This morning we come to the 7th argument against using the Law of Moses for sanctification.  Let me unpack that sentence. Ben Witherington III has arranged the material in Galatians around seven arguments against the Agitators.  These Agitators believed in Jesus as the Messiah and understood his death on the cross as forgiving our sins; no problems there.  But when it came to sanctification, becoming more holy, learning to quit sin, they relied upon the Law of Moses.  “You have to have some law!  You have to know where you stand.  You must follow the Law if you are ever going to really please God!”  Law was their answer to becoming holy.

It is on this point that Paul angrily disagreed.  Salvation, fellowship and sanctification are all a package deal.  We must have faith in the death of Christ for salvation, but we must also have faith in the power of the Spirit to mold us into his image. This salvation and joint sanctification is the basis of our fellowship with each other.  Christ is the source of salvation, fellowship and sanctification!  The Gospel is good news!  We have it all in Christ.

It’s like... Christmas presents.  Instead of three gifts under the tree, which we open separately; ”Oh, here is the gift of salvation.  Let’s open the gift of sanctification.  You open the fellowship present.”  We only have one package.  We open it up and it’s a Swiss Army knife.  Here is the salvation blade.  Here is the tool that makes me holy.  Here is the cork screw of fellowship.  Wait here is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and here is the gadget that does self-control.  Wow.  Jesus is a Swiss Army knife.  “Okay, the Swiss Army Knife  metaphor is a bit lame, but it works.”  All we are and all we are to be and all we will ever be is found in Christ!  Wow, what a present.  It is better than anything you are going to get for Christmas; even better than... 55" LG Led LCD HDTV.  And the best part of it is... it is a package deal; all packaged up in Christ!

So, throughout the letter to the Galatians Paul is making these arguments attempting to convince the Galatians that all they need is Christ.  They don’t need the Law of Moses.  They don’t need circumcision.  You only need Jesus! Faith is a package deal.  We must have faith in Jesus to accomplish his complete will in our lives; including sanctification.

And now as we get to Galatians 6 we come to the 7th argument.  It is not what you are expecting.  You would expect the final argument to be the killer one; the coup de grâce, the finishing move, the knockout punch, and it is; but not in the way you would expect.  Some scholars, unlike Ben Witherington III, see this last chapter as simply good advice tacked on to the end of the book.  NO!  It is the killer argument but it is going to take you sideways, not head on.  Let me read the first 5 verses of Galatians 6 and you attempt to figure out the 7th argument. 

Galatians 6:1-5 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.  Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.

Let’s break these verses down and work on understanding what they mean, then we will put them back to together and see how they are the coup de grâce of the 7th argument. 

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Obviously, these verses are discussing how we are helping each other.  These verses are telling us how we are involved in each other's sanctification.  One of the fascinating things I have learned in our study of Galatians this year is the importance of the community in sanctification.  I have said numerous times, sanctification occurs in community.  The Spirit accomplishes sanctification in our lives but the place it occurs is in church; it is amongst us.

It is like a… “Here comes another metaphor,” mountain stream.  When you camp by a mountain stream all night long you can hear the thump, thump, thump of rocks rolling along.  The pressure of the water and the rocks hitting against each other grinds the rough edges off the rocks and leaves them smooth.  That is us. 
- As we rub against each other we work off the rough edges.
- The Spirit, the water, moves quickly through us grinding off the edges.
- It only happens in the stream.  If you take the rock out of the water it stops being smoothed.
- It is an ongoing, slow process but it works.  The longer I am amongst the bunch of you, the smoother I get.
Isn't that cool?  Do you like the mountain stream better than the Swiss Army knife? Sanctification is an ongoing process which occurs within our church.

Part of this mountain stream/rock bouncing process forms the 7th argument.  How do we help each other in sanctification when we can see something specific going on in someone’s life?

Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

NIV says sin, but it is not the typical word for sin, rather it is miss-step, trespass; it is entering into a place with the signs which say, “NO TRESPASSING!” You are stepping where you should not be stepping. You are on a path that you should not be traveling.  We have just read, in the verses just above this, that we are to keep in step with the Spirit, we are to dance with the Stars, I mean, dance with the Spirit.  What happens when we see a brother or sister dancing with the Stars, instead of dancing with the Spirit?  What do we do when we see a sibling dancing down the wrong path?  That is the issue in the 7th argument.  What do I do when I see you or you see me traipsing off down the wrong path?  How do we help in sanctification?  How do our rocks bounce off each other?

This is right where we are as a church. Here is an observation that I have been observing for a while.  We are close enough to see each other faults, but not close enough to help.  As Johnny Cash sang, “I see that train a comin’, comin’ round the bend…”  We can sometimes see others on the track that leads to disaster, but we are not close enough to stop the train.  So, we sit back and watch it go headlong into disaster.  After all, we are Americans, “And I will thank you very much to mind your own business.”  But Paul is saying, “NO! That is not the way you are supposed to work.  Sanctification occurs in community!  It happens in church.  We have to be able to help each other stop the trains from going round the bend!” 

