Galatians 6:1-10 Farming for Jesus

Growing in Faith, Community, and Service at Recast

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community and service. We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off The Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.

Here's Pastor Don Filsack.

It's been a while since I spelled out what I would call the growth map or the growth plan here at Recast Church. Many of you know that our name, Recast, is an acronym for our core values. So what you don't see on the wall is reproducing, and I joke about that and say I don't want to be misunderstood by putting that on the front wall.

I wouldn't want that to be the first thing that you saw when you walked into Recast, was reproducing, but it is the notion that our desire is to be a congregation that starts other churches, and we're constantly kind of keeping our ear to the ground for who God is going to lead up from within our congregation to plant another church eventually.

So that's in the back of our minds, but it's reproducing, community, authenticity, simplicity and truth. And of those all, I think we probably all have a fair, you know, you can define the words, but the one that I think is the most misunderstood as far as a core value of a church is simplicity, and in simplicity is this notion that we don't provide a large number of programs for people to choose from, but we primarily have three areas, three arenas that we desire everybody to be growing in, and we really believe that if you're growing in these three areas, then you're doing well in your relationship with God.

That is that you're growing in faith, you're growing in community, and you're growing in service. Now some people have come to me and said, you know, you're a young church, we've been around for three years, and so eventually when you grow up and become an older church, you'll have all of these programs, right?

So you're probably not big enough or old enough to have a Wednesday night service and a Sunday night service and all these kinds of things, and that's really not our intention to ever get there. It's that we grow in faith, we grow in community, and we grow in service.

And growing in faith is simply taking in God's word, believing it, and going out and living according to that. And that's why I preach from the Bible every Sunday, that we might take in God's word and then believe it and go live it and go do it.

And you can grow in faith on your own, right? So hopefully any time you take in God's word, whether that's listening to the radio or listening to a Christian speaker, reading a good book, or reading the Bible on your own, you have the potential to grow in your faith.

But we believe that we need community in order to be connected with God in the way that he desires us. He's made us to be in community and he's brought us together, and we're going to talk about that in our text this morning.

So growing in community happens primarily here at Recast through our small group ministry. I recognize that many of you here are not connected to small groups, and I want to make abundantly clear that as the leadership of the church, the elders, the leaders, that is the primary way that we have for you to grow in community here at the church.

We're not coming up with a bunch of extra programs for you. We're not saying that that's the only way that it's possible to grow in community is through a small group, but that's what we have as far as programs are concerned here at Recast.

So it's our heart's desire that everybody connect in authentic relationships with others through the small group ministry. And then lastly is growing in service. And it's this notion, have any of you ever heard the phrase the body of Christ?

You've probably heard me say it if you've been around for a while. The body of Christ, that is the church. And that is an analogy, an illustration that Paul gives us in the New Testament for this notion of service and community.

It's actually the notion of serving one another that comes out of that model, that image that he's given us of the body of Christ. In other words, some of us are like a hand, some of us are like the nose of the body, some of us are like the ears, some like the eyes, some like the feet.

All of us fit together and working in our areas of service make this thing work and we grow up together in that. So each one of you has a way to serve in the body and that's growing in service. So regardless, I recognize that there's all different kinds of stages that you might be at in your Christian walk, in your journey with Jesus Christ.

Some of you are very new in your walk. Some of you are literally here trying to figure out who he is and you're at that stage. You can still grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service. If you've been here, you're here and you might have been a Christian for years, for decades, and you can still grow in faith, grow in community, and grow in service.

So that's what I'm encouraging all of us to do, is to contemplate and consider how are we growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service here at Recast and Are You Plugged In? This morning, in an exercise of faith, we're going to take in God's Word.

We're going to be looking at Galatians 6 verses 1 through 10. Throughout the book of Galatians, we've seen Paul make it abundantly clear time and time again that salvation from our sins, from our corruption, from our sinful brokenness, only comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

It's by trusting his work on the cross that we are made into a right relationship with God. And on that basis alone, it is not by works, it is not by coming to church, it is not by giving to the church, it's not by being kind to your neighbors or anything like that.

