Galatians: Putting the Gospel into Action (6:1-10)

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Our second lesson this morning is taken on the Book of Galations, Chapter 6, verses 1.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourselves, lest you too be tempted.

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

For if anyone thinks he is something and he is nothing, he deceives himself.

But let each one test his own word, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.

For each will have to bear his own word.

Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.

Do not be deceived.

God is not wrong.

For whatever one sows, that will be also wicked.

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.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not know.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household faith.

The word of the Lord.

As we have opportunity, brothers and sisters, let us do good to everyone, especially to those who are hostile in faith.

Let's pray.

Probably some of us could still be in bed, waiting for breakfast.

Some of us are dreaming about getting outside.

But even more broadly, Lord, we can be in a very different place in our life.

But Lord, where else would we go?

You alone have the words of eternal life.

And so we're gathered here today in your name to hear you speak life to us again.

Would you speak your true and life-given word and plant it deeply in our hearts by your Holy Spirit?

That it would bring the fruit of the life for us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Ah, you've heard this one before.

Actions speak louder than words.

I'm of the mind that, regardless of what we may believe about a given subject, we only really believe it if we act like it.

You know what I mean?

I've never heard someone object to the theory of gravity, but let's say someone did.

I'm still willing to bet that they'll buckle their seatbelt and be careful around football.

You know what I mean?

We show through our actions what we truly believe, and the problem is when we say one thing, we do another.

Right?

We've probably seen that happen in our own lives.

We've seen that done to us.

Maybe we've done that to others.

We know that words and actions ought to go together.

If we truly believe something, the two are consonant with one another.

Well, we have been traveling through Paul's letter to this church in Galatia, a church that has had a number of kind of self-appointed teachers contradict Paul's the gospel of grace that Paul proclaimed to this church, and instead said, if you want to be in with God, if you want to be on his good side, you better be prepared to do the hard work.

Believe in Jesus, sure.

But you've got to try really hard.

You've got to do what God says.

You've got to follow his rules and do it without flaw, without fault, without falling short.

That's on you.

Paul is reminding the Galatians through this letter that God's grace is far more wild, far more generous, far more unfathomable than we would first think.

We are justified, we are made right with God in Christ through God's grace and through God's grace alone.

It is his generosity and merciful heart towards us that gives us any hope to relate rightly with our holy God.

But that's good news, isn't it?

That's good news for sinners and sufferers like me.

It's good news for us.

But we might want to ask at this point, what does that look like?

We can articulate the gospel in these words, but what does it look like to live it out?

What does it look like to put it into our actions?

This is what Paul is zooming in on as he begins to conclude the letter.

What does putting the gospel of grace into action look like?

For those who perhaps prefer the more practical side of the faith, this is the sermon for you.

I hope.

What is putting the gospel in action look like?

Four things, Paul wants us to see.

Number one, putting the gospel into action looks like restoring carefully.

Number two, it looks like bearing together.

Number three, it looks like sowing wisely.

And number four, it looks like doing good tirelessly.

Actions, they say, speak louder than words.

We can proclaim the gospel, we ought to proclaim the gospel with our words.

What does it look like to live it out in our families and our neighborhoods?

Amongst our fellow Christians, our church family right here and beyond.

Restore carefully, bear together, so wisely, do good tirelessly.

So let's open up Galatians 6 together and make our way through this.

What is putting the gospel into action look like?

Verse 1.

If you've got your order of service, if you've got your Bible in front of you, verse 1.

Brothers, brothers and sisters, of course, if anyone is caught in any transgression, Paul says, You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

If anyone is caught in any transgression, some ifs are very hypothetical, aren't they?

What if things to fly?

That's a hypothetical situation.

Very unlikely situation, isn't it?

I don't think that's the sort of if Paul has in mind here.

I think this is the sort of if that's really more of a when, right?

Some ifs are really more wins.

And that's what Paul means here.

Having someone caught in transgression and sin or iniquity is not a hypothetical in the light of the church.

It's a reality.

We are sinners and we gather by God's grace as sinners saved by grace.

Sin is probably something we should expect to find in a life of a church marked by grace.

Because we come not in our self-righteousness, we come as sinners who know how desperately we need God's grace.

So it probably shouldn't surprise us if someone within the life of the church is caught in transgression.

And caught in transgression is more this idea of just having your life ensnared, captured by sin.

You know, maybe it's it's addiction, or maybe it's a deeply seated habitual sin.

This is the idea here.

