Authentic Christianity Means Rescuing the Sheep

We thank and appreciate Brother Blake for leading our singing this morning, and today as we’re going to, as we’ve done each month, we’re going to look at our theme for this year, Authentic Christianity, and so this morning we’re going to be opening to Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6 and verses 1 through 5. Let’s just review the topic for a moment.

Remember that in the book of Galatians, certain men came to the churches there and were teaching them that they had to be circumcised according to the law of Moses and saying they needed to keep the law of Moses, but the gospel had preached and taught and Paul had taught as well as the other apostles that everyone who believes in Jesus is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

And so Paul needed to write the book of Galatians to bring them back to authentic Christianity. Why authentic Christianity? Because we live in a time where Christianity is broken down in many places and it needs to be restored. And how do you restore something that is broken? Well, you’ve got to go back to the original plan. You’ve got to go back to the original pattern.

And what is that plan? And what is that pattern? Of course, it is the Bible. And so we need to go back to the teachings of the Bible if we’re going to restore Christianity, and today we want to restore Christianity because we want to have that authentic faith that was taught within the New Testament, that authentic faith that Jesus Christ came to give to those who would believe in Him.

And that the apostles taught. And so this morning, as we look at the book of Galatians, we look at authentic Christianity, restoring authentic Christianity. That’s what the apostle Paul was trying to do for the churches in Galatia. And there had come some into those churches and taught some things that were not authentic Christianity. And now he had to set the record straight.

At the end of the book of Galatians, Paul exhorts the churches to go to those who had been taught these other messages and to bring them back, to take the message of the book of Galatians and restore others to authentic Christianity.

And so this morning, that’s what we’re going to think about. Authentic Christianity means rescuing the sheep. And we take that image of rescuing the sheep from one of Jesus’ parables that we’re going to look at as we go through our lesson this morning and remembering that we’ve got to go out and we’ve got to bring others in to restore them to authentic Christianity.

Now look at Galatians chapter 6 and verses 1 through 5. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another, for each one shall bear his own load.

So what is going on here in Galatians 6, 1 through 5? Well, first of all, there are those among the churches who need to be restored. They needed to come back to authentic Christianity. And Paul is saying, you who are spiritual, you go to those people, if they’ve been overtaken in a trespass, bring them back in a spirit of gentleness.

Now, not with a spirit of, or an attitude of, I’m better than you, or some kind of attitude of a superiority or something, but rather with an attitude of humility, considering yourselves. Lest you also be tempted to go into that same trespass that they’ve gone into. And by doing that, by going out and bringing others back, we fulfill the law of Christ.

We bear one another’s burdens by picking up the lost sheep and bringing that sheep back. That is part of our job as Christians. We shouldn’t think of ourselves as something when we’re nothing. And other people do that, you know, they think that they’re something.

But the truth is, is that we’re just servants of Jesus Christ. We don’t want to deceive ourselves in that regard, but we need to look at our own lives, our own work, the things that we need to do to be faithful to the Lord, and if we do that, then we can rejoice in the work that the Lord is doing in our lives, not rejoicing because we’ve made some kind of personal followers Or something like that is what the problem was here. There were those teaching things so they could just make their own personal followers. And Paul is saying, no, that’s not what we want. We want people to be followers of Jesus Christ. And to do that, to come back, everyone who has been overtaken in a trespass, they need to come back and they need to understand that in order to do that, there’s some things they need to change within their lives. And that is bearing their own load.

And so, the spiritual help the weak to bear their own load, and those who are weak bear their own loads by returning and making sure that they understand what they need to do to be faithful to the Lord. But that’s just a summary of these statements, but let’s look at it a little bit more because we’re talking about rescuing the sheep.

So what do we need to do to rescue the sheep? First of all, we need to have spiritual desires. To rescue the sheep, our desires must be spiritual. And that’s the very first thing that Paul discusses here in verse 1.

If a man is overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual. Our desires need to be spiritual to go out and to rescue the sheep. What are our desires? And we may ask ourselves, well, what do I want out of life? You know, what is my ultimate desire? And if it’s not what God wants, then we need to make course correction in that regard.

