Now if you read the front of
your bulletin, you notice that I have entitled
this morning's message, The Life of Grace. The Life of Grace. Now before I settled on this
text for this morning, I have actually thought I was settled
on two other texts from the scriptures and had kind of fleshed out a
sermon in my mind and thought I was well ahead of the
game. Because quite often I don't have a clue where I'm going until
Saturday night, sometimes even Sunday morning. But I felt I'm
a little ahead of the game, you know. Some of us went out to
eat in Sioux Falls last night. Bob and I got home, 9, 9.30,
something like that, and I suddenly was confronted with a job that
I felt I had to complete. And I worked on it and wasn't
paying any attention to time, and when I got done, it was 1.30
in the morning. And I thought, why did you do
that to yourself? But that's just kind of my nature. So I
went to bed, and by this time I'm behind the ball instead of
ahead of it, because the things I had thought about during the
week were not what were engaging my mind at the time. So I laid
down, and I was not laying there very long before this text of
scripture came to my mind. And for some reason, It captured
my thinking. Now recently I have spent so
much time in Brother Tim James's commentary on the book of Galatians
that every time I open on the book of Galatians I feel like
I've just preached on this. And I'll be honest with you I
don't know whether I've preached on this recently or not. If I
have it must be the Lord thought you needed to hear it again because
this is what filled my mind, and so I've just learned over
the years, whatever the Lord fills your mind up with, say
it. But it's wonderful stuff, and
I don't mean the sermon's wonderful, I mean what is said here is so
precious. The life of grace. Now we've
often talked about the life of faith, and really, We could call
this message by that name because the life of grace is the life
of faith. It's the life of believing rather
than doing. It's the life of trusting Christ
in what He has done rather than laboring with our own hands to
accomplish those things that we could never get accomplished
in a way that would satisfy God. And so it wouldn't be a problem
calling it the life of faith. I know that recently we preached
from verse 16 of the previous chapter. So I say live by the
spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And
we could likewise say that this is a description of the life
of walking in the spirit. Whatever is described here in
chapter six is Paul taking all the theological work that he
has done in the first five chapters and showing us how that ought
to cause us to live, especially in relationship to one another. You know, the gospel is just
not a set of doctrines that is designed to fill our minds with
knowledge so we can go around and think we're something special
because we know this, that, or the other. The truth is, if we
honestly know the doctrines of the gospel, I mean know them
in a spiritual way, it will not inflate us with pride over what
we know, nor will we be satisfied with a mere knowledge of them.
Rather, as Paul has done here, we will realize that what we
have been taught in the gospel is to have an effect on the way
we live our lives in this world. The gospel of grace, or maybe
I could just say the grace of God, always accomplishes something. Paul said, His grace to me was
not without effect. And that's true everywhere. Wherever
God is pleased to bestow His grace, it has an effect. Now let me say this up front.
It's not necessarily an effect that someone else is going to
be able to see. And it might not even be an effect that you'll
be able to see, because it's like a seed that has been sown.
Oftentimes, it's quite a while before it ever breaks the surface.
And even then, it's going to be a while before it grows into
a mature plant, and maybe even later before it puts forth fruit. But grace is a principle of eternal
life, and life always does something. Now what is it to live as those
who claim to be recipients of God's grace? What is the life
of grace? And I might say that most of
what Paul says here, nearly all of it, applies to life within
the church, within the assembly of God's people. First thing
is this. It's family life. What's the
first word? Brothers. Brothers. That's a precious word to think
of. Now, you women don't think you're being left out. Even back
in the days in which the New Testament was written, the word
brothers, even though it sounds like it refers only to men, was
often used to describe any kind of familial relationships. So
when he says brothers here, he's including everyone in the church.
