Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.8MB)
Shabbat Shalom. Have you ever experienced a congregational split? Have you ever felt burned out from God’s Community? If so today’s message is for you. This morning, Lord willing, we will be looking at Galatians 6:1-10. In this passage we see Rabbi Paul address various issues in the community at Galatia. A community that had become bitterly divided, prideful, and envious. Divisions and splits occurred in the 1st Century and have continued until today. Sometimes it is necessary, especially in the case of serious theological error which refuses to be changed. But other times division happens for less significant reasons.
From Landover Baptist 1999: 100 years of Christian fellowship, spiritual love, Godly unity, and community growth ended last Tuesday in a fit of congregational discord not to be rivaled in this century. Holy Creek Baptist Church was split down the middle like the tabernacle cloth that tore at the point of our Lord’s crucifixion……
The source of dissension in this once Holy house of God, is a piano bench which still sits behind the 1923 Steinburg to the left of the pulpit. Landover Baptist members who have friends or relatives at Holy Creek Baptist, say that the old bench was always a source of hostility. People should have seen this coming. “That congregation was getting ready to break for the last 10 years,” some said. “It’s just a shame that it had to be over a piano bench.” One outside pastor commented, “However ridiculous it might sound, I’m sure the Lord is using this whole thing in some way that none of us can see or make any sense of at all or ever hope to comprehend.”
At present, Holy Creek Congregation will be having four services a day. There has been an unspoken agreement mediated by Pastor Deacon Fred of the Landover Baptist Church. Each faction will have it’s own separate service with it’s own separate pastor. Since the head pastor is not speaking to the associate pastor, each will have their own service, which will be attended by factioned members.
We are told that the services are far enough apart that neither group will come into contact with the other. An outside party will be moving the piano bench to different locations and appropriate positions, between services, so as to please both sides, and avoid any further conflict that could result in violence.
From Thom S. Rainer’s blog where he asked his audience for their most absurd church splits and fights:
Two different churches reported fights over the type of coffee. In one of the churches, they moved from Folgers to a stronger Starbucks brand. In the other church, they simply moved to a stronger blend. Members left the church in the latter example.
Some church members left the church because one church member hid the vacuum cleaner from them. It resulted in a major fight and split.
While these are absurd reasons for a community to split, they are real, and they do happen. This is not just something happening in Christian churches but also in Jewish Synagogues and Temples.
With a show of hands please how many of you have seen a congregation split happen? Did it have to happen? When division occurs, there is more going on behind the scene than just the coffee or piano benches. Usually there are people who have become much more critical of others than themselves. They have stopped wanting to bear burdens and show love to their brothers and sisters. Or they have “burned out” due to various reasons and have reached the point of ending friendships over vacuums. By the way the most often heard reason for splits in that blog? Church wall and carpet colors and how the service is ordered. In Galatians 6:1-10 we are given a series of principles and warnings to help us navigate our responsibilities to one another and to ourselves.
Before we dive into our passage for this morning, I want to give a bit of context for where we find ourselves in Galatians. This letter is addressed to the community in Galatia and has to do once again with Rabbi Paul combating false teachers and a false gospel. Our passage today connects more with Galatians 5 than the rest of the letter.
In Galatians 5 we learn about our freedom in Messiah, but we are to use this freedom wisely. Instead of indulging our own desires we need to serve one another humbly with love.
In chapter 5 we find the “Fruits of The Spirit”, outward signs that we have truly been born again, these are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are contrasted with the desires of our flesh, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, and orgies. There is a clear distinction made here between what behavior is of God and what is of the world.
The chapter ends with the warning that we need to make sure we are not becoming conceited, then provoking and envying each other. Clearly this was going on in Galatia as it is still going on today.
We begin with Galatians 6:1, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.
The type of sin a person is struggling with isn’t listed here, but in the previous chapter we had many sorts of sins listed for us. The principle is clear though regardless of the sin. Everyone who is a Believer in the Lord is should help to restore one another, gently. I’m emphasizing that on purpose, and we will talk more about it in a moment.
