Alright, brethren, Galatians
chapter 5. Our subject is Paul's admonition
here. Let us walk in the Spirit. Let us walk in the Spirit. He
says in verse 25, if we live in and by the Spirit, let us also
walk in and by the Spirit. Now, brethren, if we live in
and by the Spirit of God, it's because from eternity God freely
by His grace chose us in Christ without any merit in us, without
foreseeing anything in us. And therefore, God the Son took
flesh and came into this world and He bore all the burden of
our sin, of all His elect. And by His precious blood, He
justified us from all our sin. And therefore, He sent the gospel
to us. and by the Spirit of God created
life in us. He formed Christ in us. He created
in us a new man in the righteousness and holiness of Christ. This
is why we live in and by the Spirit of God. So if we live
in and by the Spirit of God, Paul says, let us also walk in
and by the Spirit of God. That means depending entirely
upon the Spirit of God. And that means let our outward
walk be in the fruit of the Spirit. Look back up at verse 22. The
fruit of the Spirit is love. And this right here is what Paul
is going to be dealing with most of all tonight. Let us walk in
love. It's joy. Let us walk in joy. Walk in peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness. Let us walk by faith. Let us
walk in meekness and temperance. Against such there is no law. There is no law. That's the spirit
of the law. That's the fulfillment of the
law. That's what the law is teaching
right here, all these things. Now Paul is speaking of walking
in the fruit of the Spirit as opposed to walking in our flesh. He says in verse 26, he gives
the opposite. Let us not be desirous of vain
glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Now, you
know the context here, but I'll go over this with you that these
false preachers had come into Galatia declaring the lie that
in addition to Christ, Believers must keep the law. Now nobody
ever says we're saved by our works, but that's what they're
teaching. They're teaching that either you have to be justified
by something you do in addition to what Christ has done and or
that you have to be sanctified by your works under the law in
addition to what Christ worked. And that's a lie. And the preaching
of the works of the law, wherever that message is preached, it
does just exactly what Paul has been warning the Galatians about.
It promotes a prideful, holier-than-thou attitude that's harsh toward
other sinners, especially fallen sinners, stumbling sinners, sinners
who stumble, believers who stumble in their sin. It produces a harsh,
condemning, judgmental spirit. The flesh desires vain glory. That's all our flesh desires.
It's vain glory. It desires to be praised by men
as being holier better, being wiser and being better for separating
from sinners and separating themselves from sinners. That's the vain
glory that the flesh craves. It provokes one another. That's all it does. This type
of holier-than-thou attitude provokes and it it stirs up envy
and strife. You know, back up in verse 15,
Galatians 5.15, He said, If you bite and devour one another,
take heed that you be not consumed one of another. What had started
all that biting and devouring? Why were they provoking one another
and envying one another? They were being told to look
to themselves, to look to their law keeping, and to separate
themselves from others, including Paul. They were telling the Galatian
believers to separate from Paul. That's why Paul in the beginning
said, if I or any other preacher, he said, even if an angel from
heaven comes down and preaches any other gospel to you than
that which we've preached to you, let him be accursed. Let
him be accursed. Brethren, we depend upon the
Spirit to walk in the Spirit, to put off the old man. We're
entirely dependent on the Spirit to make us put off the old man. And without contradiction to
that whatsoever, the Scripture also warns us not to quench the
Spirit. It doesn't mean you can quench
God, the Holy Spirit. He's irresistible. Those in whom
He dwells, He has sealed us. That is, He preserved us to the
day of redemption. We can't resist the Holy Spirit
of God. But we can quench or dampen or
weaken this fruit of the Spirit that He creates within us. We
can cause ourselves to grow weak by feeding our flesh. by setting
our affection on this world rather than on spiritual things. Now,
likewise, we need the Spirit of God to put on the new man.
We have to have the Spirit of God to make us walk in the Spirit,
put on the new man. But Scripture also tells us to
stir up the gift that is in us. That's by setting our affection
on Christ and setting our affection on things above, by reading the
Word, by using the means God's given us
to be in a spiritual frame of mind. You know, when we wake
up every morning, before we walk out the door, we get dressed,
we put on our clothes. Well, we should be as afraid
to leave our house each morning without first reading the Word
of God, seeking God in prayer, getting ourselves in a spiritual
frame of mind to meet the day. We ought to be as afraid of walking
out of our house without putting on the new man as we are walking
out of the house without putting on our clothes. And here's why. Without having our heart set
on Christ, we'll come in contact with all these different things
God providentially brings our way throughout the day. But if
we're not walking in the Spirit, if our minds are not set on Christ
and our heart on Christ, then we won't profit spiritually from
these things. We won't see what we should see
spiritually in the providential dealings God's bringing our way,
in the trials, and it's all of God, and it's to teach us. But
we'll be blind to it. Now we may profit carnally throughout
our day in the things we do, but if we haven't profited spiritually,
we really haven't profited. We're not here just to profit
carnally. We're here to profit spiritually. To learn of God and be taught
of God that which is lasting and eternal and everlasting.
