Galatians 6:1-4
Please listen with me to the portion of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians than comes immediately after the portion that was read as today’s lesson. The Apostle writes:
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another, for each one shall bear his own load.
So far our text.
So which is it? Are we to bear one another’s burdens? Or does each of us bear his own load? Actually both things are true, each in its own way and in its own context.
The larger context includes the section of this epistle that precedes the verses that we just read. In that preceding section, we read this:
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another…”
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. … If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Paul here describes the supernatural life that is within those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He also describes the actions and behaviors that characterize such spiritual people.
Living by the Spirit is not merely a matter of feeling the Spirit’s presence and enjoying that feeling. It is also a matter of walking by the Spirit.
Another translation draws out the meaning in a more vivid way: “keep in step with the Spirit,” in how you treat other people, and in how you interact with the larger world.
The metaphor of “walking by the Spirit” is significant. As we live out who we have been made to be by the Spirit of Christ, and in imitation of the example of Christ, we are not darting about to the left and to the right, in fit and starts. We are, rather, calmly and deliberately moving ever forward, on the pathway that is laid out before us by God.
So, when St. Paul then immediately goes on to address those who are “spiritual” – as he calls them – this is a reference to Christians who live and walk by the Spirit, as they together fulfill their common Christian vocation, and as they each fulfill the particular earthly vocation that the Lord has also given them.
We should also take a close look at the word “trespass,” as it appears in Paul’s statement that
“If a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”
Other translations render that phrase like this:
“If a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such one in the spirit of meekness.”
“If a man should be overtaken in some false step, you, the spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness.”
In the context of the metaphor of “walking by the Spirit,” then, a “trespass” involves a misstep, or a veering off, that takes the walker off of the well-worn pathway of Christian faith and life on which God has placed him, so that he is now stumbling on the loose sand or uneven terrain that are at the side of the correct path.
Someone who is walking on this loose sand or uneven terrain is thereby slipping back into the works of the flesh, and following the ways of the sinful nature. St. Paul gives us a very comprehensive list of where those missteps could take such a person. His soul and his salvation are now in danger.
And his fellow travelers, when they see this, cannot be indifferent to this, or ignore this. They cannot let their friend wander off the trail without intervention.
They cannot just watch him diverge from the sound and safe path until he becomes permanently lost, without doing anything about it while something can still be done.
Paul says, therefore, that such a man’s fellow travelers, who are still on the pathway, will, under the obligation of Christian love, reach out to their wandering companion. They will pull or lead him back onto the solid surface on which they are still walking, and on which he, too, should be walking.
If he is struggling, they will come to his side, hold him up, and join together in helping him – in his weakness – to bear the weight of whatever is burdening him, or tempting him, so that he can resume walking with them, and continue walking with them.
But as they do assist and encourage him in this way, they should make sure that they are the ones who are influencing him, and should not allow him to influence them, and to pull them off of the path, too.
A person who has drifted into a sinful way of thinking and living can, by his bad example, entice and draw others also into that sin: if they are not careful, and if they do not remain humble under God, and fully reliant on God’s authority and strength.
“If a man is overtaken in any trespass” – that is, in any misstep – “you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” But, consider yourself, lest you also be tempted. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Practically speaking, what does this mean for you, when a family member or a friend begins to make bad decisions that are out of harmony with God’s will, and begins to turn his back on God and on God’s ways?
Will you say nothing, because you don’t want to have an uncomfortable confrontation? Will you cover for that relative or friend, and try to hide his sin from others?
Will you change your convictions regarding the thing he is doing, and decide that it is not wrong after all – even if what he is doing contradicts Biblical teaching – in order to keep peace between you and him?
Over the years I have seen examples of all of those reactions. But none of them is the correct reaction.
The law of Christ compels us to do something, and to say something. The law of Christ makes us realize how serious it is when a person turns his back on God’s Word and truth: so that if we care about that person, about his spiritual condition, and about his eternal destiny, we will not keep our eyes or our mouths closed.
Let’s look now at the second statement that we’re trying to figure out today. Paul writes:
“For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.”
