Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 189th episode. In this episode I’m going to present you with a sermon on Galatians chapters 5 and 6. I preached this exact sermon several weeks ago for a young adults ministry called United. I’ve done Galatians 6 before and that project also in the form of a sermon – you can find it at MHB 59. This episode will be exposition, but because I was tasked with covering two chapters in under an hour I don’t go quite as deep as what’s normal for me. Even so I think you will find the message useful and the content valuable. So without further delay I bring you Galatians chapters 5 & 6.
So I think what we’ll do is we’ll go through chapter 5 and see what it means to be set free from the Law and to walk in the Spirit. And then we’ll finish with chapter 6 to discover the core idea that should be the center of gravity for every Christian. This core idea makes a transformational difference in your life today as well as in your eternity. Eternity is important and eternity is integral to the gospel message. But you should also pay careful consideration to the way you walk here in this moment and throughout your life on earth. There are several reasons for this, not least of which is because Jesus said loving Him means keeping His commandments. But there’s a darker side to this instruction and it concerns what might happen to your soul – here in this life – if you attempt to evade it.
There’s a book by Christopher Browning called Ordinary Men. It’s the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps. This happened in Poland in 1942. What’s interesting about that story is that this police battalion was made up of middle-aged family men whose moral compasses were formed before Nazi propaganda became prominent. They didn’t choose to join the battalion but were drafted into it. They were not murderers or battle-hardened people before being enlisted with this group. Once the Final Solution was being implemented in Poland, it became regular practice for groups of Jews to be brought into the forest and matched with one of these men as their executioner.
In the beginning, the men who made up the police battalion were vomiting and despairing because of the violent murders they were committing. Now here’s where it gets really strange: the men in this battalion were given proof that they could choose not to kill (they could opt-out of the firing squads) and face no punishment. They were free to go. But 80% of them chose to stay and keep shooting all day long. Browning suggests the pressure to conform drove these men to accept and adjust to mass murder. They didn’t want their peers to think they were cowards. They sacrificed everything they valued to avoid being cast out from the group. And they paid for it.
After the war their leadership was captured and given death sentences. Most of the rank-and-file were not prosecuted. But at the individual-level these men walked away with trauma which would torment them for the rest of their lives. The fact that they were just following orders or doing what everyone else was doing didn’t save them from being haunted. And I believe that if these men stand before God unrepentant, He is going to look at them for what they did as individuals.
Browning cites a Holocaust writer named Bauman who argues that most people slip into the roles society provides for them and that individuals who have the capacity to resist authority and assert moral autonomy are in the rare minority. He also says that this rare minority doesn’t even become aware of their internal strength until put to the test. If that’s true, then most of us will bend the knee to whatever society deems normal up to and including the execution of innocent people in defense of an ideology. You do not want to be in that majority who makes the wrong choice. Part of what we’re going to learn from Paul in these chapters is that we are each responsible for our own conduct.
You might say that sounds like a dramatization or that we don’t live during World War II so it doesn’t apply to us. But these historical atrocities really are just standard human corruption at scale. There are people out there right now who are bent on evil and who are aiming down. They are marching toward destruction and they are leaving absolute hell in their wake as a consequence of their sin. The ripple effects of your conduct can cause unimaginable amounts of pain in another person’s life – and the near-permanent damage can be inflicted in minutes. But your actions can also cause unimaginable amounts of good. And your capacity to do good is stronger than any amount of suffering you will go through in this life. And that’s because it is God’s will that you be made in the likeness of His Son and that is a version of yourself who is very good.
So three parts to this sermon: first is what it means to be set free from the Law, second is what it means to walk in the Spirit, third is the foundation of what you need to do to live this life in accordance with How God designed you. Let’s begin in Galatians chapter 5 starting with verse 1:
Gal 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Gal 5:2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Gal 5:3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.
Gal 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
Gal 5:5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.
Gal 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
Gal 5:7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
Gal 5:8 This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you.
Gal 5:9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
Gal 5:10 I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
Gal 5:11 But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished.
Gal 5:12 I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.
Gal 5:13 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.
