Sermon: Pentecost 5 - Galatians 6.1-10, June 28, 2026
Scripture: Galatians 6.1-10
Preacher: Ryan Slifka
Sermon: Pentecost 5
Well, here we are. Not at the last, but the second last Sunday in our sermon series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
You’ll remember that for the most part things have been somewhat abstract. Paul’s been dealing in the realm of theology: justification, grace, and the like, without saying much about the practical, day-to-day shape of Christian life.
Last week, though, Paul turned toward the practical when he contrasted “the works of the flesh” with “the fruit of the Spirit.” The Christian life doesn’t look like the former, but like the latter: not self-oriented, community-destroying activity, but neighbour-oriented life. It is about dying to our selves. And letting the Holy Spirit grow new life in us.
This week, in the final chapter, things turn most fully towards the practical. Towards life in the congregation. A local church like ours.
“My friends,” Paul says. “My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”
The first situation is if anyone is “caught in a transgression.” What does that mean? Presumably, it means someone has been caught up in one of those “works of the flesh” Paul mentioned last week. It could be some kind of sexual scandal, idolatry, or practicing witchcraft. It could be someone who keeps blowing their top in anger, or who stirs up division through mean-spirited gossip and backbiting. Or someone with a drinking problem that is blowing apart their life. The list is long. Paul is talking about someone whose sin has become visible, harmful, and scandalous to the local church.
Now, something you notice immediately is that it’s assumed by Paul, and indeed by Scripture as a whole, that people in the church, will transgress. That we’ll fall short and fail. It’s assumed that, at times, people in the church will be disappointing at best, miserable jerks at not-so-best.
Believe it or not, this is a kind of good news. How? it means that church is a place where we can be clear-eyed and honest about the human condition. The late Pope Francis said it well when he said that “the church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners.” We don’t come to church to project our perfection or to project an Instagram-able veneer of happiness or goodness. No, we all come from the one place where we are absolutely equal: we come out of our need for grace, for forgiveness. Our need for God. And for second, third, fourth, fifth chances.
We assume that we’ll transgress. That we’ll need to forgive each other and be forgiven by each other. It’s baked right in. And what does that do? Make us more sympathetic to each other: slower to judge, quicker to understand, quicker to forgive. Because we know that we, too, will need the same.
Now, does that mean “anything goes”? That we can hurt, maim, destroy, undermine each other’s lives, sow chaos, and allow dissension to devour our life as a community?
Of course not. Again, we’re clear-eyed about human nature. We know our capacity for self-deception and destruction. Sometimes community-destroying behaviour needs to be confronted. We have a safe-children’s church policy for this reason, policies around handling money. Our Elders sign a behavioural covenant. We are not to be naïve. Because we know the truth about human nature.
At the same time, though, notice the language Paul uses here: “you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”
Certainly, we are all prisoners of what Paul calls the “works of the flesh” in different ways. But in the church we’ve also been given the Spirit of the living God. According to the last chapter, one fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. So if we need to be confronted, we also need to be restored in that spirit.
Meaning we’re never to be confronted, rebuked, or corrected for the purpose of pure punishment. Not to make a point, not to stick it to us. Paul purposely uses the word restoration. Why? Because that’s God’s purpose in sending Jesus. Not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” Jesus says, “for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”[1][i]
Jesus is gentle with sinners of all kind. The hymn we’re going to sing after the sermon rehearses the whole biblical story with this image in mind: even God’s judgment, even God’s wrath against the power of sin, is for the purpose of repair. Restoration. Restoring us to God and our neighbours. Most especially in the church.
It has to be done, yes. But if we are condemning, cursing, or dealing cruelly with one another rather than seeking reconciliation and restoration, then it’s not in the Spirit of the Lord, but another spirit entirely. “Take care that you yourselves are not tempted,” Paul says. Why? Because, in the words of Augustine of Hippo, “there is no sin committed by anyone that anyone else cannot repeat.”[1][ii] It’s far to easy for a rebuke it to become a vehicle for our own self-righteousness. Which itself also goes against the grain of God’s grace.
There will be transgressions in the church. And they will need restoration. But the restoration needed is in a spirit of gentleness. In the reconciling Spirit of the Lord himself.
At this point we move from confronting transgressions to another practice of the church:
“Bear one another’s burdens,” Paul says, “and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”
The practice of burden-bearing. Now, what does it mean to “bear one another’s burdens?”
