“Restore him gently”

When our pastor asked me to speak about gentleness, my first thought was to talk about Jesus—about how he went into the temple, saw the temple courts filled with money changers and livestock sellers, and he got angry and turned over the tables and made a whip to chase the animals and the sellers out.

You know, it was right for him to be angry. The court of the Gentiles was supposed to be a place of prayer, for people of all nations to come to Jerusalem to pray to the one true God. But the fact was, that not very many Gentiles even wanted to come to Jerusalem to pray to the God of Israel, because the Jews had turned their religion into a system that said, “We are better than you are. You guys can stand off at a distance if you want, but we are the ones who are close to God.”

And the court of the Gentiles was kindof a vacant lot next to the temple, and it was a convenient place to set up shops for the temple tourists. It was a great place to make money, even if it all that money-making was a bit offensive to the few Gentiles who did occasionally come. “Your money is no good here,” they were told. “You have to buy some of ours—and we have a ‘special’ price for you.”

It was right for Jesus to be angry. God was angry. God doesn’t like sin— not because it hurts him any, but because it hurts the people he loves. He looked and saw some of his children hurting the others, and he didn’t like it.

So Jesus shouted at them, told them to get out, and he turned over the tables and tore apart the bird cages to let the doves fly away, and he knocked down the fences that held the animals in, and he drove them out.

Was it gentle?

No, not really. There is a time to be gentle, and there is a time to be angry and forceful.

The problem is, when we are angry and forceful, it is usually for the wrong reasons. It is because we have been offended, our feelings have been hurt, or somebody didn’t do it the way we wanted them to. Or maybe that somebody doesn’t support the same political view that we do.

And so we get angry, and we try to justify ourselves by saying, “It’s OK to be angry. Even Jesus got angry when he had to deal with people who were doing wrong things. When we are dealing with sin, it is right to be angry and forceful.”

Well, maybe that is sometimes true. There is a time to be forceful, but there is also a time to be gentle. Sinners were attracted to Jesus not because he berated them for their sins. Rather, they were attracted to Jesus because he was gentle with them. John 8 tells us the story of a time when the religious leaders brought someone who had been caught in adultery, and Jesus responded, “Let the person who has no sin throw the first stone.” And they all went away, and only Jesus was left. Now, he had no sin, but he did not throw any stones. He just said, “I do not condemn you. Now go, and sin no more.”

He dealt with the problem in a gentle way.

The apostle Paul tells us to deal with sin in a gentle way. So this morning, I’d like for us to look together at Galatians, chapter 6.

Now, the people in Galatia were very concerned about sin. It’s good to be concerned about sin, but the people in Galatia had a couple of problems. First, they had the wrong definition of sin, because they were saying that these Gentiles had to keep the laws of Moses, and second, they thought that people were saved by their own works. So Paul explained that the laws of Moses were temporary, and weren’t required anymore, and that we are saved by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, not by anything that we do.

We are saved by grace, not by our works. But this doesn’t mean that ifs OK to sin. Sin isn’t good for us, and sin isn’t good for anybody else, so we should try to eliminate sin from our lives. Paul explains in chapter 5 that sins are the works of the flesh, and when we are led by the Holy Spirit, our lives will be characterized by love, joy, peace, faith, meekness, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. Good behavior is not the cause of our salvation, but it should be the result of our salvation. So it is right for the Galatian believers to be concerned about sin.

So if we see sin in our lives, we need to get rid of it. As Paul says in another place, we need to put it to death. Sin is contrary to the new life we have in Christ Jesus. As Paul says, we do not let sin reign in our mortal bodies - we are to mortify it, or kill it.

But what do we do if we see sin in someone else’s life? Should we rebuke them, throw tables around, make a whip to drive them out of the church? No. Paul tells us here in Galatians 6, verse 1:

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

Let’s look at each of these words.

First, who is Paul talking to? —to members of the church. His comments are not restricted to pastors - they apply to all members.

Second, who is caught in the sin? Is it the general public, or is it a member of the church? Paul is apparently talking about members. Our responsibility to nonChristians is to give them good news, not to heap criticism on them. Paul’s evangelistic strategy was not to point out people’s sins, but to point them to Christ, who has already paid for their sins.

