The Goal of Love is Restoration - Galatians 5:15-16, 5:22 - 6:1

Alright, in the passage that Randy read for us here out of Galatians, and essentially it starts at Galatians 5.15 and then proceeds into Galatians 6.1, leaving out the descriptions of the works of the flesh. We're calling this, the goal of love is restoration. And so we'll be talking about something we actually have included as a part of the policy and procedures manual that we presented last week. And this is going into more detail on that and looking at what are all the biblical principles that apply. How do I handle issues that come up in the church body? with individuals, with families, etc., to the end result that there is unity in the Lord and that we're walking together in fellowship with the Lord.

So our starting point here is Galatians 6.1. In fact, we'll be referring to a lot of other passages because there are a great number of New Testament passages that apply.

Some of those make positive statements, do this or do this this way. Some of those are negative statements, that is a statement of avoid this or not doing that or not doing this in that way. Now, to start off with, things had gotten pretty bad in Galatia. They had double problems.

This is Galatia that includes Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. This is the area where the Apostle Paul and Barnabas had gone in Paul's first missionary journey. And so here's a letter following up, and he's going to make, in fact, a couple more trips through those same cities. But he writes this letter to the churches there who are quite young at this point in time, the letter written probably about 49 AD. So the culture, the pagan culture, which was very intense, and the infusion of the Law of Moses. Some people were coming in, sometimes named the Judaizers.

That's not a term you'll see in Scripture itself. We're saying, you know, boy, unless you guys get circumcised, you can't be saved. It's just that blunt. So, essentially, you've got to do works for salvation, right? And so what was that doing? In fact, bringing in law and bringing in the pagan culture, the combination of the two was making it so that there was a whole lot of internal friction going on within the churches. Relationships among the believers within the church bodies had become quite unbiblical.

Paul used the term, as Randy read for us, biting and devouring one another. That didn't sound so good, right? We don't even do that when we go downstairs to eat together, right? Okay. Feelings were raw and harsh and there was plenty of arrogance. In fact, one of the things we presented in the How to Study the Bible class is both the Jewish and the Gentile cultures. Both of them had arrogance as being, yeah, that's something you do, right? And that's why you find constant exhortations towards humility in the various letters of Paul and the other apostles. So Paul's solution, walk individually by means of the Spirit, and we're going to be talking about that, walk together by means of the Spirit, and then spiritual restoration done by those who are walking individually in the Spirit and who are walking together with others.

OK, so walk was actually a Jewish term, long history. Enoch in Genesis, before the flood, walked with God. And what does it say also of Noah? Noah walked with God. So walk was a Jewish term. The Gentiles understood it, but it came from the language of the Jews, and they understood it quite well.

It means to walk as an individual, step by step, According to a spiritual principle. So walking isn't always good like with Enoch and Noah. Walking can also be bad according to an evil spiritual principle. In this case it's a walk by the Spirit so that's a good connotation. We know by the context whether it's good or bad.

So Galatians 5.16 is a walk by means of the Holy Spirit. Walk by means of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will direct our focus upon Christ, who will take us to the Father. That's one thing that you find as you will be looking at this in the elective, knowing the Lord. You find that there are various ways of talking about that, knowing the Lord and walking in fellowship with Him. And a lot of times it's used in sort of shorthand, and this is no exception. Walking by means of the Holy Spirit does not mean you don't have anything to do with the Father and the Son, does it? In fact, the Holy Spirit is the means by which we're focused upon Christ, and Christ takes us to the Father. So walking in the Spirit ends up involving all three persons of the Trinity, not just the Spirit.

And we'll see that further as we go along. Now, the fruit of the Spirit. That we saw in verses 22 and 23. So the outcome of our walking by means of the Spirit is what is described as the fruit of the Spirit. So you can tell when somebody's walking in the Spirit, there's a whole trail of bananas and pineapples and guavas just everywhere they walk, right? Not exactly, but there's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. All those are the singular fruit of the Holy Spirit. That's the outcome of our walking by means of the Spirit.