Gal 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
Gal 5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
Paul is warning the church in Galatia against the teaching of people who were called Judaizers. The Judaizers were trying to bring Jewish-Christian converts as well as Gentile converts back under the Mosaic law. So you had all this history of the people of Israel following the law of Moses in their own efforts to be righteous. Then along comes Jesus and by His life, ministry, and sacrifice He liberates all of humanity from the law of Moses. When you hear that it can be tempting to conclude the Mosaic law is bad or is in opposition to Christ – and there’s even been Christian leaders who have suggested we disengage from the Old Testament entirely. That is wrong. Paul warned the church in Galatia against the Judaizers because the Judaizers misunderstood the purpose of the law. It wasn’t merely the law they were trying to make others submit to, it was a misunderstanding of the law. A misuse of it.
And people today who suggest that Jesus abolished the law or the prophets are equally guilty of misunderstanding the purpose of the law. A toilet brush is nice to have and works really well for scrubbing toilets. But if you’re a simple-minded creature who says, “It has the word brush in it!” and then you try to use it to brush your hair or your teeth – you’re going to attract many things but friends are not one of them.
I think you can summarize the true purpose of the Mosaic law as twofold: the first part of its purpose was to provide object lessons for the people of Israel so they could lift themselves out of the muck and mire of the pagan idolatry which surrounded them. They were surrounded by nations of people who lived in ways so far removed from reality that God had to step into the minutiae of Israel’s daily life and give them ordinances which would cause separation between Israel and these other deeply broken societies.
So all of the weird dietary laws and beard cutting laws and laws about tattoos – these laws were instituted because these changes in appearance had ritual significance to the pagan societies which surrounded Israel. By instituting these laws God is commanding His people to live separated from the pagans.
The second part of the law’s purpose is to reveal our need for a Savior. The law functions like a mirror. It exposes your own brokenness in comparison to the righteousness of a holy God. The law reveals just how impossible entry to Heaven is on the merits of your own righteousness. The law points to Jesus because it proves the truth that you need to be covered in the righteousness of Christ. So we don’t ditch the law as unimportant – we study it and we praise God for it because without it all of us fall back into self-righteousness and no one is more blind to Jesus than a self-righteous person.
Paul compares captivity to the law with captivity to sin – now that’s interesting. You actually don’t need a Judaizer in your life in order to become captive to the law. You can fall into that prison all by yourself. All it takes is a misunderstanding of the character of God. If you view God as a reactive Judge who is watching your every move and waiting for you to violate His commands so that He can mercilessly issue prescribed punishments then you aren’t serving God – you’re serving the law.
This is the difference between defining Christian maturity by one’s pursuit of God versus defining it by one’s avoidance of sin. When a person is living in sin it is an indicator of whether they are getting sideways or falling away – but it cannot be the only indicator and I don’t even think it’s the primary indicator. This issue is addressed multiple times in scripture and one example is in Proverbs 15:8 which says, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.” It is possible and dare I say common for a Christian to cling close to the law while his spirit is far from God.
The Pharisees did this in a more pronounced way than anyone which is why Jesus called them white-washed tombs. On the outside they appeared godly and beautiful but on the inside they were full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Something you won’t hear very often in church is that the opposite is also true. It’s possible to have an external appearance which fails to match or at least lags behind the condition of your heart. Everyone references the thief on the cross in Luke 23 as biblical evidence of instant repentance and salvation – and that’s certainly part of it. Some of the renaissance painters believed that’s why when you see Christ crucified in paintings and iconography His head is leaning to His right, indicating acceptance of the penitent thief.
But another interesting feature of this story is how both thieves started out insulting Jesus. And the shift in the penitent thief is so subtle that it’s only picked up in one of the three gospels where he’s mentioned. So if you had been an onlooker you probably wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between thieves. And it’s only that last verse in Luke’s account where Jesus affirms the thief’s repentance that we even consider it valid. Now compare the penitent thief with the rich young man in Mark 10 who kept God’s commandments his entire life from his youth yet whose final correspondence with Christ is disobedience. Which one had a more righteous life? Definitely the rich young man. Which one had a more righteous heart? The answer is we don’t know. Christ explicitly tells the thief he will be in paradise yet leaves the eternity of the rich young man ambiguous at best.
Apostasy is a heart problem and there absolutely can be dissonance between a person’s heart and a person’s actions. Pursuit of God and avoidance of sin are not the same things. Pursuit of God leads to sanctification which results in avoidance of sin eventually, but avoidance of sin by itself does not lead to God. That’s why it’s possible to follow the letter of the law while violating the spirit of the law. The religious elite were so caught up in this misunderstanding that they accused Christ Himself of sinning by breaking the Sabbath. The yoke of Christ is easy and His burden is light, don’t turn that into an iron yoke of slavery by misunderstanding what it means to be a Christian.