But what does Paul mean by restore? We know that we do not offer atonement that is the business of our wonderful Messiah. We do not forgive sins.
Instead the command here is that through encouraging one another to confess and deal with our sins, we can restore ourselves in our community and before the Lord. Encouraging one another let go of vices, to deal with the issues that we have, and to encourage one another to have a clean conscious. One of the ways I have seen this practiced at Shema is through our Men’s Group. We encourage one another and share the issues we are struggling with. I will freely admit to not being the best at always opening up when I am struggling.
But there is a freedom that comes from confession and from dealing with our wounds. It is something I have experienced time and time again in my own life.
I find it easier to confess my sins to God than to a brother in the Lord. I think this is because of the shame and fear of being judged by someone I know. But through talking about things with one another we can remind each other of the forgiveness found in our Messiah. We also can help remove the loneliness and isolation that can come from sins. When we help restore those around us we help them experience the freedom that comes with Adonai.
However, the second part of verse 1 cautions us that we can over extend ourselves or rush into situations. We can become so focused on helping others that we go too far. Then we are entangled in their sins and become tempted in the same way. If I am just coming out of an addiction I need to focus on my own recovery before I can begin to minister to others in the middle of that same temptation.
We continue with verse 2, an important principle for all Believers, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Messiah.”
The idea of burdens here is not just physical, but spiritual and emotional as well. We see this principle at work in our first verse when we gently try to restore one another. There is an emphasis on gentleness here, which is one of the fruits of the spirit. If we are not gentle in our approach, we can really hurt a person. A lack of gentleness can also be a sign we are dealing with serious pride issues, which Rabbi Paul will address soon.
We fulfill the law of Messiah by bearing each other’s burdens because we are modeling what He has taught us. The Apostle John puts it this way in 1 John 3:16-18:
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
The use of our time, talents, and treasures, tells us where our hearts are. Do we spend the majority on ourselves or on the Lord and His people? Are we supporting good organizations and people, or just supporting our worldly desires?
So, we are told to help one another out and to confront each other in love and gentleness when we see an issue. This can be a beautiful thing when done correctly but unfortunately many of us know of times this has gone very badly. If we are being honest with ourselves, we can probably think of a time we have hurt others as well, regardless of our intentions. In many cases the root issue when things go astray is pride, feeling envious or superior. We continue with verses 3-5.
If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.
This is the danger of pride, when we evaluate ourselves on our ability to help others or how we are compared to everyone else. There are no second-class citizens in God’s kingdom. While we need to look at others to understand how to help them with their burdens, we cannot compare ourselves to them and feel superior. We have a responsibility to help one another, but we also have a responsibility to work on our own problems as well. We cannot farm this out to other people completely, each one of us ultimately bear responsibility for our own lives before the Lord.
There is a temptation when we hear about or get involved in a serious situation to feel like we have our lives better together than the other person. To feel good that we aren’t in a mess that bad. But when we think this way, we are hurting ourselves and those we care about.
I like this quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community, a book I highly recommend:
“If my sinfulness appears to me in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all.”
The truth is that while some sins are categorized differently in God’s Word each one of us are struggling in our own ways. We need to be more compassionate of others and more critical of ourselves. We need to evaluate how we are handling our own burdens, physical, spiritual, and emotional. This is something I fully confess that I need to work on, and I would guess you do as well.
There is a saying by Dwight Morrow, “We judge ourselves by our motives and others by their actions.” This double-standard is based in pride, where we will give ourselves much more compassion than we do other people. We will look at our own motives and justify and excuse our behavior but make snap judgements about others.
So we need to test our own actions, to honestly self-reflect and examine our motives before the light of God’s Word.
We continue now to verse 6, which is sort of an additional thought about bearing burdens in regards to teachers of the Word.
“Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.”