The spiritual things. Christ said, abide in me and
I in you for without me you can do nothing. So we ought to start out seeking
to abide in him and seeking to have him abiding in us. through
the means he's given us. The scriptures and good sermons
and good articles and good books and things that we can read that'll
set our mind. Sometimes even if you can't do
anything but just read a verse of scripture. You know if you
read a verse of scripture, sometimes it's better than reading a whole
long passage of scripture. You read a verse and get your
mind set on that verse and start thinking about now what does
this mean? Ask God to teach you what it means. And as you go
through the day, this is what I found to be the case, God will
usually bring something that you encounter and he'll show
you exactly what it meant. And you'll learn what it meant.
Now spiritual mindedness, brethren, is especially necessary in our
dealings with one another. when a brother is overtaken in
a sin. And that's how Paul applies this
as we move into the next chapter. He says in verse 1, brethren,
if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, you which
are spiritually minded, you which are walking in the spirit, restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness. Considering thyself, lest thou
also be tempted, Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill
the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to
be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. He's walking
in the flesh. Now if we live in the Spirit,
let's endeavor to always be spiritually minded, so when a brother or
sister is overtaken in a fault, we'll walk in the Spirit rather
than in the flesh. And now look, first of all, to
walk in the Spirit is to restore the fallen in meekness. That's
how he's applying it right here. This is what he's talking about.
Walking in the Spirit is to restore the fallen in meekness. He says,
brethren, brethren, if a man. He's talking about if a brother
or a sister in Christ. Now this applies to us who are
the family of God. And I think we forget this, I
said this Sunday, but I think we forget this sometimes. It
applies to us as brothers and sisters in Christ in all our
relationships to one another. In our home, husbands and wives,
parents and children, in the church here amongst brethren,
but in our home as well, husbands, wives, parents, children, You
have husbands and wives, but above that, the eternal relationship
you have is your brothers and sisters in Christ. You have parents
and children, but above that relationship, your brothers and
sisters in Christ. Sometimes you have brethren that
work together. It includes this. You might be
employer and employee, but above that, your brothers and sisters
in Christ. And sometimes I think we forget this and how we treat
one another in all these various relationships. First and foremost,
we should remember, that's my brother, that's my sister in
Christ, we're the family of God. He says now, if a brother or
sister be overtaken in a fault, if they fall into some sin, even
if it's against you, even if it offends you, were to forgive
them and restore them. Forgive them and restore them,
even if it be seven times in a day. Listen to it. The Lord said, if a brother trespass
against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn
again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. How many
times does Christ forgive me in a day? And does he set any conditions?
Do I have to jump through a bunch of hoops to have forgiveness?
He says, repent. Be sorry for your sin. Have a
change of mind concerning it. That's it. And forgive. And so he tells us, forgive one
another, even if it be seven times in a day. Now each believer
prefers the honor of one another. You know, this is something that
is a gracious thing God does when he puts love in our hearts.
You prefer your brother's honor above your own honor. So when
they're overtaken in a fault, you want to give them the benefit
of the doubt. Law looks upon sins as crimes to be punished. Grace and love looks at them
as weaknesses that need our help. Is there any condition, you think
about this, is there any condition a brother or sister could be
in when they need our help more than when they're overtaken in
a sin? You know, we mourn with one another when a brother loses
a loved one. We sympathize with one another
when a brother loses a job. How sad if we don't sympathize
with a brother when they've fallen into sin. That's when they need
it more than ever. More than ever. So he says, you
which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.
This is a more specific way of saying what he just said. He
said, if you live in the spirit, let us walk in the spirit. Not
desiring vain glory, not provoking one another, envying one another.
This is a very particular way of saying that. You which are
spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. Now
every believer that's born again of the Holy Spirit is spiritual.