Remember, the scriptures say in Christ there is neither male
nor female. We are all the brethren of the
Lord Jesus Christ and brethren one to another. Now family life,
that's different, is it not, than the relationships we have
with anyone else. Have you ever noticed how with
family, You put up with almost anything. It takes very serious transgressions, offenses, to
separate family. Oh, they can get huffy with each
other for a little while, but they always reconcile, don't
they? We make our friends in this world. But friends, generally speaking,
do not have the same level of loyalty from us that we have
from members of our family. Nearly everybody has those in
their family who, for lack of a better way to put it, are an
embarrassment to the family, a frustration to them, who seem
to do everything in a destructive pattern. But we don't kick them
out of the family, do we? We don't refuse to love them.
We don't refuse to help them in the best way we know how.
Why? They're family. And you don't
turn your back on family. Well brethren, we as those joined
to Christ Jesus are joined more closely than those who are joined
by blood. And that's true. And we ought to see things that
way. I look out here this morning. Now, I've said to people before,
and of course I'm just talking in a natural way, I said, you
know, Bonnie and I have no family in this area. And what I mean
is, you know, our blood relatives don't live around here. But in
all reality, we have something better than family, natural family
here. We have you. We have you. You are part of us, and we are
part of you. Our lives are entwined. Just
like in our natural families, we hurt when a member of the
family hurts, and we rejoice when a member of the family is
exalted in some way or another, so it is in the household of
God. We're not to be jealous of one
another. We've all been in churches where
there's competition among the members to see who can get the
highest spot. Who's going to be the big shot
in church? Well, I'll tell you who gets to be the big shot in
our church. The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only big shot there
is. And we're not jealous of one
another because of whatever position God may have given us or whatever
gifts he has given us. within the congregation. We are
as happy for the advancement of someone else as for the advancement
of ourselves. Why? We're family, brothers. Paul had been dealing with those
who were trying to bring the law into the church and trying
to make outward performance to be the guide by which you receive
or rejected people. Brother Tim put it so well in
his commentary. In speaking of legalists, he
says they are not concerned or they are more concerned that
you have the same conduct than that you are of the same family. Paul says brothers. And imagine
who he's saying it to. He's saying it to those who he
really is kind of concerned about whether or not they really are
brothers. He says, I worry maybe that I've wasted my efforts on
you in one place. He says in the first chapter,
he said, I'm surprised that you're so soon removed from the gospel
that you have heard unto another gospel, which really isn't another
gospel at all. It's not good news. It's bad
news. He said, I'm scratching my head. I don't understand this. And yet, as he comes to the end
of it all, having laid all this out, even with all his concerns
and fears for them, he says, brothers, not competitors, not just members of the same
church, brothers, bound together by the
eternal life given to us by the Father we all share. He says in the book of Ephesians,
there is one Father. Everyone here who believes, who
is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, all of us, we have one
Father. And therefore the life of grace
is to relate to one another as those who are of the same Father. And just as you are not very
likely to cut off those in your natural family. We never cut
off those who are of the family of God. You know, when churches, when
people start a church, you know, they want to come up with some
kind of statement of faith or a covenant or something, you
know, constitution of the church. And I'm not going to berate them. That's exactly the way I approach
things at one time, too. But what's interesting is to
note how much time and effort they put in to what they call
church discipline. You know, right at the beginning,
they want to figure out what's the process for kicking someone
out. That's what they mean by church discipline. It's what
it comes down to. Rather than, I'm not interested
in kicking anybody out. Really, any more than I would
kick out, even much less than I would be inclined to kick out
a member of my natural family. We're not here for kicking out.