There is an exception given here for the responsibility to bear burdens in life, specifically financial burdens. When it comes to financial support there is a space made for those who are in full-time ministry to be supported by those they teach. But notice that this is a principle for those who are benefited by the teaching, not a command for the minister to demand of others.
This is in keeping with other places in God’s Word such as 1 Corinthians 9:4: In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.
While there were many times Rabbi Paul chose not to ask for support, that was his freedom to choose and to be respected.
We also see this principle in Messiah Yeshua’s teaching to His Apostles in Luke 10:7, that the worker is deserving of their wages. I believe this teaching is here because it was some sort of issues among the Galatians. Maybe they were refusing to support those who were preaching the true Gospel in favor of those who were preaching a false Gospel. As stewards, managers, of the finances God has given us we have to be sure we are using those resources wisely based on God’s principles.
We transition now to verses 7 and 8 which give us the reasoning for why we must test ourselves.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
If we are practicing the fruits of the Spirit and building up our community, we are sowing for the Lord. If we are pridefully focused on ourselves, refusing to help those God has put in our paths then we are sowing for ourselves. One path leads to eternal life, one leads to death. If we spend most of our time feeling we have it together better than most people or self-focused we not only alienate ourselves from one another, but it may be a sign that we are not truly born again. God knows our hearts and it is extremely important to bring them before the light of His presence revealed in His Word.
Each of us will stand before the great Judge one day and have our lives laid bear before Him. While we are not saved by the deeds we do, they are a sign of the fruits of the spirit being in us. If we live for ourselves and our own desires, we will be lead to destruction. If we live for God and care about others and His work then we will receive the reward of eternal life.
Rabbi Paul concludes this passage with another danger to be aware of. This is a different sort of issue than the sin of pride. It is the danger of becoming overwhelmed and exhausted in our walk with Adonai.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
It can be exhausting doing the work of God. To be frustrated with all the things of life, to see efforts and investments in people not bear any fruit. We can be impatient, and we can be buried so far under our own burdens while trying to help other that it makes us give up. In those moments we need to reach out to others, but also reach out to our Lord in prayer. To remember that what we are hoping for is not in this life but in the next. That we will find satisfaction in God’s eternal kingdom and not the things of this world.
We need to make sure our weariness does not cause us to abandon the good that the Lord is calling us to do. People leave communities for various reasons but one of them is from burning out.
When we recognize that this is happening to us it is so important to reach out to a trusted brother or sister in the Lord. To have them help us look at what is going on and encourage us to not give up.
There have been many times this last year where this verse has really spoken to me. As I said earlier, I am not always the best at asking for help. Things can just pile up until you are so buried in your own stuff that talking to one more person fills you with dread. Each of us will go through seasons where we will be able to better bear others burdens or need more of our own burdens shouldered by others. This is part of the natural way of life and Galatians 6 teaches us there is no shame in reaching out to others when we need help.
Our final verse for this morning gives us the application for this passage.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Notice the use of the word opportunity in this verse. We cannot bear every burden for every person, we cannot help out every single person in the world. But I believe that God puts people and situations in our paths intentionally.
So as we have opportunity, as we have the ability to do so, we need to do good things for everyone, but especially those who are a part of Messiah’s Community.
We need to make reaching out to others a priority in our lives. To bear one another’s burdens in real humility and not pride. Our emphasis should be on building one another up, not tearing people down. Finally, if we realize that we are burning out, becoming weary of doing good, we need to say something. To not be afraid to reach out to those who hopefully love us and deal with the problems between one another in love. Before they overwhelm us to the point we lose it over a vacuum.
I want to conclude our time together this morning with one more excellent teaching from Bonhoeffer.
“The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.”
May the Lord empower us through His spirit to heal divisions in our community and not create more. May each one of us be equipped to bear the burdens we have been called to shoulder without giving up. May we in our congregations here on Earth experience the smallest measure of joy that awaits us when we live forever in God’s eternal community.