One of the continual threats to holy Christian living is the notion that the epitome of holiness is best fulfilled when we are alone. Throughout the history of the church there has been this threatening notion that we are really holy when we are alone, away from others, and can concentrate on God alone and are hindered in our holiness when around others. This drove a number in church history to remove themselves from society altogether, living in solitude. But, this idea of holiness being epitomized in solitude before God cannot be confined simply to those men who chose a life of isolation. We know better because many of us are tempted, no doubt, to buy into the same notion that we are most holy when we are found in solitude before God. We feel that we’ve had a good, right, and holy day when we’ve had our “quiet time,” pausing in solitude before the Lord in prayer and reading of the Scripture. Now, this is indeed a good thing. The Lord tells us to go into our closet to pray and the privilege of reading the Bible daily is one that we ignore only to our own detriment. However, it is may be surprising to realize that when the Bible speaks of holiness, it most often stresses holiness lived out in community.
That is, when the Bible speaks of holiness it most often emphasizes that which requires you to be around others. So, Paul tells the Romans in 12:10 and following, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor,” obviously things that involve community. When Paul gives us a picture of what one lives like who is filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5 and 6, it involves singing songs to others, wives submitting to husbands, children to parents, and slaves to masters – again all things that need others to be lived out. At the same time, when Paul tells us not to grieve the Spirit in Ephesians 4, he shows that the Spirit is grieved when we do things which tear down the community, like allowing bitterness to grow, slandering, and failing to forgive. We noticed the same thing in Galatians 5:13-26 last week, namely, that holiness requires investing in others while the desires of the flesh almost always lead to things that tear down and destroy others. Thus, the call to holiness does not ignore the needed moments of solitude as we read God’s Word and pray, but nor can we completely fulfill the call to holiness when we simply isolate ourselves, for so much of holiness is lived out with others.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that when Paul turns his attention to holiness in these last couple chapters of Galatians, that his focus is on doing and speaking things that affect others, that require a community of people in whom we are investing. Paul is reminding us again that holy living requires taking time to invest in and care for others. And even as in Ephesians 4:1-16, Paul gives us a beautiful picture of how God has constructed the church that has greatly influenced our thinking and living here at CCC, so in Galatians 6:1-10 he gives us another beautiful picture of what the church does in relation to one another. As we look at how Paul envisions the church functioning in these verses, we see what I’ve pictured as an intricately knit web of sharing burdens. It is this picture that I hope to hold up to us this morning so that we might live it out here at CCC. So, again this morning, we get a further picture of what a gospel community should look like. And, looking at verse 1, we are first reminded that we are to commit ourselves to restoring those who fall into sin.
This is a gracious word for us to hear in a couple of ways. First, Paul is not under the allusion that once we’re justified, have the Spirit, and are growing in our understanding of the benefits of the gospel that we will cease to sin. He knows better. Until we are raised, our hearts have not been perfected in love toward God or our brother. Now, yes, as we saw last week, we are not doomed to follow our sinful desires, being enslaved to them, for we are not enslaved to the law and have the Spirit dwelling in us so that we can walk according to the desires of the Spirit and not fulfill the desires of the flesh. However, not being perfected, we will sin, so, Paul anticipates that we will have individuals caught in sin in our congregations, and he wants us to know what we need to do in those times. Therefore, second, this text is gracious in providing hope for the one who sins.
Thus, he writes in verse 1, “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.” If holiness were simply something that involved me or you as individuals, then others being caught in sin might affect us very little. But because holiness is our desire for an entire community of believers who make up a local church, when a brother sins, we are called to act. Therefore, it is not only unfitting and unhelpful to rejoice over those who are caught in sin, gossip about them, or mock them, it is sinful of us to do so, for it does not fit with the law of love that says we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Instead, when we hear of a brother in sin, or see him in sin, or simply somehow know one in sin, we are to set our minds instantly to seek to restore him. Instantly we are to realize that his actions are dishonoring to God, unloving toward his neighbor, and harmful to him. Furthermore, we want him to look to the gospel, know forgiveness, and freedom from condemnation. And, more, we want to help him to walk in a manner where he follows the desires of the Spirit within him and not the desires of his flesh.