We're here to find the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ who
preach in the gospel and to draw them in and treat them. is our brother, brothers in the
Lord Jesus. Okay, he goes on now and says,
brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, now that word translated
if does not necessarily indicate that there's any doubt about
the reality that he talks about. could be as what easily translated
is accurately translated if he would have said brothers when
someone is caught in a sin. People join together they try
to put together a church and it's usually kind of a heady
time for everybody involved it's something new it seems exciting
but here's one thing that'll happen Every time a group of
people get together, as those who have like precious faith,
that is, they have the same faith, they believe the same thing,
and that's the only reason for getting together in this kind
of thing, is that you believe the same things. And so they
get together, and everybody, at that time, you know, it's
kind of like a honeymoon period, you know, and we do put up with
everything everybody does, but eventually, Eventually, everybody
starts to become individuals again, and one thing you can
be sure of, there are going to be those whose conduct is such
it creates great offense among the people of the assembly. There's
no question about whether or not that's going to happen. Why? Because we're people. we may be brothers in the Lord
Jesus Christ but we're still people we're still the sons of
Adam even though by the grace of God we've been made the sons
of God in our flesh we're still the sons of Adam and therefore
our flesh still acts like our father Adam which means we do
things that are offensive to our brothers in the Lord Jesus
Christ and they do things that are offensive to us The difference
in the life of grace is what we do about those things. Do
you know what they did about it under the law? And this actually
has reference kind of to one of the messages I was thinking
about preaching, but the story of that woman that came into
the room when our Lord had been invited to the house of a Pharisee. And there's the Pharisees, and
you know, because he wasn't the only Pharisee there, There were
others and there was the Lord Jesus. And this woman, and the
Bible says of her, who was a sinner. Now it's not talking about who
was a sinner in that theological sense. We say everybody's a sinner.
It means this woman was notorious for her sinful life. And seeing
that at that time and place there was about only one way for a
woman to be known as a notorious sinner. We can just imagine what
kind of woman she was. And she came into that room where
our Lord was. And she knelt down there at his
feet. You know, when they ate back then, they didn't sit in
chairs. They actually reclined. And with their head kind of towards
the table, you know. And so there's the Lord. His
feet are sticking out to the bottom of his robe. And she came
over to there and she had a little jar of expensive perfume with
her. And she began to anoint his feet.
with that perfume. And her tears began to fall.
And she washed his feet with her tears. And she began to dry them with
her hair. And you know what the Pharisee
said? A man named Simon. He said in his own mind, If this
man was a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this was,
and he would not let her touch him. You know, the one thing that
Simon didn't know is that the Lord knew what Simon was thinking.
And he said, Simon, I've got a story for you. I've got a question. There are two people that owe
a man money. One owed him 50 denarii, which
is about like 50 days worth of work. Another owed him 500. And the man freely forgave both
of them, just cleared the debt of both of them. He said, now,
which one do you think will love that man more? And Simon said, well, the one
who had a debt of 500 denarii, 500 days worth of work. And he says, Simon, I came into
your house and you did not even give me
the common courtesy of our day to wash the feet of a guest. I mean, that was just expected
treatment. Kind of like us, when somebody
comes over, we say, can I take your coat? Well, you know, there
would be a servant in the house or whatever, and as soon as somebody
walked in as a guest, they'd kick off their sandals, and that
servant would bend down there and wash their feet and get the
grime of the day off of them. Maybe put a little ointment on
them, make them feel better. He says, you didn't do that for
me. He says, you didn't give me a kiss of welcome. Says, but
from the time this woman walked in here, she has not ceased to
wash my feet. And she says, and she loves much
because she has been forgiven much. Simon was ready to cast
this woman out and thought the Lord should do the same thing. You know there's something else
Simon didn't know, and for all I know the Lord never told him.
He talked about the one who's forgiven much and the one who's
forgiven little. Do you realize one of those people is utterly
hypothetical and doesn't exist? There's nobody who's been forgiven
little. There are those who've been forgiven much and those
who've been forgiven nothing. Why? Because everybody has sinned
much. And either God forgives them
much, or there is no forgiveness for them whatsoever. But of course
Simon thought he was just a small sinner. But what does this scripture
say when someone is caught in a sin? And here's the interesting
thing, that word translated sin, that doesn't just mean some little
old thing. I know we say in eternal matters that all sins are the
same, and they are. We're not backpedaling that.
