You who are spiritual

You who are spiritual

Galatians 6: 1-10

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

3 For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. 5 For each one shall bear his own load.

6 Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.

7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Surely this is the very opposite to the spirit of the world. That spirit refuses to consider the possibility of ourselves being tempted, parades a challenge in the face of the world to question our own purity and inviolability.

We have to put on a spirit directly contrary to that which we find around us in the world, to sit at the feet of a far different teacher, and learn of Him.

Our blessed Lord spent His life and shed his blood, this act means Jesus exchanged his life and sacrificed his for ours. Man is exhorted not to look only on his own things, but also on the things of others.

Philippines 2:3-4

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let me add these individuals to our discussion this morning.

Pie chart showing that 35,000 Colorado residents are locked up in federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and other types of facilities.

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The greater number of cases of discharged prisoners is not to be feared, but having a open hand and a loving heart towards those who have been incarcerated.

The whole world is against them, but we should open our hearts to them, and encourage them.

We should look on the fallen as our brethren, bearing their burdens, instead of disclaiming them and letting them sink under their weight, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.

Let your sympathy with the burdened begin where there is sorrow, shame, and grief, then let your pity go, and then you will find that the Bible, instead of being an empty social economy, is the only true social economy in the world.

We must do all this with a tender sense of brotherhood. In sympathy with and bearing one another's burdens, we realize the great fact that we shall have burdens to bear ourselves.

This same selfishness, this same isolation of ourselves, which shuts us up against the sorrows of others, shuts us up also against their joys. If the one fountain is sealed, so will also be the other.

He who will not weep with them that weep, neither shall he rejoice with them that rejoice. And thus, there are sealed from him the sources of forgiveness when it is our time to be forgiven.

But further, it is a course as blind as it is sinful, because all experience proves that the man who lays his account to live an easy, pleasurable life by knowing nothing.

By refusing to know anything of the cares, troubles, and distresses of others, is never able to carry out this partnership of walking with others during their trials and tribulations.

He who resolves not to bear any part of the burdens of his fellow man, resolves not to fulfil the law of Christ.

Bear ye the burden of one another's sins. In one sense Christ only can do this. What must we do, if we would bear this burden for another? We must be patient towards all men, accepting that which their sin may lay upon us as part of that burden which sinners dwelling among sinners must expect to bear.

So too, we bear the burden of other men's sins when we take trouble, endure toil and pain and loss, in seeking their restoration, we follow them into the wilderness, with the conviction that Jesus Christ walked with us during our time of unrest.

The list of human infirmities is a very long one, the category of faults does not soon come to an end. This passage tells us clearly, whenever restoration is possible, we are to restore in the spirit of meekness.

If a man shall fall in any measure from integrity, or from charity, or from truthfulness of speech, or from purity of behavior, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.

Bear his burden until you bear it away, and it is his burden no longer. Go to him on the side of his infirmity, not to reproach and curse, but to heal and help.

Paul combines in this passage the two great ideas on which all previous morality had been based:

1. The one self-preservation, self-development, that is to say, that out of which the sense of responsibility grows.

2. The other self forgetfulness, that is to say, that out of which all effort for other people grows. It combines them in a complete harmony. "Bear ye one another's burdens," is the rule of self forgetfulness, "Every man should bear his own burden," is the simple rule of self-preservation.

And because the harmony between these two statements is so hard to preserve, because in the agony that is caused by self-reflection we are so liable to be carried away by the one to the exclusion of the other, it may be well to consider this apparent paradox.

Paul says, bear their burdens, restore them by the spirit of meekness. Fling your soul with the struggles and sorrows of others. The more sympathetic you become, the more self-reflection grow, the more will you find the truth of the great paradox that those who lose their life for Christ's sake even now will find it.

Galatians 6:5

The Apostle reminds us in this verse that there are some burdens which cannot be shared, which each must bear for himself alone. Each individual is open to many influences, because of the fallen nature of man, the flesh can be overtaken by many sins.

Yet Christ, the Son of God, became incarnate that He might stand by our side, our almighty, loving helper, we can lean on Him, the friend that sticketh closer than a brother, and bear all our burdens and yet walk’s with us with every step, and took the yoke upon himself, cared our sins to the cross.

Conclusion

The Christian sows to the Spirit, not to the flesh. Let us try to live up to the plain. The sowing being interpreted to mean the thoughts, words, and acts of this present life, the Christian thinks, speaks, and acts with reference to the spirit, to his higher divine purpose.

God's Holy spirit, aims at God's glory, loves him, serves him, converges to him in its desires and motions.

Herein he altogether differs from the unchristian man, who sows to the flesh, consults in his thoughts, words, and acts, the desires of the body and the passing interests of the world.

Now how does the Christian sow? In discouragement, in difficulty, with effort and with endurance, against nature and against temptation. His seedtime is a time of labour, not of repose, of self-denial, not of ease, of hope, not of enjoyment.

But these seeds are planted by the power of the same creative Spirit in the ground, and expanded, and made to yield a thousand-fold, to bear unceasing fruit to all eternity.

It is not without a purpose that the truth is so often repeated in God's word that we shall reap in the next world according as we have sown in this one. The foolish mortal who lives to self, to self must die.

God is not, cannot be, mocked. No one need expect, or even hope, to sow one thing and reap another.

Those who recklessly sow to the flesh must reap their harvest.

God leaves us free to sow what sort of seed we will, and no one can blame the Almighty that, having chosen our own course, we reap our own harvest.

The individual who indulges in one known sin is planting a seed, which will be sure to spring up and grow, and, perhaps, prepare the way for a wider departure from duty. A second and third temptation will prove more irresistible and dangerous than the first.

He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. God governs the man, when the man sows to the spirit in the sense of sowing to the divine impulse, suggesting, restraining, preventing grace, it may be, operating upon his nature.

Do not let us be weary in well doing. There is often a good while between the seedtime and the harvest, and there may be a good while between the seedtime and the harvest in a man's doing that which is right, but go on, be not weary, in due season you shall reap, if you faint not.

The law is as operative and influential on the one side as on the other, in relation to the good as well as to the evil. Therefore, however you may sometimes feel depressed by long and weary waiting for some result, never let that tempt you to falter or to put forth your hand to some iniquity.

Be upright, and true, and loyal to Christ and to God, and if the blessing tarry, wait for it, it will come all in due time. It is a good thing for a man both to hope and quietly to wait for the blessings of God.

Amen