Introduction
Walking together is something many of us have been told throughout our lives is how we make it through life.
Some have said it takes a village to raise a child.
Some say we need good healthy friendships around us if we are to be able to continue in life.
Yet, many of us struggle with this aspect because we tend to have a sense of envy or jealousy in us or feel it from others.
Too many of us are like the lyrics of this Green Day song called Boulevard of Broken Dreams. In it they sing,
I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don’t know where it goes But it’s home to me, and I walk alone I walk this empty street On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Or maybe we are more like the Whitesnake song Here I Go Again. Where they sing,
I don’t know where I’m going But, I sure know where I’ve been Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday And I’ve made up my mind I ain’t wasting no more time Though I keep searching for an answer I never seem to find what I’m looking for Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on Cause I know what it means To walk along the lonely street of dreams
Here I go again on my own Going down the only road I’ve ever known Like a drifter I was born to walk alone And I’ve made up my mind I ain’t wasting no more time
The theme in each of these is that they are alone. They have no one to guide them or help them. They have no help and are going through life alone. But this is not how it should be.
We Walk Together if we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are none of us any better or worse than another. We are in this together and we need one another.
Like a sports team or a ranch rodeo team. In football the quarterback is not going to do well without the linemen or backs or receivers. He needs all of them to do well.
Or a team in a ranch rodeo.
I have been in several ranch rodeos as have many of you. I was almost always the man dubbed the mugger. I have always been big and because of that I had to mug. That was fine because I knew that was my job.
We would have a guy that was above average handy with a rope, he roped most always. But if the yearling or cow went another direction and passed before another, the roper would allow that guy to rope her. He knew winning was more important than him getting to rope.
Now, there are some who it did not matter what happened they would run in front of the other guy to rope because in their mind they were the best and that other guy was just there for other jobs.
Usually when that happened we would not do so hot and there would be anger in the team at each other. That is not what a team needs to win but teamwork and help to one another and not showboating.
This is what Paul is telling us in this section of Scripture. He tells us that when we are in step with the Spirit we will be in step with each other and that will help us to stay in step with ourselves.
We see this in Galatians 5:25-6:5
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 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.
Galatians 5:25–6:5 ESV
We are shown what it means to be a team player in this section. We see the means of how we are in these first few verses when we see that we can be team players when we are…
In Step With The Spirit 5:25-6:1
If we live by the Spirit let us walk/keep in step with the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited. Let us not provoke or envy one another.
Let us help a brother or sister caught in any transgression.
All who are spiritual.
Here is the kicker. “All who are spiritual.”
This is to every believer walking because every believer has the same Spirit inside them. You all who are saved have the Holy Spirit of God in you.
If you are in step with Him you will be spiritual.
If you are in step with Him you will not be conceited and have envy or anger or any other thing at others.
This word conceited means “one who talks big, who is boastful and vainglorious.” (TDNT, 662).
Vainglory means that you are “empty of glory” that you sense an emptiness inside and are desperately trying to fill it with affirmation and recognition from other people” (Christ Has Set Us Free (The Gospel Coalition) (p. 125). Crossway.)
This means that you are always trying to be better than another so you are always nitpicking and trying to find something wrong with them.
John Stott said once, The correct attitude to other people is not ‘I’m better than you and I’ll prove it’ or ‘You’re better than I and I resent it,’ but ‘You are a person of importance in your own right (because God made you in His own image and Christ died for you) and it is my joy and privilege to serve you.”
When we are allowing the Spirit to lead us and guide us and we are in step with Him, we will not see others as problems or an enemy but another beloved image bearer if they are not in Christ or as a brother or sister if they are in Christ.
We will not become conceited and try and fill that deep pit that is inside us because we are not walking with the Spirit.
We all desire to have meaning and worth in the world. We all want to be cared for and to do good and have recognition.
But when we are walking in step with the Spirit we have the best recognition there is from our savior who died for us and rose again and is now sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us.
When we are in step with the Spirit we will be spiritual and not carnal, of the world.
The world will not be able to influence us into hate of another.
No, because the Spirit will take hold of us and say “What are you doing you fool?”
So when we see a brother or sister failing in a habit of habitual sin we do not lord it over them but we go to them and seek to help them.
We do this gently and with care and compassion because guess what, it could be us that fails and falls next.
We are not perfect and therefore we must not try and act like we are a perfect person because there was only one perfect person and He is the only one who can lord anything over us but He did not He came and served us and died for us.
Since He did that, we must be willing to do no less for others.
You may be asking how do I walk by the Spirit? That is a great question that is easily answered.
We walk in the Spirit by checking to see if what we do is in love, patience, joy, kindness, goodness, desiring peace, from faith, being gentle, and through self-control. These are the fruit of the Spirit that Paul mentions just before this section.
When we exert self-control we are checking ourselves to make sure we are doing what we do out of the other fruit of the Spirit.
When we seek to do this and act in this way we will begin to be…
In Step With Each Other 6:2
Bear one another’s burdens, and fulfill the law of Christ.
When we bear other’s burdens we are not stepping in to show them we are better and if they lived like us they would not have this struggle.
No, we do not do it that way because we can fall and fail just as much as anyone.
No, when we bear another’s burden we are helping another who is in a struggle very much like what we are in ourselves.
If you think you are not in a struggle, you are deceived and will fall soon and a brother or sister will have to come along and help restore you.
It has been said that we are either going into a storm, in a storm, or just coming out of a storm.
None of us are exempt from struggle and strife. We are all apt to fail and we will all struggle in this life.
Life is hard and it is tough to live it purely especially today.
So, when we are walking together and not walking alone, we can help one another.
We can avoid walking down the same old road we all know all too well.
Just think, we have all walked down a lonely road at some point. Many of us have returned to that same road over and over because it is the only road we know.
