Faith Working through Love

Galatians 6:1-5

A Tale of Two Churches

The Very 1st Church of Most High Achievers

• High bar for correct behavior (law)

• Behave, then belong• Those who behave are

confident• Those who struggle to behave

feel like failures and are excluded

The 49th Church of Gentle Restorers

• Deep commitment to what is right

• Humble recognition that every member falls short and needs help

• Belong, then behave• Every member characterized

by both humility and confidence

The Book of Galatians• A church torn by strife.• High achievers caused division

between those who kept the rules and those who didn’t.

• Paul challenges the church to develop a humble confidence rooted in Christ, not their own achievement (Spirit, not flesh).

Galatians 61 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who

are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of

gentleness . . .

Two ways of dealing with someone who sins

• Law: punish; don’t trust; exclude

• Spirit: restore; walk with; patiently help to overcome

Galatians 61 . . . Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

It is easy for those who help restore others to think they

are better. This attitude is of the flesh,

not the Spirit.

Galatians 525 If we live by the Spirit, let us

also keep in step with the Spirit. 

26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one

another, envying one another.

A congregation rooted in law and correct behavior cultivates

in each member either: • confidence in the flesh or • a deep sense of inadequacy

and failure.

Galatians 62 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 

To bear one another’s burdens means to be willing to accept weakness and failure (sin) in

other believers (and ourselves!), and to make every

effort gently to help others grow up fully into Christ.

The only law that is relevant is the law of Christ:

• not a list of approved behaviors, but

• a practical understanding of God’s restoring love for sinners.

Paul writes earlier in chapter 5:

• “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (v. 6)

• In Christ what matters is not law-keeping but “faith working through love” (v. 14)

3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is

nothing, he deceives himself. 

4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to

boast will be in himself alone and not in his

neighbor. 

5 For each will have to bear his own load.

Paul’s keeps in balance:• personal responsibility • mutual accountability

Personal Responsibility • I am responsible to God for my

life, not others’ lives. • “For each will have to bear his

own load”

Mutual Accountability • My responsibility before God is

to walk caringly and gently with others who struggle with sin.

• “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”

The life Paul envisions can be accomplished only by God’s Spirit working in us to make

Christ, not ourselves, the center.

Paul’s teaching and Harvest• Each of us is marked by some

level of emotional unhealthiness.

• This lack of wellness is a result of living in a sinful world, our own sin, and other’s sins against us.

• Our emotional unhealthiness causes us to struggle with sin, even though we may desire to do what is right.

• To be a Spirit-led church means taking these truths seriously and acting to become gentle restorers, thus fulfilling the law of Christ.