It really is strictly salvation comes to us by trusting the work that Jesus Christ did on the for our sins to forgive us and to put us in a right relationship with God. And then our continued growth, as we're talking about growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service, the way we grow is by God giving us the Spirit of God alive in us to fuel our desire to bring honor and glory to him.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And I'm going to say that several times. Those are known as the fruit of the Spirit. And Paul talked about those last week and we walked through what those mean.

And that is the reality of the way that we are supposed to be growing. Now, it's obvious that things had turned pretty ugly in Galatia. Galatia is the area, the Roman province that this letter was written to.

The Apostle Paul had traveled all throughout, was traveling throughout the Roman Empire, came across this district called Galatia, proclaimed the gospel in multiple cities in that area, and those who believed formed churches.

And that's who he's in turn writing to. But what happened is as Paul moved on to plant other churches, some false teachers came in behind him after he left, came into the churches, and began to teach false doctrine.

Ultimately, the main false doctrine was that you need the law in order to be saved and in order to continue to grow in Christ. So what you really need, said these false teachers, what you need is, yeah, okay, you've accepted Jesus as your Savior.

Now you need to follow a list of rules. And then they proclaimed those rules and started giving out these rules and saying, as long as you're following these rules, then God loves you and he likes you.

But that kind of flew in the face of the cross, right? Because what you really need for Christ to love you is to throw yourself at the mercy of Jesus at the foot of the cross. And instead, they were saying, no, what you need is you need works, good deeds.

And so fights and squabbles, can you imagine how that might look in a church like Recast? Like let's just divide down the middle of the aisle and one side says, we're gonna follow these false teachers and everybody needs to keep the law.

And here's rules and regulations that we need to follow. And the other side is following Paul and saying, you know what, I don't really, we don't have to have the law. We have grace and Jesus Christ, his sacrifice has covered our sins.

How might those, can you imagine some squabbles forming? Can you imagine some difficulty when some are following these teachers and some are following these teachers and it would get pretty dicey, right?

Anybody can picture that in your mind, that that might get a little crazy. Paul even warned them that if they were not, that they were gonna end up destroying each other. He used the phrase of wild animals tearing at flesh for the way that the Galatians were treating one another within the church.

Like that's kind of ugly, right? So it's into that context that Paul is gonna help them flesh out the fruit of the spirit. He's gonna help them to show what that looks like in practicality in their relationships within their church that's squabbling.

And if you're leading your, if you're yielding your life to the spirit, if you're walking by the spirit as Paul talked about last week, then a byproduct of that connection with the spirit, a connection that comes through focusing on the gospel of Jesus Christ through the cross, through meditating and working through scripture and allowing that to saturate our hearts and our minds by prayer throughout the day of dependence upon him.

That's how we stay connected, how we abide in Christ, how we walk by the spirit is by staying connected to him. And if that connection is alive in you, then love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will be exhibited in the way we interact with others.

How many of you know that that fruit of the spirit is primarily about relationships with others? Think about that list. It's about relationships. It's about the way we interact with one another primarily.

Sure, a couple of them you can kind of think of internally like peace or, you know, but the majority of them are practiced out in our relationships with one another. And Paul's going to say those have a dramatic impact in our lives as we go forward in this text.

I want to point out, Recast, that we are a church. Now, one of the benefits of where we meet right now is we don't meet in a church building. So it kind of highlights and emphasizes the fact that the church is not the building, right?

I mean, we meet in a storefront, right? If we move out of here, this might end up being like a Jimmy John's, right? I mean, this is not a church building. Are you getting what I'm saying? We're in a plaza, okay?

So it highlights for us that look around. We are a church. And then you've got to ask yourself, then what is a church? And that is a people that God has brought together for the glory and the supremacy of his name, that he might be honored and glorified in this community by bringing together a bunch of people from different walks of life.

