Restoration

Good morning. You know, Clint Mahan used to come here right before he was leaving to start work at AIA. He was here for, I don't know, a year or so, and he came to the Men's Bible Study on Tuesday. He's really a godly man, a young man. He's probably, I don't know if he's 40 yet. And he has a heart for what he's doing. He's a special, special guy.

The other thing I wanted to talk about before we got going is you notice the handout today are really just copies of my slides. We're trying to come up with a way in which we can communicate the information that we teach in writing without having I mean, it'd be nice if I passed out 12 pages of notes. It's too much. But in some sort of a format where we can pass them out that you can follow along and maybe take home and keep that would would help you. So any input you have about that, we'd appreciate it.

So we're trying different things. That's why you get something different every every Sunday. So. OK. In the last chapter that Roger finished up, and they kind of go together. We talked about the works of the flesh on the one hand, which I got the privilege to do. Roger got to do the fruit of the Spirit.

So they're very solemn injunction to the children of God that if they lived in the Spirit, which they all necessarily did, they would show that they are children of God. They were also to walk in the Spirit because that's where their life was from. And it was effective to speak about privilege if there was indifference to the practical ways of living. We cannot have life in the Spirit without also being bound by the most solemn principles that the Holy Spirit should also be the grand directing force of our walk.

The one thing that chapter 5 talked about was the fact, well all the way back to chapter 2, that you're either positioned in Christ or positioned in Adam. And as a believer you have both natures in you and what really boils down to is which nature is being manifested at any given time. If you walk in the Spirit, the life of the Lord Jesus is what's happening out through you. If you're walking in the flesh, you have no option. The work of the flesh are being manifested out from you. And as we contrasted the difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, the contrast couldn't be any starker than those two. We may try to pour holy water on the flesh to make it look better, but the flesh is the flesh.

So the source of your behavior is very important. The outward expression of an inner principle. And the Spirit of God is the one who manifests the life of the Lord Jesus through each one of us. The life can only be absolutely known to God. He knows. The walk is in which is manifested before men.

You know, when we studied James, people say that, well, James says that I better demonstrate that I have righteousness by the way that I operate before God, and that's not it at all. God knows already. whether you're righteous or not. The issue is, do the people around you know it by the way you live?

So, insert this, and I was going to give this to Roy, but then I thought, well, I read last week about a mission group, I don't know where they were, but these are the people being ministered to in a village, and they wrote a letter to the pastor of the church that supported the missionaries there, and they said, look, send us a family. Send us a Christian family.

And yeah, if they can contribute woodworking or whatever they can do, that would be great, but that's not the reason we want them here. We want to, as a village, watch how a Christian family functions. We want to see how they do. How does a husband function with his wife, and vice versa, and the children? We don't know anything about that, and we want to see it in action. So please send a family that we can just watch. We don't realize how important that is in our life, that the way we just conduct our life every day, people are watching. And if you say that you're a believer, it should show up at some point. People should see. Not to say it's perfect every minute.

So the Apostle now, besides exhorting them to be aware of useless self-credit and effort, whatever form it might take, whether of provoking or of envying one another, which he ended up the chapter talking about, we have fresh ground now taken at the beginning of chapter 6. So the verses that we're going to talk about, and I'm only going to do verse 1 today, And now I'll get the rest of them next week. Verse 1 says, Brethren, even if anyone is caught, or a substitute for that word, overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

The Galatian saints have not been enticed. These Galatian saints that he's talking to are the ones that have not been enticed away from the grace that they were living in to the wiles of the Judaizers to live by law. They therefore were still living spirit control lives and that's who he's addressing. And they're exhorted to restore the brethren who have been led astray into legalism back out from a life under grace. So this first verse clearly points out by the Apostle that the life in which the fruit of the Spirit is evidence is a life that loves and he's explaining how this life would work under these circumstances.

While he argues for liberty he also argues for the principle which every Christian should be listening under to. It's a principle. A lot of times you see it phrased as the law of Christ but that word law means principle which is the principle of love.

