Galatians 6:1 (KJV)
Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit
of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
June of 2009, my dad
passed away.
Dad suffered with:
· Diabetes
· Lung cancer and
· Heart disease
I was with him when his
doctor told him, “Gary, you will die of one of these, I just can’t tell you
which one.”
Dad knew he was dying.
It took longer, many
years longer, than either one of us imagined when the doctor spoke those words,
but they were reality and Dad did not shy from them.
Being Dad’s oldest son,
and a preacher to boot, I had many conversations with Dad in anticipation of
the day.
We talked about
· His will
· His wishes
· His kids
In one of those conversations
Dad told me expressly that he did not want me to do anything religious at his
funeral.
Dad had always supported
my decision to be a Christian, had attended just about every special church
service I had invited him to, but he was openly anti-Christian.
He wanted nothing to do
with it.
So when he died, I
planned to honor his wishes and just be there for the funeral.
It was a simple
graveside, with only a hand full of people there.
Dad’s wife, Teresa,
asked me if I would pray.
That’s a difficult thing
to do and not be “religious.”
So I took the
opportunity to say a few words. I said,
“Dad and I spoke before
he died. He was not religious and did not want anything religious to happen
today.
But I can say this about
my Dad, he always supported me for what I believe.
· I believe that all have sinned and come short of the glory
of God
· I believe that the wages of sin is death
· I believe that God loves us and sent Jesus Christ to die for
us on the cross and
· I believe that whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved.”
I then prayed a short
prayer thanking God for a dad who was supportive of me.
I had no sooner said
“Amen” than one of Dad’s friends spoke up and said, “Marvin, you are wrong.
Gary may not have been religious, but he was spiritual.”
There is a phrase in
this verse that has always intrigued me; “ye which are spiritual.”
There is an assumption
in the verse, that there are some who know themselves to be spiritual.
Being spiritual can mean
different things to different people.
· I have met people who will claim to be spiritual but they
say they don’t believe in organized religion
· I know some who say they are spiritual because they believe
in some form of life after death
· I know some who think they are spiritual because they are caring
for other people
· Some people think being spiritual is believing in ghosts,
goblins and demons
What I propose to do
this year is to search out what it means to be spiritual by looking into the
lives of those Bible characters that we presume to be spiritual.
· Some of them will be no surprise to us, though we might be a
little surprised what we learn from them
· A few of them, I think we will find, it is surprising that
they would be thought of as spiritual.
To my knowledge there is
no one in the Bible who is specifically called “spiritual.” But I am pretty
certain that we can find an adequate number of Biblical characters who have
spiritual traits about them to fill up a year’s worth of Sunday mornings.
Let’s begin today with a
look into
Galatians 6:1 (KJV)
Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit
of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
I want to give to you
what I believe to be, three essentials to Biblical spirituality:
I. A TRUE
TESTIMONY OF SALVATION
Galatians 6:1 (KJV)
Brethren…
I don’t believe that
there is any question that the Bible is referring to Christians in this
passage.
You will meet a lot of
people who claim to be spiritual but who are not Christians.
· Every religious group thinks of itself as spiritual
· Even those who practice the occult and witchcraft think they
are spiritual
I am going to go out on
a limb here and just say, the only sort of spiritual I am interested in
studying is a Biblical sort of spirituality.
I have no interest in
haunted houses or conjuring spirits from the dead.
I am only interested in
what the Bible teaches me is and is not spiritual.
Paul, writing to people
he knows to be Christians says, ye which are spiritual.
That means:
A. There are Christians who are not spiritual
Being spiritual must not
mean believing in the spiritual world.
It must not mean
believing in Jesus or in believing in heaven and hell.
It must mean something
other than that.
Being spiritual must
mean something different than attending church and reading the Bible, because
the people who would hear these words would be those who attend church and read
the Bible.
The spiritual are among
those who are in church and are among those who read the Bible, but that is not
what it means to be spiritual.
I believe we can deduce
from Galatians 6:1
B. That those who are spiritual will be found
only among the Christians
Those who are spiritual,
in the Biblical sense of the word, are not going to be found outside the realm
of saved.
· Not everyone who is saved is spiritual but
· Everyone who is spiritual is saved
Consider secondly that
Biblical spirituality requires,
II. A SINCERE
SUBMISSION TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
Galatians 6:1 (KJV)
Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit
of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
If a man is overtaken in
a fault, he is not spiritual.
This person who is
overtaken in a fault may or may not be saved.
· He is not the subject of the verse.
· He is not referred to as one of the “Brethren”
A passage that I think
helps clarify this one is
Romans 6:12-14 (KJV)
Let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Neither yield ye your
members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto
God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness unto God.
For sin shall not have
dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
And another one that is
similar
Romans 8:1-5 (KJV)
There is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit.
For they that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit
the things of the Spirit.
Being spiritual is
yielding to the Holy Spirit and obeying the Word of God instead of yielding to
your flesh and doing what you want to do and what you are most inclined to do.
Just before Paul wrote
Galatians 6:1, he wrote,
Galatians 5:16-18 (KJV)
This I say then, Walk in
the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary
the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
But if ye be led of the
Spirit, ye are not under the law.
There is a spiritual struggle,
a war, that goes on in every one us who are saved.
· The flesh wanting to do what is natural for it and
· The Spirit, leading us to do what is holy and right
The Bible tells us
specifically that these are contrary to each other.
It is not possible that
you flesh wants what God wants for you. It is the devil that tells convinces us
that:
· If I want it so badly and
· If it looks so good and
· If it feels so right and
· If it is there for me to grab
then it must be God’s
will.
Those who are spiritual
are those who submit to the Holy Spirit and deny what their flesh (and the
devil) try to get them to yield to.
Finally, Biblical
spirituality involves
Galatians 6:1 (KJV)
Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit
of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
Those who are not
spiritual might be saved and they might not be.
Regardless, those who
are spiritual will care.
I heard the story of a
man on a school board back East[2]
who has been asked to resign because of some remarks he made about Mrs. Obama.
Frankly, I am no fan of
the Obama’s.
I am glad to see them
leave the Whitehouse and I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying
that.
But if the media can be
trusted at all, this guy said some things about Mrs. Obama that was in poor
taste and uncalled for.
Further, when he “attempted”
to apologize, he could not bring himself to do it. He made some other
disparaging remarks about not only Mrs. Obama but also the President and said
he hopes he dies of mad cow disease.
Here’s the thing.
I don’t want anything
like that at all.
I have only one wish for
the Obama’s; that they come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
And that is the only
thing one that is spiritual can wish for them.
Or anyone else.
Matthew 5:43-45 (KJV)
Ye have heard that it
hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the
children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
That is a spiritual
response to those who are not spiritual.
Conclusion
So what does it mean to
be spiritual? From the text I would answer it is a combination of two things:
1. That you are in fellowship with God
2. That you attempt to restore the fallen
Given this text, are you
spiritual?
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