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Make sure I have the proper buttons
pushed on this thing. It's a pleasure to be here and
to be back. We had a wonderful time yesterday
with the IBCD conference and people were so receptive and
we were talking about a subject that is a One that crosses all
kinds of lines in terms of problems in churches around the world
and around our country and has to do with purifying the heart
of sexual idolatry. And so it was a joy to be able
to do that and I'm excited to be here on the Lord's Day. And
your pastor and his wife have been wonderful host and hostess
to us. Not only just my wife and I being
able to come down from Santa Clarita, but there's a probability
that my son-in-law and my daughter will be moving here into your
area. So they're with us as well. So I'm very happy to have Jess
and Melissa off. And when I go out and speak,
I don't get to bring such an entourage with me. So that's
kind of a unique thing Well, please take your copies of the
Word of God and take it. Let's go over to Galatians chapter
6 Galatians chapter 6 and verse
1 We've entitled our message today
biblical restoration biblical restoration And some of you are very familiar
with this particular passage. Brethren, if anyone is caught
in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one
in the spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself,
so that you too will not be tempted. One of the prevalent attitudes
of a lot of Christians today is similar to that of Keynes.
When God confronted Cain about where his brother was, his response
was, am I my brother's keeper? It was a way for Cain to avoid
responsibility for his very selfish and sinful actions, and especially
he realized he knew in his own conscience of the murder that
he had committed. There's a story that's told about
the first man to climb Mount Everest who proved to be a very
dangerous adventure. a man by the name of Sir Edmund
Hillary and after scaling the mountain Hillary lost his footing
on the way down but his Serpa guide, a guy by the name of Tenzing
Norgay held the line taut and kept Hillary from falling to
a very tragic death there on the ice. Tenzing later refused
any kind of special recognition when asked about it and in fact
he responded to the the media by saying, listen, that's what
mountain climbers do, they always help each other. During the American
Civil War, the soldier's first article of faith was summed up
nowhere more eloquently than I think in the 1865 letter of
William Sherman to U.S. Grant when he said, I know wherever
I was that you thought of me and if I got into a tight place
you would come if alive. Now, I believe that one of the
critical issues that faces the Church of Jesus Christ today,
and maybe even your church, is the willingness to help other
Christians who have become disabled, in this particular case, by sin. Why? Why should we be willing
to do that? Well, to camp on Tenzing Norgay's
words, because that's what Christians do. They help one another. That's what they do. Now, restoration
of other believers is a responsibility that you and I share. Galatians
6.1 was not just given to the elders of the church, or to those
who function as pastor-teachers, or to deacons of the church.
It was given to all believers. It was given to you. It was given
to I. And this brings us to three critical questions. One is, what
is your responsibility to the people that you rub shoulders
with every day? It's clear in Galatians 6.1 that
God defines you as having a responsibility to help other believers. What
does that mean? How do you help a fellow Christian
without becoming an intrusive busybody, right? The Apostle
Paul warns about Christians who are busybodies. He talks about
that in 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 11 and 1 Timothy 5, 13. We're not supposed to be intrusive
busybodies, but then how in the world do I help somebody? How
do I get into their life and help them with a sin that they're
struggling with? How do I do that? That's a critical
question. What do you do when you realize
that your friend is struggling with a sin? What do you do? This is an important question.
Phil Johnson recently in a message that he spoke, he made the observation
taken from the book of Galatians. He said, it's important to make
a distinction between rank heretics and errant Christians. Why? Because rank heretics need strong
doctrinal rebuke and removal and errant Christians need restoration. That's the reason. Now, what
do you do when you encounter a Christian hobbled by sin? Some people choose to ignore
it. Others will arrogantly attack
and criticize that person and say, how dare, how could you
be involved in this? Others will falsely accuse them. Well, what are the parameters
that God places around this very vital admonition? so that it
has functional control over your relationship with other believers
without falling into sin yourself. Which brings us to another question.