This is what it looks like. This is what it does. In verse 1 to 10, this principle is applied to the conduct of a believer in relationship to a fallen brother. Believers are brethren. It's the first thing he starts with. The interesting thing about being brethren is this is a true brotherhood. Brethren, we all have earthly brethren experiences. We're in families. We're in fraternities. We're in the military. We're in secret societies, maybe.

But the word never reaches its full meaning until it's used in relationship to true Christian brotherhood. We are more united in Christ than any of us could possibly be in any earthly relationship. So this verse closely connects all these believers with the whole content that Roger went through in chapter 5.

Let's see if this works. I'm just learning how to do this. The latter chapter, in the latter chapter, the two methods of determining conduct and following out that purpose with appropriate action are presented. Here one is dependence upon the Holy Spirit for the supply of both the desire and the power to do the will of God. This results in a life in which the fruit of the Spirit is evident. It can be seen. The other method is that of putting oneself under a loss system. by self-effort, attempting to obey whatever the law is, whether it's a mosaic law, your own set of rules, or part of this and a little of that.

It results in a defeated life, full of sin. The law gives neither the desire nor the power to obey it. That's the big problem with the law. You don't get the desire, and you certainly don't have the power. On the other hand, it uses sin the sin nature as a means by which to bring sin to life in the believer, since the sin nature is aroused to active rebellion by the very presence of the law. So that principle is being spelled out here very clearly.

The Galatians who were adopting the legal method in conformity to the teaching of the Judaizers, what were they finding out? They were finding out that sin was creeping into their lives. Since they were most earnestly zealous of living a life of victory over sin, it wasn't working. They were trying to conform to unethical teachings of the New Testament stewardship. The presence of sin in their lives was a source of surprise to them. Gee, I'm working so hard at this, how come sin is showing up? They found that sin often appeared in our lives before they were really conscious that it was there.

It's there, and oh my goodness, there it is. And they were in about the same position as the Apostle Paul was when he knew of the delivering power of the Holy Spirit, before he knew the delivering power of the Holy Spirit in Romans chapter 7, verses 14 and 15 and 18 and 19. He says, I'm carnal, sold under sin. Romans chapter 7, this is after 3, 4, 5, and 6, which includes identification and all of those things, Paul says in 7, I'm carnal, sold under sin.

Why? Because he's trying to live this life in his own effort under the law. For that which I do, I don't understand it. For what I would, the good that I would do, I don't do it. But what I hate, the evil that I hate, that's exactly what I'm doing. For to will is present with me, I want to be good. But to perform that which is good, I don't find it. I don't have the power to do it. For the good that I would, I don't do, but the evil which I would, I don't do.

That's exactly the predicament which many believers find themselves today. Exactly that. And in conversation, what's the reason? First reason is, they don't have intelligent understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. They really don't know what He's supposed to do, what the Word of God says He does, is to do. And their needful, and the needful and correct adjustment of the Christian to the Holy Spirit. It's really important for us to understand, well, what is the role of the Holy Spirit? What's He doing? What is He going to do in my life?

And reason number two was consequently depending on self-effort to obey the principles of the Pauline epistles or the legal enactments of the Mosaic Law, they were deprived of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The lives of the Galatians were an easy prey for the tempter of men's souls. Why? because he was working habit among them by getting them under a law system.

And that's where the surprise comes. You think, gee, I got the rules. Tell me what to do. I got the rules and I'm going to go and I'm going to carry them out. And it's a surprise that they weren't carried out and I'm defeated. So this brings us to consideration and talk about the word overtaken. In the context we have presented will help us to determine the meaning here. The word means to anticipate, to forecast, to overtake, to come upon, to take unawares.

Is this, you have to ask yourself, is this act an act of Number one, two of the Greek authorities say that, it's interesting, even the theologians disagree on what this means. A Christian detecting a fellow Christian in the commission of a sin, thus catching him unawares in it and establishing by that means the fact of the sin. In other words, are you all watching to see who's sinning? And if I catch you, I'm going to talk to you about it. Is that what this word means? Or does it mean, or does it refer to the Christian himself being overtaken by the sin before he's aware of it, that he has done anything wrong? I think the second one is right. I think that's what's going on. One man described it, said the context rules in favor of the opinion of the second.