So these are not the result of our best efforts to emulate these qualities. We were crucified with Christ, Galatians 2.20, a few chapters earlier, for good reason. God does not want us to try to emulate these qualities. That's not what God has in mind. The fruit of the Spirit is the outcome of all the multiple ministries of the Holy Spirit. So, when we step into verse 25, a very curious thing happens. It says, walk by the Spirit.

What's interesting is Paul did not use in Galatians 5.25, he did not use the same word for walk. This is interesting.

So individually walk by means of the Holy Spirit, but the Greek word for walk in Galatians 5.25 was used of a Roman soldiers marching together in unison. Ah, they're heading in the same direction, they're in step and direction and cadence with one another, they're marching together.

So he's saying in verse 16, you individually walk by means of the Spirit. He's saying in verse 25, you, all you believers, walk in unison together by means of the Spirit. And how does that get accomplished? It's the multiple ministries of the Holy Spirit working in each of us causes us to walk in unison in cadence together. That's in sharp contrast to verse 15, biting and devouring one another. So our walking together in direction and cadence, all of us together, starts with each believer individually walking by means of the Spirit's multiple ministries.

Then there won't be any biting and devouring one another. That was their problem. So the flesh, which we really haven't put a big focus on here, the flesh is then put out of business. Walk in the Spirit and you will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. So we walk by means of the Spirit individually and together in unison. The flesh will not be expressed or engaged.

The flesh, to give some definition here, the flesh is the sin nature as it operates through the body. Sin nature as it operates through our bodies. So our focus is not to be battling the flesh. Some Christians will get the idea, oh, I'm supposed to sit there and fight with the flesh, or fight with the sin nature.

You know, the Bible doesn't say to do that. The Bible doesn't recommend or suggest that at all. Other Christians will get further distracted by going around battling Satan all the time. And the Bible doesn't say to do that either. So we shouldn't try to battle the flesh and battle the sin nature. What do you do? You reckon yourself dead. You reckon yourself dead in relationship to that sin nature. We're not to try to live out the fruit of the Spirit. Try to be loving. Try to be peaceful. Try to be gentle. And by the way, you can't work at it either. You just try that if you want. Just go... Does it work? Nope. Sorry. It isn't something that we're supposed to work at.

Now, so Paul says in Galatians 6.1, Brethren if, now we get to see a really key thing in this passage.

Brethren, so he's talking about believers here, right? And notice he calls them brethren, he doesn't talk down to them, he's right alongside them. Brethren, he calls the believers, if anyone among the brethren, is caught in a trespass. So the word trespass conveys the idea of falling alongside, picturing a person walking a path, a path of fellowship with the Lord and with others in the church body, walking in the Spirit individually, walking together, that walking, and then the person falling alongside the path. That's what that word trespass is looking at. They've been walking a path of fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with other believers, and now they've fallen off the path. So what do you do with somebody who's done that?

Well, he tells us. He says, you who are spiritual. Now we have to ask, what does spiritual mean? Well, he told us what that looks like in Galatians 5.16 and 25. You who are walking in individual fellowship with the Lord, Verse 16, right? You who are walking in unison with the rest of the brothers. Verse 25.

So that's spiritual. Spiritual is walking by means of the Spirit individually and among others in the church body. You who are spiritual, so there's a first qualification there, isn't there? The one who is to be restoring is to be walking individually in the Spirit and in fellowship with the rest of the body. So it looks like walking the path of fellowship with the Lord.

It looks like being walking in the path of fellowship with other believers. That's the set of spiritual qualifications. It's not the only set of qualifications. Paul gives us some additional insights here. He says, restore. So, I might put some other verbs in there.

You who are spiritual, let that guy have it. You who are spiritual, really give him a tough time. Chew him out, big time. You who are spiritual, insult him with several insulting words, right? No. Restore. That's the goal of love, is restoration. It was used of the disciples' mending nets. It was used of setting a bone, like Dr. Luke would, right? Setting a bone so they would heal properly.

And so here in Matthew 4.21, the same word is used, and it's used for the disciples as they were on the shore, mending nets.

So guess what? This is a mending ministry. This is a mending ministry. It's also used of Dr. Luke. Dr. Luke would have used this term for setting a bone so that it can heal properly and then casting it in that position. So that would also be another use for it. So it's very much a mending, healing ministry.