Sin is always a part of our life, it's a part of the life of the church.

But what do we do when we encounter transgression in the church?

You who are spiritual consistents should restore the transgressor in a spirit of gentleness.

What should we do?

Cast them out.

We're a perfect church.

We need you out of here if we're going to stay perfectly.

Of course not.

That's not what Paul says.

So Paul says when we encounter sin, when we encounter transgression, we encounter something that runs contrary to God's law, we look to restore.

We look for renewal.

We look for reconciliation.

Wherever that's possible, in whatever way that's possible, that's the way the gospel orients our life together, towards restoration.

This word restoration is really interesting.

It's uh it's in the original Greek, you'd use it to describe resetting a bone.

A bone is out of joint, and it needs to be put back into place if the health of the body is going to be maintained.

That can be a painful thing, can't it?

But it's a good thing for the body, isn't it?

This is the idea here.

Might be a painful process working towards uh restoration, reconciliation, but the gospel always points us towards renewal and restoration.

Even if it's a difficult thing, we engage in it for the sake of the gospel.

Restoration.

I think this is the kind of thing we see in that very famous scene where the woman is caught in adultery, brought before Jesus.

Do you remember this in John chapter 8?

John 8 · chapter mention

She's brought before Jesus.

She's been caught red-handed, as it were, breaking God's law with a very serious sin, with very serious ramifications for her and for her whole family.

And here the self-righteous, religious elites are bringing her before Jesus, ready to stone her, ready to put her to death.

And what does Jesus have to say?

He who is without sin and cast the first stone.

The idea is, we are all sinners, aren't we?

I can't point my finger at you and say sinner without seeing three fingers pointing back and declaring sinner.

That's the idea here, right?

He who is without sin cast the first stone, so one by one they disperse.

And what does he say to this woman?

Caught in the midst of her sin, he says, Does anyone stand here to condemn me?

Neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more.

Here we see Jesus' spirit of gentleness, don't we?

Jesus is compassionate towards her.

And Jesus restores her to a right fellowship with the Holy God.

Go and sin no more is the condition here.

Not that she will live the rest of her life without committing another sin.

Probably that's not the case.

But the basic thing about restoration is even when we break God's law, we have an opportunity, whenever we repent, to experience that same restoration.

We can take something that would drive us away from God, and it can drive us towards God if only we will repent and turn to Him and seek restoration.

That's the idea here.

So what does restoration require within the life of, say, our church?

I think Paul wants us to see it requires us to be careful.

Careful in two senses of the word.

In the first sense, we want to be compassionate.

That's Jesus' sense of careful towards this woman caught in sin.

He is uh his heart is full of compassion.

It is drawn towards her in mercy and in grace.

And that's Jesus' heart towards us sinners and sufferers.

He is full of care.

He is careful.

That's the idea of the spirit of gentleness.

If we have sin that is causing enmity or division within us, within our relationships with one another, we need to first ask, what is my heart towards the person who's transgressed against me?

Is it hard?

Does it think ill of that person?

Does it want them to get what's coming to them?

Or by God's grace, am I drawn towards that person compassion?

It doesn't mean what happened is okay, but it does mean I want what's best for that person.

And perhaps what's best for that person, what's best for me, is restoration.

If we're going to engage in the work of restoration, we need to be ready to have hearts that are full of care.

That's the first sense.

The second sense is this we need to be careful, acknowledging that sin is very enticing.

Did you notice that in the last half of verse 1?

Keep watch, Paul Warns.

Keep watching yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Maybe that's the sort of uh, maybe that's the sort of sin of self-righteousness when Jonathan and I are fighting, like we do.

And I think to myself, I'm gonna be the bigger person here.

And I'm gonna reach out to Jonathan in restoration and reconciliation.

Aren't I great for doing that?

You know?

Taking the high road.

Good for me.

Well, that's a that's pride, isn't it?

And that itself can be a division between Jonathan and I, because you better believe Jonathan's gonna pick up on that.

Crazy.

We know what that's like.

Maybe that's the sort of sin we can fall into if we're not careful, if our hearts aren't full of care.

But there's a second sense in which we ought to keep watch.

We need to acknowledge that sin is not always a repulsive thing we want to run away from.

Sometimes sin can be very enticing and attractive to us.

And we can fall into the sort of sin that we ourselves are trying to deal with towards restoration.

I knew a uh a person whose marriage was in deep, deep trouble, and they took a very courageous step of meeting, together with uh his spouse, in the pastor's office for several months to try and work through the difficulties that they were facing.