We live in the spirit. And that will always be. That's
never going to change. Christ's blood is effectual and
God's grace is everlasting. His love is everlasting. He doesn't
take back His grace and His gifts. That will be eternal. We live
in and by the Spirit, but we don't always walk in the Spirit.
do we? We don't always walk in the spirit.
Now most people will say that this refers to a mature believer,
if you be spiritual, you that be spiritual, talking about older
mature believers. And that's true. That for the
most part usually is who it's speaking about. But I'll tell
you, even the most mature believer is not always spiritually minded.
He's not always walking in the Spirit because we have a sinful
fleshly nature with us. And if I'm not in a spiritual
frame of mind at the time when my brother's overtaken in a sin,
then in my dealings with him, I too will walk in the flesh.
If I'm not spiritually minded when a brother's overtaken in
a sin, I'll deal with him after the flesh rather than after the
Spirit. Husbands, wives, have you found
that to be the case in the home? Parents and children, this is
what we're prone to do because of our sinful flesh. Especially
if he sinned against me and offended me. It's easy to see this when
we're talking about lawmongers preaching the works of the law.
It's easy to see this because they walk in the flesh. You take
a man who thinks he fulfills the law, who thinks he is keeping
the law in the letter and he wants all to see it. When a brother
is overtaken in a fault in the way he deals with a brother,
he is going to seek vainglory. He is going to seek to be seen
as better than that brother, as wiser than that brother, as
holier than that brother by harshly condemning him because of his
sins. That's what that's all about,
is to make himself look better. If you don't believe me, read
on down the page in chapter 6, and Paul says there, verse 12,
as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain
you to be circumcised, to be under the law, only lest they
should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither
they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have
you circumcised, that they may glory in what they made you do. And it's all glorying in the
flesh. Most of this stuff they call
church discipline. And when he separates himself
from the fallen, that's sinful flesh. You know what the word
Pharisee means? Separate ones. It's to separate
oneself to show that I don't condone their sin. And I won't
have anything to do with somebody that sins like that. What are
they really saying? I'm holier, I'm holier. The only place in scripture where
the word holier is used in reference with one center to another is
one place it's used and it's this. They say, stand by thyself,
come not near to me for I'm holier than thou. And God said, these
are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. By
judging and condemning, what does it do? It provokes one another. And it promotes envy and strife. And so, as Paul said, biting
and devouring one another. But brethren, it's not just the
legalist that does that. Sadly, I wish we didn't have
to say this, but it's not just the legalist that does that.
If we're in a fleshly mind, When a brother sins, especially if
it's against us, especially if we're the ones offended, we'll
seek vainglory the same way. And we'll provoke them the same
way. And we'll promote envy the same
way. That's what we are. This is why at all times, brethren,
Paul is saying here, he's saying what our Lord said. Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek Christ first preeminently
in everything. It doesn't mean just prioritize
and Christ is at the top and then next comes whatever and
on down the list. No. Seek Christ preeminently all
the time. All the time. It means set our
affection on things above, not on things of the earth. All the
time. And that way, we're spiritual. You which are spiritual. You'll
be able to help a brother fallen in sin. Be it me, your pastor. You, brothers and sisters. Be it a spouse. Be it a child. be it your co-worker, whatever
the relationship be between brother and sisters in Christ, you'll
be able to restore, you'll be in that spiritual frame of mind,
not to just see it fleshly and just to respond in the flesh,
but to behold it spiritually and respond spiritually. And
so he says, if we're in the Spirit, he says, restore such a one.
You know, the flesh is what wants to divide. We sinned in Adam
and we fell in Adam and we became separated from God. And we've
not been going in unity closer to God if left in our flesh.
If left in our flesh, we get further and further and further
divided. It's the Spirit of God that unites. And the Spirit He
creates within us is the Spirit within every believer that endeavors
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We have
an old man of flesh that just assumed divide. But we have a
new man of Spirit that wants unity and wants peace. And so He says, Restore such
a one. Now when a son or a daughter
When they have fallen and they've broken a bone and they're hurt,
maybe they did something you told them not to do and they
broke a bone. You don't pull out a whip and
start whipping them. You try to comfort them in every
way you can. You take the hurt if you could
take it. You try to comfort them and you're taking them to a physician
just as fast as you can get them to a physician. That's what He's saying to us.
For brothers overtaken in a fall, Christ said, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people. Comfort my people. And what are
you doing? You're trying to restore them
back to Christ. What is sin? It's being separated
from Christ. What's restoring? It's restoring
them back to Christ. It's not trying to kick them
out and make you an example of them. Trying to bring them in
and restoring them to Christ. And how do you do this? He says,
in the spirit of meekness. That's the spirit of humility.