I've said this many times in the past. I think it's been a while since I said it, but I just have loved these past three years of getting an opportunity to see God bring people together here at Recast Church.

People that if you didn't come here and we didn't meet each other, now we might run into each other at Meyers sometime. We might be down the cereal aisle and you're looking for the Fruity Pebbles and I'm looking for the Lucky Charms and I might scoop my way around you and say, hey, excuse me for a second and grab the Lucky Charms because they're awesome.

And that would be the extent of our interaction, right? Maybe just a courteous nod or an excuse me or something like that. But God has brought us together for the glory of Jesus Christ. And so people who might not naturally get along, people who might not naturally have gravitated towards one another, people who might not even know each other have now been brought together under the umbrella of the body of Christ inside the household of faith where we now take care of one another, where we look out for one another, where we do good to one another as the text is going to tell us.

We are brought together and bound together by our common love for Jesus Christ. God is concerned for the way that we treat each other. And if we are walking by the Spirit, then we have the power in our lives to actually bless one another, to do good to one another as the text is going to tell us.

And Paul, through the inspiration of the Spirit, is going to tell us in no uncertain terms to do good to everyone. So I want you to open your Bibles to Galatians 6. If you're not already there, Galatians 6, 1 through 10.

If you take the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you out, easy way to find it is turn to page 835. So turn to 835 in that Bible and follow along as I read from Scripture. And if you don't own a Bible, I encourage you to please take that one with you.

We desire for everybody to have a copy of the Word of God. This is the English Standard Version. Nothing magic about it. You can follow along in your own. Follow along as I read the very words of God to us this morning.

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.

One who is taught the Word must 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.

Let's pray. Father, I rejoice in the way that you have brought us together as a church. Father, it is awesome to just have a front row seat to see the work that you're doing in people's lives, the way that you're bringing us together in fellowship, and even to see the way that within the body we are serving one another.

And I rejoice that Recast is a place where I've seen people caring for other people, people bearing up with one another, people rebuking one another, people encouraging one another, people challenging one another.

And Father, I ask for more of that. And even as we come together in worship, I rejoice that you are bringing us together as a people for your glory and for your name. That we might be a people who worship throughout the week and in the way that we live our lives, and alone and in our quiet time and reading the Bible.

But that we get an opportunity to gather together in your name with your people and be sharpened and encouraged and to see that we're a part of something so much bigger than just the things you're doing in our lives.

So Father, I ask that you would be honored and glorified by our praise and worship this morning. And it's in Jesus' name that I pray. As we dive in, reminder that we're in Galatians 6, 1 through 10. If you weren't here when we read that earlier, page 835.

And I'd encourage you to have that open in front of you. I think it's to your benefit to be able to follow along in the text as I kind of walk through it. And then also a benefit to me to make sure that I know that you're checking up on me to make sure what I say is right.

Restoration of a Brother Caught in Transgression

The churches throughout Galatia were in turmoil. So we've gotten there so far in the text. We knew that there was all of this false teaching that had come in and all this stuff is going on. And so Paul addresses the believers there using the familiar biblical term brother for siblings in Christ.

And I don't think it's a stretch that some of your translations will actually have underneath it brothers and sisters. I think that Paul clearly has the mindset that he's speaking to the church in Galatia.

So it's not like you can check out if you're women and just kind of go, he's talking to brothers. So it's not talking to me in this text. I think that he is concerned for all of the church in this spot in the text and is very much addressing all of them.

And that was a generic term for just that relationship. And we know that later on, he's going to call us the household of faith. In the Bible, often familial terms are used for our relationships within the church, right?

We are brothers and sisters in Christ. God is our father, those types of metaphors that stands. And so that's what he's doing. He's concerned for the way that they might treat someone who's caught in sin.

And you can see that right off the bat. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. It may very well be that Paul was actually contemplating considering what this battle across the aisle look like, if you will.

I had mentioned in my introduction that it's kind of like there was one side of the church that was following false teaching, another side that probably was staying strong and arguing back and forth. They were biting and devouring each other, the text told us last week.