What are the dangers that you must avoid when you seek to help
other Christians? What are the dangers? I think
this is a critical question because your basic motivation of helping
another person is good, but it can become an occasion for sin
even in your life. Now the world will basically
tell you, and many Christians will say this as well, that as
long as a person has a good motivation, it doesn't matter what they do.
We're going to overlook the wrongs that they commit, but God says
that both the motivation and the method is important because
how you choose the course that you take will determine whether
or not you fall into sin as well. Now before we unpack Galatians
6.1, I think it would help us to understand the broader context
of Paul's argument in Galatians. That will help us a little bit.
It will help you and hopefully provide some insight into this
verse. I teach a hermeneutics class
in our graduate program in biblical counseling, and one of the things
I have everybody in the class memorize is this little idiom.
It goes like this, a text without a context is a pretext for a
proof text. All right? Now, that's a good
little idiom in order to remember. A text without a context is a
pretext for a proof text. I messed it up. And that's true. In fact, when
I was growing up, I remember we had My father was a pastor,
and my father and mother really loved the Lord, but we always
had on our morning breakfast table one of these little teeny
plastic loaves of bread, and inside that loaf of bread were
these little cardboard verses. Some of you remember that, all
right? And so we'd come down to breakfast, and everyone would
pull out one of those little cardboard verses, and we'd read
it. It's kind of like your spiritual
vitamin for the day. You've heard of the daily bread,
a devotional thing? Well, this is the daily crouton. so we pull our little daily crouton
out and we'd read this particular verse and we'd read whatever
meaning that we thought into that particular verse and even
though I admire the fact that their desire was to get the family
into the Bible early in the morning during breakfast that was a good
desire the method was horrible because we basically viewed the
Bible then as a textbook of magical incantations and sayings, where
I read this little verse, I read into it whatever I want it to
mean, and all of a sudden, oh, I feel so spiritual now. Now
I can go out into the world. When in reality, the meaning
that I read into that verse may be totally adverse to what the
Bible was saying in that area, or in that section. So I think
it's vitally important that we take a little bit time and we
look at the broader context. Let me make a couple of observations.
One is this, that the book of Galatians was written to believers
who were being exhorted to believe a false gospel. It was a gospel
that was built upon the human works of the Mosaic law. They were being persuaded to
replace faith with certain practices of the law. They were told that
God desired observable certain traits and aspects commanded
by the Mosaic law in order for them to be considered righteous
before God. And of course the emphasis of that false gospel
was upon personal deeds of righteousness in order to please God. Furthermore, human works that
were especially being emphasized was circumcision, laws of cleanliness,
observance of certain ceremonial days and months and seasons and
years. That was what was being fostered
upon this infant Christian church. Now, take your Bible for a moment.
Let's go back and just dip into a couple of these passages. Let's
go back to Galatians 2, verses 3 and 4. But not even Titus,
who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be
circumcised. But it was because of the false
brethren secretly brought in who had sneaked in to spy out
our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring
us into bondage." Notice that. In other words, they were throwing
all these rules and regulations on the Christians in order to
put them back into bondage. Skip down to verse 12. For prior
to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat. This is speaking of Peter, or
Cephas, as Paul refers to him here. He used to eat with the Gentiles,
but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself
aloof, fearing the party that circumcision. And then go over
to chapter 4 and verse 10. Paul comes back to it and he
says, you observe days and months and seasons and years, all a
part of the Judaistic canon, or calendar, I should say, and
important feasts and so on. But the issue was not their observance,
the issue of what they thought about that observance and how
supposedly that observance added some kind of spiritual merit
before God in order to please Him. That was the issue. So all the human efforts to please
God for personal salvation negated salvation by grace alone through
faith alone and introduced into Christianity a performance-based
gospel. It was a gospel that emphasized
outward behavioral function. And in this false gospel, stress
was laid upon personal achievement, individual accomplishment, self-reliant
performance. They sound like Americans. That
was this gospel. Christianity was beginning to
morph from a religion of humble, forgiven sinners to self-sufficient
achievers. It was changing the attitude
of the church. Now, that not only affected how
a person understood becoming a Christian, but it had a huge
effect on how, listen to this, how Christians functioned in
the church and how they treated one another. Now, let's go to
Galatians 5, which brings us into more of our immediate context. Not only had the Judaizers who
had come into the Galatian church discredited the Apostle Paul,
but they had introduced a destructive gospel of behavioral performance.
