Free to live a Spirit-led life honouring God

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Galatians 6, verses 1-10 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin,

Galatians 6:1–10

you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

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

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.

Each one should test their own actions, then they can take pride in themselves

alone, without comparing themselves to someone else.

For each one should carry their own load.

Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all

good things with their instructor.

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.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a

harvest if we do not give up.

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people,

especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Thanks, Sean. We welcome David. I'd just like to read a quote from an author, Francis Schaeffer.

Some of you who are old enough will know that he was a very popular author back in the old days.

He said, If an individual Christian does not show love to other Christians,

the world has a right to assume he or she is not themselves a Christian and

that Jesus is not from God.

Failure to love doesn't mean I am not a Christian.

Rather, it means the world has a right to conclude that I am not.

Schaeffer bases those words on John 13, verses 34-35, where Jesus says,

John 13:34–35

By your love for one another, others will know that you are my followers.

So, how we love or fail to love within the church has implications for our external witness.

I've been around long enough in churches to know that sometimes civil war can

break out in churches and churches can become fractured and unhappy places.

What chance have you got to bring people into the fellowship of the church if

you yourself are not content within it?

Now today, I want to conclude Galatians by looking at chapter 6,

verses 1 to 10, which John read for us.

Some practical implications here of living in the Spirit that we looked at last week in Galatians 5.

So let's start at verse 1. When it comes to the conduct of believers,

we are to take certain actions.

Verse 1 says, Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught into sin,

you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

But watch yourselves, or you may also be tempted.

We can become passive bystanders when we see other Christians go down the wrong path.

Or we can become controlling busybodies who jump in with the aim of being messianic fixers.

We want to fix everyone up. We want to put people right. We want to reprimand

those who were going wrong.

As to the other extreme of just simply letting people go, letting people drift.

Now, neither is a helpful option. Now, of course, we can't intervene in the lives of everyone.

Can you imagine a church or a community where everyone is snooping on everyone

else, spotting out their sins and taking action about it?

It would be intolerable. You can't do that.

So we assume that when Paul says, restore that person who was strained gently,

we can assume that there's a relationship involved and we can assume there's

something significant.

So many church quarrels, incidentally,

are about so utterly insignificant things that it's not funny.

But if there's a significant thing, then we may want to take action if we've

got that relationship with that person.

But Paul says something very important. He says, watch yourselves or you may

also be tempted. What's he saying there?

Well, let me give you a bit of an illustration from my own history.

In recent years, I was involved in the Anglican Church in a church recovery team.

If the leadership of the church, if there were things in the church that had

gone absolutely pear-shaped, we would go in and help the people through that healing process.

But at every time I was involved in one of those teams,

you had to be very aware that as we were dealing with the shortcomings and the

failings, sometimes serious ones, of church leaders, sometimes pastors,

sometimes staff members,

you had to be aware, Lord, please Please don't let me fall into the same trap.

Or to echo what Jesus says in Matthew 7.

Yes, remove the speck out of your brother's eye, but make sure you're aware

of the big 4B2 plank in your own eye.

In other words, be aware of your own failings. Be aware of your own predicaments,

your own sins, as you go on dealing with the sins of others.

So I think that's what Paul is saying. Do so, if you're going to correct people,

do so humbly and gently, realizing that you yourself can be caught in those

same sins if you're not careful.

Restoring another person has to be done by those who are led by the Spirit to

do their job and are aware of their own deficiencies.

We are to act when people go seriously astray.

Jesus mentions that. He said, you ought to take the speck out of your mother's

eye, but be aware of the log in your own.

So we do have to restore, and yet we have to do so kindly and gently.

Coming down like a ton of bricks on someone from some prideful point of view will not help them.

The word that Paul uses for restore is something like a word we might use for

resetting a dislocated or broken bone.

We put things back together again. So restore doesn't mean demolish or crush or demean.

It means wholeness, getting people back to where they should be.

So simply being content with being a bystander may not be enough.

Yes, we can't step into every occasion, but at the same time,

when we see there is a particular problem where we may need to intervene, do so.

