Truth Encounter: Relating to Others - Gentle Restoration
by Jeff Fry based on "Freedom in Christ" by Neil Anderson
NIV Galatians 6:1 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. 2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, 5 for each one should carry his own load.
Thesis: How do we react to a brother's sin? or
We should gently restore the sinning brother.
I. Intro
A. The Story of Pachomius
Pachomius was an Egyptian soldier won to Christ by the kindness of Christians in Thebes. After his release from the military around A.D. 315, he was baptized. Serious about his new faith and determined to grow, Pachomius became a disciple of Palamon, an ascetic who taught him the self-denial and solitary life of a religious hermit. In early Christianity, the model of devotion was the recluse dedicated to resisting the corruption of society. These hermits wandered the desert alone—fasting, praying, and having visions. Many went to extremes: eating nothing but grass, living in trees, or refusing to wash. Such was the popular image of holiness: solitude, silence, and severity. And such was Pachomius's early spiritual training. But he began to question the methods and lifestyle of his mentors. How can you learn to love if no one else is around? How can you learn humility living alone? How can you learn kindness or gentleness or goodness in isolation? How can you learn patience unless someone puts yours to the test? In short, he concluded, developing spiritual fruit requires being around people—ordinary, ornery people. "To save souls," he said, "you must bring them together." Spiritual muscle isn't even learned among friends we have chosen. God's kind of love is best learned where we can't be selective about our associates. Perhaps this is why the two institutions established by God—the family and the church—are not joined by invitation only. We have no choice about who our parents or brothers or sisters will be; yet we are expected to love them. Neither can we choose who will or will not be in the family of God; any who confess Jesus as Lord must be welcomed. We learn agape love most effectively in our involuntary associations, away from the temptation of choosing to love only the attractive. So Pachomius began an ascetic koinonia, where holiness was developed not in isolation but in community. Instead of each person seeking God in his own way, with the dangers of idleness and eccentricity, Pachomius established a common life based on worship, work, and discipline. In community with flawed, demanding, sometimes disagreeable people, followers of Pachomius learned to take hurt rather than give it. They discovered that disagreements and opposition provide the opportunity to redeem life situations and experience God's grace. Thus began genuine monastic life. Pachomius, while largely forgotten in church history, points out to us that as attractive as solitary sanctification may seem, it is life amid people, busyness, and interruptions that develop many of the qualities God requires.
1.
II. How do we react to a brother's sin?
A. State
1. Two very important principles:
a) GRACE underpins our relations with others. The word "restore" in Galatians 6:1 is all about grace. And GRACE underpins the New Testament.
(1) We need to understand the concept of Biblical grace.
(2) Grace goes against much of today's mentality of earning your own keep and pulling your own weight. Sso it's not so easy to understand.
(3) Grace, or a free, undeserved gift, underpins God's relations with us and it should underpin our relation with others.
b) We help our brother with any sin he is struggling with.
(1) In Galatians 6:1 it says in the orginal "any sin" .
(2) Gentle restoration or confrontation is called for not just in the big sins like adultery or fraud or embezzlement, etc. but "any sin".
(3) We humans tend to have a hierarchy of sin which God doesn't seem to have - adultery or sexual sin, then money issues, then …. and so on.
2. With this idea of restoration (Gal. 6:1) in mind, how would you respond if someone in the church did wrong or was obviously caught up in a sin (e.g. repeated public displays of anger toward another)? How would you react?
a) Some possibilities:
(1) ignore it - you don't want to get involved
(2) ignore it and pretend it didn't happen - after all I used to do that!
(3) tell someone else about it (otherwise know as gossip)
(4) pray about it but say nothing to the person
(5) tell the person you saw what they did and tell them that it's okay - they are under grace.