Paul warns the church in Galatia that submission to circumcision means departure from Christ. Why does he say that? It’s not as if there’s something unforgivable about the act of circumcision. The reason he said that is because during this period of history being circumcised meant you’ve already positioned yourself to attempt being justified by the law. Circumcision symbolized your dependence on the law in the same way baptism symbolizes your death and rebirth in Jesus Christ.
Paul said people who are seeking to be justified by the law have fallen from grace. This is because – like we said – the purpose of the law is to function as a mirror so that you can wake up from your satanic slumber of self-deception and see your own wickedness.
If when you read through the scriptures you conclude that you’ll be saved because of how well you keep God’s commandments – then you are either mystifyingly stupid or something is controlling your mind and it is not the Holy Spirit. An honest reading of the Bible sets off hand grenades of conviction in the darkest parts of your heart. It will show you parts of yourself that you wished you had never seen. That’s why Paul explained to the Roman church how the law condemns.
You’ll always hear everyone talk about sanctification as the process by which you are made increasingly holy and increasingly like Jesus across time. That is sanctification, but I propose one of the most important elements of sanctification rarely makes it into the conversation. This element is your awareness of your dependence on the righteousness of Christ. The more you mature as a Christian, the more you read your Bible, the more you begin to realize how filthy your own righteousness actually is.
Let’s say you read the entire Bible a few dozen times – at the end of this project you will understand the separation between how holy God is and how broken you are is orders of magnitude broader than you ever imagined. This distinction between the holiness of God and the unrighteousness of man is so obvious in the text that I would say one of the barometers you can use to determine whether your spiritual authority actually understands his or her Bible is whether or not he or she is self-righteous. Self-righteousness is a dead giveaway of biblical ignorance.
You might pushback and say, “What about the Pharisees? They were scholars of the scripture and yet they were also self-righteous!” This is true, but I would submit that while they knew the scriptures they did not understand the truth presented by them. And I don’t think it’s because the truth is obscure – I think it’s because they had a lot of power incentives to deceive themselves and others concerning what the scriptures taught. Something you’ll notice about basically every authoritarian whose ever rose to prominence is that all of them were self-righteous. It’s in our nature to be self-righteous and that’s why we should praise God that He loves us enough to give us the law so we can be woken up – no matter how painful the awakening can be.
The truth cuts with such severity that I don’t think it’s possible to read the Bible and believe what it says without ending in one of two conditions: either crushed by condemnation or in relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The law shows you who you are without God and it is a revelation both tragic and terrifying.
But the gospel claims that Christ has set us free from such reality. Paul said it at the beginning of this chapter, “it is for freedom that Christ set us free.” According to scripture freedom from the law looks like keeping in step with the Spirit – so let’s examine what Paul has to say about this in verses 16-26:
Gal 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
Gal 5:17 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.
Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
Gal 5:19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,
Gal 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,
Gal 5:21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Gal 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Gal 5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Gal 5:26 Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.
In this passage Paul is describing two modes of being which are antithetical to one another. This means they are diametrically opposed and to practice one means you cannot practice the other. Many of you just celebrated Thanksgiving, and I’ve said before that gratitude and bitterness are like opposite sides of the same coin – I don’t think they can coexist at the same time about the same thing in the same person. So if you tend toward bitterness or resentment, the best way of mitigating that is to take inventory of all the different things you’re thankful for.
The same thing is true of the flesh and the Spirit, if you want to stop sinning through capitulation to your worst motivations – your best possible option is to begin walking in the Spirit. That’s not the same thing as merely avoiding sin or resisting the flesh. You can’t create a vacuum inside yourself by defining your relationship with God negatively and based on the things you don’t do. Walking in the Spirit is not about resisting sinful characteristics, it’s about choosing godly characteristics.
When you’re studying your Bible and developing your theology one of the crucial first steps is to define your terms. We’re trying to extract a principle that the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another – so we need to define exactly what the flesh and the Spirit are in this context. Paul told the church in Galatia that the actions of the flesh are self-evident. He lists them as: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. So he’s made a list of disparate categories of potential specific actions. What I mean is immorality could show itself as many specific things. Jealousy could show itself as many specific things. What we need is a more general tool which can help us spot these specific things when they show up in our lives. And that’s where we try to target the relationship that each of these categories Paul listed has with one another.
