Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians 6:1-5

 

Near Watsonville, California, there is a creek that has a strange name: Salsipuedes Creek.

/Salsi// puedes/ is Spanish for “Get out of it, if you can.”

The creek is lined with quicksand, and the story is that many years ago, in the early days of California, a Mexican laborer fell into the quicksand.

A Spaniard, riding by on a horse, saw him and yelled out to him, “/Salsi// puedes/!” which wasn’t very helpful.

The creek has been so named ever since.

That’s what sin is like.

We struggle to correct these tendencies—to get out of the effects of our sinful nature—but we cannot do it alone.

In Galatians chapter 6, God teaches the church through Paul that a healthy church doesn’t leave fellow believers in the quicksand of sin.

A healthy church asks a spiritual believer to go carefully into the quicksand to help the struggling sinner get free.

The call becomes, “Get out of it, with my help.”

That’s the lesson we find in Galatians 6:1-5.

In honor of God and His Word, please stand for the reading of these verses.

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

4 Each one should test his own actions.

Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, 5 for each one should carry his own load.

 [NIV]

 

[Prayer] In these five verses, there are three requirements of a healthy church body.

Each of these traits involves our role as men and women of God living in a godless and selfish world of sin.

Without them, we cannot be all that Christ has created us to be.

But with these traits comes joy and healthy growth.

The first trait of a healthy church is found in verse one… namely,

 

*I.

A healthy church gently restores straying believers with great caution* (1).

Verse one is dealing with a believer who has /accidentally/ slipped into sin; it wasn’t intentional, it’s not habitual (yet), but it is sinful.

He says: “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”

He is speaking to believers about how to restore a fellow believer who is “caught in a sin”.

The phrase is literally “caught by a sin”; and the idea is that of a believer who was trying to run away from sin and doing their best to avoid the sin, but sin overtook them.

It’s a scary thought.

By the way, the legalists loved to use this tendency to ambush and trap desperate victims.

If you want to see the way they used entrapment without mercy or gentleness, look at the woman taken in adultery in John 8.

She was set up by these legalists so they could use her to trap Jesus.

The indication of this same word is that she /may have/ tried to get away and had no intention of committing adultery when she was trapped.

But they were using her as a pawn, perhaps because she had a reputation.

She was “caught” (same word) in the act of adultery.

But what did Jesus do?

He turned the arsenal of grace on her wicked accusers.

He vindicated her and set her free from the trap with the warning, “go and sin no more”.

He didn’t berate her; He didn’t put her on probation for six months… He restored her with gentleness.

No wonder they call Him the Savior.

Many of us have never been so zealous to avoid sin that it had to overtake us.

Too many Christians willingly turn around to dance with sin as soon as it taps them on the shoulder.

God’s word indicates there are some sins that will hunt you down and dog your steps even when you try to resist them; like enemy warfare in hand to hand combat.

Still, you fight, you resist, and you call out to Jesus for help.

You may be thinking, “What’s the use of running if sin’s going to overtake me anyway?

Why fight it?”

You fight against the enemy to show whose side you’re on.

In the great match of holiness, you don’t lose ground because you’re tackled by sin; you lose ground because you’re tackled /while facing the wrong goal line/.

Run for holiness!

Run for purity!

If you’re overtaken in pursuit of these, Jesus will not throw you out of the game.

His word says to /gently/ mend, /gently/ restore those who have been tackled while resisting sin.

Some-times sin overtakes believers when they least expect it.

That’s the context of verse one here.

A believer has been surprised by sin while running in the opposite direction… and they need restoration.

A healthy church restores the fallen.

Consider what it means to restore someone.

The word for “restoration” is used medically in secular Greek for /setting a broken bone/; in the NT, the same word is used for /mending broken nets/.

This is the exact same word used for what James and John were doing in their father’s boat when Jesus called them to follow Him and be fishers of men (Mt.

4:21).

They were doing the difficult and delicate work of mending their nets.

Whether you’re setting a broken bone or mending a broken net, the work requires steady, gentle know-how.

It requires the same thing when restoring a fallen brother or sister.

That’s why this activity of a healthy church is given to… “you who are spiritual”.

In this context, a spiritual Christian is not necessarily the oldest Christian or the one with the most footnotes in their study Bible; a spiritual Christian is the man or woman with the most evident fruit of the Spirit in their life.

A fruit-bearing Christian knows how to restore a fallen believer in gentleness.

The whole discussion of the fruit in chapter five was to prepare them (and us) for the work of the Body in chapter six.

It’s great fruitfulness that defines great faithfulness.

Verse one ends with a caveat… a warning.

“Watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”

This tells us that even the most spiritual and fruit-bearing Christian can still be tempted and ensnared by sin.

The warning is legitimate and real.

After all, the Pharisees were using the woman taken in adultery to entrap Jesus.

Spiritual restoration is desperately needed in the Body of Christ.

It’s not easy or enjoyable, but it’s so necessary.

Confrontation and restoration are often difficult for spiritual people because they are gentle; they aren’t meddlesome by nature; they aren’t the kind of people who look for scandals; they don’t usually scrutinize other people’s lives.

Someone may have to tell these people that their spiritual help is needed for the health of the Body.

People who are gentle and full of abundant fruit are so needed in every church; because a healthy church gently restores straying believers with great caution.

But he goes further.

Second…

 

*II.

A healthy church graciously uplifts troubled believers with great love* (2).

Verse 2 says, “2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

There are two questions we need to ask from this verse: (1) what is a burden?... and (2) how does carrying each other’s burdens fulfill the law of Christ?

To begin with, a “burden” is a weight above and beyond the normal load of daily living.

It encumbers the Christian walk and inhibits spiritual progress.

It may be physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, financial, or medical; there are all kinds of burdens.

A burden is something that a person is harmed by bearing.

Instead of making a person stronger, a burden tends to make them weaker.

The point of this verse is that a Christian is /unnecessarily/ weighed down and they need your help.

This leads to the second question… how does carrying each other’s burdens fulfill the law of Christ?

The law of Christ is stated in John 13:34: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

Christ’s law is love.

You love your fellow believers when you lighten their burdens.

Love doesn’t weigh people down; it lifts them up to bear greater fruit.

Love /does/ require accountability, but accountability isn’t a burden any more that a parachute is a burden to a skydiver.

The accountability required by love keeps us from destroying ourselves and harming others.