This is really where we need to work.  We can see the attitudes and the actions in others which are going to lead to problems in the future, but we don’t say anything. “It is not really my place to interfere.”  But it is.  We see the fruit of the Spirit is not working; love is lacking, joy is absent, conflict abounds, impatience and unkindness are obvious, words of integrity are broken and the standard of Jesus is ignored and gentleness is nowhere to be found and self-control; isn’t.  And yet we keep our mouths shut and hope it turns out okay.  We are rocks in the mountain stream which need to bounce off each other to be more like Jesus.  As a church we are called to help each other stop the trains from going round the bend!  

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Here is the good news, Paul just doesn’t tell us to do it; he tells us how.  These are a couple of remarkably well written couple verses.  Look the poetic nature of these next verses:
-Community 6:1a – You (all) who are spiritual should restore him gently.
-Individual 6:1b - But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.
-Community 6:2 - Carry each other's burdens,
-Individual 6:3-5 - Each one should test his own actions.

This is what a sanctifying community really looks like.

Community: Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

We, all of us, watch out for each other.  When we see that train going round the bend in other’s lives, we are close enough to advise; to stop it, to intervene.  We have the courage; the love; the concern to restore!

What is our operating system?  Gentleness.  What is our operating system?  Gentleness.  What is our operating system?  Gentleness.  The Agitators, as well as all who follow rules for sanctification, don’t have gentleness as their OS.  They have harshness, threats, and guilt and shame as their tools.   But we are gentle.  The body steps in with all gentleness to stop the train.  We have enough love to gently help!

Individual: Galatians 6:1 But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

Before I step in to help another, I make sure my motives are pure. I am not stepping in with any agenda.  I have nothing to gain by approaching the other.  If I cannot do this, then I step out of it.  If I am pointing out your problems to make me feel superior, than I am wrong.  There cannot be any, “I told you so.”  Or, “You ought to have done that.” Or, “Let me fix this for you.”  I must make sure my only motivation to help you, is to help you.  My motives must be pure in order to help.  I must watch myself that I am not guilty of arrogance or hypocrisy as I attempt to help.

Community: Galatians 6:2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Our role, with each other, is not simply to point out each other’s faults; each other’s wrong tracks headed off around the bend, but we step in and help carry the burden.  Our group attitude should be, “Whatever we can do to help, we’ll do.”  We don’t just point out the wrong and say, “Man up.  Now you’re on your own.”  We are there to help work through the process.  We carry each other’s burden.

Individual: Galatians 6:3-5 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.

Here is the hard part. We must be humble enough to let others help...me.  Is that hard or what?  How early do we learn to say, “I can do it myself”?  When others approach us, because they see “our train a goin’ round the bend,” how do we react?  If we respond with defensiveness, or arrogance or pride, or resentment, the process breaks down right there.  If we think we are something when we are nothing, we are deceiving ourselves.  We need to evaluate our own actions to see where our own trains are headed.   Defensive arrogance is like damming up the mountain stream.  The water stops, the Spirit stops, the rocks bouncing stops, sanctification stops.

We are not competing with each other in some sort of sanctification contest. The point cannot be which of us is holier.  We are here to help each other, to be there for each other, to grow together into the image of Christ.  “I am better than them. They surely can’t help me.”  Is the completely wrong attitude. 

Then, then, we can carry our own load.  After we have been humble enough to allow others to help us, then we are able to carry our own loads.  When I’m broken you carry my burden, for a while, until I am healed.  Then, I can carry my own burden and help others with there’s.  This is a wonderful model.  Whenever I am hurting or on the wrong track you gently help me get back on track so that when you are then hurting I will be there to help you.  Wow!  That’s what a sanctifying community looks like.  It looks like being close enough to gently help and committed enough to do whatever it takes to carry the other’s burden and humble enough to know others are right about our trains.  That is the kind of community I want.  It is hard to be that community, but it would be wonderful to live in it!    

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What about the 7th argument? Why does Ben Witherington III call this an argument?  We get the sanctifying community concept, but how is that an argument against using the Law of Moses for sanctification?  There was an interesting phrase in verse 2; the Law of Christ.  The Law of Christ is to love one another.  Here is the 7th argument and the bottom line to this sermon: We don’t need the Law of Moses because we have the Law of Christ.  Loving each other as the sanctifying community accomplishes what the Law of Moses could not.  Wow, when we, through the Spirit, bear each other’s burdens, we accomplish sanctification.  We don’t need a bunch of rules to keep us in line!  We need each other!  We keep each other on the right track!  We don’t need the Law of Moses.  We have a Spirit led, sanctifying community! 

The surprise of the final argument is that we are the coup de grâce.  We don’t need law.  We need the sanctification of our community!  As we gently help each other, as we humbly receive reprimand, as we are close enough to see and close enough to help, we accomplish the goal of the Law; we learn to be more holy!  We, as the church, are the knockout punch!

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We have a wonderful Christmas present from Christ. It is salvation.  It is sanctification.  It is this amazing fellowship which carries each other’s burdens and fulfills the law of Christ!

Los Alamos Church of Christ
December 6, 2009