The first common denominator is that these are categories of actions which cause you to feel shame. The works of the flesh are things you’re embarrassed to admit you desire. All of the actions Paul listed are actions which the worst part of yourself loves to do. This is the part of yourself which hates God and seeks defiance against Him. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “The line between good and evil runs down the middle of every human heart.” We know this is true because of the second common denominator all of these categories share: the reason they are so fun, the reason they feel so good is because of how wrong you know they are.
It is the exercise of taboo and it is the exercise of wrongness that gets you so excited. And I think that’s because there remains in all of us an unsanctified, dark corner of our hearts which would absolutely choose Hell if only that meant we could be apart from God. That’s how wicked the flesh is. That’s how dangerous our world becomes if we continue our efforts to justify, normalize, and promote the works of the flesh. And – by the way – all of those societal efforts are motivated by shame. Shame is what causes us to say a sin is not a sin rather than to admit we are broken and in need of a Savior. If forgiveness is not available, you either have to justify your sin or be crushed by shame. You can see how this choice between whether you’re going to elevate the works of the flesh and justify them or whether you’re going to walk in the Spirit hinges on Jesus Christ and the forgiveness He offers in the gospel.
The third common denominator (and then we’ll move on to our discussion of the Spirit) is that all of these actions destroy your peace. Strife, factions, outbursts of anger, carousing, drunkenness – I don’t think you can practice any of these things consistently without losing peace in all areas of your life. The Spirit of God gives you peace which goes beyond comprehension – and we can tell the works of the flesh are opposed to the Spirit of God because all of these things undermine your peace. If you need a reason to remain peaceful apart from how terrible lack of peace feels, just know that stress releases cortisol and cortisol ages you. So the more stressed out you are the faster your body will deteriorate which is a happy little thought. Okay let’s move on to the Spirit.
We speak a lot about the Holy Spirit in Church – rightfully so – and so I want to show you how you might recognize the Holy Spirit in yourself and in others. These fruits of the Spirit are the same fruits by which Jesus Himself said we may recognize the Spirit’s presence in other people. You do not determine whether a person is being indwelled and sanctified by the Holy Spirit by looking for gifts of the Spirit – that is not how you do it. Paul doubles down on Christ’s claim concerning the fruit of the Spirit by declaring the gifts of the Spirit without love mean nothing. In terms of evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life, the gifts of the Spirit are secondary to the fruit of the Spirit. So if a person appears gifted but lacks fruit – it’s likely because they are abusing their gifts or they are faking their gifts. So how do we tell whether a person is saved?
By principle I never comment on the status of one’s salvation. I’m not omniscient, I don’t know the motivations of a person’s heart, I don’t know the limitations of their particular frame, I don’t know what infirmities they struggle with. But Psalm 103 tells me that God knows and He takes these things into account. So I can’t say with accuracy who is saved and who isn’t. But my contention is the closest you’re ever going to come to a bellwether of a person’s salvation is the presence of the fruit of the Spirit. Is the person characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? These characteristics represent a picture of Jesus Christ and a person cannot become Christlike without the Holy Spirit. So what do you do with a person who is Christlike but who fails to verbally assent to Jesus as their Lord and Savior? I will leave that up to you and your own studies.
Before we move on to chapter 6 I want to help you identify what the fruits of the Spirit might look like in your own life. When trying to explain what a thing is, it’s sometimes helpful to consider the thing’s opposite. You can do this with the fruit of the Spirit to get a clearer picture of each. Consider: love and hate; joy and despair; peace and anxiety; patience and impatience; kindness and cruelty; goodness and evil; faithfulness and betrayal; gentleness and harshness; self-control and impulsiveness. The works of the flesh are opposite the works of the Spirit.
Let’s move on to chapter 6. Because of our time-constraints we won’t go as deep in 6 as we did in 5 but I would urge you to study it further on your own.
When discussing what it means to leave a life of sin and come to Christ you might use the story of Zacchaeus – who was a corrupt tax collector. For the sake of time we’re not going to read it but you can find the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19. This story is one of the models from which the 12 step method which is given to people who are recovering from alcoholism was developed.
The story of Zacchaeus illustrates the importance of repentance and the value of taking the initiative to begin putting your life together. But what do we do after that? What’s the correct course of action once we’ve repented of our sins and committed our lives to Christ? Galatians 6 prescribes for us a core idea which will help you answer this question every day for the rest of your life. Let’s begin unpacking it by looking at verse 1:
Gal 6:1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.