That's what it's aimed at. So this sets the tone for the ministry of restoration. You who are walking in the Spirit, you are walking by means of the Spirit in fellowship with other believers. That's the one who is qualified to do this restoring ministry.

But we're not done. There's still more. So the goal of love expressed in spiritual restoration is to help the believer who has fallen off of and alongside the path of fellowship back to fellowship with the Lord and with others. This is a very good thing.

And then the next character, in a spirit of gentleness. One who is walking by means of the Spirit individually and together with others is qualified to a restoration ministry. It must be done with gentleness, which, by the way, is one of the fruits of the Spirit that he just mentioned. It must be done with gentleness.

That tells us how it's not done, right? You come here so I'm going to punch you in the nose, right? I'm going to let you have it. Also, there must be a sense of the potential hazards of the ministry. He says, looking to yourself so that you're not be tempted. What's the temptation?

One is arrogance. Boy, you've got a problem and I'm sure glad I don't have that problem. I'm sure glad I'm a whole lot better than you. Right? Arrogance would be one temptation. Another would be legalism. Hey, we've got a law around here, right? And you need to follow it. To come in with that solution. And another one related to that is moralism. Just the idea that you've got to go around choosing right and wrong.

By the way, Galatians 5.17, last half of the verse, and Romans chapter 7, both say that you cannot simply choose to do the right thing. So somebody who comes to you and says, you need to choose to do the right thing, it's not a biblical approach. It's not simply choosing the right and refusing the wrong. So arrogance is a hazard, legalism is a hazard, moralism is a hazard. It is amazing how many, even pastors, will come and say, you've got to choose to do the right thing and refuse the wrong thing. Because the Bible says, that's not what God has in mind. You can't do it.

All right, now, we have here seven principles of restoration ministry. So you've got slides here, it's one of four, two of four, three of four, etc. But there are seven principles of restoration ministry. And we'll have a chart that we'll be taking a look at. It's on page three of your handout. Before we do that, though, we need to look at these principles of restoration ministry. And so we'll look at those first.

The first one, everything should be done in such a way as to avoid a tendency towards gossip and slander. Gossip and slander is sin. That's not the point. Right alongside that, be careful what you share in prayer meetings. What do you want to pray about? Oh, this guy over here, he's... And he's doing that, and all of a sudden you just gossiped. And he's a really bad guy, and now you just slandered him. So, pray for that guy.

No, it's not an excuse. Everything should be done in such a way as to avoid the tendency, which is fleshly and worldly, towards gossip and slander. If you are on the receiving end of it, refuse it. Say, whoop! Stop this, okay? If you're on the receiving end of it, stop it. Everything should be done in such a way as to avoid the tendency toward gossip and slander. The world will encourage that. The sin nature will encourage it. We should not. Restoration ministry should address one issue at a time.

You're not to come up with batch processing. Here's your list of things and we've been waiting for six months to get a long enough list to talk to you about it. So no batch processing. And we've got a whole bunch of references up top. We won't have time to go into it.

But several New Testament passages indicate one at a time. One at a time. You don't pile them up. You don't throw six things and see what sticks. One. Principle number three, restoration ministry. Biblical headships in the home and in the church. So if there is an issue with a wife or a mother or the child, I don't go straight to that wife and mother and child. I look at the husband and father, the head of the home. That's where that goes. I don't bypass that man's headship. That's God's headship.

Secondly, the elders of the church have a responsibility before the Lord to shepherd the church body. And things should not be bypassed regarding the elders or their headship overlooked. So the big question is, is this a church body thing that really the elders ought to be stepping into? So those are key things, the headship in the family and the headship in the church.

Now, while some things should not be rushed, and rushing too quickly could be a problem because you might not be considering everything carefully and might not be weighing things, checking everything with Scripture. Everything needs to be carefully considered and confirmed, right? But a time priority should be placed on things. That is, things need to move along, allowing enough time to be careful and prayerful, but things need to move along so that this thing doesn't get strung out, right? So it shouldn't be a matter of, you know, hey, you've been beating your wife, we found out four years ago, and we've been meaning to get to you about that.