Our Master said this in Matthew 11, 29. He said, take my yoke
upon you and learn of me, now listen, for I am meek and lowly
in heart. The second there, lowly in heart,
tells us what meek means. And we find these two phrases
together in scripture. Ephesians 4.2 says, with all
lowliness and meekness. Lowliness is meekness. Meekness
is lowliness. They're synonyms. Now in the
Beatitudes in Matthew 5, if you want to look there, Matthew chapter
5, look here what our Lord said. And this is how He, this is what
He does in the heart of His people. And look here in Matthew 5, He
said, first of all, blessed are the poor, verse 3, blessed are
the poor in spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us a sense
of our sinfulness and our insufficiency and our nothingness. And we become
poor in spirit. And then He says, blessed are
those who mourn. with a poor spirit, then comes
sorrow over our sins, which are against God. And then, blessed
are the meek, the one in whom the Spirit of God has shown His
nothingness, shown His sinfulness, shown our inability, our insufficiency,
the one in whom He's created a heart of mourning over our
sin. He's brought that that believer
down to the dust before God in humbleness of spirit, in meekness. That's what he's talking about.
And so, look back now at Galatians 6. That's why Paul goes on to
define it here with this next word. He says, verse 1, considering
thyself, lest thou also be tempted. In lowliness of mind, considering
myself. lest I also be tempted. Look
at verse 3. For if a man think himself to
be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. This will
help me be spiritually minded, right here, to consider myself. Whenever a brother is overtaken
in a fault, the first thing I ought to do
is to stop and consider myself. Consider myself. Consider my
sinfulness, my nothingness while dead in trespasses and sins and
in my flesh right now. Consider how sinful I am and
how easily I'm overtaken in sin. The same sin. lest I be tempted to exalt myself
and put myself in a seat of judgment as a master over my brother or
my sister. Paul said, my brethren, be not
many masters. There's a lot of masters in this
world. Everybody in the world right
now is a master. Everybody in the world right
now thinks they know, they're the wisest and knows how to rebuke
and instruct others. Why did He say that? For in many
things we offend in all. We got one Master. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what He said in Romans
14. You have a weak brother and he thinks he can only eat this
and he can't eat that and he's trying to live under the law.
He's a weak brother. He said to his own Master, he
stands or falls. Yeah, He should be held up. Christ knows how to make us stand.
He knows how to instruct His people and increase His people.
And you know what Christ is doing with that weak brother? He is
not only instructing him, He is instructing you who are spiritual
and me who are spiritual. He is instructing us through
that weak brother to trust the Master, to teach Him and grow
Him and make Him stand. So I consider myself how sinful
I am and then also consider how Christ deals with me. How does
He deal with me? In mercy. He withholds from me
what I deserve. He deals with me in grace. He
gives me what I have in no way merited whatsoever. He deals
with me with much long suffering. much long suffering. You know
how you used to suffer long when your children were just little
children and you'd wait on them to do something and they couldn't
do it and you watched them and you know that you just want to
and you just have to suffer long with them. We're just like that
before God right now. He deals with me in kindness.
He deals with me forgiving me. That's why Paul said in Ephesians,
be ye kind one to another, tender hearted. You know what a tender
heart is? A tender heart can be moved with
compassion at just very little. So tender. It's so opposite to
a hard, stern heart. Tender hearted. forgiving one another even as
God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. That's how we deal with
one another. So I consider my sin, I consider
my nothingness, I consider how Christ deals with me, and then
consider that brother, that sister, and myself are one in Christ. We're members of the same body. born of the same spirit, given
the same faith, we're one. One, got one Father. What I do to him or her, I do
to Christ. These are things to consider.
Now, if we're not in a spiritual state of mind, brethren, if we're
not spiritual, then we would do well to stop and we'd do well
to consider. Remind ourselves that we're nothing.