This means, then, that we go to him, address his sin, call him to repentance, point him to the gospel, and then find out what needs to happen so that this sin does not repeat itself in his life. We do not shun him, ignore him, or pretend as if his sin is not an issue. That is not what loving your neighbor looks like.
Now, let me say a few things about this, and then I want to talk about what this looks like for us at CCC. When we go to restore a brother, you cannot go to him in pride but in humility and gentleness. You must go, realizing that you are not superior to your brother and are prone to sin yourself. Again, you should be motivated by love. In a world full of pride and envy that leads us to rejoice and delight in and spread the failures of others, we go in gentleness, humility, and love, longing to restore our brother.
Also, I think this is a call for all of us. Paul does say, “You who are spiritual should restore him,” but I don’t think that Paul has in mind some elite class of believers in the church who are “spiritual.” Rather, he’s saying that we who are following the desires of the Spirit, walking in the Spirit should restore him. That is, the one caught in sin is walking according to the desires of the flesh, but we who are walking according to the desires of the Spirit should restore him. So, by “spiritual,” it seems that Paul simply means that those who are not themselves caught in sin should restore the brother who is.
Finally, when we go to our brother, we need to keep on guard against temptation ourselves. Sometimes merely being exposed to certain sins can tempt us to love for it ourselves. So, for example, you’re successfully fighting against sexual immorality – but fighting nonetheless – and then you go to one who has temporarily stopped fighting and given in, and in that moment, the lure of the sin might actually grow stronger before you. So, go to your brother, preaching to yourself that which you preach to him.
So, what then does this look like at CCC? Well, it means that when you know of a brother in sin, you lovingly go to him one-on-one. That is, you walk according to Matthew 18:15-20. In your love for him, you want his restoration without him having to be humiliated. So, you seek to restore him privately. If that doesn’t work, then it is probably best to come to the pastors and seek to have them (or at least one of two of them) go with you. If that doesn’t work, we will tell it to the church so that the whole body may pursue our brother caught in sin. And, then, if there is no repentance, we would remove the professing brother from the church. Yet, every one of these steps are steps we are taking because we love our brother and seek to do whatever is necessary to bring about his restoration. And every step is taking in watchfulness, with humility, and in gentleness. So, first, in this community in which the believers are committed to loving one another, one thing we do is that we seek the restoration of any one who is caught in sin.
Yet, Paul broadens our concern beyond simply dealing with those who have sinned. He also tells us that we are to bear one another’s burdens.
Paul writes in verses 2-3, “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.”
So, beyond seeking the restoration of those who have sinned, we are also to commit ourselves to bearing one another’s burdens. Therefore, I think we can see this web of commitment toward and love for one another in the church coming together more tightly. Because we are concerned for the holiness of the entire community of believers in this church, we dare not hear of another’s burden and say, “That’s your issue.” That kind of thinking is rooted in pride, which Paul warns against in verse 3. If we will not bear other’s burdens, then it is no doubt because we are prideful. We think that they should not need us, and we forget that we ourselves need others. Those who refuse to come to the aid of others think they are something when they are really nothing and deceive themselves.
But a community of believers who are secure in the gospel and in their freedom from condemnation are filled with love and so fulfill our Lord’s commands toward others. We fulfill the law of Christ. That is, we love others and serve others even as Christ would have us do.
Again, this is an expansion on a view of holiness that says we are doing well if we’re having our “quiet time” in the morning. Indeed, a “quiet time” is a great thing. But the call of Scripture is to go beyond being concerned merely with ourselves and our own growth to the commitment of carrying the burdens of our brothers and sisters.
That’s why we give an entire service each week (our Sunday night service) to hearing the burdens and praises of others. It’s because we know that the call of Christ to us is to labor with others. So, as you are burdened for lost family members, so we want to walk and carry that burden to you. We want you to know that you are not the only one carrying the weight of you having an unsaved child. We want you to know that you are not the only one dealing with the fact that your unbelieving husband has abandoned you. We want you to know that you are not the only one struggling in prayer for your dying mom to grow in holiness even as she approaches death. Rather, we commit to this together. We bear one another’s burdens.