Because just simply letting another fellow Christian go down a dark and dangerous

path and just shrugging your shoulders and saying, oh, well,

I don't want to upset them. That is not good.

That is not what Paul is saying.

Sometimes we may have to act, but to do so, to do it gently,

not to go in with the aim of controlling or destroying or showing our moral

or spiritual superiority.

And so we come to the bearing of burdens in verse 2. Carry each other's burdens,

and in this way, you'll fulfill the law of Christ.

That's another practical outworking of spirit-led living, to bear one another's burdens.

We're not to think we're above the normal human struggles.

Oh, those people are struggling, those people are bearing burdens,

but look at me, I'm sailing along on a different spiritual plane. Nope.

Paul says, don't be like that. The word again he uses here conveys a sense of

a heavy load, and we're not meant to go through life gritting our teeth,

bearing heavy loads all by ourselves.

We were made for a relationship, and part of that relationship is that we bear one another's burdens.

But we need to insert a note of caution.

I sometimes hear of people who are crushed under the weight of this command.

Bearing one another's burdens doesn't mean assuming the whole load of that burden.

Now, yes, there can be short-term seasons in your life, I'm aware of this,

where circumstances might make it necessary that you really do bear that person's load.

That's not the normal general sense that Paul is talking about.

The idea is to help the other burdened person, not to carry the burden for them.

There is often a limit to our love and our care.

I've done hundreds and hundreds of funerals, and in the eulogies,

there is often a phrase that people use that so-and-so gave themselves,

burned themselves out for other people.

And I want to say, no, please don't do that. What good are you going to be to

other people if you burn yourself out?

We have limits to our love.

Can you bear everyone's every burden? Nope.

Can you solve every person's problems? Nope. Can't even solve my own, let alone yours.

No. You see, being a burden bearer doesn't mean carrying the whole weight on yourself.

It means coming alongside that person, just as the Holy Spirit comes alongside us, incidentally.

The Holy Spirit comes alongside not to say, I'll do your living for you,

I'll do your struggling for you.

No, the Holy Spirit comes alongside to say, I'm here to help.

That's what a human burden bearer will do.

We do what burden bearing the Spirit leads us to do, not what our egos or pride

or fear or misplaced guilt causes us to do.

There are limits to our love. There are limits to our burden bearing.

Yes, some people are blithely unaware of others and couldn't care less about

others' burdens, but the other extreme is to take those burdens all on yourself

and that will lead to disastrous consequences in your physical, psychological,

emotional and spiritual health.

Now, to those who are burdened and who figure that other people are there to

fix things up, think again.

Bearing burdens doesn't mean a transfer of burdens.

And to those who might argue that the Lord himself is our burden bearer, another caution.

We can say, yes, but 1 Peter 5, it says there, Cast all your cares on him, for he cares about you.

And the word cast there is a very strong word.

Fling all your burdens onto Jesus.

And so does that mean that we no longer need to bear a burden because Joe Bloggs

is going through a tough time?

Well, I don't worry, the Lord will bear his burdens. No, he won't.

Because you see, and you and I have experienced this surely,

that when we ask God for help, the help often comes in a human shape.

The eyes, ears, hands, feet of other people.

The Lord didn't build that cottage.

People did. The Lord enabled them and equipped them.

But the Lord does not simply say, oh, I'm up here in heaven and I'll fix it all up for you.

The Lord sends help to you, often through human means.

And that is why we are to be burden bearers, because the Lord calls ourselves

to do that. The Lord says, I want to help people through life,

and I help people through life through the help of other human beings.

And just a passing note on verse 5, eagle-eyed readers would say,

look at verse 5 where Paul says, each one should carry their own load.

Now, if you really get what is stuck into some complications here,

a different word is used in verses 2 and 5.

Bearing a burden is not the same as carrying a load. I won't go into all that

except that what Paul is saying in verse 5 is.

You've got to be accountable to God. You bear responsibility to God for your

own actions or inactions in terms of burden bearing.