The antidote, for Paul understood this, was a clear defense of
his apostleship as ordained by God, and accepted by other apostles,
and a careful explanation of the unmerited grace of Jesus
Christ in salvation. Now, this has, listen to this,
huge implications, not only on how you become a Christian, but
how you live with other Christians within the body of Christ. Let's
look at what Paul says about pleasing the spirit and pleasing
the flesh, because he talks about that just before he gets to Galatians
6.1. Now, one of the things I like
is Jerry Bridges makes a statement in one of his books. He says,
Christians should preach the gospel of grace to themselves
every day. Christians. That's a great statement. That kind of stuck with me. Christians
should preach the gospel of grace to themselves every day. A person who lives by grace is
a person that seeks to please the spirit. A person who lives
on the basis of Judaistic expectations is a person that seeks to please
the flesh. Now, look at Galatians 5 and
verse 17. He says, for the flesh sets its
desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,
for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may
not do the things that you please. Now, there are three principles
here that we could derive from this text. If we had more time,
we'd get into it in detail. But, pleasing the Spirit, number
one, means this. It means that you are a person,
as a Christian, who lives by faith. You're not just saved
by faith, you live by faith. Notice what verse six earlier
has said in Galatians 5. He says, for in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but, notice this,
faith working through love. Wow. That's quite a statement.
Faith working through love. So when you live by faith, you're
doing two things. First, you live a life full of
trust in the work of Jesus Christ who has made payment sufficient
for all your sins. It's a worry-free life of grace. That's an exciting life to be
a part of. You're also freed from your personal
efforts to gain or maintain your salvation to practice love. That's what verse six has told
us. It is this type of faith that naturally expresses itself
in love, he says. All right? And notice at the
end of verse six it says, but faith working through love. You see that? It almost jumps
off the page in the midst of his argument. So, if you're going
to please the Spirit, one of the things you have to do is
you're not only saved by faith, but you live by faith. Secondly,
if you're going to please the Spirit, then let's go down to
verse 13. He says, For you were called to freedom, brethren,
only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh,
but through love, serve one another. Through love, serve one another.
So if you're going to please the Spirit, not only do you live
by faith, but secondly, you love by serving. You love by serving. The new freedom in Christian
living presents some dangers. And Christian liberty opens the
door sometimes and lust walks through, right? That's when our
passions take over. Where your liberty can easily
become a license to sin or an opportunity for the flesh. Now,
the way to keep from that is the practice of selfless love
with others. That's such a critical point
in the book of Galatians. In fact, if I were to do a survey
of a lot of Christians and ask them, what's the love chapter
in the Bible, I think most Christians would immediately respond and
say, oh, that's 1 Corinthians 13. I want to suggest to you
that the greatest love chapter in the Bible is Galatians 5.