Some examples might be temptation: being helped by our neighbours when we struggle with selfish impulses, whether around sex, substances, anger, or whatever else. Or it could be economic hardship: when we’re in tough straits with money or housing, and our brothers and sisters intervene with generosity. Or grief: when we lose something—or most likely someone—we love, and people show up, casseroles in hand, to sit with us, pray for us, and support us when we’re suffering.[iii] Richard Hays says that “to live under the guidance of the Spirit is to live in a relationship of interdependence.”[iv]
Now, those of you who’ve been around through this series might be puzzled by Paul saying that this is “fulfilling the law of Christ.” Isn’t Paul against the Law as legalism? Yes—but here Paul is referring again to what he called, a couple of weeks ago, “faith working through love.” The love Jesus poured out for the world on the cross. Love that is cross-shaped. “Christ did not give us any law,” said Martin Luther, “except the law of mutual love.”[v]
A good word to describe it is compassion. Which, honestly has come to sound like a form of mushy self-righteousness. But com-passion means being a companion in suffering. To suffer with. The basic way we live as church and follow Jesus together is through burden-bearing: the simple willingness to absorb each other’s suffering.
Of course, we aren’t naïve here either. We know that when others bear our burdens, we can be tempted to take advantage of them. And we know what it’s like to feel used. And so knowing this, too, Paul instructs us to simply check ourselves, to test our own work, to examine our own motivations. To consider carrying our share of life’s loads before we start looking for help. Remembering that not only are we judged by our lack of generosity, we, too, are judged by our willingness to exploit the generosity of others. Such things won’t go unnoticed by God.
At this point we move into the end of the passage. In one way, it is like the previous ones: Paul is still talking about the practical, about doing good and restraining from evil. But here he also makes a kind of theological re-turn.
And he does it using imagery that’s common in Scripture: that of reaping and sowing.
“Do not be deceived,” Paul says. “Do not be deceived” because “God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”
What Paul makes clear here is that our actions, both good and bad, matter. They are like seeds: the selfish, self-centred things we do—“sowing to the flesh”—lead to corruption, a stunted field, lifelessness, death. But the self-giving, sacrificial things we do—“sowing to the Spirit”—sprout the God-stuff: eternal life. What we do in this life matters, Paul says. We will reap what we sow.
Now, while we might hear this stuff purely as a warning. Which it is. What we do in this life matters.
But it’s also a promise. That what we do in this life matters.
“So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”
You see, it’s easy to grow weary in doing what’s right. Isn’t it? Paul knows that all this burden-bearing can be exhausting. Look at something like the climate or the environment. The message we sometimes get is that the world’s on fire, bound to end soon; therefore we should now work twice as hard to fix it all. Which isn’t exactly inspiring, is it? Like, why even recycle? Makes you feel weary, doesn’t it?
Paul knows it’s easy for us to lose heart, especially if we’re not sure what we’re doing is actually making a difference in life. So this part’s all about encouragement when we don’t know how things are going to play out. Or we’re just too tired to keep up.
So what he says here is two-fold:
First of all, there’s gonna be a great big harvest in the end, and it’s coming without our doing.
In the end, God’s kingdom will reign on earth as it is in heaven. As the old world passes away, all things will be made new, every tear wiped away. It’s good news because it’s not all up to us, but up to God. We’re freed from the burden of saving the world. In the end, God’s gonna get what God wants—New Creation. We’ll talk about that more next week. But that’s what the language of harvest is all about.
Which is good news because it means that all the seeds we plant. All the good we are able to do, from the tiniest and seemingly least important to the largest, even when we cannot see the consequence… it will reap eternal life when sown in the Spirit. Because of the hope we have in Jesus Christ, we need not give up on goodness or give in to weariness. Why? Cuz all the truth, beauty, and goodness sown in this world already belongs to the next one.
Does it actually matter if I stay faithful to my spouse?
Does it matter if I sacrifice everything for my children to have a better life?
Does it matter that I give up a Sunday morning to go to church to make just a little inch of difference in the life of my neighbour?
Does it matter than I take my hard-earned money that’s in short supply and give it away to help someone I’ll never meet?
If I help someone recover from an overdose, does that matter? Even though they’ll probably just go and use again?
Does any of it matter at all?
The answer, dear friends, is a resounding yes! Because everything we do matters in the light of God’s future.
Meaning that you and I need not weary of doing good.
We need not be crushed by bearing one another’s burdens, nor give in to hopelessness because the fruit seems hidden.
Because the creator of heaven and earth promises that everything you sow in the Spirit will one day reap eternal life. You and I may not see the fruit of most of the seeds we plant. But one day we will. You will. Come that great and glorious day of God’s harvest.
So, dear friends, may you be given the strength and courage to keep scattering those seeds of mercy, justice, and love with total abandon.
May you bear each other’s burdens without fear or worry over the outcome, knowing that the outcome is already assured.
Whenever you have opportunity, may you work for the good of all, especially for those of the family, the household of faith, knowing that the God of all has guaranteed the harvest with nothing less than the sign of the cross. In the death and resurrection of his beloved Son.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[i] Matthew 11:28-30
[ii] Quoted in Martin Luther, Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: Lecture Notes Transcribed by Students and Presented in Today’s English, trans. Haroldo Camacho (Irvine: 1517 Publishing, 2018), 499.
[iii] Michael Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and his Letters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 220.
[iv] Richard B. Hays, “Galatians,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Vol. XI (Nashville: Abingdon, 2000), 333.
[v] Luther, Commentary on Galatians, 501.