Spiritual Maturity Galatians 5: 26-6: 5 Rev. Min J. Chung (Lord s Day Service, October 23, 2016)

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1 Spiritual Maturity Galatians 5: 26-6: 5 Rev. Min J. Chung (Lord s Day Service, October 23, 2016) Galatians 5: 26-6: 5 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load. INTRODUCTION In Galatians 5: 16-25, the previous passage, Apostle Paul has described Christian conflict between our sinful nature, and our spiritual nature. The way to be victorious in the battle of our hearts is through crucifying our flesh distancing ourselves from our sin nature, and walking by the Spirit depending on the Holy Spirit so that we can overcome our sin nature. When we are able to do that, we are freed from sin, loving and serving others, and we can live for Him. This passage shows concretely what this person looks like measuring our spirituality through our actions, ministry, and personal relationships. The first and greatest evidence of walking by the Spirit is not some private, mystical experience of our own but our practical relationship of love with other people. It s easy to talk about love in an abstract way, but it s harder to get down to concrete demonstrations of love. Christian love is concrete love. We will see what that spiritually mature person acting in love looks like and how to test of our spiritual maturity through the six characteristics mentioned in this passage. We will not perfectly pass the test then these can become our goals to become spiritually mature so that we can restore others for the glory of God. Looking at this outline there are 6 characteristics in this passage. First, having a correct evaluation of yourself. Then looking at yourself from the perspective of grace, as a grace boaster. With that perspective, becoming a daily treader, daily following Jesus Christ. Then being a conviction keeper unswayed by other people in humility and in relationship with the Lord. Then you become a gentle persuader, able to minister to other people. Un-swayed by others but able to sway them to Christ, we become selfless burdenbearers for the glory of God. That s the logic of these 6 characteristics to measure our spiritual maturity. I. Humble self-examiner [3-4] 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.

2 Sometimes we are nothing, but we think we are something, this verse is saying that we deceive ourselves. A spiritually mature person has a healthy and accurate assessment of self. This is a continuation of the thought from the end of chapter 5, defining humility. Galatians 5: Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. There are three words here conceited, provoking, envying to explain what Verse 3 means. The word conceited means having an exaggerated self-conception, one which is empty, vain, and false. The Greek words making up conceited literally mean vain glory. According to Paul, when we are conceited, we tend to do one of two things - we either provoke or envy one another. Provoking means putting others down; to challenge somebody to a contest. It implies that we are sure of our superiority. We want to make sure they acknowledge it. Envy is trying to lift yourself up, being jealous of somebody else s gifts or attainments because you feel inferior. We are motivated by the feelings of either our inferiority or superiority. Whether we say to ourselves, I m terrible, but I want to be great, or I m great and you need to know and acknowledge that. In CFC language we call that low-pride or high-pride. To summarize that, pride is really self-importance. A correct attitude of humility says, You are a person of importance because you are made in the image of God and Christ died for you. It is my joy and privilege to serve you. Humility doesn t say I am important but it says you are important. I believe this is the essence of sin. Some people say the essence of sin is idolatry, but I believe the sin of idolatry is a symptom of the essence of sin, which I believe is pride, wanting to exalt and glorify yourself in essence, wanting to be God. Madonna, someone we would think has everything, with a worth of some hundred million dollars, says this in Vogue magazine. I have an iron will, and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being, and then I get to another stage and think I'm mediocre and uninteresting Again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that's always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I've become Somebody, I still have to prove I'm Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will. Her desire to exalt herself drives her. Jesus Christ was opposite of that, of vain glory.

3 Philippians 2: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. He was full of glory but he emptied himself of his glory so that we can see, experience, and be part of His glory. Jesus Christ, who really was somebody became nobody, so that everybody who is nobody can become somebody. Pastors are not exempt from this, we have sin nature too. Usually when pastors go to conferences and speak, this is what pastors are thinking, I can do better than that or the opposite I could never be like that. Pastors have high-pride and low-pride ourselves as well. Sometimes I go to places and they meet me, and they say, Oh, you re Pastor Min! Or sometimes they go, You re Pastor Min? I guess they expect me to be taller or better looking or something like that, but what you see is what you get, sorry to disappoint you. We are who we are, we need to have correct evaluation of ourselves. Spiritual maturity means to be a humble self-examiner we know ourselves in light and mirror of the Scripture. II. Grace boaster [4] He has a healthy, accurate assessment not only of himself but of his own work. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. This verse is a prohibition of comparison with others to elevate oneself. Do not take the work of others as a standard, and don t get puffed up because a brother falls lower than you. You say Oh, I m sorry but in your heart you re like Wow, that s awesome. Our pride loves to see people fall when we have stood, Paul says stop feeding your pride, like legalists and false teachers. Measure and test your achievements by the law of Christ. Our standard is Jesus. So that whatever there is in you to boast about will not be related to another s inferiority. This can be harmful both in a positive sense, I am doing better than they are or negative sense, I am so bad and I hate myself. Again, low-pride and high-pride. To counter this, Paul suggests each believer has a task from the Lord. Instead of comparing yourself to other people, just be faithful. You are responsible only to the Lord. Just check your motive are you doing it for the approval of other people, or the approval of God?