There's more mention of love on a repeated basis in Galatians
5 than in 1 Corinthians 13. It's that we're so caught up
in the Judaistic performance orientation that Paul has had
to attack in the first four chapters that we miss it when we read
it through. No. You see, the point is this, that
when you're living by faith, there is a danger here
that you could indulge desire because in a sense you have thrown
off all those Judaistic expectations. But Paul says, no, if you're
really living by true faith, then you're going to love by
serving. And then, third thing here, if you're going to please
the Spirit, You're led by the Spirit. Verse 18. But if you
are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And the word
led does not have anything to do with personal guidance by
means of the Holy Spirit. When you are led by the Spirit
here, it means to be motivated by the Spirit, and not by self-exalting
efforts. Then you're not going to fulfill
the desires of the flesh when you're motivated by the Spirit,
because the flesh, with its laws, seeks to benefit itself, while
the Spirit seeks to benefit others. So, look at this again. Verse
6 he says, but it's faith working through love. Then verse 13 he
says, through love serve one another. Then look at verse 14,
for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this statement,
you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then if you
skip down a little bit further, then he says in verse 22, But
the fruit of the Spirit is love. And he gives us a whole list
of things. And it's interesting that he
doesn't talk about this as in fruits plural. It's fruit singular. And if you know anything about
the ancient Semitic mind, usually if they had a list of things
that they wanted to give, they took that which is the broadest
thing and they put it at the top of the list and everything
underneath it then describes what is at the top of that list. We can see this in 1 Timothy
3, the description of elders. The first thing on the list is
they're above reproach. How do we know what above reproach
means? Well, that's a very vague principle. Well, you begin to
understand it as you go through all those other qualifications.
You can see that also in 2 Timothy chapter 3, when he talks about
in the last days there will be terrible times. And he has a
whole list of what that's going to be like. And at the very top
of that list that everything else describes is men will be
self-lovers. Now, I was taught when I was
going through college, at a Christian college, that that was a virtue.
But Paul considers that a vice. That's what's going to make the
last days terrible. Terrible time, horrible time.
Men will love self. They'll be boastful because they
love self. They'll be ungrateful because they love self. They'll
be disobedient to parents because they love self, and et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Same thing's going on in the
fruit of the Spirit. What's the first thing at the
top of the fruit of the Spirit? What is it? Love. That's exactly
right. You're catching on. That's right.
It's love. Love is the first thing. The
fruit of the Spirit is love. Then, notice all the descriptions.
Joy is love in jubilation. Peace is love in repose. Long-suffering
is love on trial. Gentleness is love in interpersonal
kindness. Goodness is love in action. Faith
is love in endurance. Meekness is love at school. Temperance
is love in discipline. Now, look at Galatians 5 and
verse 15. Right after he says, where the
whole law in verse 14 is fulfilled in this one statement, you shall
love your neighbors yourself. Verse 15 says, but if you bite
and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed
by one another. That is what a performance-based
Christianity does. A performance-based Christianity
causes people to compare themselves with one another, bite and devour
one another, say, oh, look at me, I'm more spiritual than you. That's what a performance-based
Christianity does. Go down to verse 26. Just before
Galatians 6-1, he says, Now, those three things are an adequate
description of what was going on in the Galatian church, and
they are an adequate description of what pleasing the flesh means. Nothing erodes the unity of Christian
fellowship more than people who are seeking their own passions
and their own desires. Liberty that you enjoy through
the grace of Jesus Christ can quickly be replaced with a sense
of self-sufficiency. And in Galatians 5, Paul now
deals with the extremes that he observes in the Christians
in Galatia. On the one hand, there was this
very self-focused legalism that was imported into the church
by the Judaizers, which fed their pride, made them performance-oriented
Christians, comparing themselves with one another, and always
trying to compete with one another. And on the other hand, there
was the license that some of the Galatians tended to move
towards in rejecting the legalism by indulging the flesh. Now,
so what does pleasing the flesh mean? Well, one of the things
that happens, especially if on the legalistic or Judaistic side
it occurs, number one, you end up living a life of boasting. It's a very prideful life. Performance-oriented
Christians, you can see this in verse 26, breeds a miserable
spirit of individualism. Look at me, look what I've done.