And it is in bearing one another’s burdens that we get to display Christ’s love for one another. I remember one night when Lili and I were going to bed, before coming to bed, Lili walked into Marie’s room and kissed her on the cheek goodnight. And when she came to bed, she was crying. I asked her why she was crying, and she mentioned that she was just thinking about this child we’re hoping to adopt and how this child had probably never been kissed, or held, or hugged, and how all of that was going to affect him or her. And so we just prayed that night for our baby who is perhaps four to six months old right now, lying in a crib in an orphanage. As we prayed, we each felt the burden of the suffering of this child – our child. And I remember going to bed that night thinking, “If I knew of someone who would commit to carry this burden with us and pray for our child as we look forward to the day when we get to go get him or her, I would kiss them.” I would give them all I could because I don’t know if they could fathom what an act of love that would be to me and Lili, just to know that someone else was out there praying for this child whom they’d never seen. So, the mere thought that someone might bear this burden with us triggered deep love in my heart toward that person.
That’s how the body of Christ in a local church is to function. Being a Christian doesn’t mean all of our burdens disappear. Far from it. They might actually increase. But being a Christian who is a member in a local church means that we should never have to bear these burdens alone. Rather, I help bear your burden, you help bear mine, and as we bear one another’s burdens, our affection for one another grows and grows. That is a beautiful picture of a community, a beautifully and intricately knit web of burden-sharing in a church.
And, yet, Paul does not want us to forget that living holiness in and for a community doesn’t excuse us from individual responsibility. Rather, we still bear personal responsibility before God.
In perhaps a surprising note, Paul writes in verses 4-5, “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.”
These verses cannot help but catch us by surprise a bit. There are so many issues in these two short verses that seem out of place. First, Paul talks about looking to ourselves rather than our neighbors in some sense, and that seems out of step with what we’ve seen in the first three verses. Then, he talks about us boasting in ourselves, which again seems odd and counter to the gospel message through Galatians. Finally, he speaks of each one having to bear his own load, which seems in contradiction to the message of bearing one another’s burdens that we just read.
So, what do we then do with these verses? Can we ignore them? Of course not. Rather, we must look more deeply at these, since we know that Paul is not going to undo in two verses what he has previously said. So, let me deal with the second and third issues before dealing with the first. What does Paul mean about boasting in ourselves and not in our neighbors? Well, first, Paul does not mean that we should brag about our works. He will later say to the Galatians in 6:14, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” So, Paul has not grown to think something great of himself and is encouraging us to do the same. He knows that the only thing any of us can boast in is the work of Christ.
However, Paul also knows that one day we will stand before Christ. And on that day, when there will be no arrogance and all will know that everything good in our lives has its source in our Lord, our works will be displayed. And on that day, Paul wants each of us to be able to see works of obedience and responsibility in our own lives and not just in the lives of our neighbors.
Second, in saying that we must bear our own load, Paul is not going back on his command to bear one another’s burdens. The word for “burdens” and “load” are different so that Paul is not contradicting himself. He indeed wants us to bear one another’s burdens in the church, and this is no qualification about that. However, there is also a note of personal responsibility that falls to each of us to utilize the gifts that God has given us to serve others, and not any of our neighbors can do that for us. So, Paul reminds us that we bear that load of obedience to God’s calling upon our lives individually.
This, then, brings us back to the individual focus of these verses. Paul is not now calling us to focus on ourselves and ignore the community. Rather, what he’s emphasizing lines up with this emphasis on the believing community perfectly. What Paul recognizes is that in a community where the gospel is being lived out, it can be easy to look around and think all is well simply because your neighbors are faithfully laboring and serving. You indeed may belong to a local church that is functioning in a very healthy way: serving one another, loving one another, reminding one another of the gospel, restoring one another when caught in sin, bearing one another’s burdens, etc. And it can be tempting to think that you must really be living an honoring life before God and loving life toward your neighbor simply because so many of your neighbors are doing so. Therefore, Paul wants each of us, in a healthy church community to stop and say, “Even though the nursery is being filled, am I serving other parents? Even though the church is being cleaned, am I part of that work? Even though meals are being served to those in need, am I preparing or delivering any of those? Even though members in the church are praying for one another, am I praying for my brothers and sisters? Even though individuals are spending time together, encouraging one another in the gospel, am I doing that?”