Surprised by the fault itself, he's surprised at your very act. I would ask you to think about times in your life as believers when you were surprised by how, gee, I just sinned and how did I, how that happens? I wasn't even planning or thinking about it, and it overtook me. That's what this is about. Surprised by the fault itself, he's surprised by the very act. That's what this means. Now, the word fault here is the word paratoma, and this word means, I'll tell you as soon as I turn the page, to fall beside, a false step, or a blunder, or a failure to achieve.

It is in contrast to the word walk in Galatians 5.25, if we live by the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. And that word walk there means to walk in a straight line, like a military formation in parade, you know, they're all lined up. The word here means to slip or to lapse rather than a willful sin.

So in Galatians 3.19 Paul uses the word parabasis and he says, why then the law? Why do you have the law? It was added because of transgression. Having been ordained through the angels by the agency of the mediator until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.

There he spoke of sin as a willful stepping beyond the limits of an imposed law, this willful doing. In this case, we're not looking at a Christian who is willfully stepping beyond the bounds. While desiring wholeheartedly to do right, he does the wrong because he's not availing himself of God's appointed method of living the Christian life. His sin is not, therefore, the deliberate violation of God's will and His Word, but it's a lapse into sin through a helplessness to prevent it.

I would say, I'll give you a personal example. I, at times, have a terrible temper, and I'm in the middle of it, rage, before I even know it. And then I think, it's like the Holy Spirit whispers in my ear, hey, how's it going there, big guy? And you go, oh yeah, this isn't of you, is it? Personal example.

Helplessness, however, self-imposed in this case, for the Galatians had the ministry of the Spirit taught to them by the Apostle, who has recorded his failure as a Christian when living under the law. If you read Romans 7 from that perspective, you can really see what Paul is doing. Paul the Apostle is the man. Other than the Lord Jesus, has there been a greater man than him?

I don't know of any. And here he is in Romans 7, overtaken by sin, and he doesn't understand it. He's surprised, because he thought, I've got my will right, and I've got my energy all up and going, but then the thing I want to do, I just don't do it. And the thing I hate doing, that's what I find myself doing. The way of victory, which she afterwards found, was not only the information that we read in Romans 6, but primarily in Romans 7.

The next question is, and the next word is, Brethren, even if anyone is caught or overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual, Donna says to me, now you know when you say that, everybody in the audience is going to say, well, I'm one of them. I'm one of those spiritual guys. Who are these spiritual people? Who are the spiritual ones amongst the Gentiles? Or who are the spiritual ones amongst our group?

First, in the case of a fall through the want of watchfulness and dependence upon God, we learn that we are the most adapted to meet the need. It is the obligation of in a general way, but who are the Holy Spirit? But who are those the Holy Spirit urges to deal well with such a case? Here he says, you who are spiritual. So we've got to find out and figure out who are the spiritual ones.

Now it doesn't follow that he who is born of God is necessarily spiritual. to live in the Spirit is a very different thing among being spiritual. A person, a spiritual person not only lives, but he walks in the Spirit. Now, of course he's got infirmities, got his own life to live, and may at times manifest this in nature, so it isn't a perfect person.

But in an obvious way, taken as a whole, Through the grace of God, he has learned to judge, not to indulge himself in his own life, and to detect, especially in himself, a departure from the Lord, and to own it frankly and humbly before the Father. He's learned that. I should say, she's learned that.

In consequence of this steadfast self-judgment, there will be a far greater tenderness in dealing with the sin of others. One may have a keen discernment, but when it comes to that which is real and most serious, which perhaps many would give up as making the case hopeless and think that the person could not be a Christian after all, they, these spiritual persons, knowing more the subtlety of the flesh and the sin nature as well as the grace of God, are able to count upon God's goodness and are the very person to deal with the evil and to restore the soul. So that we always find in the case that the call for gracious handling is made to the spiritual person. Not those who are most used can end up being tripped in this process. It's not the smartest person in the room. It's not the best informed person. But it's a person who's doing what?