Not look at Christ, and look what Christ has done. Like a
rubber duck factory, legalism produces arrogant Christians
who all quack the same way. with the same self-centered view
of Christianity. They believe that they're self-important
and they're smug about their abilities and their accomplishments
in life, especially their religious life. In fact, they're so self-confident
they brag about themselves without any good reason. Now, I've got to make it clear
that modern Christians' assumptions about legalism are mostly false. Anyone who defends doctrine is
often defined as a legalist. If that's true, then Paul is
guilty of legalism in Galatians 2. Or, there are many Christians
who think that anyone who lives by a law is legalistic, or expects
others to live by some kind of biblical commands is legalistic. Not true. Not even close. Those understandings reveal a
serious ignorance of the gospel. Galatians clearly demonstrates
that genuine legalism is adding, now follow me, performance standards
to simple faith and trust in Christ alone. You and I cannot
add anything to what Christ has already done in order to be a
genuine believer. But once a Christian, there are non-Mosaic, new covenant
standards, if you will, that speak to some of the spirit of
the Mosaic law that need to be followed. This is the law of
Christ. So we live, if we don't live that way, we end up living
a boastful life that's very, very self-centered. Secondly,
we also, verse 26 tells us, we live to pridefully confront others.
We challenge others, it says. Have you ever met Christians
who love to criticize other Christians? Now, I know that never happens
in this church, but there are some other churches where it
does. Alright? They love to do that. They can be very creative
and stinging in their criticism, and when you look at the sum
total of their lives or their ministry, you realize they have
nothing positive to add to the body of Christ. Their spiritual
gift is slicing and dicing fellow believers. So, When a person
has adopted that kind of attitude, they have a tendency to think
that they're pretty hot stuff, and they feel free to challenge
the masses of inferior Christians around them. The root idea of
the participle that's used here in verse 26 means to call them
forth. To call them forth in a challenging
way. In the middle voice, as if it
adds emphasis to provoke or irritate others. So in context, you're
so proud of your self-efforts that you dare others to compare
themselves to you. And then, when they do, and on
occasion you discover to your horror that they are more righteous
and fastidious than you are, then your heart swells with jealousy.
That's the third part of verse 26. All of this is being led
by the flesh. People who profess to be Christians
and attempt to influence other people to follow their legalism
are driven by ecclesiastical pride. And this results in envy. When you're this way, you can't
stand to have anyone look better than you. And when they do, you
become intensely jealous. So you see how self-centered,
performance-oriented righteousness is. This is what the Judaizers
introduced at Galatia. Instead, Paul says in verse 14,
we are called to love others as ourselves. That doesn't mean
that we need to love ourselves more. That means we need to love
others as passionately as we already love ourselves. The Bible
assumes we already love ourselves an awful lot. We need to love
others and love God as passionately as we already love ourselves.
Now how? Well, this brings us to Galatians
6.1. That's my introduction. The Apostle Paul now sets up
a hypothetical case here in Galatians 6.1. Instead of seeking to please
the flesh with selfish pursuits of righteousness, you seek to
please the Spirit with selfless pursuits of righteousness. How?
by the active practice of restoration of other believers. That's how.
The fundamental meaning of the word restore is to put a thing
in appropriate condition, to establish it, set it up, equip
it, arrange it, prepare it, mend it, if you will. In the secular
Greek it was a word that was used for setting of bones, and
in the New Testament for mending fishing nets. So there is a sense
in which when we are truly living by faith as it expresses itself
in the service of love to other believers, then we're going to
be practicing on a regular basis with other believers restoration. Now there's four things here
in this verse. Four aspects to restoration.
There's a cause of it. There's a character of restoration,
the condition, and the caution. Let's take a look at the cause.
First of all, it says here, the cause is the person must be caught
in a trespass. Now think about that for a moment.
Caught does not mean that you're snooping around like Sherlock
Holmes trying to find somebody in sin, right? Ha ha, caught
ya, all right? Doesn't mean that. That's the
spirit of legalism at work in you. This admonition is not establishing
some new gang of spiritual bounty hunters among Christians. Alright? Not that. What does it mean?
Well, it means this person has been overwhelmed. It means that
they've been trying sometimes to get away from a sin, and you
have observed that that particular sin has caught up to them, or
it has captured them, They've been overtaken in it. It's a
Greek term, pro lumbano, has a prefix on it, pro. It means
they've been overtaken, they've been taken over with it. It was a word that was used sometimes
in hunting where the prey was being elusive and all of a sudden
the hunter was able to overtake the prey. In this particular
case, there are Christians who have been overtaken with sin.