So, none of that. Now, five. Issues at hand must be biblical issues and based on the truth, not just a personal preference item. I really, really would like it if you would not wear black shoes to church. Not a biblical issue. All right. It shouldn't be based on rumor.

Hey, word has it From Harriet to John to Mary to me, word has it that you've been doing this. But besides that, that involves gossip. Or partial bits of information. Sometimes it takes time to get things confirmed. This is really the case. And that has to be done carefully. Biblical issues based on the truth. which establishes the truth. You know, rumors get around real easy. It's real, real easy, and especially in some places more than others.

When I was in high school, of course we were on the farm, right? And so we would, you know, drive into town from time to time. And one time I drove into town in a pickup. I was driving. There was another young lady, slightly older than me, that was on the other end of the bench seat, riding with me. And we drove into town, and we drove back through town, and the next time she went into the post office, she was being congratulated on her engagement to me. Right? So anyway, rumors start easily. Rumors start real easily. Okay?

Now, number six. Restoration ministry must be in the right circumstances at each stage. And we'll talk more about what stage means, but you don't jump ahead of what is the right set of circumstances. I heard of one instance where there was a girl in the church and word had gotten around that she was doing X, Y, and Z thing that was seen as being immoral. And then the next Sunday, it was all in front of the church with everybody. Nobody talked to her, right? Uh-oh. Problem, right? That's not the biblical sequence, as we'll see. One more thing.

Zinger emails are just about never the right medium. The preferred and best way is, if possible, face-to-face. face-to-face, over the phone, maybe a letter, a Zinger email would be last resort. I can think of one instance, sending a Zinger email because I had to deal with an issue and the fellow I needed to talk to about it wouldn't answer my phone calls. So I sent him a Zinger email. But that was last choice. Just think of anything else you can do besides that. Okay, number seven.

If the church fails to act biblically, God will have his own way of dealing with the issue, though the church acting biblically is best. We'll talk about that in a bit. Here's the chart we call the Church Discipline Chart. This is the fifth page on our Church Discipline Policy in the Policy and Procedures Manual. It is a great chart.

Let's kind of talk through it. First, there's first-hand knowledge of a sin in the body of Christ. It comes somewhere in there. On the left-hand column is if you let it go, that is, if the church does not act. This is the sequence. One issue may be that this person may not be saved, and you've got to confirm that.

It can go all the way down to God disciplining the person and possibly even taking their life. We see an example of that in 1 Corinthians 11, among those who were taking the Lord's table improperly. In the middle column, what you see at each stage is restoration to fellowship with the Lord and with the body of Christ.

And then on the right-hand column is dealing with it biblically, step by step, or stage by stage. So, that's the way the big picture goes. The reality is, this is very idealized. It's not always as clean and neat as all that, but this is the big picture.

Now, I'm really glad that downstairs they're having this class in 1 Corinthians, because the church at Corinth had multiple examples of where the church body should have been dealing with things and they were not. And so what you see is God having to step in, one, and to judge people because the church body was not. So that was one issue. But Paul was also having to instruct them, here's how you should be dealing with it. As a matter of fact, most of this ministry of restoration comes out of the Apostle Paul's letters, because he's dealing with those kinds of issues. So, you see lots of really good bad examples, right, with the believers of the church at Corinth. Taking the Lord's table was so bad that a number of them, Paul puts it, had even died.

The Lord had to act. Why? Because the people in the church body were not acting, so the Lord had to act. So the priority goes like this. We are to judge ourselves individually. Me, judge myself, right? The next is if that's not happening, then someone in the church body needs to deal with that. And then on through the sequence that's given there in the chart. Now, so the first thing you see on the top there is the knowledge of sin. So when someone in the body becomes aware of the sin, whatever it is, then it may be a matter of that person coming alongside the other, seeking to restore. And it might be that simple. And I have seen that simple sometimes.

There may be complicating factors, such as, well, wait a minute, the problem is with this gal, and we need to talk to her husband. about that and acknowledge his headship, right? So there might be that situation. They may not feel that they can go directly to him. Maybe they don't feel that they have enough knowledge of scripture or something of that sort, and so they need to hand it off to somebody who's better able to deal with it.