In chapter 5 it says, walking in the Spirit. Not those who are apt to indulge in the flesh and depart from the fellowship of the Lord. Some might think that the most likely to deal pitifully with such disturbance are those that are the smartest in the room. But on the contrary, Those who are called to walk circumspectly and in self-judgment is the general rule. They understand about themselves. Who are thus kept from slipping through the continual leaning on a faithful Lord. They lean, or put it another way, they're dependent people. Because the very power that preserves them from going astray is what gives them to understand the grace of God. and to depend upon that grace in others. Accordingly, these are told in this verse to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. I'm going to read a quote from William Kelly that I thought was really good.

When a believer that is in any measure spiritual thinks of himself, what he realizes is his immense falling short of the Lord Jesus. He has ever before him how greatly he fails, even of that which he desires in his ways before the Father. But when he looks at his brother Christian, let him be the feeblest possible, his brother being the feeblest possible, and sees him as a beloved one of Christ in full acceptance And in the object of the Father's tender affection, this draws out both love and self-hatred. By self-hatred, hatred for the sin nature. Thus, if grace be at work, what is Christ like in another saint rises at once before the heart. And what is unlike Christ in himself?

The point being, This spiritual person approaches one who has been overtaken and the humbleness of this person and the way in which they conduct their life and their heart, which you can see it, has an effect on the one who's overtaken because of the Christ-likeness of the one who's talking to him. Now, who are these people? Namely, those who are still living their lives in dependence on the Spirit. That's part of it. The task of dealing with the fallen one belongs to those which are spiritual, obviously.

And by the way, you may be qualified today and not qualified tomorrow, because you may be walking in the flesh tomorrow. But the day after that, you may be walking in the Spirit. That's the thing that we have to understand. When you walk in the Spirit, the door doesn't close behind you and you never go back, because we do. We all do.

The spiritual man is one led by the Holy Spirit, and only one like that is qualified. Now, if you're like me, and most of you are a lot like me, if you find yourself in a position where somebody needs to go talk to that person, or we need to restore, or we need to do something, at first you think, well, I could do this. But then you begin to think about it and you think, wait a minute, you know, what makes me any better than them? Who am I to go talk to them?

Yet the Spirit of God has within a body of believers at any given time people are walking in the Spirit and they see and know and understand and their reconciliation takes place. This reconciliation we're talking here about is to go to a person who's not abiding under grace. It isn't that they're really, really sinful. It has to do with the fact that they're not living under grace. That's the issue. That's a much bigger issue than, oh, you're committing sin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's not what it's about. It's about, are you walking in the Spirit or aren't you?

And the one who is, is the one who's qualified to restore such a one to what? to walking in the Spirit themselves. So, the word restore. It means to repair, to restore, to a form or good condition, to prepare or to fit out or to equip. It's used of reconciling factions. It's used of, here's the really interesting thing this word is used for, it's used of setting bones This is a Greek word, so if you broke your arm, you would go to somebody like this and they would, a doctor, and he would reset your bones so you could use your arm again. That's what this word means. He that is spiritual resets your spiritual bones so you can walk in the spirit. That's really what he's doing.

To set a joint as in a dislocated bone, it's really a surgical term. And it suggests the work which must be done when a bone is fractured or a joint is dislocated. It's used of Paul usually in the figurative sense of setting a person to the right or bringing him into line. The original word, the sinning one, did not cease to be a Christian. He didn't become unsaved because he stopped walking in the Spirit or sinned. He was not severed from the body of Christ. He was merely dislocated.

And, you know, lots of people in this audience know who Ed Flansburg is. When you dislocate something, he gets the first call, because he can fix it. He is one of those people who can restore your skeleton back to the way it ought to function. And he's a prized man because he can do that.

So when a dislocated member of our human bodies, the aggravation prevents the body from functioning normally. Well, you all know that. You get a joint out somehow, a shoulder, a rib, a knee, and your body won't function like it's supposed to. It won't operate smoothly. You go to a person like Ed Flansburg He gives you a pop and a crack and you're walking. It's great. Or you have to get new knees like Mike is going to get. So when we dislocate some member of the human body, the aggravation prevents it. So there's discomfort until the bone is set or the dislocation is put in place.

These Galatians had abandoned their dependence upon the Spirit. and now are asked by Paul, these new ones, these ones walking in the Spirit, are asked by Paul to set these Galatians right, who had been seized unaware by the sin of walking in the flesh.