Here’s an instruction from Paul for Christians to take up the responsibility of helping each other course-correct when overcome by sin. Notice he’s saying overcome by sin. So this is a situation where the person has become enslaved to their sin. The sin would have so much power over them that they would be unable or unwilling to repent of it on their own. This is the person who is addicted and needs intervention. This is the person who is running with the wrong crowd and consistently degenerating into evil. The Bible says that we have the capacity to recognize when someone suffers like this because we have the mind of Christ.
So we must work humbly and gently in helping them to get back on the right path. The key here is repentance. We want to get them to repentance. There’s an eternity of difference between a person who sins and repents versus a person who sins and doesn’t care. In order to accomplish this, the first step is for us to be steadfast in our moral absolutes. If we compromise on what is considered sin, then we forfeit the ability to re-calibrate people to true north because we ourselves will no longer know where true north is. The Bible says that whoever brings a person back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.
Paul is telling us to do this humbly and gently. The key to remaining gentle with someone who is given over to sin is acknowledging that the person’s sin does not define who they are. Even the worst of sinners are still human beings made in the image of God. So you can hate the person’s actions or ideas while loving the actual person. This is hard to do but you practice it by trying to see through the sin to the actual person rather than focusing on the sin itself.
You must be shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves when doing this work. Often, you have to meet this person where they are and that means meeting them in an environment that is full of temptations. You might think that you won’t succumb to temptation the way they did – but guess what – you have infirmities and limitations in your frame just like they do. So don’t be so certain of yourself. It’s unlikely that you can march into the lion’s den without God and expect not to be eaten.
Care for your brothers and sisters and do so cautiously. Pay attention when they go astray. And do all of this with gentle hearts. Okay, let’s look at verses 2 and 3:
Gal 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
Gal 6:3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
You are not that important. You are not that significant. Paul means this in the sense that you are not too important to help your brothers and sisters. He doesn’t want you to elevate yourself above others. Humility is the point here. And remember, humility is not thinking less of yourself – humility is thinking of yourself less often. He’s not saying you have no worth, he’s saying you shouldn’t allow the knowledge of your worth to stand in the way of you helping others.
But let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and imagine that you are just useless and worthless. Let’s imagine that there is no God and that you are just a random collocation of atoms floating around on a speck of dust in an unimpressive galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of the universe. Your life is meaningless in an ultimate sense and what you choose to do is inconsequential for the rest of the world because after you die you will be abandoned to the ash heap of history. Why would anyone choose to believe that? I’ll tell you why: because it absolves you of responsibility. It liberates you from accountability. It gives you the knowledge of good and evil and makes you the judge over which is which. It allows you to trade your soul for a spot on the throne of the Most High. That’s the temptation. That’s the deception.
But that’s not what God says about you. God says that you have infinite value because inside of you is a spark of divinity. The spermatikos logos. God says that you were fearfully and wonderfully made. God says that you have the terrifying responsibility of loving your neighbor as yourself. God says that you will be accountable for every idle word you speak. What you do here matters. This world would not be what it is at this moment had you never lived. And if your heart is still beating, you still have work to do. That’s a scary thing to think about, but understanding it is the secret to living a life that is lit on fire with meaning and purpose.
Jesus said, “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” Let’s move on to verses 4-5:
Gal 6:4 But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.
Gal 6:5 For each one will bear his own load.
Paul’s words are very intentional here. He’s saying to pay careful attention to your work. This means a narrow focus on your job or on your mission. Why is it a bad idea to compare yourself to others? One reason is because you’ll crush yourself when you see someone doing better than you.
But that’s actually not the worst thing that can happen. No, the sneaky part of your evil little soul will allow the standards of everyone else to justify you not doing the best that you could do. This is why when you introduce a bad employee into a pool of good employees, the good employees do not lift up the performance of the bad employee. The bad employee actually diminishes the performance of the good employees. This is also why at the beginning of this chapter Paul warns you not to fall into temptation yourself when helping someone else out of it.
Paul says we are each responsible for our own conduct. Now, I’ve thought a lot about this in combination with Jesus saying that we will be responsible for every idle word we speak. This is actually right at the core of what it means to be salt to preserve what is good and light to guide the world. There’s no way to know just exactly how far the ripple effect of your action travels. Both good and evil.
Let’s look at verse 6:
Gal 6:6 The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.