But we also know that the offenses that we create to one another,
there are measures of it. Some things bother us more than
others. And there are some sins that
a person can commit that would scandalize us much more than
other sins. This word here is translated
here. means to fall by the side. He's not even talking here of
those who have merely done something offensive, but those who have
maybe done the very things he was warning against here in the
book of Galatians and have tried to supplement the, they've been
deceived by those legalists and they have started to try to establish
their own righteousness as a reason for God to bless them. And they
started with their Sabbath-keeping, and they started with all the
manner of things that others were telling them they ought
to do, you know, because, you know, you're a Christian, this
is how you ought to do it. And they were doing it out of fear of punishment
or of hope of reward. And you know, when we begin to
conduct our lives of fear of punishment or hope of reward
we have left the life of grace and entered in to the life of
works. And I believe that's kind of
the person he's talking here. And brethren it happens. See
that never happened to me, happens to you all the time. Maybe for
just a few moments. But I Have you ever done anything?
I'm asking one of those rhetorical questions. You don't have to
answer it because I already know what the answer is. Have you ever done anything
that made you feel it was so bad that you probably weren't
a Christian and you felt like you ought to start doing something
good to prove you were a Christian? It's exactly the kind of stuff
he's talking about. It's just most of the time when
it happens, it all goes on inside our head and God corrects us
before it ever comes on the outside. But not always. Not always. Here's another way that a person
gets caught in this kind of sin when it becomes judgmental of
the other brothers. Now this is sin that religion
thinks is righteousness. I mean when you have become so
good and so righteous that you think that it's all right for
you to point a finger at someone else, what have you done? You
have stepped off the path of grace and onto the path of works. You have stepped off the narrow
way, which leads unto life, and you have gone on the broad way
that leads to destruction. Now we do that in our flesh.
Believers do that. You say, I wouldn't do that.
Yes, you would. And by saying you wouldn't do
that, you've proved that you would. Because you've proven
that you don't understand what you are in your flesh and that
we all continually or regularly we look at what our brethren
do sometimes. Now how can he be one of the
people? Well he can be one of the people of God just like we
are by free and sovereign grace. Well a Christian would never
do that. Well go tell that to Lot. Go tell that to Abraham. Have any of you men done like
Abraham. You and your wife are somewhere
with some man, powerful man, sets his eye on your wife and
you say, look here, dear, guys, He's kind of violent, you know,
and he's looking at you. Tell you what, you just pretend
like we're not married. You go ahead with him because,
boy, if I assert my right as your husband, you'll probably
have me eliminated. Who of you, would you do that? No Christian
would ever do that. Abraham did it twice. You'd be amazed. You should be
amazed at what I believe he's capable of doing. You ought to
be amazed. what you find yourself doing
and that's what it makes us so amazed when we realize what God
has done for us. But here if anyone is caught
in this falling by the side of the way of grace and we do get
caught in it and some get so caught up in it they begin to
withdraw from the other brethren because they don't think that
is suitable to associate with someone who would do that. There
are situations where, for the reputation of Christ, Paul says
we need to do that. But it's a very rare situation.
And even then, we are not saying, that person doesn't know God.
We're just saying, as Paul said, we're just going to kind of isolate
him so he begins to understand what life outside of Christ is
like, and he remembers what he's walking away from, and it'll
restore him. Even then, the purpose is not
judgment. The purpose is not to cast out,
but the purpose is to use that experience to make them want
to come back. And he says this, you who are
spiritual should restore him. What does the law do? What does
the life of self-righteousness say to do? It says reject him. Put him out. Have nothing to
do with him. Tell him he's not good enough. Grace says restore him. And I like this word here, restore,
is the word that's used when it talked about When our Lord
was gathering his disciples, remember he said he saw, I believe
it was John, James, and maybe Peter was involved, I can't remember,
but they were mending their nets. When those fishermen would cast
out the nets, you know, the nets would break from time to time,
and so they'd have to go there and get some more of whatever
they made their netting out of, you know, and fix the breaks
in it and make it whole again. And that's what he's talking
about here. We live in a world that doesn't
want to fix problems, they want to get rid of them. The life of grace is about restoration. It's about continually going
to your alienated brother, who through, particularly through
self-righteousness, has alienated himself from the people of God. Withdraw from them and say, brother,
come home. Now, the way you're going isn't
right, but we're not mad. We're worried for you. Now, come
on back. We're not gonna make you stand
up in front of the church and tell us how sorry you are. We're
not gonna make you make public all the wrong that you've done.