And their counseling came to a very sudden end when the pastor ran off with a member of the congregation.

Think about it for a second.

Here's a pastor entrusted with the ministry of restoration and reconciliation, who destroyed his marriage and closed really any conceivable hope for restoration, this marriage that he was called to care for.

Sin can be very enticing, can't it?

And we need to keep watch.

We need to humbly acknowledge that sin can entice me if I'm not here.

We're called towards restoration.

But being called towards restoration, we need to acknowledge, boy, sometimes I am magnetically charged towards this.

And I need to pay my.

I need to ask for God's grace, I need to seek accountability if I'm going to work towards reconciliation, restoration in that way.

See, putting the gospel into action looks like restoring carefully.

Both with a heart full of care and compassion and gentleness and a heart that acknowledges, yeah, I too can fall into this problem.

That's what putting the gospel into action looks like, number one.

Number two, putting the gospel into action looks like bearing together.

Let's look at verse two together.

Bear one another's burdens, says Paul, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Bear one another's burdens.

The idea here is it's like taking weight off of someone's shoulders and putting it on your own.

That's the idea here.

And so fulfill the law of Christ.

Why do you think that fulfills the law of Christ?

What is it about bearing burdens, the things that trouble us, the things that weigh us down in life, bearing one another's burdens in that way?

What is it that fulfills the law of Christ?

Here's what I think it is in Paul's model.

What better way to understand the gospel than Jesus taking what is on our shoulders, what weighs us down, what condemns us, what renders us guilty, and what does he do but take it upon himself and put it on the cross so that he can then put on our shoulders his new life and hope and restoration.

Jesus bears what's ours so that we can bear what's his.

Anecdotally, I had a professor who once said, if I could only use one Bible word to sum up the whole gospel, it would be this word, bear.

That's an interesting thought, isn't it?

This one thought, God who bears with his people in a covenant-promise binding relationship.

God who bears our humanity in Christ, God who bears our sin on the cross, God who gives us his new life to bear on ourselves.

We bear witness to the good news, and we bear with one another those who are claimed by him.

This word bear sums up the whole gospel, doesn't it?

Therefore, bearing with what troubles one another, those temporal and earthly troubles that weigh us down is exactly an opportunity for us to proclaim the gospel to one another, to put it into action, to say you are not alone with us, because the Christian life has never lived alone, is it?

If we try and lone wolf the thing, then we find ourselves mistaken and misguided.

We need one another.

We need folks in times of our need to bear witness to the gospel by entering into our need with us.

And we need to do the same.

We come to church to do exactly that, or at least we have an opportunity to do exactly that.

Sunday for Sunday, when we ask each other, how are you doing, we are putting out an invitation to bear one another's burden, dark?

Not to solve each other's problems necessarily, the trouble sometimes we can have.

But we're entering into it with one another, aren't we?

We're living life together.

That's why there is no Christian life that thrives apart from the life of the church.

Because we need to do that together.

We bear witness for the gospel when we bear together.

But this requires something important.

It requires humility.

That's what Paul goes on to say in verses 3 and 4.

If anyone thinks he is something when he's 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 his neighbor.

Verse 5, for each will have to bear his own load.

What's Paul saying here?

Paul is saying, if we are going to enter into one another's troubles, we can't think too highly of ourselves, lest we pat ourselves on the back for being a messiah in this situation, for being a savior in this situation, and not a co-sufferer, right?

And we ought not to think too little of ourselves when we ourselves are in trouble and we need someone to enter into our troubles.

Here's the thing, you saw.

I'm gonna get honest.

I didn't know I was gonna get dishonest today, but I'm gonna get dishonest.

Because I think we can take it.

I think we do a good job at bearing one another's burdens.

I think I see a lot of folks taking the initiative to enter into one another's troubles.

To say, I'm here for you.

What do you need?

And I say, praise God for that.

Because we bear the gospel to one another and we do that.

I wonder if the part of the equation we struggle with is being the one who is in trouble, who needs someone to enter into our burdens, but we can be too prideful to meet the invitation.

What do you think about that?

We have an opportunity to proclaim the gospel to one another both when we enter into someone's troubles and when we let someone enter into ours.

That's proclaiming the gospel.

We think not too highly of ourselves nor too little of ourselves.

We share this common life together, and I think it's that sharing that verse 6 brings out.

It's not that one's up here and one's down here, it's that we're in this together.