Paul says this in the context of warning Christians who offer help to a weak and stumbling fellow Christian, to make sure that they remain humble, and that they don’t begin to feel superior to the person who needs help, and to whom they are offering help.
If you are tempted to compare yourself to those who do stumble and falter in more obvious ways; and if you – on the basis of that comparison – may begin to take on an aire of haughtiness and spiritual pride, because your failures are not so obvious: Paul warns you that you should not be comparing yourself to others, but that you need to compare yourself, in your own conscience, to what God calls you to do and to be.
Maybe you are more faithful, relatively speaking, than the weak Christians who repeatedly wander from the pathway. But are you as faithful as you should be to God’s standard for you: God’s perfect standard of selfless service and self-giving love?
When you compare yourself to God’s requirements, and not to other people; and when you examine your own life, and honestly consider how faithful you have been – apart from a consideration of anyone else’s perceived faithfulness – there will be no room for haughtiness and pride, boasting and self-congratulation.
Paul is basically calling each of us to a self-examination, and to a heartfelt repentance, when he says: “Let each one examine his own work… For each one shall bear his own load.”
Before God, your neighbor cannot repent of your sins, and believe in Christ for you. Before God, your neighbor cannot live a sanctified life for you. Before God, your neighbor cannot fulfill the duties of your vocation for you.
So, if there has been a failure in any of these areas, it is your failure. It involves a load of guilt that you alone must bear before God; and a sin for which you must individually take responsibility – without blaming others – as you come to God in humility because of it, and as you repent of it.
It might not be the kind of obvious trespass that is committed by those whose failures are known – so that their Christian friends come to them in love to prop them up, and to help them bear their burdens. This may be a secret sin, in the realm of thoughts and attitudes that others can’t see; but that needs to be dealt with nevertheless.
The Christian faith is not a private thing. By the working of the Holy Spirit, we are joined to the body of Christ, and are adopted into the family of our heavenly Father.
As living stones who are built together into the living temple of God, we are connected to each other, and we need each other.
But, while the Christian faith is not private, it is very personal. Again, no one else can repent of your sins for you. You must take responsibility for your own misdeeds, and admit your fault without looking around for someone else on whom you can pin the blame for your mistakes.
But even as you make a personal assessment of your flawed and imperfect life, and take a personal interest in your deep need for a Savior, the Savior you need also takes a personal interest in you.
There were many times during his earthly ministry when Jesus broke away from the crowds, and took a personal interest in a particular individual who had a special need. Think of his conversation with the woman at the well, or with Zaccheus in the tree.
Think of his healing of the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda, who had no one to help him get into the water when it was being churned up; or his healing of the beggar who had been blind from birth.
Think of the very personal interest he took in the woman who had been healed of a flow of blood. When she touched the hem of his garment, she wanted to remain anonymous, and hoped that Jesus would not notice her.
She likely thought that he would be offended and angry if he knew that a ritually unclean woman had touched him.
But he did notice her, and was not angry at her. He was, instead, filled with mercy and compassion for her, and spoke words of peace and comfort to her.
Through the very personally-focused connection that Jesus makes with you in your own baptism, you encounter him in a similar way. He takes a personal interest in you, as a hurting and spiritually needy individual.
As you today approach him with repentance for your shortcomings and missteps, he is not repelled from you or offended by you, but he embraces you.
The intimately personal touch that he gives to communicants, when he feeds their bodies and souls with his body and blood, does not make him unclean, but it makes them clean.
It makes you clean. You do not contaminate him. He forgives, heals, and cleanses you.
Indeed, in his sacrificial death on the cross, when he gave his body into death for you, and when he shed his blood for you, he, as your truest and most faithful friend, bore your burdens. He carried all your sins to the cross and atoned for them there.
And he did this not only for you, but for the entire human race. The comfort that Christians know is therefore a comfort that is available to everyone; and the invitation to believe personally in Jesus, for salvation and eternal life, is an invitation that is issued to everyone.
We who by grace are in the fellowship of God’s church, can and do now bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, only because Christ himself first bore our burdens: all of our deep burdens; and the deep burdens of all of us.
This did, and does, change everything. This changes you, and your standing with God. This changes your attitude toward others. This changes your attitude toward yourself.
“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.” Amen.