But again, you keep it You know, small, minimum. We put an item in the church bulletin. Hey, would somebody like to volunteer to step forward to confront this person? No, we don't do that, right? Okay. In such cases, if there's questions, wondering, contact one of the elders, right? And so I'd recommend that.

Now, upon coming alongside, so this is the church body is responding, okay, and dealing with it biblically in the first step, Now is what we're talking about. Upon coming alongside the person is to be restored to fellowship. That's the intent. The goal of love is restoration. Follow-up counseling or teaching may be needed. It may be that there's a problem simply because the person just doesn't understand and it takes even more than one time to fully sort things out.

In such a case, though, the erring believers won over back to fellowship with the Lord and back to fellowship with others in the church body. There can even be growing in the church body because of it. In such a case, the church body might even grow from this biblical restoration. But at very least, that person will be put back on a path of fellowship. with the Lord and with others in the church body. So, the biblical approach is the person who is walking in the Spirit directly himself and with others, coming alongside over one biblical issue. Not the stack, not the list. with the intent to restore him to fellowship with the Lord and the church body." See that? The intent to restore him to fellowship with the Lord and with the church body. Faith to faith, if at all possible, and privately. No gossip or slander. No multiple issues at once. No harsh or severe approach.

So I heard about a pastor one time. He felt he needed to correct one of the people in his congregation. And so he wrote the fellow a letter and handled it that way. And the fellow the next Sunday He says, hey, can I talk to you after the service? And the pastor says, sure. And the fellow brought the letter up and said, you know, I agree.

I need to change my ways. You're quite correct. So I'm responding to your letter. But there's just one thing that bothers me. It's the spelling. The spelling in your letter. That bothered me. You had two R's in dirty and two T's in rat. Yeah, okay, anyway. I suggest you not do that. Okay.

So if a brother is not restored to fellowship and does not respond, then approach him again with two or three witnesses. Okay, we're going to make a big point about that. The intent is to restore the brother to fellowship. with the Lord and with others, and to do so fully biblically and by the Spirit. Still, right?

They are two or three witnesses, not a gang. You get the difference? It's two or three witnesses, and it's not, okay, this guy takes his turn, and this other guy takes his turn, and this other guy takes his turn, and then this other guy takes his turn, right? That's not what it's about. It's not to gang up on him. They're there to be witnesses. Then, if he continues, you see that the first confrontation didn't work. The second one with two or three witnesses, he didn't get the right response, right?

If he continues in sin, then he is to be rebuked before the church body. The hope and intent, however, is always to restore him to fellowship. But if he continues, then the next step is that he must be disfellowshipped, treated as if he was not saved and in need of salvation. Now, what does that look like? What do you do with a person who needs to be saved?

You scream and holler and yell at them? Call names across the street? Punch them in the nose? No. You bring them back to the gospel. You bring them back to the gospel. And you continue to show love and care. But you just see, we're not making the decision that this person is not saved, but we're told to treat him as if he were not. He needs to come back to that crossroads with the gospel that Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again. Do you believe it?

If he still continues in his way, then turn away from him. Now, there are particular circumstances where this applies. It applies to those who are deceptive. These are the passages where it fits. Divisive or openly immoral and the reason you turn away from him is because They are in the process of inviting others They're in the process of enticing others or deceiving others to join them in their sin. They're doing evil evangelism See that That's why you would turn away from them. They're trying to get other people to go with them and trying to divide up the body of Christ, trying to get other people to follow in their false teaching or in their immorality. That's the instance in which you would say, sorry, we just can't have people get sucked into that.

Now, from a practical perspective, the chart that you have on page 3 is very idealized. I've just about never seen it actually happen with that full chart. The reality is what typically happens is on the first confrontation of the issue, people will often say, I'm out of here. Or you even have some people that say, I know what you're going to confront me on and I'm out of here. I've seen that. They take it, and they're restored, and that's it. That is often what happens. So these subsequent steps, although they're given and provided, are not that often, just not that often that they come about. All right. Let me tell you some instances where I've seen this, and these are situations that are long ago and far, far away.