There was this infighting within the churches in Galatia. And now if you think about it, he's sending a letter to try to correct that, right? Isn't that part of the reason why the book of Galatians was written, the letter to the Galatians, is to try to correct this battle that's going on?

Now, if this battle gets corrected by the letter that he sends, does it make sense to you that there might need to be some reconciled relationships within that church? That there might need to be some sins confessed?

That there might need to be some apologies for restoration to happen? That there might be some sense in which some have transgressed, some have sinned against others and need that correction? And so I think that in a very practical sense, we see why you can ask yourself at any given point when you're reading a text from scripture, why is it there?

Why is Paul talking about restoring a person who's fallen into transgression or has been caught in transgression? Though that makes sense here in the text because of what we've seen going on so far. And I think he's just saying we need to do so in a God-honoring way.

Here's what needs to happen for reconciliation to move forward. Notice the way that Paul addresses these sinners. He speaks of those caught in any transgression. Now, Greek is a very picturesque word.

Greek, Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the New Testament. And a lot of times there are word pictures associated with a given verb or a given noun. And the word that's used for sin here is transgress, transgression or to trespass.

We translate it both ways and it really works. Like if you've quoted the Lord's Prayer before, forgive us our trespasses, we forgive those who have trespassed against us. So you use different translations there.

But that's the notion of this word. Now, there's another Greek word for sin. There's multiple ones actually. But the other one that we think of is an archery term. It's to miss the mark for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God.

That word fall short is a word for sin that's an archery term. It's like you put an arrow, you knock an arrow to the string, pull back, you're aiming for a target and you miss. But the notion behind that Greek word for sin is that you never even get the arrow to the target.

It's not like you miss left, you miss right, you overshoot. No, you just consistently fall short. Every arrow you shoot that is aimed in your life at the righteousness of God falls short. Well, that's one Greek word.

That's not the word that we're looking at here. So why did I tell you that? I don't know. Just for interest sake, I guess. This word is transgress. Again, a picture word. The image that the word transgression in Greek evokes is that there is a path that you are on that is the right path.

Now, I think we can kind of understand that from Scripture, that there is right living and wrong living. There's a right way to live your life, sowing to the spirit, as we're going to see, the right way.

And then there's a wrong way, sowing to the flesh or walking in the flesh, as he told us last week, or walking in the spirit. So you're walking on this path. You know that to go to the left or to go to the right is to trespass, to go on somebody else's property, if you will.

But you willfully just kind of go there. Well, hey, I wonder what's over here. And the next thing you know, you're caught in transgression. You are off the path. Another image might just be more simple for us.

There's a line drawn in the sand. God says, don't cross the line. And you're like, hey, I wonder what this does. Anybody been there? That's the word transgress. You crossed a line. You trespassed. You walked past the line of where God wanted you to be.

So is that image in your mind of what this word transgress means? Paul is not saying, and I want you to notice this, Paul is not saying, if someone comes to you and admits that they transgressed, if somebody admits that they have committed a trespass, then restore them.

Look at the text. Is that what he says here? If they come and they confess it to you, and I think we've often got in the church, and maybe in just American culture in general, this notion, we brought in the notion that if somebody comes and comes clean with you, then that's better than if they were caught.

And if they were caught, then they probably didn't really repent. They're really not sorry for it. But if they came forward and told you about it, then that's better. Would you agree that that's probably a pretty common thought in our culture?

You've seen that. You've experienced that. Maybe you even feel that way to some degree in your life. But I want to point out a story from the Old Testament that kind of, I think, illustrates this caught in transgression, if you will.

There was a king of Israel, an awesome king of Israel. His name was King David. David was called a man after God's own heart. He wrote many songs to God. He had many victories in his life. But I think maybe there was one failure that stands out in the story of David.

Those of you who know the story, it probably is already in your mind. One of his military captains is out to war fighting a battle. And David sees his wife and says, I need that, and takes his wife for himself and commits adultery with her.