You see, Paul just wants us not to lose focus of making sure that we ourselves our walking in obedience to the Lord’s commands and Spirit’s desires so that we will not only be able to point to the labors of our neighbor on that final day but that we will have works ourselves that will demonstrate the grace of God in our lives.
So, Paul then paints for us a picture of a church community where we restore those who are caught in sin, bear one another’s burdens, and make sure that we ourselves are responsible to this calling and not just our neighbors. But then, in verses 6-10, Paul gives us a precise picture of what this looks like. He gives us a test case, if you will, showing what this looks like in terms of easing one another’s financial burdens.
Paul focuses on alleviating financial burden in verses 6-10. He writes, “One who is taught the word must 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 in 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.”
Now, first let me show you why I think the focus is on alleviating financial burden in these verses. First, verse 6 is fairly clear in saying that the one who is taught must share all good things with the one who teaches. Paul speaks much about caring financially for those who labor in teaching us the Word (e.g., 1 Timothy 5:17-18). Furthermore, in verses 7-8 Paul uses the imagery of sowing and reaping, and this is not an uncommon image for Paul to utilize. In fact, he uses this imagery in 2 Corinthians 8-9. So, what then is the topic of 2 Corinthians 8-9? It is a call to the Corinthian believers to help alleviate the financial burden of their brothers in Jerusalem. Finally, in verse 9, Paul encourages them not to grow weary in doing good. And this too is an exhortation Paul gives in another place. In fact, he encourages the Thessalonian believers using the exact same exhortation in 3:13. And what was he talking about in the verses leading up to this exhortation? He was talking about providing for one another financially, specifically telling the church not to provide for one who refuses to work. Yet, he then turns around and exhorts them not to grow weary in doing good. So, it seems that Paul’s focus in these verses is the alleviating of financial burdens, which we see both in this context and in the context of other texts where Paul uses similar language.
So, what then is he telling us here? Well, first, he tells us that the one who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches. That is, he encourages us helping alleviate the financial burden that falls on one who gives himself to teaching the Word.
But instead of just saying that, let me try to illustrate what that looks like. As believers, we want to know the Word of God. We want to study it, grow in our understanding of it, and to give ourselves to the hard work and time it takes for these two things to happen. However, we all know that this is hard if not impossible. It’s simply hard to give yourself to the work of studying the Word of God like you want to do. It’s time-consuming and costly. And this may be surprising to some of us, but “private Bible study is not the focus in the NT, though it is a very good thing. What the NT emphasizes, is the faithful public teaching of the word, so that there is doctrinal harmony in the congregation.”11
Therefore, this burden of longing to know and study the Word of God that falls on the congregation is alleviated by setting aside an individual (or individuals, but at least one), to whom the church says, “Alleviate our burden of not being able to study and know the Bible as we long to by giving yourself to diligent study of the Word and prayer so that you might proclaim it to us publicly and privately.” And then, the whole congregation gets the benefit of hours of study and learning God’s Word through the proclamation of the Word from the pulpit (and in private).
Yet, this dedication of someone to the study and proclamation and teaching of the Word of God creates another burden. And that burden is that studying and preaching the Word of God does not help someone provide for his family. A paycheck does not simply magically appear if you study the Word, meditate on it, pray over it, and write out a sermon manuscript. So, it creates a financial burden when one dedicates himself to the full-time study of the ministry of the Word. In alleviating one burden, we’ve created another. And, yet, we do not have to worry because this is the Lord’s design, and Paul specifically addresses this again and again in the Scripture. One place is here in Galatians 6:6 as he says, “One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.” This is his way of saying to the church, “Alleviate the financial burden of the one who alleviates your burden of longing to know the Word by teaching the Word to you.”