Remind ourselves that we're sinners saved by grace, freely forgiven
for Christ's sake. Remind ourselves that our only
righteousness, our only holiness is Christ. We got nothing to
boast in. Remind ourselves that the only
reason we're not in that very fault right now is the keeping
hand of God's grace. And then, The Spirit of God, if we do that,
the Spirit of God made you do it. Consider yourself. And the Spirit of God will apply
it all to our heart and the love of Christ will constrain us to
deal with that brother and sister spiritually in the spirit of
meekness. To restore them. To restore them. That's the first thing walking
in the Spirit is, restoring in the spirit of meekness. And I'll
be quick on this second part. It's to bear the burden. He says in verse 2, "...bear
ye one another's burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Here you have these false preachers come in, and you have these Galatian
believers that are being deceived. And they're thinking, well, are
we supposed to be under a law? And Paul says, do you want to
be under the law? You want to be under a law? Here's
a law. that every believer is under,
right here. It's the law of Christ. It's
the law of love. It's the law of love. Christ
bore the burden of all my sin and all my shame. He bore it
all. He bore its punishment. He bore
the wrath of God against it. He bore being forsaken of God
when He bore my burden. not just my sin, He bore the
burden of all God's elect. Listen to this, who His own self
bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead
to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.
He bore my burden, He bore it away. And if you live in the
Spirit, He bore your burden away. It's gone. Our sins have been
put away by Christ, never to be judged by God and condemned
by God because of them ever again. Now why did Christ do that? What
made Him do that? It certainly wasn't anything
in us to make Him do it, was it? Why did He do it? Love beareth all things. That's why He did it. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. Brethren, beloved, if God so
loved us, we ought also to love one another. Look at Galatians
2. Look at Galatians 2 and verse
19. For I through the law am dead
to the law. There is my justification. that
I might live under God. There is my sanctification. I
am crucified with Christ. Christ justified me when I was
crucified with Him. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God. Christ sanctified
me when in the new birth He was formed in me. And He became my
holiness, my sanctification, without which no man will enter
into God's presence. And you know why He did this?
Why did He justify me? Why did He justify you, believer?
Why did He sanctify you, believer? Look. Who loved me. He loved me. And He gave Himself
for me. And therefore, I don't frustrate
the grace of God. Because if righteousness comes
by the law, then Christ He's dead in vain. The man who wants
the world to see that he lives by the law and claims he's got
all this zeal for Christ and His glory, when he uses the law
to lay a heavy burden on a sinner, and when he takes out the whip
of the law and he starts whipping a fallen sinner, and he separates
himself from that sinner, he shows that he has not begun to
keep the law. Why? Look back at Galatians 5.14.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That's the law. That's what Paul
is saying here. The law of Christ is the law
of love. That's what made him bear our
burden. And Christ said to you and me, who have been born of
Him, He said, A new commandment I give unto you, that you love
one another. As I loved you, that you also
love one another. By this shall all men know you
are my disciples, that you have love one to another. Love doesn't
have to have laws written out in the letter. It doesn't have
to have that. It doesn't have to have that.
I don't have to have things written out on the wall teaching me how
to treat my bride and my children. I don't have to have a bunch
of things written out. Love is in the heart. Love is written
on the heart and love motivates and moves all our bodily members. And love will sacrifice whatever
it's got to sacrifice for the one it loves. It will bear whatever
burden it's got to bear for the one it loves. And you and I,
believer, we've been constrained in our heart by the love of Christ. When He writes the law in our
hearts, it's not the Ten Commandments. It's the law of love and the
law of faith. We walk by faith in all the works
we do for one another, such as this He's talking about. We do
it in love, constrained by the love of Christ. Not by law, not
from a legal motive, not from a mercenary motive, by love. And so he says this to us in
Galatians 5.13, Brethren, you've been called unto liberty. Don't
get tangled up again into the law. You've been freed from it.
Although use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but
by love serve one another. As brothers and sisters in God's
family and in our own family, as brothers and sisters, Paul
says, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain
glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Let us take
time to consider ourselves so as to be spiritually minded.
consider Christ, seek Christ, look to Christ, read His Word,
be in His Word, be in the Gospel continually, so that your mind
is set on Christ. So when that brother's, when
he's overtaken and you're overtaken by him being overtaken, because
it surprised you, you'll be in the spiritual frame of mind to
deal with a brother and a sister in love, ministering to one another's
needs in meekness, and humility as one that you see who is your
own flesh and blood. And let's not give conditions
to one another. Oh, you've got to do such and
such to me. I'm going to take the high road now and I'm going
to show you what a holy man I am. I'm going to forgive you, but
now you're going to have to do this and this. That's desiring
vainglory. No. even as God for Christ's
sake has forgiven us seven times in a day. Let us help one another
to be restored to Christ. In other words, let us love one
another as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us. I'll just not say another word.
I'll leave it at that. I pray God will bless you.