4 But the word boasting still bothers some of you, because we don t really understand the context. Can we really boast anything about ourselves? Well, that s why a few sermons later we will talk about this in detail in Galatians 6: 14. Galatians 6: But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. We can use anything to boast Jesus. We can boast Him in our success saying, Jesus Christ has strengthened me, glory be to Him, and even in our failures saying, I failed but Jesus Christ forgives me. He will help me to grow. He was full of glory, yet He emptied himself. The degree to which we see this, we will become full of His Spirit. So we can think, what is self-esteem or self-identity? There is this unique paradox of Gospel self-image coiled between humility and boasting. We can see this in Paul. In one passage, he says, I am the least of the apostles. The apostles are specially chosen people that God uses to write the Scripture in the New Testament. He gets worse as he gets older, I am the least of the saints, among all the Christians, I am the worst one. And then he gets even worse when he gets older, saying, I am the least of the sinners. Most people like this in the 21 st century, we would medicate them as manic depressives or something. Most people like this are selfish or fearful, but Paul seems most accomplished, so selfless and fearless. Most people are protecting themselves in this kinds of situation they don t want to see people or they are afraid. But Paul was so unafraid of losing anything, fearless, selfless, and loving. How? We can see this when Paul talks about himself. Remember when he says, I am the least of the apostles coiled with that is the grace of God. 1 Corinthians 15: For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. And in another passage when he says, I am the least of all the Christians, all the saints, then he says, this grace was given to me, around the grace of God. Ephesians 3: 8 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ And another time when he was the worst among the sinners, he says, sinners, of whom I am the foremost. That is sandwiched within this concept of mercy and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

5 1 Timothy 1: and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. That s why I say pride is self-importance. Humility is Christ-importance. Paul sees himself related to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. His key to Gospel self-image, he saw the worst of himself and the best of Jesus together, seeing grace in all of his life that he was re-made in the image of God to exalt God. We can check if we are being humble or not when our self is not become important. We become unselfish, loving other people, fearlessly and courageously exalting Christ, living for something greater than ourselves. When we are selfish and afraid, we are busy protecting ourselves. But when we are humbled, we can live with fearless abandonment. Even when people hurt us we can still be loving because it doesn t matter, and we can accomplish the most in our lives. If you say, I want to be like that, so Pastor Min, what can we do? We need to continuously walk with Jesus and follow Jesus Christ. III. Daily treader [5] You tread with Jesus, you walk with Jesus, you follow Jesus. 5 For each will have to bear his own load. That means we are responsible for our own walk, we need to have our own personal relationship with God. Don t ever try to lighten your own load of sin by comparing yourself to others who are in sin, because you will bear your own load in the judgment. When the final assessment comes, we are all measured by the law of Christ. That s why we need to receive two invitations of Jesus as application. One is to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, his individual invitation to us. Matthew 11: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. He invites us. Take my yoke upon you, Jesus Christ will carry our yoke on our behalf. We need to receive Him as Savior and Lord. But as He carries our burden, we need to carry our own burden by His grace to follow Jesus daily. Luke 9: And he said to them all, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