Sin has caught up to them and captured them in that sense. Sometimes they may be unaware
of its approach and sometimes it's something that they have
been flirting way too close with and now it's overwhelmed them.
This person is not living according to the truth as well because
the word for trespass is derived of living according to what has
been revealed. So it can be a false step, a
sin, or transgression, but it's a word that is used in Matthew
6.15 and Ephesians 1.7 to refer to any serious offense against
both God and man. Even though the verse says, any
trespass, the context and the terms used here has the idea
of any sin that has overwhelmed the person and they can't seem
to get out of it, it doesn't just mean any sin that you observe
in another person. Doesn't mean that. So any person,
any sin that has overtaken that person, and they're struggling
to get out, like struggling in the mire of quicksand, and they
can't seem to get out of it, you're the person with the rope
of God's hope, and you throw it in, and they're able to latch
onto it. That's the cause. Number two,
the character. It says, you who are spiritual. That is a prerequisite. Now,
this does not mean that there's two classes of Christians who
are going to heaven. One is the unspiritually, perpetually carnal
Christian, and the other is the spiritually righteous Christian.
No. Given the argument of Galatians 5, it is saying that this is
the person who is walking by the Spirit, manifesting the fruit
of the Spirit in love, bearing his or her own earthly burdens
and resisting fleshly desires, whereas the argument earlier,
in Galatians, says it's a person who's not living by a rigid legalistic
standard. The opposite is a person who
is presently following the desires and the deeds of the spirit,
not the flesh. And we'll try to bring... the
person who's trying to follow the flesh will try to bring Christians
under a heavy bondage of performance standards. Their own made-up
ones, oftentimes. So, you must not be living according
to the flesh. If you know you have a sin problem
that perpetually plagues you and you've not seen any change
in your own personal life, then you're not the person to come
alongside of another person to help restore them. God's going
to use someone else. If you define your Christianity
by man-made standards, then you're not spiritual. These are standards
that have an appeal to the flesh, but they're worthless in achieving
what God wants in Christ. Or, your life should be characterized
by the fruit of the Spirit. We could say it like that. Only
when you have the other person's welfare first and foremost in
your mind, and not your own desires, are now you ready to help them.
This is why the fruit, singular, that we've talked about, begins
with love. It's the law of Christ. Look
at verse 2 of Galatians 6. He says, bear one another's burden
and thereby fulfill what? The Law of Christ. Fulfill the
Law of Christ. So the character is you who are
spiritual within the context of the flow of that argument.
Thirdly, the condition then is the spirit of gentleness. He
picks up on an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. The condition
is the spirit of gentleness. So, Let's say you consider yourself
a spiritual person who is qualified to help restore another believer.
Paul adds the qualification here, and it is one of the aspects
of the fruit of the Spirit that's critical to interpersonal restoration. Now, the question is, what does
it mean? Well, it does not mean weakness. Gentleness never means
that, because its basis is proactive love. It doesn't mean weakness. There are a lot of Christians
who think that gentleness means weakness. The opposite is true.
Gentleness is a characteristic that resists the temptation of
being harsh and demanding when you know you could be. It enables
you to correct another person without being arrogant. An opinionated,
judgmental person will not be gentle. in their restoration.
So this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, this aspect of being
gentle with someone else, keeps a person from using the truth
like a sledgehammer. Christians can do that. They
can take the truth and they can beat another person to the ground
and they say, well I told them the truth. I had a guy in counseling
say that to me one day. Well I told my wife the truth. I gave her a piece of my mind
and I felt like saying, in the flesh, well don't give her any
more pieces because you don't have much left. But I didn't. I bit my tongue.
The idea is that people can use the truth like a sledgehammer. No, you do this with gentleness. It means to be pleasant and kindly.