One Christian author was asking people why they didn’t go to church. One woman really wanted to know God, but felt that he was too far away. So they asked her, “Why don’t you go to church?” And she responded, “That’s the last place I’d want to go. I feel bad about myself already.”

Now, that’s a shame that she felt that way, that in her experience church just made people feel bad about all the stuff they’ve done, when church really ought to give people a sigh of relief, a message of hope, and a feeling of acceptance. Some positive encouragement, not a message of condemnation. So if we go around telling everybody, “That’s a sin, that’s a sin, you’re a sinner,” then we are like the religious leaders in Jerusalem who kept the Gentiles away simply by their constant criticism and attitude of superiority. We might say that they are welcome, but our attitudes and actions do not make them feel welcome.

So Paul is talking about one member talking to another member.

Third, what does it mean to be “caught” in a sin? It does not mean a one-time slip-up - a-ah, I caught you! — though those are often an indication of a persistent problem. It is not our job to go around correcting everyone for every little infraction. But when someone is in the grip of a persistent problem, then we can address it. Now, in a way, every last one of us here is caught in sin in some way or another. We all struggle with sin of some sort or another. As Paul says in chapter 5 verse 17, the Spirit struggles against the flesh, and we all end up doing things we didn’t want to do, things we shouldn’t have done. So it seems here that Paul is talking about something more serious than what normally affects us.

Fourth, what is a sin? Is it a different political position? Is it a bad choice of hair style? bad grammar or pronunciation? No, I don’t think so. Sure, we can discuss these things, but this is not what Paul is writing about in this verse. He doesn’t really define sin here, but other verses tell us a few things that Paul says we should avoid, ranging from sexual sins, to greed and gossip, to pride and prejudice. He might even be talking about the sin of being too quick to accuse others of sin.

It’s not his purpose here to define exactly when we are supposed to go to our brother. Rather, his purpose is to tell us that IF we feel a need to go to our brother, then he wants to tell us how to do it, in what attitude we should do it. IF we feel the sin is serious enough to address, then this is how we are supposed to do it—in an attitude of gentleness, and of humility, not of superiority and harshness.

What does Paul mean when he says “you who are spiritual”? How many people here think that they are spiritual?

Well, all members are supposed to be spiritual—we are all supposed to be led by the Holy Spirit, transformed by the Holy Spirit, filled with the fruit of the Spirit. Paul is saying that if you are going to talk to somebody about their sin, then your first order of business is to be spiritual according to the definition that Paul has given: characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, meekness, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. Now, Paul does not mean that nobody can ever measure up to this standard. Nobody is perfect, but we can be spiritual without being perfect at it. Paul is saying, yes, go ahead and do it, but don’t do it for selfish reasons.

Now, how about the word “restore”? Notice that Paul didn’t say rebuke, or correct, or expel. No, the goal is to restore the person. The Greek word was used for people mending their nets, or for a doctor setting a broken bone. The idea is to set things back to the way they were before. It is to solve a problem, not to punish a person. The goal is to restore the person, not to drive them away with criticism and rejection and shame. That word implies that the person was a member of the church, one of the believers.

The word restore also implies that if the problem isn’t fixed, then the person will be lost. This is some sort of serious sin, something we do not want to ignore. The person is in the grip of some sin and needs to be rescued.

And how are we to restore with person? Gently, or as it says in the Greek, with a spirit of gentleness, or a spirit of humility. We are not acting to punish the person, but to restore the person. There might sometimes be some consequences, but these are not designed to punish the person, but to help the person. We are not supposed to do this harshly, but gently.

However, a word that is gentle to one person is a harsh word to another. Some people are very sensitive to criticism, and others are nearly oblivious to it. All some people need is a gentle whisper, “I don’t think that was a very nice thing to do,” and others need a shout, “That was totally wrong.” Others may need a question: “Do you have a problem in this area?” or “Is there some way I could help you stop that?”

Paul’s point here is that we need to be as gentle as we can. When a doctor is setting broken bones, he or she might have to cause a little pain, but the goal is to cause the least pain possible to get the job done. Whenever we talk to a member going astray, we need to be as gentle as possible.

Last, this verse says “But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” It’s like Jesus said. Don’t worry about the speck in someone else’s eye until you have taken care of the plank in your own eye. If you are going to be concerned about sin, be concerned about your own sins first.

