Walking the Tightrope - Gospel Freedom in Galatians - November 18 Readings: Galatians 6:1-2

 

 

Gospel Freedom in Galatians  

Background: What was the key issue in the early church? Race. Culture. Issues that are still with us today. The church at its inception on Pentecost was essentially 100% Jewish and the Apostles and the church in Jerusalem seemed content to keep it that way. Then God called a Pharisee named Saul to salvation and set him aside as an Apostle to the Gentiles. Over the next 30 years, the church became primarily Gentile with a Jewish minority, and many Jews fought it. 

Galatians was Paul's first letter, written at the end of his first missionary journey when Gentiles began to come to Christ in droves. A group, sometimes called Judaizers and sometimes the circumcision party, opposed the inclusion of Gentiles in the church. If they were to be part of the church, they needed to become Jewish - follow the law and Jewish rituals. Paul fought them tooth and nail his entire ministry. The gospel was for the whole world. 

Galatians is a powerful argument for a gospel free from the works of the law. 

As often as time allows, the reader is encouraged to read the entire book - it will not take more than a few minutes. Each day we will work our way through the book passage by passage. 

Today's Reading:  Galatians 1-6  Focus Passage - Galatians 6:1-2

Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted. 2 Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Through the Bible Readings: Ezekiel 41-42, Hebrews 10, Psalm 125, Proverbs 28:10–11 

If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings. 

Devotional: Walking the Tightrope     

What do we do when we find a Christian in sin? Our responses are too often not governed by what the Apostle Paul calls the "law of Christ." The way of Christ calls us to walk a tightrope between sinful options and staying on that rope isn't easy. If you know me, you know that balancing acts on narrow ledges or tightropes might not be my spiritual gift!

The way of the world is too easy and many lean to that side. We tell people that their sins do not matter - no one is perfect. God is love, after all, and he knew we weren't perfect. This is a perfect example of partial truth that becomes grievous error. God is love and does accept us as we are, but he does not excuse or ignore our sin. Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sin. We cannot pretend it is no big deal. 

The way of the religious world is too often condemnation and cancellation. Some Christians today are quick to write someone off, to heap condemnation and insult on someone who sins. That also is not the way of Christ. God did not immediately blow sinners to eternal hell (as, perhaps, we deserved) but sought to save us by his grace. 

What is the way of Christ, the "law of Christ?" Paul defines that in verse 1. When we find a fellow Christian in sin, we are to "restore such a person with a gentle spirit." This keeps us on the tightrope and avoids both errors. We restore people because allowing people to continue in sin neither glorifies God nor does it help that person. Sin is a cancer, a destructive thing, and we cannot allow that cancer to continue in the lives of those we love. We seek to restore them, to lead them to repentance and renewal in Christ. We do that gently, not taking a pharisaical attitude of condemnation, but loving them, standing by them, and refusing to give up on them. We "carry one another's burdens" in Christ. 

This is a hard rope to balance on. It is easy to fall off on the side of "love" (not God's love, but a perverse human substitute) that accepts people without seeking to restore them in Christ. It is often just as easy to distance ourselves from people, to write them of, to cancel them from our lives in our disgust and disdain over their sins. The law of Christ allows neither. We restore the fallen and do it in love. 

Father, may I put your holiness first and restore the fallen, but give me a gentle spirit - every day. 

Think and Pray:

Do you have a tendency to fall off on one side of the rope or the other? To be judgmental or to excuse sin? 

Think through what it means to restore gently.