So, when you work and give to the church, one of the things you’re doing is helping make sure that your brothers and sisters can hear the preaching of the Word. That is, on Sunday morning, when I am able to preach the text because of your giving and someone else benefits from that, then that occurs in part because of your labors. You see, I know that you labor diligently at your job in part so that you can give to the church, in part so that it can pay my salary. I get that. And because you pay my salary, you give me full time to work hard in ministering the Word of God, studying it, praying through it, meditating on it, thinking about how to teach it in a way that most clearly aids us in growing in Christ-likeness. So, in order for this Sunday morning task of proclaiming the Word to take place, multiple people need to be working hard. You need to be working hard in part so that you can give to the church, in part so that you can provide a salary for the one giving himself to the full-time ministry of the Word. And I need to be working hard in order to make sure that I have been faithful with the time you have afforded me in order to minister the Word of God most helpfully. Therefore, when I stand up to preach on a Sunday morning, this should be the product of your hard-work and my hard-work (both by the grace of God, for apart from his grace we would both be unable to work hard at anything). This task of preaching is therefore a community effort, which is exactly how John views things when he writes in 3 John 8 that in supporting men laboring in such tasks, “We may be fellow workers for the truth.”
But there’s more of a picture I want you to see. Some of you will call me on a week when there’s a particularly difficult text, joking with me, saying, “Hey, just let me know if you need help on that sermon.” And when you make that call, I could appropriately respond, “You’re helping me with this sermon when you’re teaching your 5th graders in school today, or you’re treating patients at the hospital, or you’re repairing someone’s broken plumbing, or whatever else because unless you did that, I could not give myself to doing this.” Therefore, when you come to me and say, “Thank you for preaching the Word today. I long for holiness more. I love the gospel more. I want to live a life of love unto God and my neighbor more.” you would be just as right to walk up to a fellow church member who works hard at his job so that he or she can give to make possible my full-time labors and thank them for making possible the preaching of the Word of God. So, this morning, I want to say, “You all excel in this.” It’s not odd or uncomfortable for me to preach Galatians 6:6 because you all excel in generously giving to me so that I might give myself to the full-time ministry of the Word and to providing for my family. And I want to thank you for your labors even as you have thanked me for mine. Let us both, then, continue to work hard so that we might grow in Christ more and more.
And then I want to add a word about Ray and Nathan as well. Ray and Nathan sacrifice of their time like crazy for you guys. They’re self-sacrificial men, and they’ve said, “Don’t pay us full-time salaries.” And when others have time outside of their jobs and use it for leisure, etc., these men have felt called by God to give much of that time to the church. But let me tell you one of the implications of this. In forfeiting their pay, they have not forfeited their jobs. They cannot neglect their employers’ demands. At the end of the day, if there is need at the church and their employer is placing a demand on them, and both of these things cannot both be carried out, then they don’t have a choice. They cannot – they must not – neglect their employers’ demands. Therefore, it is not right of us to place demands on them or put expectations on them that they cannot meet without neglecting their employers’ demands, and we as a church must understand the nature of their roles as non-vocational pastors. So, yes, you can honor them by giving to them financially. That indeed is a way to honor them for the labors they give unto you. But, our giving to them does not create extra time or lighten the demands of their employers. So, though we rightly stress the equal nature of your pastors (which is right), we also want to show that there is not equality in all things. Only one of us has forfeited the right to outside employment and has accepted pay while the others have forfeited pay but have not forfeited allegiance to an outside employer. So, even as you graciously meet my financial burden in giving myself full-time to the ministry of the Word among you, so we aid in alleviating their burdens by not demanding or expecting of them more than they can give as men who have full-time employment outside of the church. But, again, I say this not because I think you all fail to recognize this, but simply to encourage you as you do well.
Also, Paul reminds us that financially giving to alleviate burdens is not just throwing away our money. It first shows that we value the Word. But it also will return to us in blessing. Paul tells us in verses 7-8 that the person who generously gives is showing that he has the Spirit and will therefore know eternal life while the one who simply sows unto the flesh (spending his money simply on himself) will show that he does not have the Spirit and will ultimately know judgment before the Lord. Therefore, graciously give to alleviate financial burdens, do not grow weary in it, and in time, you will reap, if you do not give up.
So, Paul then applies this bearing one another’s financial burdens in verse 10 by reminding us to do good to all men as we have opportunity. But make your priority the household of faith.
So, this then is the picture that Paul gives us of a gospel community. We restore those in sin, bear one another’s burdens, keep watch on our own responsible living, and in doing these things get to be part of a beautifully knit web of sharing burdens that God has designed for his church and that leads to us growing in love for our Lord and one another. Therefore, let’s praise him as we come to the table. Amen.