In one instance, I was an elder at a church and had two ladies come up to me within minutes of one another and say, this new guy over here, I feel like he's hunting me. And so the women were feeling hunted. And so I went over to him and I said, you know, you're welcome to fellowship with us here and, you know, to worship and to learn with us and all that, but you need to not be going after the women aggressively. And so you need to treat them with respect.

And so, anyway, I talked to him about that, and tried to do it gently and whatnot, but made sure it was understood, and it was the last time I saw him. Last time anybody saw anything from him. Now, another instance that I had, there was a guy who was leading the worship service at a church. And it was evident that he was having some struggles. He was a husband and a father, and he'd been leading the worship service. And so I began meeting with him, but it got cut off and taken out of my hands by the sheriff's department, by the judge, and the newspaper headlines. And it was out of my hands.

Like I say, the Zinger emails, just rarely should you use email, only after you've exhausted all the other possibilities, and the best is face-to-face. But there was one instance where I had to send a Zinger email, I had no choice. I exhausted all the other possibilities. You may come in fellowship with us, but we can't have you doing this and this and this. So I just never saw him again.

Now here's another one that really surprised me. The church was dealing with a guy you know, in the church, who had been a teacher, but then was going around expressing skeptical beliefs. You know, the Bible isn't really true and that kind of thing. And so the church was dealing with this guy. And so what you have is things are being dealt with properly by the church.

But astoundingly, one time, the pastor was in the driver's seat of VW Bug. The passenger on the other side was this fellow who had turned skeptic. And as they were driving down El Camino Real on the San Francisco Peninsula, a truck, oncoming traffic, bang, nailed the passenger side and killed the passenger instantly. The pastor who was driving the bug, and whose bug it was, just got a few bumps.

That's it. So the Lord took it all the way from, okay, the church is dealing with it, but this guy is taken out. So the Lord can choose to do that. The Lord can choose to do that. Now, I have one instance here I'm going to tell you about where I'm going to give a name.

Nancy and I had both been to Lambert Dolphin's house. He had a really nice house, good-sized yard. up in the hills there above Palo Alto. Lambert worked for Stanford Research Institute, as it was called at that time, but he made his house available for all kinds of church functions. The college group that I was in, we would have leadership meetings regularly at his house.

Lambert would come up regularly at these meetings and introduce us to somebody he had just led to the Lord. The guy had the gift of evangelism like crazy. So Nancy and I were stunned one day to have it announced that Lambert had left the church body to pursue a homosexual lifestyle. The church had gone through all the biblical steps, and finally had come to a point where it had to be announced, but Lambert had left the church body in order to pursue this homosexual lifestyle.

But everything was done biblically and in order. He'd gone through, just like you see on the right side of that chart, gone through there, except for the public rebuke, because he just refused to show up for that. Well, it so happened about two years later the church had a welcome home party for him. He came back and he said, the reason I could come back and the reason I want to come back is because everything along the way was done biblically.

So, that was a long time ago. Lambert is now 84. But you can go to his website. I think I have it on the handout there, ldolphin.org. He's got great stuff on there. And so he's been carrying on Christian ministry. I last saw him in 1986. The following year, he retired from Stanford Research Institute, essentially to go into full-time Christian ministry. and largely self-supported. So it's just a really neat example of how things were done biblically, and he didn't respond all the way to the point of, we have to announce it publicly, but because everything was done biblically, he felt the liberty to come back.

And ever since that time has been in the Lord's service. Since 1987, full-time. And it's really neat. It's really neat. And so, last time I talked to him, it was really neat to talk to him and just know, here's a man whom the Lord has restored. Really neat story.

So, Galatians 5, I'm going to read just a few of the verses here. Verse 16, but I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If you were to have somebody come and confront you about something, wouldn't you want them to be living those things out? Yes. And I have. And I have.

25. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit, walking together in unison in the same cadence.

6. Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for what you've made clear. And thank you for the immense love that you show to us and express to us. And that by your Holy Spirit, this restoration ministry is made possible. We thank you for that. Thank you for the fact that you've revealed these things, wonderful biblical truths, because you love and care for each one of us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.