So bearing together looks like.

We do that with one another in practical ways when we bear together and put the gospel into action.

What is putting the gospel into action look like?

We restore carefully.

We bear together.

Number three, we sow wisely.

Let's look at verses 7 and 18.

This is a cold cup of coffee, by the way.

Do not be deceived, all right.

God is not mocked.

For whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

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 eternity.

Pay mind, Paul says.

God will not be mocked.

He will not abide presumption, pride.

God is mocked when we flagrantly, unrepentantly contradict the gospel of grace through our actions.

God is mocked when we flagrantly, unrepentantly contradict the gospel of God's grace.

With our actions.

I think of um I think it's Voltaire.

His last words.

Do you know Voltaire's last words?

Voltaire is one of these French thinkers who thought kind of wounds over the French Revolution.

Very, very, you know, outspoken atheist, let's put it that way.

On his deathbed, Voltaire's friend is saying, you know, Voltaire, what if you close your eyes, take your last breath, and you find yourself standing before the Almighty?

What are you gonna say to him?

He's gonna say, Well, I'm gonna ask him to forgive me.

And his friend says, Do you really think God is gonna forgive you?

And Voltaire says, Oh, of course he is.

That's his job.

Think about that for a second.

The tragedy in that moment, and I'm not trying to, I don't have inside knowledge about what Voltaire's eternal destination is, that's between him and the Lord.

But the tragedy in that moment is right in front of Voltaire is an invitation to come to God in humility, acknowledging sin, acknowledging a need for God's grace, acknowledging God's generous heart towards sin.

And C.S.

Lewis, uh, C.S.

Lewis writes The Great Divorce, this moment contains all moments.

We don't have to be in our deathbed to that choice.

But here Voltaire is making the tragic decision to mock God by presuming upon his grace.

Do you see how it works?

We cannot be recipients of grace and not have it transform our lives, transform our affections, transform our actions from the inside out.

And if we say, well, down the road, when I finally, you know, get it together and turn to God and I've had my fun, when I that's when I'll get serious.

Well, then we're mocking God.

We're presuming upon his grace.

When his grace is freely available right in front of us, right now, if we will choose in this moment to humble ourselves and come to him.

This is like there's a symmetry between this spiritual law, which governs agriculture, what you sow, you reap.

It's uh like a symmetry as a spiritual law.

If we expect what we sow in the field to be reaped at the harvest, then why would we not expect the same in the spiritual realm with our actions?

If we sow to the flesh, we will reap corruption.

If we sow to the spirit, we will reap eternal life.

Pastor Matt very rightly reminded us that the flesh is not talking about, you know, our physical bodies.

It's more of a shorthand, talking about our inordinate and disordered desires.

We want good things, but for bad reasons.

Or for good reasons, we want bad things.

It's this idea that we are out of whack and we place our self-interest and our selfishness above everything else, even above God's own commands or desires for us, his good purposes for our lives.

When we sow in accordance with our self-interest, we are orienting our life away from God's eternity and curving it on ourselves.

And there's a word for that sort of trajectory on an eternal scale.

C.S.

Lewis writes that there are only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to whom God says, in the end, Thy will be done.

All that are in hell, Lewis writes, choose it.

Without that self-choice, there could be no hell.

No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.

Those who seek find, those who knock, it is opened.

See what Lewis is saying there?

When we sow little by little to our own self-interest, when we sow little by little to being the Lord of our own lives, what are we doing but curving into ourselves in a way from the eternal life that God freely offers us through his son by his spirit?

Little by little we set the trajectory for our lives, but let's not catch how amazing this promise is.

We should not be anxious or uncertain as Christians.

If we turn to the Lord in faith, we can rest in his promise that we who sow to the Spirit will reap eternal life.

That's God's work in us.

What does it require?

It requires us to say, Lord, I am helpless apart from you.

I need you, Lord.

Lord, I need you every hour I need.

When we invite the Lord to do that work in our life, he will sow a harvest that reaps eternal life.

Will we let it?

Will we take the spiritual responsibility of letting the Lord do that work in our lives so that we can be raised up to eternal life?

We need to be reminded of the works of the flesh.

Matt very rightly reminded us last Sunday that the works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, pardon me, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these.

Those who do such things, Paul says, will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Little by little we sow in accordance with the flesh in our own self-interest and desires, and we reap corruption.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Friends, when we make the difficult choice, when we strive against the flesh and choose what's good or what's patient or what's joyful over what's immediately gratifying or self-interested, we are sowing seeds that we will reap in eternity.