(6) confront them and condemn them for it asking that they seek the forgiveness of the offended party
(7) other?
b) In answering think about some other passages of Scritpure (e.g. "judge not …", "if your brother sins against you …" )
3. Looking at our passage for today we see that we are to use the method of gentle restoration, not judgment to deal with sin in others.
a) What it is not
(1) this is not punishment and condemnation
(2) on the other hand this is not ignoring sin either
(3) Diagram
(a) License ------- Liberty ---------Legalism
(b) (ignoring it) (nitpicky )
(c) License = ignoring and winking at sin thus allowing one to sin it up bigtime without thought to holiness and the fact that we are a new creation created in Christ for good, holy works (Eph 2:10).
(i) this person reacts to the sin of his brother by doing nothing.
(ii) sin is too serious a thing to just let your brother be caught up in sin as it could destroy his soul, his walk with Christ. You must win him over
(d) Legalism =nitpickyness, living by religious laws in order to be approved and accepted by God thereby adding to the gospel requirements for salvation.
(i) this person reacts to his brother's sin with judgment and punishment. Matthew 7:1 says, "Do not judge or you too will be judged …"
(ii) this would imply that punishment would be due to a brother who was breaking one of the laws. Forgiveness is absent until the penalty is paid by some form of penance.
(e) Liberty = GRACE: what matters is that the believer is a new creation in Christ meaning that they are accepted by God already and are in the process of throwing off the old sinful life and putting on the new Spirit-filled life.
(i) this implies that if we see a brother sin against us we would gently help this brother to repent (turn away from the sin to God) by asking for forgiveness and acknowledging that he is accepted and forgiven by God. If they don't repent then we are to take along two or three other witnesses. If they still won't repent, then we are to tell it to the church. (Matthew 18: 15-17)
(ii) Restoration is always the goal, not condemnation. We The brother needs to concentrate on becoming who he/she is: a new creation in Christ thereby throwing off the old sinfulness and putting on the new person of the Holy Spirit.
b) Aaron Illustration (p. 101 "Caught Off Guard" by William P. Smith)
(1) In Exodus Moses and Aaron team up to lead God's people out of Egypt. Aaron was the spokesman and was destined to become the high priest of God's people
(2) But later while Moses is on Mt Sinai, Aaron stays below with the people and leads them into idolatry instead of leading them to God.
(3) God is furious and commands Moses to intercede.
(4) What happens to Aaron? Does he get replaced as the high priest of Israel?
(a) You can imagine Aaron's despair after Moses comes down and sobers them all up.
(i) will he ever be able to come back from this mess?
(ii) will God accept him?
(iii) is it even worth trying to restore things with God or is it over?
(b) The Answer is in Leviticus 8. In a long ceremony, Moses on behalf of God consecrates Aaron and his sons as priests of God in the tabernacle!
(c) Amazing grace.
(d) We learn from the book of the Law, Leviticus, that God's love is so broad and wide that it can even restore Aaron and you and me.
(e) God is so ready to restore the repentant wrong-doer that nothing can separate us from God's love.
B. Illustrate
1. You've caught your son in a lie. You say to him, "You have just said something untrue". Have you judged him? No.
2. But if you say to him, "You are a liar!" that would be judgment.
3. What's the difference?
a) You have attacked his character, not the specific action or behaviour that was wrong.
b) This accusation does not lead to restoration, but to isolation and condemnation whereas number one above can lead to restoration - ie. it provides a way forward.
(1) through confession that he has lied
(2) and his asking for forgiveness for what he has done.
4. Number one gives a way forward to restoration, while number 2 looks back at the sin and just punishes it leaving no way out for the offender. They are just stuck with condemnation.
5. Matthew 7:1 is saying that we are not to have an overly critical and judgmental spirit. God does not do that with us and so we are not to do that with others. "Be imitators of God " (Eph 5:1).
C. Apply
1. The best way to get around condemnation of the person is to use the word "I" when talking to them.
a) For example, in the above instance you could say, "I feel lied to because that statement you said back there was untrue" or "I feel misrepresented because that was not true what you said about me".
b) Stay away from using "you". For example, "You are a liar …"
III. Conclusion