Do keep your Bibles in hand and turn now to the New Testament scriptures and to Galatians chapters 5 and 6 as we continue our examination of the teaching of Paul’s letter. This is the penultimate sermon in our series looking at the book of Galatians. You will remember, if you’ve been with us over these months, at the end of chapter 5, Paul outlined for us the general principles that direct the positive use of Christian freedom. Now that we have been set free by the Lord Jesus Christ and are free in the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us, Paul says we are free for a life of holiness; free to bear the fruit of the Spirit, to crucify the flesh and to keep in step with the Spirit in our lives. But Paul is not content to leave things with broad generalities. He doesn’t leave his discussion at the level of mere principle. And so beginning in the twenty-sixth verse of chapter 5 and running right through chapter 10 – verse 10 rather, verse 10 of chapter 6 – Paul presses down to the level of practice. He gets specific. He wants to show us what keeping in step with the Spirit needs to look like in some very concrete ways in our lives.
By the way, you know he still has keeping in step with the Spirit in mind if you look at chapter 6 verse 1 where you see him addressing, “you who are spiritual.” Do you see that phrase in verse 1? The Greek word “spiritual” might as easily and justly be translated “you who are of the Spirit” with a capital “S.” So he still has the Spirit-empowered life in view here. He’s talking about how to live out the spiritual life, how to keep in step with the Spirit in concrete and specific and practical ways. If you look at the passage with me for a moment, you’ll notice that in chapter 5:26 and in chapter 6 verse 10, the two ends of the paragraph we are examining today, there are two summary statements – do you see them? A bit like bookends on either side of this paragraph. And they show us together at a glance what this spiritual life ought to look like.
And what stands out immediately as you read them, perhaps surprisingly for some of us, is that keeping in step with the Spirit, living a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, Spirit-governed life is not an individualistic and private affair. See that in verse 26 of chapter 5? What does it mean, Paul, to keep in step with the Spirit? Verse 26, “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” A life that keeps in step with the Spirit is revealed and lived out in our relationships with one another, he says. Or look at the other end of the passage – Paul’s summary conclusion. Chapter 6 verse 10, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially those who are of the household of faith.” It’s the same emphasis, isn’t it? Living out the spiritual life, bearing the fruit of the Spirit, isn’t about you, Jesus and your Bible off on your own, in isolation, enjoying a privatized spirituality that has no bearing on anyone or anything else. That is not true Christian spirituality at all. No, it is about doing good to everyone, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
And so living out the Christian life – you see this clearly – living out the Christian life happens in community. It is something we do together. There’s a kind of gritty, no-nonsense realism about Paul’s description of the Christian life here, isn’t there? It’s not abstract; it is concrete. It is not mystical; it is immensely practical. And in chapter 6, 1 through 9, where we’ll focus our attention this morning, Paul spells that out for us in three main ways. Look at chapter 6, 1 through 9, and let me show you the flow of his thought. First of all, in verse 1, he addresses sin and restoration in the fellowship of the church. Sin and restoration. Then, verses 2 through 5, service and responsibility in the fellowship of the church. Sin and restoration. Now service and responsibility. And finally, 6 through 9, stewardship and rewards in the fellowship of the church. Sin and restoration. Service and responsibility. Stewardship and rewards. That’s what a Spirit-filled life looks like according to the apostle Paul.
Now before we go any further and begin to unpack those themes, as always, let me invite you now if you would please to bow your heads with me and seek the Lord’s help and then we’ll read God’s Word together. Let us all pray.
O Lord, we are talking now about the Spirit-filled life and what it looks like as we live it out in concrete and practical ways in our fellowship together as Your people. If we are to live such a life, if we are to understand the dynamics and contours of such a life, we need the ministry then of the Holy Spirit so very badly. Would You send Him to us now? He inspired these words. He illuminates our hearts that we may understand them. We pray that He would, by His mighty power, give grace that we may live in their light for the glory and honor of Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Galatians chapter 5. We’ll begin our reading at verse 25 through verse 10 of chapter 6. This is the Word of God:
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 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. For each will have to bear his own load.
Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: 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 eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, 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 of the household of faith.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy, inerrant Word.
Sin and Restoration
Let’s think first of all about sin and restoration. Sin and restoration. Verse 1, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” Sin and restoration. In 2014, the BBC reported a story about a man who attempted – why in the world he was doing this I don’t know – who attempted to steal a fish tank from a furniture store in Leeds in the United Kingdom. West Yorkshire police posted on their Facebook page, I imagine with no small amusement, that the man had been arrested. “The male, however, is currently in hospital. After making the unfortunate decision to hide from the police in a bush and thus disturbing a wasp’s nest.” This is the police – “Just for your information, the male who was a part of the sting operation has been charged with burglary. You will be pleased to know his swellings have gone down.”
The situation Paul envisages in verse 1 depicts a member of the church in Galatia being caught in some transgression or another. The word for “caught” there has the connotation of surprise. It is a sting operation carried out by our remaining corruption, festering in our own hearts, creeping up on us, overtaking us, ensnaring us. Sometimes, to be sure, our sins are willful and obstinate things. Aren’t they? But just as often, doesn’t it feel to you like we knocked over a wasp’s nest by mistake? We stumble into our sin and we’re taken by surprise by its force and ferocity. We are caught up in it like a sprung trap. How should we deal with people in our fellowship who are ensnared by their sin like that? The legalists in Galatia, doubtless they would have responded to such moral failure among the Galatians with contempt and disdain, and told them to pull themselves together, to try harder to be obedient. And then at the other extreme, the antinomians, the ones who thought the law no longer really mattered now that we are free in Christ, they likely would have shrugged and told this struggling Christian, “No big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
But what should the spiritual people do to whom Paul addresses himself here? Those who are led by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit and walk by the Spirit – what should they do? How should they respond? Well Paul says the spiritual ones – notice this carefully – they are going to show it by their tenderness and their sympathy for a brother or a sister who has suddenly been overtaken by the stinging swarm of sin. You who are spiritual, should judge him, should disdain him, should shame or pour contempt on him? No, “you who are spiritual should restore him.” Interestingly, the word “restore” there, it’s the same word used by Matthew in Matthew 4:21 when James and John were fishing, do you remember, and they’re mending their nets. And that is what we are to do with brothers and sisters who stumble into sin. We are to mend their sin-torn nets. We are to work with them, not just to bring them to express regret for what they have done, but to return them, to restore them wholly to Christian faithfulness and obedience and renewed usefulness. Paul is calling us here to mutual accountability. If we are going to untangle ourselves from the sin into which we have fallen in the present, and if we are going to avoid falling into sin patterns in the future, he’s telling us we need each other. We need help, advice, challenge, support, encouragement, accountability. Spiritual Christians don’t shrug and look away when they see the Lord’s people struggling to grow. They step forward and look for ways to restore them.
Do notice carefully to whom Paul addresses this exhortation. Who is he talking to here? He’s not addressing the elders of the church, is he? He’s not talking to the pastors. He’s talking to the “adelphoi” – brothers. He’s talking to the members of the church. He’s not talking to me; he’s talking to you. Because this is not just the work of the professionals. This is the work of the whole assembly of God’s people, the whole church. This ministry, this vital ministry of one-anothering, is our calling together collectively.
And don’t miss the important caveat that Paul adds to these instructions. Do you see them? First of all, he deals, he addresses our attitude toward the person caught in this sin. “You who are spiritual,” he says, “should restore him,” but notice this carefully, “you should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” You remember the fruit of the Spirit back in chapter 5. Well here it is now in action. Gentleness in practice, in the living fellowship of a healthy church. And that means, you know, that the key marker identifying the spiritual people in Galatia will not necessarily be how much theology they know. They won’t necessarily be the ones who are the most gifted or the most admired and recognized, the most prominent. Who are the spiritual ones in Galatia? They are the gentle ones, especially towards brothers and sisters in Christ who have been caught in some transgression. You see, you can’t restore someone who is fallen without gentleness. It just can’t be done. And so the first caveat has to do with our attitude to others. Let’s work at gentleness toward them.