So anyway, I won't go more about that.

Now, I start at verses 7 to 9, and what Paul says here is, do not be deceived.

God can't 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.

Let us not become weary in doing

good, for at the proper time we'll reap a harvest if we don't give up.

See, by practicing spirit-led love, we are sowing good seeds,

we're making things better, we're doing things which will extend the rule of God in his world.

So no good deed you ever do will be wasted.

But then again, you won't always see the results of that work.

I've been in ministry for about, I don't know, I think 46 years I've been in paid ministry.

I can pick the time because I got married the same year as I got ordained.

And if I ever forget the year I was ordained, it means I've forgotten the year

I was married, which is not always helpful.

But in all those years, I think I've done a lot of good.

I've done some harm, too, sad to say, but I've done a lot of good.

But I don't see the results of it.

There might be a lot of people out there swarming around who say,

oh, that David Ray character, he really helped me through that period of life. Well, I don't know.

Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but I'll never know. And you might never know.

Sometimes you do good and you see the results of it immediately.

Other times you'd sow the seed and it only comes to fruition much, much later.

So, Paul is saying to us, don't be weary by helping the burdened. We're to press on.

Bearing someone else's burden, that is, helping someone along the way in their

time of struggle, will not necessarily bring you instant rewards.

You might not see the result of it. Some people will not be very grateful.

Some people will hardly be aware that you're even helping bearing their burden.

But Paul says, everything that we do in the Spirit's power is not wasted.

So, spread the good works around. Do good, because you don't know what the results

are going to be, but they're going to be good anyway, depending on time and

place. But then he says something interesting.

In verse 10, finally, he says, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all

people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Now, it's quite interesting. It might seem, oh, Paul is being very church-centric there.

You know, we're to do good especially to the family of believers.

Why? Don't people out there matter more? No. In the context of what Paul is saying, no.

Because unless we are doing good here within the Christian community,

then we're not going to be much use outside.

That's what Francis Schaeffer was saying in that quote.

If all you're doing is trying to reach the world, it's a good thing to do,

but if all you're doing is that and you're not concentrating on your relationships

within this Christian community, then it's futile.

Because there's one saying, I forget who the writer was, but he said that God

will not put healthy babies in sick incubators.

And what that means is that if you want new converts, If you want new people

to join this church, for example, you better be healthy.

What's the point of going out

to reach the world for the gospel if our own internal life is not right?

Now, I'm not suggesting that our internal life here is not right.

I'm not trying to lay a load on anyone. I'm just simply stating what is a very general principle.

I sometimes hear of churches who are so keen to reach the whole world that they

neglect the relationships within the Christian community.

And that's dangerous because unless the Christian community is a loving and

healthy and accepting community, what's the point of trying to reach other people?

Do you want to invite someone into a community where you are not healthy or

accepted or growing or cared for?

I know a lot of pastors and ministers, church leaders, who talk a lot about

outreach. And you should talk about outreach.

The Great Commission tells us to do outreach.

But unless we're doing in-reach, you can't do effective outreach.

So just be aware of this balance. So I think that's what Paul is saying.

Doing good, especially to those who belong to the family of believers,

because to put it very crudely, charity might start at home.

Unless we are caring for one another here in this church, how can we claim to

be caring for people out there?

And if this church, and I'm pleased I'm not saying this church is like this,

but if a church is not caring for one another and building up a loving community within itself,

It's got butlies of bringing other people in, because other people come in and

say, what is this lot all about?

So if we want to invite people into a loving community led by the Spirit of

Jesus, we'd better live like that.

We'd better be that sort of church.

And so we come back to that opening quote, because Spirit-led care for one another,

whether it be restoring the straying or helping the burdened is part of church life,

as to be a critical part of our witness to a watching world,

because the quality of what happens here internally affects how we relate to the world externally.

Let's pray. Let me offer this short prayer by an English author, Frank Topping.

Lord help us to see that every act of kindness every word of forgiveness every

gesture of love seen or unseen however small changes the world and us forever Amen.