That doesn’t mean that you can never help somebody else, but it does mean that we each need to be cautious about the state of mind in which we do it. Yes, we should watch ourselves. Yes, we should be concerned about our own sins. And yes, we should be spiritual. We should be able and willing to help one another.

The goal is not to show how much better we are than the other person. The goal is to restore the other person, and the way we do that is by being as gentle as we can. When we are with Pharisees, then yell and scream and turn over tables. But when we are with sinners who are struggling with sin, then we need the attitude that says, “I don’t condemn you, but I do care about you.”

As Paul says, we have to be careful, or we may also be tempted. So what might we be tempted to do? If the person has a problem with alcohol, does that mean we are likely to be tempted with alcohol? Not necessarily. I think the chief temptation in this sort of situation is pride, the temptation to think of ourselves as better than we are. It’s the attitude that says, “I am spiritual, and you are not. I have my act together, and you are a low-life, and you can have fellowship with me only if you get your act together as much as I have.”

I think that Paul is making it clear here that even though sin is a serious matter, it is not Christian for us to go on witch-hunts or set ourselves up as gatekeepers for the kingdom of God. Sometimes we need to help each other, but this should always be done in love, in humility, gently, with a desire to restore the person.

We can see more of this in verse 2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Paul is talking about people being caught in sins, and about restoring them. Now he is talking about carrying one another’s burdens. I don’t think he is talking about luggage - he is still talking about helping people who are caught in sin. These sins that we struggle with are burdens that we carry, and Paul is saying that we ought to help one another with the spiritual struggles that we have.

We are not supposed to say, “I’m not spiritual enough.” We are supposed to get spiritual enough. The point is that we are supposed to help one another, and we are supposed to let others help us. That’s part of what it means to be a community, a fellowship, a family of believers. We help each other not just physically, but also spiritually.

So what is “the law of Christ”? Is it the rules that he preached in the Sermon on the Mount? Is it the great commandments that he gave? Do we fulfill those commands just by bearing one another’s burdens? I don’t think that Paul was referring to those commandments in particular. Rather, he is referring to the general principle of Christ’s life and teachings. The Greek word for “law” can also mean a general principle, and I think he is saying that Jesus’ life can be summarized in the motto of bearing other people’s burdens.

When we help one another with either physical or spiritual burdens, we are fulfilling the principle that characterized Jesus - and restoring someone gently is the right result and the right method. Gentleness is not a sign of weakness, but a means of being effective.

In verse 3, Paul warns us again not to think too highly of ourselves: “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” This is the real danger whenever one person goes to another to correct or restore someone caught in a sin.

We all need to think, “I may not have that particular problem, but I have some problems of my own. I am in need of God’s grace just as much as that person is. I come not as a superior, but as an equal who wants to help, and next month, it might be me who needs the help. Let’s help each other.”

In verse 4, Paul says, “Each one should test his own actions.” Yes, examine your motives. “Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else...’“ Our status before God, our real worth in the universe, is not based on how much better or worse we are than other people. It doesn’t do us any good to compare ourselves with others. Either that will make us think too highly of ourselves, or it will make us feel bad about ourselves because we don’t measure up to some artificial standard,

Jesus tells us exactly where we stand: We were rotten enough for him to have to die for us, and we were valuable enough that he did die for us. That’s who we are: sinners saved by grace, saved because God loves us.

Why doesn’t it do any good to compare ourselves with others? Paul explains in verse 5: “for each one should carry his own load.” Earlier, Paul said we should carry each other’s burden. Here he says we should each carry our own load. The two go together because helping others is part of our load, part of our responsibility.

But I think another possible explanation comes from the fact that the verb here is actually in the future tense. The King James Version puts it this way:

“Each one shall bear his own burden.” Some translators take that future tense as a command: You shall do this, and you shall do that, and that’s why the NIV uses the word “should.”

But if the verb is really a future tense, then the meaning is quite different:

In the day of judgment, we will each have to answer for what we did,... and that’s why it’s pointless for us to compare ourselves with others. That is not the standard of judgment. God does not grade on a curve. We are all sinners, and we all have equal need of God’s grace. That’s what we need to remember whenever we see a friend caught in a sin. Instead of judging, instead of ignoring the problem, we need to restore our friend in a spirit of humility... and gentleness.