That's the opportunity we have.

To live out the gospel, put the gospel into action right now.

We sow wisely.

So the question we want to consider is how am I sowing?

If we're honest with that question, we'll say, probably not great.

I do not sow in the spirit perfectly by any means.

I would probably not want to see the statistics or the ratio.

The hope we have as Christians is not that we live a flawless life of sowing in the spirit.

The hope is that God sows that life within us when we turn to him continually in repentance and faith.

That's the assurance of the Lord's table, by the way.

We come and we are nourished by God's grace.

We don't bring our good works to him.

We come to receive his good work in us.

That's the idea.

How do we put the gospel into action?

We restore carefully, we bear together, we sow wisely, and we do good tirelessly.

Verses 9 and 10 will land the plane here.

Let us not grow weary of doing good, Paul says, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are the household of faith.

What he suppose is wearying about doing good.

You notice that?

Paul says, let us not grow weary of doing good.

Paul includes himself in that, by the way.

He's not saying, hey, you, don't you grow weary of doing good.

I feel great about it, but don't you do that.

Let us not grow weary of doing good.

Good can be a doing good can be a wearying thing.

When?

I think it's a wearying thing.

When we are so inclined to our self-interests that we'd rather choose what's instantly gratifying than what is of eternal value.

When our flesh is in the driver's seat, good seems like a wearying thing to do, doesn't it?

When we yield ourselves to the Lord and his work within us, suddenly doing good becomes something that something that's illumined in us, something that's inspired to the Holy Spirit through us.

We need to rely on the Lord's work in our lives to have the fortitude or perseverance to continue to do good.

When we're weary of doing good, that's not necessarily a sign that we're in disfellowship from the Lord or something like that.

Maybe it's a sign that, boy, I probably have something to hand over to God that I'm keeping to myself.

Because boy, I feel weary right now.

Lord, would you do your work in me to restore me?

They're an eternal perspective, Paul would say.

The one who's, pardon me.

In due season we will reap.

If we do not give up, there is coming a day, Paul says, where we will see the fruit of the good that we do.

It will be in eternity.

Don't give up presently before you see what God can do eternally.

Strive to do good.

Yield yourself over to God.

See his work in you.

And friends, what are we trying to do as a parish when we say we are community serving, but trying to articulate the call, the mission, to be those who do good to our neighbors.

Do good to everyone, Paul says.

We want to be a church that proclaims the gospel not just in words, but we want to proclaim it in our actions.

We want our community to know that they are loved by God because they can glimpse his love through our love.

And friends, I think we've got a lot of opportunities near front of us to put that love into practice.

More and more, I think we're going to take those opportunities to say to our community that you are loved by the God of grace more than you can imagine.

Let's show you just a little bit of that love.

Maybe it's a material need that we need.

Maybe it's a spiritual need that we need.

Maybe it's simply taking the time to have those conversations with our neighbors and say, How are you doing?

Whatever that looks like, we're going to take those opportunities to do good to everyone, and so we're witnesses to the gospel.

And Paul says, let's do that.

Let's do good, especially to those who are the household of faith.

Remember, bearing one another's burdens is a way we can do good for one another.

Just because we are community serving does not mean we stop serving our community within the church.

We can do both.

We proclaim the gospel when we do both.

We put it into action when we do both.

What does putting the gospel into action look like?

Restoring carefully, bearing together, sewing wisely, and doing good tirelessly.

Actions speak louder than words, don't they?

Before I conclude, let me say this.

Whatever actions we are called to take here, these four things, let's bear in mind that Jesus has done these toward us first.

Before we do them for the Lord's sake, he has done them for our sake.

The God of all grace, who calls us to himself in Christ, will himself restore you.

That's a promise in 1 Peter.

And 1 Peter again says, Christ himself bore our sins on the cross.

Christ bears with us.

Christ's body is sown perishable, but it is raised imperishable.

And that's our hope of the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15.

And we read in the book of Acts, Jesus went about doing good, healing the sick, meeting needs, for God was with them.

Friends, whatever we are called to do, putting the gospel into action, we are doing so as those who've received God's goodness and grace towards us first in Christ.

And whatever we have to offer is only a response to his generosity.

So let's not take our eyes off the cross.

Let's not take our eyes off our Lord Jesus, who restores and bears and sows and does us good.

Thank you for listening today.

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God bless you and keep you today and every day.