The second caveat has to do with our attitude toward ourselves. Look again at verse 1. “Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.” Here is the key, you know, to a spirit of gentleness toward other people in their sin. Here is the key – it is never forgetting how liable you yourself are to falling into sin too. There’s no sense here of personal superiority, no smugness, no judgmentalism. While you work to restore others, practice a godly suspicion of yourself and you guard your own heart. After all, the flesh, let’s remember from Paul’s teaching earlier in chapter 5, the flesh is predatory, isn’t it? It is a hornet’s nest and it will swarm and attack at every opportunity. And so keep watch. Paul is really echoing the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t he? Matthew 26:41, “Watch and pray,” Jesus says, “lest you fall into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” So vigilance, he says, and prayerfulness – those are the twin guardrails on either side of the road of Christian faithfulness. Humble self-scrutiny. Vigilance. Keep watch. Humble, self-scrutiny, in light of the Word of God to alert you any time you begin to veer from the path and urgent, dependent prayer for the grace of Jesus Christ and the help of the Holy Spirit to keep you on the straight and narrow in the center of the path of holiness. Sin and restoration. Do you see how practical and how wise the apostle Paul is here as he shows us what means to keep in step with the Spirit?
Service and Responsibility
Then secondly, look with me at verses 2 through 5. Keep in step with the Spirit means to deal appropriately with sin and restoration, but it also means to think about service and responsibility. Service and responsibility. And don’t miss the balance once again in Paul’s teaching. There is a call to engage in the ministry of one-anothering again there in verse 2, and there’s a call to take responsibility for one’s self in 3 through 5. And we need both – the one-anothering and the personal responsibility. Look at verse 2 with me first. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Paul has dealt with the mistaken idea that now we’ve come to know Jesus Christ that God’s law no longer has any role in our Christian lives. He dealt with that at the end of chapter 5, remember. And he’s really making the same point here again, isn’t he? For Christians, the moral law of God summarized in the Ten Commandments, Paul calls it “the law of Christ.” That is, the law, the same law but stripped now of all its condemning power. The law, written now by the Spirit of Christ in our hearts of flesh. It is the law, he says, of love, that we are glad to follow because we know we have first been loved by God in Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us. He bore our burden, didn’t He? The terrible crushing weight of our sin and misery under the wrath of God. “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
And now, Paul says, seeing that we are so loved, we love Him in return and we love one another for His sake. He who bore our burdens, lifting its crushing weight from our shoulders, calls us here, turning to each other, to be His instrument of lightning one another’s load. “Bear one another’s burdens” because God in Christ has borne yours. And so when the ministry of one-anothering really begins to happen in the life of a Gospel fellowship like ours, when we bear one another’s burdens, do you know what we are doing? We are reenacting, we are dramatizing the Gospel for the world to see. This is what Jesus has done for us. He has borne our burdens. And so because we love Him, we love those He loves and we want to be like Him, we seek to bear one another’s burdens.
Of course being willing to allow others to help shoulder the load, well that requires humility from us, doesn’t it? That’s why verse 3 is so very crucial. Look at verse 3. “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” So often the reason, if we are honest with ourselves, the reason we won’t let others bear our burdens is nothing more than pride in our hearts. We are self-reliant, independent. We are in control. We don’t need anybody else. Or as Paul puts it here, we think we are something. We think we are something. But the truth is, before God, we are nothing. Do not be self-deceived. You can’t do this! You can’t live like this. You can’t keep in step with the Spirit on your own. You can’t on your own! Of course that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take responsibility for ourselves. Yes, we need one another, but there is a fine line, isn’t there, between being willing to share our burdens with our brothers and sisters in Christ and off-loading responsibility for ourselves on other people. We’ve all known people who manage somehow never to take responsibility. It’s always somebody else’s fault. They have this ugly spirit of entitlement that’s quick to highlight what they feel people owe them and horribly slow to acknowledge what they themselves owe.