Because God gives us what we need to desire in Matthew 22, 36 through 40. And what is that? We’ve got to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. We’ve got to love our neighbor as ourselves. You know, this is the number one desire that we need to have to be spiritual. And when we have those spiritual desires, when we love God, first of all, we’re going to pursue His purposes. And when we love our neighbor, we’re going to love them enough to take care of them, like we talked about last week, to care for them, but then also to tell them what the Gospel says, what the Bible teaches about serving the Lord, about being faithful to Him, about what Jesus’ truth is in regard to salvation. We’re going to love them enough to do those things.

And so those are our motivations. Those are our desires. That’s what it means to be spiritual, to let God’s Spirit lead us and guide us through the teaching in His Holy Word. So we have a purpose, and that is to love God and love our neighbor. And when we think about our desires, you know, we recognize that our desires should be spiritual because we’re spiritual beings.

And to be spiritually minded is what we want, Romans chapter 8 and verse 6, because that brings the kind of things to our lives that make for good relationships with others, life and peace, right? And so if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit, Galatians 5 teaches us.

And remember what those spiritual things are that we want to pursue. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That’s what it means to have a spiritual outset to life. And that’s what it means to follow after the Spirit.

And when we have these spiritual desires, we are going to rescue the lost sheep because those lost sheep are caught up in carnal desires. And we want them to come out of those things, not be harmed by those things. And so that’s the ultimate goal is the unity of mankind, you know, to fulfill the purpose of the kingdom is what Jesus wants us to do, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature so that they can do what? So that they can become disciples, so that they can come into the body of Christ and be united with the Lord.

We endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, Ephesians 4, 1 through 3. That’s our ongoing purpose. That’s our ongoing calling. And we want to fulfill that call. And to do that, we’ve got to have spiritual desires.

And so, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. To seek the lost sheep, we’ve got to have spiritual desires. But then secondly, to seek the lost sheep, we’ve got to fulfill the law of Christ. Look at Galatians 6 and verse 2. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Now, we want to care for other people. We want to go out and help them if they have some physical needs. Certainly, that’s something that we desire to do.

But look, what Paul is talking about here when he says bear one another’s burdens isn’t giving somebody a meal. He’s not talking about taking someone to the hospital, although we can do that. There’s nothing wrong with that. But he’s talking about spiritual things, listening to other people’s problems and bringing the solutions of the gospel to those problems.

That’s what he’s discussing here when he says, bear one another’s burden. And that’s something that a lot of people don’t want to do. They don’t want to do it because, you know, it’s too much trouble to listen to someone else, right? And to think about what their problems are and then to try to work with them on those problems. A lot of people just don’t want to do that. But as Christians, if we’re going to be spiritual, we’ve got to do that. We’ve got to go to other people and talk to them.

And we’ve got to listen to what their concerns are and how their lives are going and then bring the principles of the gospel to bear upon their lives in that regard. That’s what it means to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, to go after those lost sheep.

It’s not an easy task to go up into the mountains where the sheep are lost and to seek after them and then to pick them up and to carry them out, to bring them back to the flock. You know, that’s not an easy task, but it is something that God wants us to do.

To consider that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. That is the law of Christ that Paul is referring to when he says, bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. It is to seek and to save the lost. That’s what Christ wants us to do.

And you know, God was not happy in the Old Testament with those selfish shepherds who wouldn’t seek the sheep. And He says so in Ezekiel 34, verses 7 through 10, and as a result, God’s flock became a prey and food for every beast of the field because there was no shepherd, nor did my shepherd search for my flock.

But the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed my flock. So there’s a problem. Shepherds that don’t feed the flock. Shepherds that don’t seek the sheep. And that’s something God wasn’t very happy with. Now, as a result, God said in Ezekiel 34, 11 through 12, that He would seek out His sheep. Thus says the Lord God, indeed, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out my sheep and deliver them.

Now, that’s what God promised there in Ezekiel 34, 11 through 12, and in Ezekiel 24, in verse 16, or 34, He says, I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away. Bind up the broken and strengthen what is sick.

Now, God said, I will do that, and He did that in His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was the one who came and fulfilled that prophecy. He fulfilled that ministry. And so now, Jesus is the standard. He’s the example. And we need to follow His example. Listen to what He said in Luke 15, 4 through 7.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which was lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you, now listen to what Jesus says about this parable that He tells. He says this, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance.

