Galatians 6:1-6 (Presbytery)

Intro

Two different experiences with seniors in high school

Something not everyone may know about me is that I played football when I was in high school. Coming into the team as a freshman, I was by far the smallest kid around, and I was so self-conscious about my size.

I distinctly remember having two very different experiences with some of the seniors on the team.

The first senior came by and made fun of me for being so small, telling me I was going to get killed on the field. He hazed all the freshman simply for being freshman, but I got an extra dose because I was so small. I remember being devastated by his words as other people were standing around and laughing.

I know this isn’t an uncommon kind of experience for freshman, and maybe its not too different from what some of you have experienced, but it wasn’t the only kind of experience I had with a senior on the team. One time, while I was getting made fun of by this bully, another senior (the biggest kid on the team) came over and started telling an embarrassing story from when the bully was a freshman. He reminded the bully how he used to be one of the smallest kids on the team, and how he wasn’t any good back then.

This second senior took the time to encourage me. He told me not to worry about guys like that bully, and that we all start somewhere. He spent time with me at practice helping me to learn the ropes and improve, he taught me how to diet and exercise in ways that would help me bulk up and improve as a player. He was showing me the path he took to improve, and he never made me feel like a loser because he never lost sight of where he came from himself.

The difference between these two people was a matter of disposition. The one was blinded by pride and self-importance; when he saw a weak person he had conveniently forgotten that he was once also weak, and that even now he was only something special if he compared himself to the weak freshman. He didn’t care to bring me up, only to elevate himself by comparison. In fact, in his eyes, the more he put me down meant he would look even better in comparison.

The other was gentle and humble. When he saw a weak person he was reminded of his own weakness, and he was compelled to bring me up rather than put me down. He wasn’t consumed by himself and so he didn’t care to compare himself to me, there was no point. Rather than destroy the weak person, he sought to bring me up by showing me the path he himself took. He remembered that he was once weak, and that there was a path forward for weak people.

Today I want to talk with you about how we can learn from that second senior in my story. Walking through these first verses of Galatians 6, I want to show you the responsibility we have to bear one another’s burdens, and how there are two very different ways this can look in the church. The first way leads to compounding sin and division in the church, and the second way leads to the spiritual health of the church and the restoration of the sinner.

Galatians 5 has a most famous passage about the fruit of the Spirit, and Galatians 6 starts by applying that concept to a very real problem in the church. It was a very real problem back in Paul’s day, and I am sure that I don’t need to tell a room full of elders that it is a very real problem today.

The problem is that those in the church can often adopt a prideful attitude, leading us to look down on those who have been caught in sin. The solution is to remember Christ, and continually adopt a position of humble reliance on him. It is then, and only then, that the church will faithfully fulfill what Christ has called her to do and be.

Bear One Another’s Burdens

First of all, we learn in this passage that we have a responsibility as members of the church to bear one another’s burdens. What do we mean when we say that?

Galatians 6:2 ESV

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

First, we mean that the life of a Christian isn’t solitary. It means that we don’t live in isolation. It means that our relationships as members of the church extend beyond seating habits on Sunday morning and evening.

Second, it means that there is a natural rhythm in the church where some of the members are what Paul calls “spiritual” when other members are “caught in sin.” But “Spiritual” is an ambiguous and confusing term to us now. We call someone “spiritual” today when we want to describe someone as a deep-thinker, someone who meditates, a hippie, or just someone who leans heavily on their emotions. That term has become such an ambiguous one to us today, and we use it almost as a personality trait. Paul doesn’t. Paul uses it in a way that’s very connected to what he says in the verses right at the end of chapter 5: that there are those who are either walking in the flesh and displaying its fruit or there are those who are walking in the Spirit and displaying his fruit. When Paul describes the “spiritual” person, he simply means the “Spirit-led” person. This is the person who is dependent on the Spirit of God and whose life has born the fruit of the Spirit of God. The spiritual person is the person dependent on the Spirit , not the “better” person. The person caught in sin is the person dependent on themselves, not the “worse” person.

To bear one another’s burdens is the Spirit-reliant coming to the self-reliant person and re-calibrating their focus, shifting their attention from themselves to our gracious God who is saving us from sin.