6 Just walking with Him daily. As He carries our load, we can carry ours to picture Him. The word bear is mentioned two times in this passage. So that we will not be confused, I ll explain it a little. Galatians 6: 2 2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. It says that we have to bear and help other people, but in Galatians 6: 5 it says For each will have to bear his own load. God is telling us we are responsible for our own life. But there are times when other people cannot carry their own burdens. Verse 2 s burdens is a different word than own load. Own load is like a pack that we can carry on our own. But burdens is like a heavy load that a person cannot carry. We are responsible for our own spiritual life burden, but sometimes there are brothers and sisters that need our help until they are able to walk on their own and help other people carry their burdens as they grow. We need to have our own daily walk with Jesus, and we need to help each other so to follow the narrow path of our Lord Jesus Christ. A few weeks ago I was in L. A. speaking. It was a red-eye flight so I had a considerable amount of time because the flight was late. Somehow these alumni found out I m there and call. I was able to have a Korean BBQ dinner with one of them, and it was a small place. I knew, This is going to smell. After dinner, I still had like 5-6 hours before my flight so I thought I d be okay. I said my goodbyes and I was thinking about whether or not I should change my clothes. Somehow, miraculously I got upgraded into Business Class for free. I was in a nice seat, but it s a small section. This lady sitting beside me was turning the air vent towards me to my face. I was thinking, This is not right, so I turned it back. And we had that battle a couple times. But suddenly she goes, Don t touch my vent, that s mine! And I tell her, Oh, it was right in my face so I just turned it away. Then she goes, You smell so strong, I had to do that. So I profusely apologized but then she got personal and said, You should ve taken a shower. I told her it was because of the food I ate. She said, No, you should ve showered and put on cologne. I thought about that and tried to redeem what she said and tried to take her rebuke. I was really thankful because I probably would not have known don it again. It was really helpful in that way. I was thinking I probably smell like this spiritually a lot. When I m proud, I m often blind to myself. Often we are like that as Christians we might smell bad to other people but we may not know whether it s individually or with small groups. We must always pray, Lord, help us to smell good. Help us to smell like Jesus. More and more we need to smell like Jesus. Following Jesus is like that. To deny yourself, take up the cross and follow Jesus Christ. Deny yourself means no, carry your cross is yes, follow Jesus is wow summary of Christian life. No means when you fail, you take a shower with the blood of Christ. Carry your cross means you become like Jesus through the process. The Spirit s nature is growing, you wear Jesus as your cologne. We need to be better treaders of Jesus Christ

7 just following Him. One person said, Don t be a pigeon if you re born to be an eagle. Experience God s altitude for your life. As you follow Jesus, you are elevated to become like Jesus. It doesn t mean we exalt ourselves but we are able to exalt Christ. IV. Conviction keeper [1] 1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. As we minister to people, keep watch of yourself. People we befriend can cause us to fall into temptation more than we help them to be closer to Christ. When we are young in our spiritual journey, you may be blessed for the first time, but when you re with your friends, you go back to your old life. When that constantly happens, you either need to change the nature of your friendship or you need to change your friends. But when you become older and more mature in your spiritual life, it s not necessarily that you re committing the same sin. But when you re ministering to people, because of their sins, you can react in a wrong way. If you continuously fail or if they don t listen, you can become angry and bitter and quit and sin that way. Or when we are successful in our ministry, and they say Thank you, you are so helpful, we might say, Oh, it was Jesus. But you re saying to yourself, Oh, I m awesome, I m great, I m mature. I think that s what Paul is worried about in this passage reactionary pride sin whether it s lowpride or high-pride. That s why a mature person according to this passage in verse 1 needs to have the fruit of the Holy Spirit. People who are proud have pendulum reactions to what people say. If people flatter you, we become proud through their flattery. Or when they criticize us, we become too discouraged by people. That shows our pride. If you are a humble persuader before God, you are a conviction keeper. You are who you are not because of what they say or what you think about yourself but because of what God says about us through the Gospel. A spiritually mature person has a backbone for the glory of God. People ask me, Pastor Min, how can you not be proud? What do you do not to have a big head? I say, Whatever people say, in my sin nature, I feel good. A little bit. And whatever bad things people say I feel bad, a little bit. But I just always go back to 1 Corinthians 15: 10 by the grace of God, I am what I am. That s what I am a helldeserving sinner saved by the grace of God. That s who I am. If you say I m bad, you re deceived because I m a lot worse than that. If you say I m great, well you re only seeing the greatness of Jesus Christ. By the grace of God I am what I am. We should have this as a conviction. Keep it, so we will not be swayed by others. May we be conviction keepers for the glory of God. V. Gentle persuader [1] This is the most important point, the essence of this passage. A spiritually mature person is a gentle persuader able to restore others by biblical persuasion.

