step with the Holy Spirit, we will not see people through the lens of the cross and we will fall into the comparison game… “At least I am not like them” and we begin to point the finger in judgment while we are puffed up with pride.
When we see people through the lens of the cross, we will understand that the blood of Jesus speaks better things over those who fall and we can come along side them with the purpose of encouraging them and restoring them back to their relationship with Jesus and not shackle them back into guilt, shame, and condemnation.
Sowing and Reaping
Sowing and Reaping
Before Paul closes out this letter, he speaks about sowing and reaping.
Believe it or not, as the pastor there are times I get discouraged. There are times when I get down. There are times I even ask myself, “Can I do this?”. Especially since our church has grown and Carly and I are pastoring more people than we ever have in our ministry. Our Food Pantry volunteer base is as big as our first church. Then God speaks through people or somebody does something to remind me, yes this is why I am supposed to be doing.
6 The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.
Two things come to mind this past week. One someone was sharing with me how God was speaking to them. I love it when I hear about how God is working in someone’s life or in a situation. These type of reports I love. It encourages me and blesses me.
Secondly, Saturday morning about 7:30am, I was finishing up for today and I was on this very Scripture.
I am looking up different meanings of what Paul is saying. Looking at the context. In biblical times they took up alms for those who taught the Word. We do this today in the sense that anyone who teaches on a Sunday we give them an offering. But I don’t think Paul is just speaking about money here.
Like I said it was 7:30am.
I hear a knock on my door and someone was standing at my door with a Dutch Bros coffee. It really blessed me. It didn’t really dawn on me it was my birthday (Scripture really is alive!). Forgetting things is the first sign of getting older I guess. But it really blessed me and really made this passage come alive to me.
In fact, throughout the day I received multiple Dutch Bros and tacos. Eventually I caught on and asked Carly, “Did you say something about my birthday?” Come to find out she posted on Social Media and hid it from me. I have to admit, I ate every taco that came my way, and all Dutch Bros except for one I gave to Chloe because today is her 16th Birthday.
That is a really good thing!
When we bless those who teach us the Word, you are sowing seeds in the Spirit and not the flesh.
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
More often than not, pastors only hear about complaints or how someone is unhappy with the service, song selection, or how this ministry is lead or that. Just as an FYI, we have a great church. I can’t say that I never have someone come and complain, we are not perfect, but it is few and far between.
There is a story of a mother who went to wake her son for church service. He didn’t want to go. He told his mom that the people were mean. They didn’t like him. All he heard is complaining and arguing. She told him, “You are going to church. You have to. You are the pastor!”
I can honestly say that I have never said that…while pastoring here. While our church is not perfect, I see more and more people sowing spiritual things rather than sowing fleshly.
When you sow in the flesh, you will not reap life, but death. I know it can be difficult to sow in the spiritual, especially in our culture of self-centeredness. But we must not give up. We must not grow weary of doing good.
9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
If you continue to sow good seed, you will eventually reap. Paul is telling us to always look for an opportunity to sow good seed around us.
Any chance I get, I try to apply this to my life. A couple of weeks ago I was at a Rotary meeting and we were discussing putting in new concrete picnic tables at Northside Park. The concrete will have an anti graffiti coating on it where it is easy to get it off. As we were leaving someone was saying “people will graffiti it no matter what.” They had already condemned the picnic tables to a life of vandalism.
I immediately spoke up and said, “Speak life!”
Too often we sow seeds of death just by the way we speak about others, situations, ect. There is power in our words.
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.
21 The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.
What you reap is a result of what you are sowing. If you sow life, speak life, you will reap life. If you sow death, speak death, you will reap death.
We really need to understand that our tongue, what we speak has power. Why? Because we are created in the image of God. How did God create the world and all that is in it? He spoke.
I was listening to another pastor this past week and he was talking about how we as Christians will demonize groups of people or communities. The problem with this is that demons cannot be saved. When Christians demonize someone what they are saying is, “There is no hope for them.” In essence we are condemning them to hell without ever giving them a chance to hear the freeing message of Jesus Christ.
What if, we being full of the Holy Spirit began to utilize this small but POWERFUL weapon that the Lord blessed us with for good instead of evil. Instead of cursing everything, we bless everything and everyone.
Lord bless the left side
Lord bless the right side
Lord bless my enemies
Lord bless the Olympics
Lord bless this group of people
What if we speak blessings instead of cursing and damning everything and everyone to a lifetime of eternal punish and give them a chance to live!
Pray bold prayers, “Lord you see the evil being portrayed in Paris. Lord you know only 1% of the population knows you and serves you. Lord use the churches that are there, that do serve you, that do love you, to not only love on those there, but share the freeing message of Jesus Christ!”
8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;
10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.
If you are walking in step with the Spirit of the living God then so should our speech!
Closing
Closing
Many think that Christianity is about obedience. It is not. All the Gospel requires from us is repentance and faith.
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
This Gospel that we have is not about being obedient. It is about repenting and having faith in who Jesus says He is. Because of my repentative heart and my faith, it will produce obedience.
I cannot be obedient apart from the person and work Christ. If I could, then there would be no reason for the cross. There would be no reason for Jesus to die a horrible tragic death.
If we get this mixed up, then we fall into the trap of legalism, works based faith, and works based righteousness. This is not GOOD NEWS at all.
Jesus said,
15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
Jesus, because I believe in you and the redemptive work you did on the cross, I will obey and do so joyfully! My faith in who Jesus is, what He has done, who He says I am, as I keep in step with Holy Spirit, it will produce obedience!
Paul closes out his letter speaking to this as a reminder that it is not about the Law, but the relationship.
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
16 And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.
17 From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.
If we walk by this rule, you will live in peace. The peace not that the world gives, but the peace Jesus gives.
Altar Call
Altar Call
If you are here this morning or joining us online and you are weary from trying to do good and you want to be free from a works based faith, all you have to do is repent, ask God for forgiveness of trying to live a works based faith, and receive the freeing message of the Gospel of Jesus.
Jesus,
I acknowledge today that I have tried to live my life for you based on works. I repent of my works based religion. Forgive me of my sin and help me to walk out my faith focusing on my relationship with you.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
Sinners Prayer
Sinners Prayer
Dear Jesus,
I acknowledge that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe that You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn away from my sins and open my heart to You. Please come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. Help me to follow You and grow in my faith.
Thank You for saving me. Amen.