Then, in an elaborate cover-up, eventually, that elaborate cover-up leads to him murdering his own captain out on the military field. Now, he thinks he's sewn things up pretty well. He thinks he's covered his bases.

He's covered his tracks. Nobody's going to know, of course. Because he did a good job covering it up. But God reveals this sin to a prophet and sends that prophet to David. And through an elaborate story, he basically tells this story.

It's a crazy story if you read it. I mean, you talk about drama. The soap operas have nothing on this. OK, a prophet shows up at David's doorstep and says, there's a man in your kingdom who had all the sheep that he wanted, but he had some neighbors come over, had some friends come over from out of town for dinner, and he went to his neighbor's house and stole the only lamb he had and cooked it up for supper.

OK, that's a story in the Bible. And David says, I mean, he's just irate. He's enraged. He's like, how could a man with all of his sheep take the one that didn't belong to him? And how dare him? He deserves to die.

And then the prophet says what in the big reveal? You're the man. You are the one who did this. Now, you might say, OK, David didn't come clean. And if we apply our standard to it, David couldn't repent because he got caught.

So of course he's not. No, he repents significantly. You can read Psalm 51 in context of that failure, that moral failure that he, I mean, he committed adultery and he murdered someone. And in that context, it says, created me a clean heart, O God, renew a steadfast, renew a right spirit within me.

Against you and you alone have I sinned, God. And he grovels in the dust and the ashes and repents and says, I have sinned greatly against you. Can repentance happen when you're caught? Yeah, absolutely.

As a matter of fact, I think that probably if we're honest with ourselves, sometimes it has taken us getting caught in order to lead us to repentance, right? Sometimes God uses, raise your hand if God has ever used somebody else in your life to point out a sin that you were blind to that now you've repented of and you've walked away from it.

Glory to God. That's how he uses us. And that's what he's talking about here in this text, about being willing to be used to correct others and to help them as they are caught in transgression as these things transpire in their lives.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that this hypothetical person that Paul is referring to in verse one is repentant because of knowing the other teachings of Paul, following along his life and the way that he interacted with sinners and people throughout the churches, throughout the letters that he wrote, Paul has really no room for gentleness with those who are not repentant.

So if a person is caught in sin and says, yes, so what? I'm gonna go do it again tomorrow. He doesn't have a lot of room for that. If there's no repentance, if there's no sense, and I'm not talking about just crying about it or something like that, if there's no sense of like, that is sin, that is ugly, I don't want that in my life and would you pray with me that God might remove this from me and I'm praying and I'm gonna, I'll take some steps to try to push this sin out of my life.

Are you getting what I'm saying? But we have an illustration of this, for example. So Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5 to a church that he started in the city of Corinth, another letter that he wrote. And in that letter, he says, there is a man in your church, Corinth, who is having an affair with his stepmom.

Okay, that's going down in Corinth, okay? That's going on in a church. And what does Paul say to them? He says, that man should already be removed from you. You should have already kicked him out. Because, and here's the key, because he is boasting about it.

He's bragging about his sin and saying, yeah, you guys should all try it too. It's good. And he's bragging about it. And Paul says, really the context is, and the centrality there is the non-repentance of it.

And I believe that Paul still had gentleness and restoration in mind in that context. His desire is still that that man might repent. But kicking him out of the church was a picture, it was an extreme measure to bring about repentance that he might be given over to Satan, the text says, that his flesh might be destroyed, but that he might be redeemed in the end.

And I think what that really means is just in this notion of discipline, that somebody might be given over to the world, that they miss the fellowship that they have here, that they miss the spirit that they experienced within the church.

And that there is a sense in which when somebody is removed, there's a desire to get back in. And I've actually seen and heard testimonies of people who that very step of being removed from a church was the decisive factor that brought them back to repentance and brought them back into the kingdom, where we might have a struggle with that.

It might be hard for us to wrap our mind around the way that that works. But what we have here is like a person who's caught stealing from their business and when confronted by their sin, they are genuinely remorseful, repentant, and they're open to restoration and making restitution.