We just want you back. all the blessedness of God giving grace that enables
us to restore an estranged brother, to bring them back. And that's what we ought to always
be wanting to do, bring them home. How do you do that? Well, you
remind them that despite what they have done, they are still
part of God's family. I've had, on a few occasions,
people tell me about things they've done that lay so heavily on their
conscience they believe that they have been disowned by God. And I've asked them, I said,
is your only hope Jesus Christ? They go, yeah. And then to be privileged to
say, as Nathan did to David, the Lord has forgiven your sins. You say, well, you don't have
a right to say that. I have the right to say it on the basis
that they claim that their only hope is Christ. And if their
only hope is Christ, God has forgiven their sins. God is not
standing over them as judge. God's not putting them out of
the family. He never does that. There are some who will find
out they never were part of the family, but not one of God's
sons have ever been disinherited, disowned, and kicked out. There
are some sons who, like the prodigal, have gone walking off for a while,
but when they come home, what did the father say to that boy?
Have you ever read that story and just, well, that boy's coming
back, and he thinks he's got to come back like a servant.
He thinks the only way back into his father's household is through
taking the place of a servant and living out in the barn and
working in order to get his bowl of beans every day. And he comes
back with that little speech going through his mind, Father,
I've sinned against heaven and you and I'm no longer worthy
to be called your son. Make me your servant. As I picture it in my mind, because
I imagine I'd do the same thing, he's practicing this because
he wants to get it right when he sees his father. And he's
coming up the road and he's a mess. The life he's lived, I mean,
it left marks on him. He's skinny. He's been living
without any good food. And he's coming up the road. And it says, while he was a long
way off, the father saw him. Nobody else did. If anybody else had seen him,
they wouldn't recognize him. But the father knew his son.
The father knew his son. And he didn't stand there on
the front porch and say, all right, he left on his own. I'm
just going to stand here until he comes back. He's going to
come all the way back to me. The father ran to me. And that boy started his little
speech. And the father let him get far enough to say, father,
I've sinned against heaven and you, and I'm no longer worthy
to be called your son. And the father let him say that
because it was true. But the father never let him
say, make me a servant. Because the father had much better
things in mind. This was his son. Oh, it had
been his son and always would be his son. And he may have played
the fool, but he's still his son. And the father says, go get a robe. Get some new shoes. You put them
on this boy. More than this, you go get the
family ring and you put it on his hand. And if the father threw a party, the Bible says
feast. That sounds so much more dignified,
doesn't it? It's a party. It was an opportunity for him
to gather with his friends and rejoice that his son has
come home. There's only one person who didn't
go to the party. That's the older brother. And you know why he
didn't? He was mad. And you know what
he said to his father? He said, Father, I have worked
for you faithfully all these years, and you never threw me
a party. But this son of yours, waste
your money. Waste your money in horrible
living. And he comes back and you throw
a party. That's just not right. Who was
that boy? Who was that son? He was the legalist. And you
know what? Sometimes we who were in former
times the prodigal son become the oldest son. And we think
that people gotta jump through some hoops before they can come
back. There's only one thing that a
wandering son of God, a wandering brother in the assembly, only
one thing they have to do to come back. and has to come back. Don't have to be baptized all
over again. He just come home. Pick up where they left off.