8 1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. A. Brothers If someone is caught in sin, someone in the body of Christ should be able to take care of them, holy entanglement in relationships in the church. There are some people that leave and go to different kinds of churches in different cities. Often they go to mega-churches, huge churches where you don t really have holy entanglement. I always say this if you die, and no one in that church knows, you might attend that church but you don t belong to that church. Meaning, when you re sinning, someone has to know, to come to you and out of love be able to restore you. Or you do the same for other people. If you don t have that kind of relationship, you don t really belong to that church. Be part of the church of Jesus Christ where there is holy entanglement so that someone will help you or you will help someone when caught in sin. B. Caught Caught doesn t mean your hand is caught in a cookie jar, but that you re caught in a net, a snare by sin. There are other passages where a sinner is caught in the net of Satan. Satan has a net through the means of this world so that it can stimulate our hearts. Satan cannot make us do anything we say no to, James 4 says, if you resist the devil, he will flee from you (James 4: 7). In our sinful nature, we choose to do it. But Satan tempts you so that you would want to do it. When someone has done that, through a period of time, he or she is caught in sin. C. Spiritual Then who is able to help this person? Someone who is spiritual. Who is a spiritual person? Someone who has Spirit s nature, a believer, that s dominating their sin nature and has self-control. Their sin nature is there and they have a potential to be caught as well but they overcome, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Constantly he is able to fight his heart. Able to avoid reactionary sins, to be loving and patient. Now that person because he loves Christ and receives His Word becomes mature. He understands his Word, lives it out, and has insight about it to gently persuade other people. He is full of the Spirit and is able to control his sin nature. We might think, That s someone who is special in the church of Jesus Christ. No, this description is normal Christianity every person in the church of Jesus Christ should ascribe to be like this. We need to be mature people. This is the test and the goal of our Christian life; the result of every Christian who is walking by the Spirit. D. Restore A verb that is a medical term used in Greek for setting fractured bones. For someone spiritually broken, you become a spiritual doctor through the Word of God so that person can become a part of the body of Christ. It is used in the

9 Gospels when the disciples were found mending their nets. As you are being restored, you become part of the net of Christ. The church is caught in the net of Satan but we capture them back to the body of Christ and kingdom of God. The word used in Ephesians 4: means to equip somebody. Ephesians 4: And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. So that as we heal them to become a part of the body of Christ, we counsel them to become ministers of God s Word, equipped to help other people in the areas of their lives, to be kingdom workers. CFC is to produce kingdom workers. In one sense we become kingdom restorers. E. Gentleness Paul shows that the Spirit-led person should neither be indifferent nor condemning to these people. But we are to restore him on the right path through private, gentle, loving, patient persuasion. Like in parenting parents tell their children to do something and they re afraid of the consequences of sin so they do it. But slowly you need to make them want to do it. They need to know why and agree so they will end up doing it because they want to. Initially it is do s and don ts and laws. Then slowly it becomes their own conviction and they do it because they love God. That s the goal of parenting and spiritual parenting. We need to be nice minimally, but also humble with real love in our hearts. We become gentle giants of the Word persuaders. It takes love, patience, caring, we cannot quit. We need to persevere with much prayers, tears, and most of all time. This is how Martin Luther describes this passage that applies to this: Run unto him, and reaching out with your hand, raise him up again, comfort him with sweet words, and embrace him with motherly arms. If we obey this apostolic instruction as we should, much unkind gossip will be avoided, serious backsliding prevented, good of the church advanced, and the name of Christ glorified. Many people ask me, Pastor Min, do you still get nervous speaking in front of people? I say, Yes. Before when I was younger, I was afraid of what you would think of me. A little bit less now, but I m really afraid, will God use this pathetic manuscript? This is just a pathetic ipad manuscript. People will be impressed by me if I do well once a year or something like that. But that doesn t mean a thing unless God uses it. If God uses it, it can transform people s lives. I get nervous in that way because I can only do what I can do. I pray that God will do all that I cannot do, when I stop getting nervous about that, I ll probably need to quit ministry. Always be humble to learn, grow, and improve.