So Paul says in verse 4, “Let each one test his own work, and this his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.” I think it’s worth taking a moment here to clarify what Paul is saying. What does he mean by boasting, for example? “His reason to boast will be in himself alone.” Remember back in 5:26, he just told us, “Let us not become conceited.” And so when Paul says, “Boast in yourself alone,” he’s not making a sudden U-turn, reversing what he’s just told us. This is not permission for strutting and preening and self-promotion and self-congratulation. Here’s what I think he’s really saying. He’s saying we need a sober and honest assessment of ourselves instead of taking credit for things that have nothing to do with us because, verse 5, “each will have to bear his own load.” The future tense there clues us into his meaning in verse 5. Again, he’s not contradicting what he just said in verse 2, “Bear one another’s burdens, now you have to bear your own burden.” This is not an internally inconsistent piece of teaching.
Rather, he is saying the day is coming when you will be held responsible for what you have done. You will be made to bear your own burden. You will bear your own load one day. He’s talking about judgment day. You will give an account for yourself one day. And so therefore as you manage yourself and serve one another in the fellowship of the local church, remember that you do it all under the gaze of God to whom you will surely have to answer on the day that Jesus comes to judge. That allusion to judgment day here really ups the ante on these issues, doesn’t it, I think, in a most helpful way because it enables us to see the things we often excuse as acceptable sins, things for which we let ourselves off the hook far too readily – our individualism, our pride, our insecurities, our boasting, our judgmentalism, our gossip, our lack of care for others in the church and in the world – easily hidden, everyday sins. Actually, these are not such little things after all. Each will have to bear his own load. We will all have to give an account, not just for our behavior but for the stance and attitudes of our hearts toward one another. Sin and restoration. Service and responsibility. Do you see that?
Stewardship and Rewards
And thirdly, part of what it means to keep in step with the Spirit you will see in verses 6 through 9 where Paul talks about stewardship and rewards. Stewardship and rewards. Verse 6 reminds the Galatians, it reminds us part of what it means to live a spiritual life. A life in the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit is to do everything we can to make sure that the ministry of the Word is supported and advanced. Verse 6 – do you see that? “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.” That is to say, give from your material blessings in order to support those through whom God has lavished upon you spiritual blessings. That’s the message.
But then, notice how from this one specific example – you’ve been blessed, so be a blessing – Paul develops a general principle that applies in every part of our Christian lives. Do you see the principle in verses 7 through 9? “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 eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” So the image comes from the farm, from the garden. You reap what you sow. It’s a core principle of the Christian life. You reap what you sow. I wonder if you’ve forgotten it. You reap what you sow. Could it be that your spiritual malaise, your sense that God is far from you, the hardness of your hearts and the power it seems of your vices and the weakness of your graces is a consequence of sowing to the flesh rather than to the Spirit? Are you reaping what you are sowing? You reap what you sow. How easily overlooked that principle is. It’s not a complicated principle. Do not think, Paul is saying, because of free grace that how you live no longer matters. Don’t think that, “Because God forgives and Jesus died for me there are no consequences for my vindictiveness and my gossip and my vanity and my laziness and my judgmentalism.” No, no, Paul says in verse 7, “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.” You reap what you sow.
If you sow inferior seed in your field, you will get a sickly and inadequate harvest. The weeds will spring up, the crops will die. “If you sow to the flesh,” he says, “you will reap corruption, but if you sow to the Spirit you will reap eternal life.” It’s another variation on a theme that Paul has been developing all the way through chapter 5. The contrast between the flesh and the Spirit. They are entirely opposed to one another, Paul says, and so a life that claims to follow Jesus but sows habitually to the flesh reaps a terrible harvest of corruption. Whereas a life that sows to the Spirit, on the other hand, naturally, organically, necessarily reaps eternal life. You want to bear the fruit of the Spirit in your life? You don’t want the weeds of the flesh to grow in the field of your hearts? You’d better sow to the Spirit and not to the flesh. If you want to be fitted for heaven by the Spirit and not fitted for hell by the flesh, you’d better sow to the former and pull up all the weeds of the latter.