Who's supposed to do the correcting here? Those who are spiritual. Who are these people? Is it like Paul stopped addressing all of the Galatians and started addressing just a component within the church?

Okay, you who are spiritual, restore such a one. You see that here in the text with the spirit of gentleness. I don't think Paul is subdividing the church into, hey, here's a group that's non-spiritual and here's a group that's spiritual and these people need to do the correcting.

I don't think for a second that that's what he means in this text. I think he is reminding them, speaking to all the Galatians, obviously with a mindset that they have given their lives over to Christ, that they're genuinely in Christ, that they are spiritual.

And I think that's a reminder that we all need if we are professing with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and we're claiming him as our Lord and Savior, then we are spiritual. And the spirit of God is alive in us.

That's what I think Paul categorically defines as being spiritual, as having the spirit of God alive in your heart. And if you are in Christ, you have the spirit there. You are under this category of those who are spiritual.

And we, therefore, all have a responsibility to one another to be engaging in each other's lives as Paul is going to talk about it here in a minute, bearing one another's burdens, entering into authentic community together, real relationships with each other, saying hard things when we need to say hard things and saying kind and gentle things when they need it, and saying everything in the spirit of love, right?

So gentleness and humility is to be the attitude during restoration by you who are spiritual. How many of you know that when someone else is caught in sin, that's a very dangerous time for all the rest of us regarding pride?

If you're in the process of, if you become aware of somebody else's sin, you're the one who catches them or they confess to you because you're in relationship with them and they're in your small group and you feel close to them and they come to you and they share some crud from their lives, that's a dangerous place for the one who's hearing the confession.

Are you hearing what I'm saying? I think Paul is driving at that. How many of you have recognized a tendency towards pride in times like that? I wouldn't do that. God, thank you that I'm not like that sinner, right?

Because our sin has a tendency to be downplayed in the light of those who do serious sins. Paul says, beware of dealing with the sins of others, that that is a time when temptation will be ready to own you.

The time of just be cautious and be careful. He says it this way, keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted in the process of trying to restore others. So a quick note, I want to just talk about how does that gel with our bylaws?

Some of you read our bylaws here at Recast Church. We recently just did a revision. If you're members here, you have to have read the bylaws, at least to agree with them. But one portion of the bylaws actually talks about church discipline, a process that we've carefully and cautiously drawn out from the very beginning of Recast based on scripture.

Uncomfortable subject, would you guys agree with me on that? Church discipline, like all the way to the point of, you know, as Recast a church that would actually come to the point of removing somebody from membership for unrepentance.

You can walk through that and see that it is a biblical principle. It is found in scripture. We do that because we believe that it is what God has revealed in the pages of scripture. You can read it for yourself and see that you don't come to the same conclusions that the church ought to do this thing that is extremely counter-cultural and makes us all uncomfortable, right?

Nobody's comfortable with that. If you are, I'm concerned for you and I'd like to talk with you if you're just like, yeah, church discipline, yeah. Let's just get the guns blazing. That's not really, that's not really I think what Paul is getting at here.

But how does that, so how does that gel? Well, Paul who wrote this also commanded the Corinthians to kick out that dude who was sleeping with his stepmom and boasting about it. But I want to be clear that even that move on Paul's part was done in a humble spirit.

It was done with humility and gentleness with restoration and view. As a matter of fact, in the second letter to the Corinthians, he actually encourages the Corinthians to accept those who have sinned back into their fellowship.

Now, some scholars, you know, some scholars say, yes, this is the man. Others say it's not. I kind of side on the ones after doing a little research that this is the very man that's referred to in 1 Corinthians is in essence being restored in 2 Corinthians.

So he's done this sin. He's boasted about it. He's been removed from the church. And then we actually see a model of him being brought back and restored in 2 Corinthians 1. So some time passed between the writing of these two letters.

He's been given some time and been led to repentance. And because of his repentance, he's being encouraged to come back into the fellowship. So Paul was for restoration, but he was also for church discipline.