10 If you want to feel good, listen to the ones that flatter you. If you want to improve, listen to the ones who criticize you. If you want to grow the most, listen to the close people who care to tell you the truth. Your desire to be better must exceed your desire to be happy. Aspire to become gentle persuaders, spiritually mature moms and dads for the glory of Jesus Christ. VI. Selfless burden-bearer [2] 2 Bear one another s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. To become loving like Christ is to be free from sin. If you re that person, your lifestyle will be that of a burden-bearer. The phrase says, one another. The assumption that lies behind this command is that we all have burdens and God does not mean for us to carry them alone. Some people try to never ask for help. According to Galatians 5, 6, Love your neighbors, bear one another s burdens, fulfill the law are three equivalent expressions. To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic self-sacrifice but to much more mundane, unspectacular things like our small groups and friendships the ministry of burden-bearing. When we see someone with a heavy burden, we must be ready to share their burdens. Similarly, we must be humble enough to share ours when we need help. When we say burdens when somebody s sick, family crisis, financial difficulties, you should be there, minimally. But in context, it s much deeper than that, we re talking about the burden of sin, when someone is poor spiritually, when their heart is either legalist or libertine. Legalist trying to do everything but they are loveless and apathetic, or libertine caught in the sin of the world and addictions. We are to help them. When we do that, we are fulfilling something. To fulfill the law of Christ, used in Galatians 5: 14. Galatians 5: For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This word fulfilled is the perfect singular, it is something that Christ has done for us he has fulfilled the whole law. We need to do the same for others, picturing what Jesus has done. This is what Galatians 6: 3, the future plural active tense means, to picture Christ so that others can go to Christ to receive what Christ has fulfilled for them as well. So as we do these things, we picture Christ, we show Christ, we point to Christ, we glorify Christ, we exalt Christ, we boast of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I play basketball. For some reason good players like to play with me. I think it s because they feel sorry. There s one guy that plays for college and whenever he comes into town we play together. This guy is really good. We have this connection where when I have the ball, he says, Gimme one. What that means is I ll throw the ball and he will take it as an alley-oop, catching the ball and dunking before he lands on the ground. He said,

11 Gimme one. Anyone could have done this if you throw the ball anywhere in the vicinity to him, he ll catch it and dunk the basketball. I closed my eyes and threw it, and he dunked the basketball. I didn t do anything but I was going around putting a #1 up. The word vicariously means experiencing something through another person. I was just experiencing dunking vicariously. The amazing reality of the Gospel I died vicariously 2000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross. We can t do much, but when we go, Jesus Christ goes through us. We become His hands and feet. Serving and loving people, ministry and parenting are hard aren t they? But as daily treaders and selfless burden-bearers, our agony can lead to opportunity. A place of misery can turn into a place of ministry. So keep at it being faithful, He s going to help us so we can live for the glory of God. Conclusion I really believe one encounter, as I meet, counsel, and pray for all the people I will meet, one encounter can transform a person forever. 15 years ago, I was doing a pre-marital counseling and while the guy went to the bathroom, the lady was saying she was thinking about breaking up the engagement. What she was thinking, Can two sinners be married and work together? Can this work with their differences and fights? I said, Well I believe if you really depend on the Lord and are willing to work together, any 2 Christians can be married and work it out if you two are willing to submit to the law of Christ. And she says even 10 years later that one counseling got us to be married and kept us married for 10 years. There are some guys who are doing spiritually well, others going through a spiritual funk. But they want to serve God and even go into ministry. One guy came to me, Pastor Min, you know what I ve been going through, you d be surprised if you knew what he did, he goes, Pastor Min, do you think I can still serve God? Can God still use me? I said, I don t know. But all I know is that I ll never give up on you because He will never give up on you. Let s keep fighting, keep at it. This guy became one of the best spiritual leaders, doing ministry. Just by one encounter. I believe it can happen. That s my thinking process everyone I meet, one encounter can change a person. This summer I went to Japan to speak at a conference called Japan Kosta. This Japanese pastor was telling me about how he was able to baptize someone right before his death. The baptized man was 76 years old, a famous professor in Japan. Before his death, he came in contact with this pastor to be baptized and the pastor asked, Why do you want to be baptized now? All your life you claimed to be an intellectual atheist. The man responded, When I was 6 years old, in a Vacation Bible School by a summer mission s team, I heard the Gospel and it lingered in my mind. And I just couldn t shake it off, so I had to become a Christian. So at 76, he became a Christian. Sometimes it takes one encounter. Sometimes it takes 70 years for a person to be changed, but we re just mere instruments, servants of God. Make yourself available grow, keep growing so that Jesus Christ can vicariously minister to other people in our lives and through us. Let s keep growing, we are blessed people, God will use us for His glory.