Now think about that. That’s how valuable a lost person is, that God wants us to use whatever resources it takes to go after that person and bring them into His kingdom. That’s what Jesus is talking about, seeking the sheep, seeking sinners who repent. That’s what we need to do. That’s what our job is.

That’s fulfilling the law of Christ. And we’ve got to do it if we’re going to be faithful to the Lord, to follow His example and do what He did. So let’s fulfill the law of Christ in our lives by going after and seeking those sheep. And then as we do this, it will keep us humble.

We’ve got to stay humble if we’re going to be involved in seeking after the sheep. If we’re going to go after those who are lost, it takes some humility on our part to do that. Why? Because we can’t let our own selfish desires get in the way of fulfilling the law of Christ. And a lot of times, that’s exactly what we do. We get busy with doing our own things. We go out and get involved in activities of one kind or another.

You know, we end up losing ourselves in those things and just thinking, well, I’d just rather do that than do what God wants me to do. And that’s a selfish perspective. That’s us choosing self over Christ. And there’s a lot of ways that we can do that. And look, we’re all guilty of that. Not a single one of us has always chosen to follow Christ every moment within our lives. We’ve all chose selfish desires over Christ at one point.

Now, what we need to do, however, is stay humble and recognize that Christ comes first and that His desires should be our desires. Now, this doesn’t mean that we can’t incorporate the law of Christ of seeking the sheep, going out and finding others who are going astray and bringing them back.

We can’t incorporate that into what we do when we go out and do things, do activities in the world. It should always be in the forefront of our mind. How can I use this activity I’m involved in to advance the cause of Christ?

That’s what I ask myself, and I hope you ask yourself that question as well. In whatever it is you’re doing, in your job, in your personal activities, in your vacation planning, whatever it is, there’s something that I can do to advance the cause of Christ. And it may be advancing the cause of Christ within your own family to a certain degree. It may be advancing the cause of Christ among your relatives. It may be advancing the cause of Christ in reference to your co-workers or someone else.

But doing what you do every day, you should think about how I can advance the cause of Christ in those areas and not just pursue those things out of selfish desires and selfish purposes. It takes humility. Think about humility for a minute here in Galatians 6, 1 through 5.

For if anyone thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not another. For each one shall bear his own load. So this is an interesting statement because what Paul is trying to get us to think about here It is not going out and making disciples of ourselves like the teachers who were bringing in the false doctrines were doing. They were making little Jews out of Gentiles and that’s not what Christ wanted. He didn’t want them to go back to the law of Moses. He wanted them to simply follow Christ, to follow God.

And so, it is easy for us to think of ourselves in a way that is more high than we ought to think. It’s easy for us to think, well, I’m a real big shot. You know, I do this, and I do that, and I get involved in this activity, and I get involved in that activity, and look at me. Everybody’s subject to my desires and subject to my decision-making and all that.

That’s a dangerous place to be if that’s what we’re thinking. That’s self-deception, the Bible says. And we should not think of ourselves that way when we’re really nothing in relationship to God and to Christ. So we’ve got to examine our own work. We’ve got to examine ourselves and our hearts to see where we are in relationship to God. And that takes an effort on our part to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Romans chapter 12, verse 3.

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” We’ve got to stay humble. And staying humble doesn’t just mean, you know, getting out there and in our relationship with other people, not thinking of ourselves better than them, you know. That’s part of it. That’s part of it.

But staying humble here means my relationship with God, staying humble in my relationship with God, and letting that motivate me to be humble with other people, okay? It’s God who needs to be in control. He’s the one who needs to be in the driver’s seat. And so what does that mean? It means I’m just a passenger. I’m just along for the ride, and where He’s going, I’m going.

And that’s the attitude of humility. The attitude of pride or conceit would be, God, give me the wheel. I’m gonna take this boat in the way that I want it to go, you know, or a car or whatever it is. That would be an attitude that’s not humble. And so there’s other people in this car with us, right? And so we let God do the driving, and then we get them saying, now, don’t get out of the car, stay in the car. You know, that’s the idea.