And let’s be clear: Paul isn’t only talking here about sympathizing with each other during the loss of loved ones or when hospital bills are stacking up. Surely we should bear those burdens too, and Scripture does call us to do things like that elsewhere, but here Paul is talking about something less common, something more unique to the church.

Here Paul is commanding that we come alongside a brother or sister when their selfish focus has led them to be caught up in sin. The person who is caught in transgression, which is another word for sin, is the person that we are to come up next to and love.

In other words, our love as a church isn’t just directed at those who have outwardly proven themselves worthy of it, but it is to be directed especially at those who have proven themselves quite unworthy of it.

Now I know any of you out there that pay for Michigan car insurance have done your research to find any discounts out there to save you from the ridiculous rates we pay. Allstate has that commercial on the radio about the good driver discount: you can save money off your policy every year you go without having an accident. In other words, the longer you go without them knowing about an uh-oh, the better they treat you. Seems good, it makes business sense for them to do something like that.

But here is the deal: the church is forbidden from mimicking Allstate’s good driver discount. We are forbidden from treating the people with the cleaner public record better. We are called as a church to see the person who is burdened by sin as a brother or a sister and to come alongside them, bearing their burdens.

So no, we don’t encourage sinful behavior, and we still ought to encourage righteous behavior, but when we have one of our own falls into sin, we had better be quick to bear them back up.

When one of our own makes a mistake in public or in private, we can’t simply cut ties with them and pretend like we don’t know them, or that we are embarrassed to know them.

When one of our own does something that elsewhere is socially reprehensible, we don’t just forget about it or sweep it under the rug, but we also don’t just throw them out to the wolves. We don’t force them to bear that burden alone. We come alongside them, and the weight they have brought on themselves is our weight to bear as well.

So what does it mean to bear one another’s burdens? In a sense, it means solidarity. It means treating another person’s problems as though they are your own. But we must be careful, because there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. The right way leads to the spiritual health of the church and the restoration of the sinner, but the wrong way leads to compounding sin and division.

Bearing one another’s burdens the wrong way leads to more sin

Galatians 6:1 ESV

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

It is imperative that we get into the trenches with each other when we fall. We can’t just ignore sin or sweep it under the rug. It has to be dealt with, and those in the church who are strong at the moment need to bring up those who have been weak. You must do that.

But keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted, Paul says.

Here Paul is reminding us of the reality of our own position, even those who are walking by the Spirit are in vulnerable positions if they are not careful.

The temptation Paul is speaking of is the tendency we have to approach a fallen person with a prideful self-righteousness. As we approach a person who has fallen as a result of a self-reliant disposition, we must be careful that we don’t adopt a self-reliant mindset as well. It is far too easy for us to see someone who has fallen into sin, compare ourselves to them, and then come to the conclusion that we truly are great in ourselves. And this seems to be what the Galatian church had been doing; with so many of them caught in sin, those who were otherwise walking by the Spirit became tempted to compare themselves to the others and elevate themselves.

Galatians 6:3–4 ESV

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.

The challenge here is to think of yourself not in comparison to sinful people, but in comparison to the word of God.

Paul says rather than boast because your brother has set the bar low, you should brag about how your own actions live up to the bar Scripture has set.

Of course this has a tone of sarcasm in it, because Paul himself is the one who quoted the Old Testament in his letter to the Romans claiming that nobody is righteous, and that nobody will ever be righteous because of their own works.

In his letter to the Ephesians, he reminds them by saying

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Paul has made it endlessly clear that we have no reason to be proud of ourselves spiritually speaking. We are all naturally children of wrath- completely dead in our sins. None is greater than the other, because that's like asking which dead person is more dead.

Here Paul isn’t encouraging people to brag about their own greatness, but he is condemning the bragging we do in comparison to other sinful people.

Ill tell you what this type of conceitedness is like: its like how I used to try to impress people in art class. Everybody was responsible for making something out of clay, and when the projects were ready to be fired in the kiln, we would place them all on a table together. I always made sure that I didn’t set mine down next to some of the actually good ones, but I would always try to find the worst ones made by kids that didn’t care about the assignment. Next to those projects, I could actually convince myself that mine was really good! But it was never the best in the class, and even the best in our class couldn’t even be called art when placed next to a sculpture crafted by some of the truly great artists in history.