And they were depriving themselves of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That's really what he's asking them to do. So what was the primary thing needed to set right about. We could say walking in the flesh is in and of itself sinful. They wandered off the road of grace. They were stumbling in a quagmire of self-dependence and legalism. To set the sinning brother right with reference to this act of sin would be helpful, but that would still leave him on the wrong road with the result that he would go on being surprised at the entrance of sin in his life.

So the Galatians who had not become infatuated with legalism were the ones who were exhorted to bring those back who had entered into the grace, so that they could enter into the grace way of living. They would repair the damage caused by the Judaizers in the life and they would equip them to go on living the life in the right way under the Spirit. Put it this way, you restore such a one to a good condition. So this is how the Apostle Paul attempts to repair the damage that's being caused by these Judaizers, using other Galatians who had not succumbed to the wiles of their preaching and legalism The genuinely spiritual believers manifest the fruit of the Spirit when He leads a sinning brother back into the way of grace. That's what you're doing, leading them back into the way of grace.

But there's a primary consideration. The primary consideration is the fact that it's necessary for the Christian brother to be on the right road himself and in a proper position to live the Christian life, yet he should be aware of what's going on. The word here, consider, oops, went too far. The word here, consider, means to look attentively at, it means to pay close attention, to fix your attention on the thing which you have an interest in, to have the eye for a thing which in view of forming the right judgment, and to give heed to it. So this spiritual person has to be paying attention to himself in terms of, well, what are my motives here?

And I can easily get sidetracked. The Galatian Christian who had maintained his liberty from the law is thus cautioned to keep a sharp eye upon himself, lest he also desert the liberty that he lives under, to the allurement of the Judaizers, and fall into sin."

There's an awful lot, as you can see, just in this one verse. So, brethren, he says, a paraphrase or expanded translation, brethren, if however a man is overtaken by sin and a certain false step, As for you who are spiritual ones, be restoring such a one in the spirit of meekness, taking heed to yourself lest you also be tempted." This doesn't mean criticism or censorship. It's just like an injured limb.

It's sensitive. to the touch of another, even as the erring brother is difficult to deal with. We're exhorted to deal gently and meekly and delicately with the erring brother, each one looking to yourself. We're not to judge, for even the spiritual are subject to temptation.

Sometimes it's the very one who, like Peter, displaying self-confidence that commits the sin he boasted he would never commit. I may say my brother fell today, I might fall tomorrow. Spiritual pride itself is sinful and extremely dangerous. First Corinthians 10-12 says, therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he not fall. It behooves us to be to beware lest we fall into temptation and make license of the liberty that Christ has given us. I'll read a couple of quotes and we'll close with that.

To be guided by the Holy Spirit is to be moved through the most delicate relationships that the heart can know. out of none but the hungry heart, the bit and bridle of the law must give way to the glance of the eye of grace. At this point, Satan, appearing as an angel of light, will seek to misdirect the believer's life by making use of a morbid conscience, a mistaken impression as to duty, or a lack of understanding as to the exact teaching of God's Word. However, Satan's leadings are to be detected, since they are irksome, painful, and disagreeable. The leading of the Spirit is sweet, satisfying to the heart of the one who is yielded to God. We must remember that the will of God is said to be good, and acceptable, and perfect." That was from Louis Barry Chafer.

The believer has an all-engaging responsibility, we all do, of continuing in the attitude of reliance by means of the Spirit to be walking. We must be dependent on the Holy Spirit. That's a divinely appointed task for each one of us and a place of cooperation in the mighty undertakings of God. Thus and only thus can the Holy Spirit possess and vitalize every human faculty, every human emotion, and every human choice. As Roger talked about last week, if we are living in the Spirit's power, let us conduct, let our conduct also be governed by the Spirit's power.

So let's close. Our dear Father, we're so thankful that you're careful to teach us the simplest, appear to be the simplest things about walking in the flesh or walking in the Spirit, and you have made provision in your Word to reconcile us who are walking in the flesh back to grace. And you've even put it on those who are members of the body, of your body, to do it. We're so thankful that your methods work every time, and they work graciously, and they exhort us to deal and to function in a manner that's consistent with who you are. And we pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.