The Gospel and Relationships (Galatians 5:26-6:10)

One of the most influential people in church history is someone you probably don’t know. His name as Simeon the Stylite. He was the first of the Desert Fathers. Around 423 A.D. he constructed a short pillar on the edge of the desert. He climbed on top of that pillar and lived on it for the next six years. He had many visitors come and visit him. Probably some of them came because they thought that he was out of his mind living on top of a pillar like that. The hermit explained that he was simply a Christian who wanted to commune with God in solitude, free from worldly distractions. Living on top of the pillar was his way of trying to do this.

We’re coming to the end of Galatians, and one of the issues we have to deal with is what it looks like to be transformed by the gospel. The reason I bring up Simeon is because we need a picture of what it looks like to be transformed by the gospel. No disrespect to Simeon, but I think Paul offers us a better picture.

Paul has been making hammering us with the gospel. Let me give you his message so far in two nutshells:

First, Jesus plus nothing equals acceptance with God. That’s it. Never add anything to Jesus, because you can’t add to Jesus without subtracting from him. Jesus plus nothing equals acceptance with God. That is the gospel.

Second, when you get the gospel, you’ll be free. But freedom isn’t living however you would like. Freedom is living in the power of the Holy Spirit to love and serve God and others.

That’s everything that he’s covered up to this point. But we still need to figure out what it looks like. What does it look like when you really get that it’s Jesus plus nothing, and when we use our freedom to love and serve others? That’s what Paul is going to show us today.

Let me give you one sentence that captures what Paul is going to tell us: The gospel frees us to love others. Did you get that? We need a picture of someone who has been transformed by the gospel and who understands the message of Galatians. Paul gives us one, and it’s not somebody living on top of a pillar for six years. It’s not a lot of things. It’s this: it’s a picture of being freed by the gospel to love others. Specifically, Paul gives us two broad categories of what this looks like. First, he says, the gospel frees us to love others spiritually. Second, he says, the gospel frees us to love others financially.

First, the gospel frees us to love others spiritually.

Read Galatians 5:29-6:5 with me:

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.

Notice what Paul assumes here.

First, he assumes the Christian life is going to be lived in relationship with others. I love some church services. I love feeling like I’ve entered heaven’s throne room and communed with God. And then some Sundays I get out into the foyer, and within minutes of having been in the heights of communion with God, I’m dealign with someone who cuts me off in the lineup for coffee. Paul is saying that the Christian life isn’t about living alone on the top of a pillar on the edge of the desert with just God and me. The Christian life is lived in community.

Second, he assumes that this is going to be challenging. Notice what he says: don’t be conceited. Don’t provoke. Don’t envy. Why does he say these things? Because those are the things we’re all tempted to do when we’re relationship with others. If the Christian life is going to be lived in relationship, these are the issues we’re going to face. We’re going to be tempted to think we’re better than others. We’re going to be tempted to set them off. We’re going to be tempted to envy what they have. These are the dangers we face in relationships.

Third, the people we’re in relationship with are going to have problems. And when they do, we can’t say, “Their problems aren’t my problems.” That’s why Paul says, “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” (Galatians 6:1). Here’s what Paul is saying: my sin is not just my business. Your sin is not just your business. Instead of being arrogant or irritating or envious of others, we are to look out for each other. And when we become aware of someone else’s sin, we should speak privately and gently to them in order to restore their fellowship with Christ.

Fourth, do so from a position of humility. Paul stresses here the importance of keeping your own affairs in order before God, watching the condition of your own soul. Why? You are not in isolation. You are not better than anyone else. You too may fall, and when you do you will drag others with you. Paul says, “For each one will have to bear his own load.” There’s a paradox here. Paul says that when it comes to others, their problems are your problems and you should offer help. But when it comes to yourself, you must take responsibility for your own actions.

What does the gospel look like when it’s fleshed out? It looks like this: loving others spiritually, making their problems our problems, all the while keeping watch over our own lives so that we don’t negatively influence others.

For fifteen months journalist Sebastian Junger followed a single platoon of U.S. soldiers stationed in a dangerous part of Afghanistan. Living and working in the midst of a war zone made Junger realize how much the soldiers had to rely on each other. What you do or don’t do as a soldier affects everyone else in your platoon. Junger writes:

Margins were so small and errors potentially so catastrophic that every soldier had a kind of de facto authority to reprimand others—in some cases even officers. And because combat can hinge on [small] details, there was nothing in a soldier’s daily routine that fell outside the group’s purview. Whether you tied your shoes or cleaned your weapon or drank enough water or secured your night vision gear were all matters of public concern and so were open to public scrutiny.