And all the people of God rejoice. He's back. Restore them gently. No rebukes. No harshness, no
wall, no test. They're back. That's enough. And do so watching yourself. You also may be tempted. Don't take the high road and
then pat yourself on the back for taking the high road, because
one of these days, you're going to be crawling back on the low
road. And you don't want somebody to be up on a high road pointing
down at you. Remember, we all take our turns being the one
who needs to be restored. You say, I don't know, it just
seems to me you're being awful easy on people. I'm not being
any easier on people than God is on me. How easy is God on
you? David said he has not dealt with
us according to our transgressions. How dare we deal with the brethren
according to their transgressions, as though we are better than
God. When God quits forgiving you, did you have permission
to quit forgiving your brothers in the Lord Jesus Christ? And what you'll find out is this,
if you ever quit forgiving your brothers, It's not as though the Lord will
not forgive you, but he will not testify of that forgiveness
to you. And your conscience will begin
to become loaded down with your own sin. Carry each other's burdens. As
you can tell, I'm not going to get as far as I thought, but
hey, nothing new there. carry each other's burdens. And
we're going to stop after this verse. Carry each other's burdens,
and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. These legalists
that came in, they were so intent on making people fulfill the
law of Moses. Well, I'm not going to take anything
away from the law of Moses. But you put the Law of Moses
up next to the Law of Christ. You won't even be able to see
the Law of Moses anymore. The glory of the Law of Christ
so exceeds the glory of the Law of Moses. It's like trying to
put a match next to the sun. You're not going to be able to
see the match anymore. The Law of Moses simply says
Don't cast your burdens on your brother. That's all is required.
But if he is under a burden, you're under no obligation to
do anything for him. You don't have to bear it. The
law of Christ says, carry each other's burdens. What burdens? Any of them you can. Any of them
you can. Practical ones. A man that doesn't
help his brother in need, it does make you scratch your head
whether they have ever been helped by the eternal brother, our Lord
Jesus Christ. I said it makes us scratch our
heads. We're not going to say, well, he's a lost man, but they certainly
aren't acting like one who's received grace. And our Lord
bore our burdens, did he not? He took all of them. All of our
sins, all the sorrow and grief that comes by the way of our
sins, all the judgment, and he bore that in the presence of
God. And then when one of our brothers has some kind of earthly
burden, we're not going to help out? Burdens of the practical considerations
of life. burdens of the emotional distresses
through which people go because of the trials they must endure.
It can be difficult to enter into someone else's trial because
when you do, it affects you. I've talked to people before,
you know, and I told them, I said, I don't understand why people
think that there's some good going to come out of me coming
to visit them. when they're going through trial. I keep thinking
there's nothing I can do about the trial they're going through.
I can't change the trial or anything, and yet this has been the universal
testimony. It helps. And so I finally just
come to the realization I don't have to know how it helps, I
just have to know it does. And it helps to bear their burden
in the time of their distress, and if it helps them, why would
I hold back from doing it? Now, we're so closed-lipped in
our society, and I've got to wrap this up quick, but we're
so closed-lipped, we don't tell people when we've got a burden.
So a lot of times, you folks go through stuff, and I don't
even know it. I'm unaware of it, and I can't help with things
that I'm not aware of. But it's not just the pastor's
duty to do this. This is something we all do for
one another. Is somebody in trouble? Do you
know they're having a problem? As I say, we tend to in our trials
to play our cards close to the vest. But if you know it, there
ain't nothing wrong. In fact, it'll be very good.
Come up and say, you know, you don't have to say anything about
it, but I know you're having a tough time. Just want you to
know I'm praying for you. You say, that won't do him any
good. That won't change the trial. No, but it'll give him some strength.
It does. bear one another's burdens. And we who can never fulfill
the law of Moses will find that we have fulfilled a much better
law, the law of Christ. For he bore our burdens, and
when we bear one another's burdens, we're acting like him. Brethren,
this is the life of grace, and it's a much better life. than
any other life that can be lived in this world. It will cost you
the things of this world. But sooner or later, something's
going to cost you everything in this world, because you're
going to die. Why worry about losing something that's going
to be taken from you anyway, eventually? It'll cost you. It'll cost you
effort. It'll cost you some distress. Once in a while, you'll try to
help, and it'll make the person mad. That's just because we live in
this world and we're sons of Adam. But what it will do is
glorify our God, demonstrate what God's grace is, and we will
find that God has been pleased to do works of restoration through
us. And that's about as good as it
gets in this world.