That tactic made me feel better about my art, and we often use that tactic to make ourselves feel like better people, but its deceitful and conceited. We aren’t great, and using our fallen brothers and sisters to lower the bar is insulting to them and to God.

And yet we do it in a variety of ways.

Sometimes we are downright nasty to someone who was nasty to us first. Sometimes we present ourselves as religious elites that are better than the common sinful people. Those of us that are at bible study and prayer might be tempted to think that we are better than those who are caught in sin.

Some of us know better than to do that, but we still play this game and become conceited when we gossip about the latest news of one of our own being caught in sin. We feel the need to talk about it behind their backs with our friends, and we wonder together at how sinful that person is. We think to ourselves in secret, “I would never do something like that.”

But that’s just it: you would! You would do something like that if you were left by yourself! When we sin, we rarely ever think that it makes sense. Often times it is the person caught in sin who is more surprised than anyone else because they had become conceited themselves, relying more on their own selves than on the Spirit of God.

how quickly we can become like that senior bully, forgetting what we have been like and treating others like garbage when we were no different

Don’t think for a moment that there is some part of you that is better than your brother or sister caught in sin. If there is anything separating you from their own position, it is coming from outside of yourself and you have had nothing to do with it.

I am sure that David thought himself above murdering his friend and stealing his wife, yet that’s exactly where he found himself.

Which leads us to ask ourselves how we ought to go about bearing one another’s burdens in a Biblical manner.

Bearing one another’s burdens the right way leads to spiritual restoration

How? A spirit of humble reliance on Christ

Paul says in verse 1:

Galatians 6:1 ESV

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

that word gentleness can also be translated humility or meekness. Its the same word Jesus used in his sermon on the mound when he said “blessed are the meek.” The idea conveyed is not that we are a strong person approaching a weaker and less impressive individual, but that we ourselves have a past that demands humility and understanding.

Jesus

Matthew 7:1–5 ESV

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

When it comes to bearing one another’s burdens, the process starts by assuming a posture of humility. You are not better than the one caught in sin, and you should never think or act like it. In fact, those who are spiritual, healthy, whatever word we want to use for it, should start by remembering this beautiful truth laid out in Ephesians 2. After Paul reminds the people that we were once dead in our sins and trespasses, he continues by saying:

Ephesians 2:4–9 ESV

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Those of us who are spiritual only find ourselves in this position by the grace of God working through his Holy Spirit. We were nothing, we were lost and dead in sin, and God brought us new life. By the work of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us we have been freed from sin. And this has never been our own doing! We have received this as a gift.

So before we go around flaunting the gift like its something we worked our way up to, remember that we are humble, dependent creatures that desperately need the grace of God every moment of every day. Apart from that grace, we are just as dead as anyone else. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, we are completely dominated by sin.

Only when we are reminded of the gospel can we ever hope to bear the burden of another. If we think we are going to fix someone who is broken because of our goodness, we will only do more harm.

BUT when we are convinced of the fact that Jesus Christ has saved this needy sinner and continues to supply even the best of us with everything that we have, then we can begin to work on real restoration for the fallen brother.

Having remembered that our needs were met in the blood of Christ, we point the fallen brother to that same fount of grace.

Earlier I mentioned that bearing one another’s burdens meant solidarity, and that means in both our sinful nature and our union with Christ, our redemption.

We don’t discount the ugliness of the sin, in fact we don’t try to hide it at all. We bring the sin out into the light, because it is there that Jesus will deal with it. We confess with one another, we repent with one another, we are restored by the grace of God with one another.

So for us here today, when we notice that one of our brothers or sisters has been caught in sin, how do we respond? First, as verse 1 says, we must check our own posture and remember our humble estate. We must “take the log out of our own eye, so that we can see clearly.”

We must refuse to gossip about them, and remember that the only thing separating their position from our own is the grace of God.

We must come alongside them gently and humbly, not seeking to fix them ourselves but seeking to point them to the grace and power found in Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Just as we need the grace and power of the Spirit to prevent our own fall, our fallen brothers need that same grace to find restoration. They don’t need you, they need you to point them back to Christ.

And that is the call: just as the grace of God has breathed life into your sinful bones, we are to come alongside our fallen brothers and minister to their needs by bringing them the gospel of Jesus Christ that saves sinners by grace.

2 Corinthians 13:11 ESV

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.