In the secular Greek, the root of this word was used to speak
of mild food, not spicy, tame animals, gentle or pleasant people. Paul uses this word to speak
of meekness of Christ, not coming from weakness because its basis
was love. In 2 Timothy 2.25, Paul says
that correcting an opponent in gentleness may lead to that opponent's
salvation. Likewise, when you help to restore
another brother and sister in Christ, you must do so like an
intensive care nurse, exercising extra special care with love.
We have twin boys. They were born premature, so
they were in the intensive care nursery for a few weeks before
we were able to bring them home. And I got a lesson in gentle
care of these two twin boys who you could put in your hands like
this. And you could hold in your hands
and how the nurses dealt with them in terms of gentle care.
Now these guys are bigger than me. But this is the way the Christian
life can be. You deal with the Christians
with gentle care that are caught up in sin so that they'll grow
mature in Christ So, it means to be kindly. You must help to
restore another brother and sister in Christ, like this intensive
care nurse exercising extra special care and love. The fourth thing,
then, is the caution. Looking to yourselves so that
you too will not be tempted. Now that's a vital caution. This
is just the opposite of the spirit of performance-based Christianity. Because we're not looking, a
person like that's not looking to themselves. They think they're
already okay. All right, in my super righteousness, I'm gonna
come and correct you in your sin. No, just the opposite. It realizes that you too are
weak, that you have a sinful propensity in your heart, see? Now, notice this, just for a
second. Grab your Bible, let's go back to Proverbs chapter 19.
This kind of sits in the back of my conscience and works on
me all the time. Proverbs 19 and verse 27. Cease listening, my son, to discipline,
he says, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. You see
that? A wise Christian understands
this. A wise Christian understands that there is a wayward principle
in every one of us. When we are not anchored regularly
to God's Word, His truth, and Christ, the natural propensity
of the human heart is to drift, like an anchorless boat, away
from the truth. There's a wayward principle in
every one of us. When we're exercising biblical restoration in a proper
way. There is this wayward principle
in us that if we're not careful and we don't give leeway for
our own sinfulness that we too can be caught up in the sin.
Now let's go back to Galatians 6.1. We can get caught up in. So this
is a vital caution because your flesh is very clever and it's
very deceptive. You're not immune from falling
into sin. Paul knew that the sinful flesh
was not eradicated when it was crucified. The crucifixion of
the flesh meant the flesh had been finally judged by God. But
the Christian would still have to deal with the leftover aspects
of its reign in his heart. That's the reason why he says
in Romans 6.12, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies.
Paul When you go to deal with another
person who is caught in a serious trespass, you must put a guard
on your own desires, your own deeds. Do a self-check of your
own motivations. In counseling, we stress this
with our majors and our graduate students. As a counselee sits
there and describes their sin, it's easy to begin to relate
to their struggle in your own life. And before you know it, you find
yourself weakening to its power. Why? Because you assume this
sin really doesn't have any pull on you. That is a very self-righteous
assumption. You quickly find out you're wrong.
Now, why did you assume this? You see, a person who tends towards
a performance-based Christianity, is totally focused on the wrongs
of other people, assuming that their life is already okay. That's their assumption. But
the truly spiritual person has one eye on his or her own life
and its tendencies towards sin. Why? Well, because your pride
can be your downfall again. Legalism naturally spawns pride.
Pride's the reason. This is why verse 3 says what
it says. Verse 3 goes on and says, For
if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives
himself. Whoa, what a statement! What does that do to your self-esteem?
When anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing. You know
what nothing is? Nothing is a great big zero with both ends removed.
That's nothing. What's left? Anyone who thinks
he is something when he is nothing. I love what Martin Luther used
to say about this verse. He said, God made the world out of nothing
and as long as you're a nothing, he can do great things with you. Great statement. God made the
world out of nothing. So it's vitally important that
in the fourth thing, this caution, you're looking to yourself so
that you too are not tempted. Now let me conclude with this.