You know I’ve spent almost six years now obsessively studying the things of God. Six years and still I feel mostly useless and ignorant compared to Jesus Christ who is my personal standard. The good thing about having God as your standard is that you’ll never achieve it and so you’ll have something to do for the rest of your life. But none of this would be possible if I didn’t have good people backing me up so that I have the time to do it. One of the most important differences between the theologian and the baby Christian is time. So wherever you go, remember that if you want good teaching you’ve got to support your teacher. Okay, let’s move on to verses 7-8:
Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
Gal 6:8 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.
So it’s no mistake that Paul is using natural language here. He says you will harvest what you plant. If you went outside and planted a flower you wouldn’t be upset and confused when it failed to turn into a cactus. God’s justice works the same way. It just is and it never changes. So if you try to bend and twist the fabric of reality it’s going to snap back. If you jump off a building, you don’t break the law of gravity. You break yourself and prove the law of gravity.
We can’t escape God’s justice apart from Christ. Paul says that those who only live to satisfy their sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. This is why I don’t think it does any good to blindly shovel resources at individuals who have given themselves over to sin and dysfunction. You see this happen with lazy Christians and with social policy. “Oh I’ll just give them money and they’ll get better!” No. That’s not the way this works.
If you give unguided resources to a dysfunctional person, all that happens is you elevate their capacity to satisfy their sinful nature thus increasing their harvest of death and decay. It’s no favor to them. We need to be wise and discerning with our benevolence. It’s far better for you to invest your time in a person to guide them to the right path. And it takes a lot of time. But the reward is great. Remember Ananias in the book of Acts. As far as we know, he only ever evangelized one person his entire life. But that person was the Apostle Paul who went on to write one third of the New Testament.
When it comes to helping a person be restored to a relationship with Christ, your time is worth more than your money. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:6:
2Co 9:6 Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Now, this knife cuts both ways: Do you want a generous crop of death and decay popping up in your life? Then stop planting the seeds of your sinful nature. Take a good hard look at who you are today and then allow God to show you just exactly who you could become if you surrender your life to Him. And then pick up your cross of suffering and follow Jesus. There is no resurrection without the crucifixion. The narrow path to joy and everlasting life runs through the suffering of the cross.
But God has shown us by His own example that we are strong enough and brave enough to make it out on the other side. That by His grace we will transcend the suffering and enter into newness of life as the fully developed persons He planned us to become before we were even born. Ladies and gentlemen there is a huge difference between walking through your suffering with God versus taking up residence in your pit of misery without Him. Verses 9-10:
Gal 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
Gal 6:10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
Paul lays out this idea that at just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we do not give up. I can tell you that in your walk with the Lord you are going to hit what feels like a wall. Fear is going to creep up inside of you and all of a sudden you are going to question whether you are good enough and whether your prayers have just been launched into the empty space of a nihilistic universe. But that’s the deception.
The truth is, that terrible wall is not there. That wall never existed. The storm is not too severe for you to survive. Just keep going. God pushes us to these moments in our life because it is only in these moments that we let go of our own devices and move forward on faith alone. See, once you’ve repented of your sins and began your walk with Christ – trust is the key to making it last.
That’s the core idea which makes up the foundation of living this life after you’ve understood and accepted the gospel – trust Jesus. Trusting Jesus enough to shoulder the responsibility of marching into the unknown is the key to ultimate meaning in this life. Trusting Jesus allows you to live the story He already has written for you – and that is the only story which is authentically yours. I submit that if you live by any other story then you live a lie and you’ve become who someone else wants you to be instead of you were meant to be. Trusting Jesus is the key to a life filled with the Spirit which is a life filled with love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
So Paul’s final word of advice to the churches in Galatia includes a warning against depending on religion instead of depending on Christ. It’s a warning against using your religiosity to make yourself look better than those around you. So he’s saying do not cast yourself as a “holier-than-thou” type. He says that ultimately religious ritual means nothing if we have not been transformed into a new creation. I cannot find words to speak Paul’s closing statement better than the Scripture itself. So what you can do at this point is bow your head, close your eyes, and fix your mind on God as I read to you the words of the Apostle Paul – and this will function as a closing prayer for this episode.
Gal 6:11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
Gal 6:12 Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.
Gal 6:13 For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.
Gal 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Gal 6:15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
Gal 6:16 And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.
Gal 6:17 From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.
Gal 6:18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.
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