And that’s what being humble is. And so we want to let the Word of God guide us and lead us in this path that we’re going in, and that means we’ve got to be humble. Think about Luke chapter 14, verse 11. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Just exalt yourself for a little bit and see how that works out, is basically what Jesus is saying there. Because it’s not going to work out very well in the long run, and you will be humble. But if you humble yourself, then God will lift you up. And that’s what James chapter 4 and verse 10 is saying, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. And that’s lifting up, not for self-glorification, but lifting up so that we can continue to let God’s Word work through us, So that others can be restored to God’s gospel, that they can come back to the truth. God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble, James 4 and verse 6.

And so as we’re thinking about all this, we’re thinking about seeking the lost sheep, you know, Jesus sought the lost sheep. And then He turned to His disciples and He said, look, you know, in seeking these lost sheep, you’ve got to stay humble.

That means you’ve got to keep working, and you can’t give up. This is a lifetime job that we do, and maybe we have kind of stepped back from that a little bit, and maybe it’s time that we get back into it. It’s time that we put a renewed emphasis within our lives on going out and seeking those lost sheep, and let’s be the kind of people that God wants us to be in that regard, following Him and seeking out those who need the message of God.

Remember the parable of the talents. Don’t bury your talents. Every single one of us has something that we can do to restore the lost to God’s people. And that means we’ve got to be going out and working. Remember that parable of the talents? Then there was one who got five talents, another who got three, and one who got one, right? And the one who got five talents went out and he made five more. And the one who got two went out and made two more. Three went out and made three more.

And then the one who had one, what did he do? He went and he buried it in the ground. He didn’t do anything with it at all. And then this is what he said when the Lord came back and he said, What did you do with what I gave you? He said, Well, I saved it and here it is. And God wasn’t very happy with that. Then he who had received one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours. But his Lord answered and said to him, you wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. In other words, he didn’t have an excuse. He knew what the Lord’s desires were. He knew what needed to be done, but he didn’t do it. And that’s the problem that we have sometimes. We’ve got to renew an emphasis here upon seeking those who are lost.

We’ve got to renew an emphasis upon gathering in the lost sheep, bringing them back in. And that’s something that needs to be done for every congregation of the Lord’s people. Not just here, but everywhere. We can’t get settled into an attitude of complacency and just looking at ourselves and saying, you know what, we’re fine like we are. We’re not. We’re not fine like we are. God wants us to do better than what we’re doing today.

And so we need to be about the business of rescuing the sheep. Authentic Christianity is Christianity that’s going to go out and it’s going to rescue the sheep. We’re going to have things that we do that reach out to others that bring them into the church of Jesus Christ. And so how do we do it? Well, as God’s people, first of all, we’ve got to maintain those spiritual desires. That’s got to be the priority.

Loving God and loving our neighbor. If we don’t have that, we’re not going to rescue the sheep because we don’t have the right desires. So we need those spiritual desires. But then secondly, we need to fulfill the law of Christ. And what is that? What did Jesus say? He said, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. And so we want to seek and to save that which was lost. Fulfill the law of Christ. And then how do we do it? We’ve got to stay humble.

We can’t put our own desires above God’s. We’ve got to let God guide us in every situation all the time. And so this morning, as we come to a close of our lesson today, let’s ask each one of them. I’ll ask myself, you ask yourself, are we rescuing the sheep? Are we seeking the lost? Are we fulfilling the law of Christ within our lives? Authentic Christianity says we must do that.

And how do we do it? We’ve got to listen to God’s Word and believe it. And those who are not Christians need to hear that Word and believe it and repent of their sins, confess Jesus as Lord, and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus said, you know, that’s how you make disciples. Go through all the earth and make disciples, teaching them and baptizing them so that they can become children of God. Are we doing that?

That’s the question we need to ask ourselves this morning, and maybe somebody is here today who’s been listening to the message of the gospel that we’ve been preaching. We preach the gospel 24-7 here. You say, how do we do that? We’ve got an internet, and the internet, we put lessons out there all the time, and people are listening to those lessons, studying those lessons, looking at those lessons all the time.

And that’s a good thing because that brings others to our door and it helps others understand more about the message of the gospel. And we can get involved in that or we can talk to someone personally. Whatever someone’s needs are, we need to address them, those spiritual needs, and get them here so that we can talk to them some more.

Maybe someone this morning needs to respond to the message of the gospel. If that’s the case, then we advise you to come right now while together we stand and while we sing.

End of transcript. Thank you for reading along!