Do you care enough to help other Christians who are overwhelmed
with sin, or are you busy with a judgmental attitude of some
kind of legalistic standard or personal righteous pride? Let me share with you a story
as I close. At a fundraising dinner for a
school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of
the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten
by all who attended. After extolling the school and
its dedicated staff, he offered a question, when not interfered
with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection.
Yet my son Shay, he said, cannot learn things as other children
do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is
the natural order of things in my son? The audience was still
by the query. The father continued, I believe
that when a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity
to realize true human love presents itself and it comes in a way
that other people treat that child. Then he told a story. He said Shay and his father had
been walking past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing
baseball. Shay asked, do you think they'll
let me play? Shea's father knew that most of the boys would not
want someone like Shea on their team, but the father also understood
that if his son was allowed to play, it would give him a much
needed sense of belonging. So Shea's father approached one
of the boys in the field and asked if Shea could play. And the boy
looked around for guidance and getting none, he took matters
into his own hands and said, we're losing by six runs and
the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he could be on our team.
And we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning. In the
bottom of the eighth, Shea's team scored a few runs but was
still behind by three. In the top of the ninth, Shea
put on a glove and played in the outfield. And even though
no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be
in the game and on the field. Grinning from ear to ear as his
father waved at him from the stands. In the bottom of the
ninth, Shea's team Now with two outs and the bases loaded, the
potential winning run was on base. Shea was scheduled to be
next at bat. At this juncture, do they let
Shea bat and give the game away? Or do they let someone else bat? Well, surprisingly, Shea was
given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible
because she didn't even know how to hold the bat properly
much less connect with the ball However, she stepped up to the
plate the pitcher moved in a few steps to lob the ball softly
to Shay At least he'd be able to make contact first pitch came
and she swung clumsily and missed the pitcher again took a few
steps towards him and Very softly lofted the ball to Shay as the
pitch came She swung at the ball hit a slow ground ball right
back to the pitcher the pitcher picked up the ball and could
have easily thrown the ball to first baseman. Shea would have
been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead,
the pitcher took the ball and turned and threw the ball on
a high arc to right field, far beyond the reach of the first
baseman. Everyone started yelling, Shea, run to first, run to first.
Never in his life has Shea ever run to first. He scampered down
the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, run to second,
run to second. By the time Shea rounded first
base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the
ball to the second baseman for the tag, but he understood the
pitcher's intention and intentionally threw the ball high and far over
the third baseman's head. Shea ran toward second bases.
The runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home.
Shea reached second base. The opposing shortstop ran and
turned him in the direction of third base. And shouted, run
to third! As Shea rounded third, the boys
from both teams were screaming, Shea, run home! Shea ran to home,
stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the
grand slam and won the game for his team. That day, said the
father. Softly, with tears rolling down
his face, the boys of both teams helped bring a little bit of
true love into this world. Now, I'm sure in a church like
Grace Bible, There are shays out there that need help. And either we're going to practice
love, like Galatians 5 has instructed us, and practice restoration,
or they're going to go on without any help. If you're listening
to this message and you realize you're one of those people who
profess to be a Christian, but you really are not, and you say,
I want to be a part of a community like that, a loving community,
then It's important that you come to Christ, that you come
to Him. Let's bow for prayer. Gracious
Father, we thank you for your love toward us. And it's this exactly, the type
of love, this is the type of love that we need to share with
one another. I pray for everyone that's a part of this wonderful
church, that you'll help them to see the importance of practicing
Galatians 6.1 in their interpersonal endeavors as they see themselves
living out the fruit of the Spirit, as they see themselves fulfilling
the law of Christ, to love others with the same degree of passion
and intensity as they already love themselves. and thereby
restore brothers or sisters who are broken, caught in sin's demise. This we pray in Christ's name.
Biblical Restoration
| Sermon ID | 89111910461 |
| Duration | 47:57 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Galatians 6:1 |
| Language | English |
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