Once I watched a private accost another private whose bootlaces were trailing on the ground. Not that he cared what it looked like, but if something happened out there—and out there, everything happened suddenly—the guy with the loose laces couldn’t be counted on to keep his feet at a crucial moment. It was the other man’s life he was risking, not just his own …. There was no such thing as personal safety out there; what happened to you happened to everyone.

Do you want to know what gospel-transformed living looks like? It looks like loving others spiritually.

Second, the gospel frees us love others financially.

Here’s where it gets even more convicting. Verses 6 to 10 say:

Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

I told you that it gets even more convicting. The main idea of these verses is captured in verse 10: do good to all people, particularly to other believers. This sounds good until you realize that the good he’s talking about is to support others financially, caring for their practical needs in everyday life. Paul says in verse 6 that we’re to do this with our teachers, those who preach the gospel, so that they can be set free from having to raise money and instead can invest their time and energy in ministry. But he also applies this in general to others, especially believers in verse 10. We’re to do this as we’re able. God doesn’t expect more from us than what we have; but whatever we have, we are to use in service for others.

As one person puts it:

Christians, therefore, are particularly bound to do good to one another. Every poor and distressed man has a claim on me for pity, and, if I can afford it, for active exertion and pecuniary [financial] relief. But a poor Christian has a far stronger claim on my feelings, my labors, and my property. He is my brother, equally interested with myself in the blood and love of the Redeemer. I expect to spend an eternity with him in heaven. He is the representative of my unseen Savior, and He considers everything done to this poor afflicted brother as done to himself. For a Christian to be unkind to another Christian is not only wrong, it is monstrous. (John Brown)

I know what you’re thinking, because I’m thinking it too. How is this possible? This is so radical and demanding. How am I ever going to have enough for my own needs? My bank account is always going to be empty because I’m giving sacrificially to others? Paul says three things.

In verse 7 he says, in essence, this is where the rubber hits the road. God isn’t fooled by spiritual pretenses. This is really where the gospel has to free our hearts. God knows the motivations of our heart when it comes to money.

Second, he says that this is an issue of sowing and reaping. There are two ways of living. One is to sow to the flesh. This is about living in a way that’s selfish and stingy, and the result is that we reap corruption. The other way is to live according to the Spirit, freely loving and serving others, and if we do this we’ll reap generosity and spiritual life. Which do you want in your life? Whatever you sow, that’s what you’re also going to reap.

Third, he says that we will be rewarded. “In due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” One day we’ll receive God’s well-done for how we’ve used our resources to help others.

One man (Gerald May) wrote:

I sat briefly with an old dollar bill in my hand, feeling its softness, wondering where it had been. What other hands had grasped it or given it? What human toil had earned it, spent it, earned it again? What small human needs had it fulfilled in its time? Was it once stolen, lost, found? Had anyone ever noticed it?

For a moment, money seemed almost like breath, like the air that circulates among us all, continuously given and received, linking us in a deep, spiritual intimacy with God and one another. We are all familiar with how money can be an idol; how it so easily becomes a substitute for God, encouraging our attachment by promising security, happiness, and power. … But could money really be an icon … a vehicle for seeing and being seen by God?

The gospel, Paul says, frees us to help others financially.

You may have been wondering, as I was, where Paul was going with all of this talk about the gospel. What does it look like when the gospel gets hold of your heart and really changes you? What does it look like when you get the fact that Jesus plus nothing equals acceptance with God? What does it look like when you understand that freedom is not living however you’d like, but that it’s living in the power of the Spirit to serve and love? Paul tells us here. The gospel frees us to love others. It frees us to love others spiritually by restoring them. It frees us to love others financially by living generously.

You can’t fake this. The law is powerless to bring about what Paul is talking about here. Only the Spirit can take our hearts and change us from the inside out so that we’ll want to live this way. It’s only when we see the gospel and are joined with Christ that any of this is even possible.

Notice where it all begins in verse 1. It’s a single word: brothers. I would do stuff for my brothers that I wouldn’t do for anyone else. Well, that’s what the gospel has made us: brothers and sisters. There’s a whole theology in this one word. Josh Moody writes:

We are united in our fallenness, covered with dots and marks, but also now united in our reception of grace. Until we realize just how bad, scarred, broken, and in need of restoration we all are, and just how much grace we have received…

The Christian community, rightly and truly understood and experienced, is an outpost of heaven on earth, where we are all brethren with a common Father, all restored by a common Savior, and all seeking to restore each other. May we be increasingly a part of, and foster, a grace-filled community.