Given how sobering that point is, our question becomes an urgent one. What does it mean, Paul, to sow to the Spirit? How do I do that if so much is at stake? How do I sow to the Spirit? There are two helps in the passage. Remember the context – he begins in verse 6 by exhorting us to give for the material support of Gospel ministry. So we might ask ourselves, “Why should I give? The church has enough of other people’s money already. Why should I give? I have barely enough to meet my own obligations let alone supply the church’s needs.” That might be your question. Well here’s why you should give, Paul says. Don’t give for the church’s sake – although there may well be real needs. Don’t even give for the sake of the teachers of the Word, though they have every right to be maintained. He’s saying you should give because your gift reveals and cultivates both gratitude and generosity in your own heart. You should give because you’ve come to love the Word and you want the Word to go further and reach more people across the street and around the world. You give because if Christ died, giving all for His church, how can you who claim to follow Him refuse to give a portion of what is yours to His church also, understanding of course that everything that is yours is His and given to you as a gift. And that, Paul says, that’s just another way of talking about sowing to the Spirit.
There’s another aspect of this though, in the passage. Look down at verses 9 and 10. “Let us not grow weary of doing good, 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 of the household of faith.” Get weary of your sin, by all means. Get world-weary. Let your remaining corruption and the misery it causes yourself and others, let that weary your heart and make you long for the great day when sin and suffering will forever be gone and you are at last at rest with Christ in the heavenly glory that is to come. Yes, but don’t ever let yourself think of other people as a burden. Don’t ever think of them as a problem. When you start to see other people as a burden, there will be little wonder when you grow weary of doing good to everyone. Remember, these are people made in the image of God. These are sinners Christ came to seek and to save. These are His little flock for whom He shed His own blood. They are not a burden. Your sin is a burden. My sin is a burden. Our fallen weaknesses are burdens. But doing good to everyone, that’s not a burden. It is sowing to the Spirit. And when we sow to the Spirit and do not give up, the Scriptures promise a glorious reward. We will reap, Paul says. A harvest is laid up for us who live for Jesus Christ, sowing to the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit. There is a harvest of rest and joy ripening every day that we sow to the Spirit.
And so let me ask you – What seed have you been sowing in the field of your hearts lately? The issue here isn’t what you say you believe. It’s not whether you profess to be a Christian. The issue is whether you live today trusting in Jesus Christ, sowing to the Spirit and not to the flesh. When the time for reaping comes, when the last trumpet sounds and Jesus descends to judge the living and the dead, I wonder what your harvest will be. Will yours be a tragically ruined harvest of corruption, away from the presence of the Lord forever? Or will it be a glorious harvest of rest and peace, face to face with your Redeemer who gave His all for you? That’s what’s at stake. It really matters. It really matters how you live, doesn’t it? Saying the words, assenting to the truths of the Gospel with our minds but not living the life of someone being transformed by the Gospel, Paul is warning us that is self-deception. God is not mocked. You are sowing to the flesh. Be warned! Paul is calling the Galatians, he is calling us to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then resting on the supply and help of the Holy Spirit to sow seeds of generosity and service and the ministry of one-anothering because He wants us all, He wants you and me to reap a rich harvest in the age to come.
Sin and restoration. Service and responsibility. Stewardship and reward. That’s what it means to keep in step with the Spirit. Are you keeping in step with the Spirit? This is what a Spirit-filled life looks like. Is this what your life looks like? May the Lord by His Word and Spirit then give us this life indeed. Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we come crying out to You for mercy. Thank You for the gentleness of Christ who restores us. Give us that same gentleness as we seek to restore one another, to mend the sin-torn nets that we see in our brothers and sisters lives. And give us humility and receptivity that we might be willing to share our burdens with one another. Yet help us never to abandon our own responsibility, but to take our calling seriously and sow to the Spirit and not to the flesh that we may reap if we do not give up. Grant us that perseverance in our callings for Your honor and glory, for we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.