I know in my life before I was saved and walking with the Lord as I should I would continually fall back to that road.
I would turn on that Whitesnake song and roll on.
That road was several boxes of beer and whiskey and on to another ranch always running from the burden that was on me and after me.
I was walking alone until I gave that up for my everlasting salvation. Then even after that I struggled but when that old same road would call to me, there were people who loved me interceding for me to help keep me from that road.
They were fulfilling the law of Christ and loving me like they loved themselves.
To love one as you love yourself is to want for them what you would want and help them achieve that.
We do this when we come alongside and help bear the load they carry.
We do this when we encourage them to never give up.
To stay the course and fight the good fight.
We do this when we genuinely love them and come to their side in all things. We help one another.
We serve one another.
We do this with joy because we are helping another thrive in their walk with the Lord.
The Message of Galatians (2. How Christians Should Treat Each Other (Verses 2–5))
To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden-bearing. When we see a woman, or a child, or an elderly person carrying a heavy case, do we not offer to carry it for them? So when we see somebody with a heavy burden on his heart or mind, we must be ready to get alongside him and share his burden. Similarly, we must be humble enough to let others share ours.
What a great ministry this is. It is what ministry is. We do what we do for others for those people and not ourselves.
We serve them and help them because we have a savior who did this for us. He did not come for Himself but for those He died for.
He came to rescue those who were so weighed down by their burdens they could d o nothing for themselves.
He gave it all for all and who are we to not do the same or to do the same but for our glory?
We do this because we know what love is because He first loved us. We serve because we want to see others joyous in the Lord too.
We do this because when we do we will be…
In Step With Ourselves 6:3-5
Genuine service will remove any thought of us being something great.
Look at the text of verses 3-5.
If anyone thinks he is something he deceives himself.
Test your own work and not that of your neighbor. Look at where you are and what you do and not what your neighbor is doing, is what this basically says.
We are each responsible for our own load our own conduct.
When we are so self-centered we will not help but will compare them to ourselves and look down upon them.
We will laugh at their failures.
Many do this regularly when someone gets busted for drugs, a DWI, their marriage fails, or they lose their job.
We laugh at them because maybe they are not a very good person. Maybe they have done wrong.
So what? Who are you or I to think we are any better?
We are all bearing the load of the sins of the world being poured out towards us every day. We are nothing any more than another person, and if we think we are we are in deception and heading for a fall.
If we think we are better than another we are not in step with the Spirit and we most certainly are not in step with each other.
We are too self-important for them and we will not have a servant heart.
Examine this about yourself. Look at your works towards another. Are you serving them or are you always looking at your own interests too much?
Will you desire to help another but then fail to follow through?
Jonathan Edwards has a great essay on helping the poor in which he deals with common objections to serving the poor. For instance,
Objection: “I’d love to help the poor, but I cannot afford it.”
Response: “If we’re never obliged to relieve others burdens, except when we can do it without burdening ourselves, how do we bear our neighbor’s burdens when we bear no burden at all?”
Edwards is pointing out that when we say, “I can’t afford it,” what we really mean is, “I can’t afford it without burdening myself.” But that’s the whole point. That’s what Galatians 6:2 tells us. There is no way to help someone in trouble, in this case financial trouble, without some of that person’s financial burden falling on you. It’s called sacrifice. (Christ Has Set Us Free 128-129).
We will never be in a situation where we will not burden ourselves to help others. That is what this walk together is about.
Our savior sacrificed all for us. He came and served us. He served those who abandoned, betrayed, and denied Him.
He burdened Himself for a bunch of murderous, hate-filled, sinners who wanted Him dead. He died for all so all could have a shot at life with Him forever.
He gave the ultimate burden bearing and extremely burdened Himself to the death for us.
This is the work we must examine of ourselves. Are we doing any service for service sake and for the glory of the Lord with a look to our eternal judgment at the judgment seat of Christ or do we do things to look good for others?
What the rejoicing we have in our works is is that we are rejoicing in what the Lord is working in and through us.
We look up to God in praise of what He is doing in and through us instead of down at others because we are so much better.
This is walking in step with the Spirit and walking in step with each other.
We are not moving above or ahead but alongside others with the goal of them growing in the Lord and us growing more because we have sacrificed comfort and self for another.
Verse five is not a contradiction. It is speaking of our own burden before the Lord at the judgment. The word load in the text is a different Greek word than burden is.
Load means something along the lines God has given each of us a different set of difficulties and opportunities. Differing weaknesses and gifts and these are our responsibility before the Lord alone. Even with help from others in our life, we are responsible for how we handle our own load before the Lord.
When we stand before Jesus one day and receive the rewards 2 Cor. 5:10 “for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
This is the burden we all bear and the load that only we can handle.
If we are following what Paul has said here we will be in good shape at that time.
We will have walked well together and loved one another as Christ loved us.
We will be strong in faith and showing Gal. 5:22-23 “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
We will be the spiritual people that we all can be because of the spirit we all have in us if you are in Christ.
Let us all live in that manner. Let us all not become conceited and envy or become jealous. Let us all love one another as Christ has said we are to do.
We can do this because we have the Spirit of God in us and we can live a life of sacrificial service and giving to one another and to the church of the Lord.
Conclusion
John Henry Jowett said,
Ministry that costs nothing, accomplishes nothing.
This is so true and something we all need to heed in our lives. If we are alive, we can help another and in that help we may find what we need to help us in some struggle we have.
People need people. Like this 3-year-old little girl who asked her father for help getting undressed. The father was downstairs when she requested and he said back to her “You know how to undress yourself.” “Yes,” she explained, ‘but sometimes people need people anyway, even if they do know how to do things by themselves.”
This is why we walk together.
This is why we are one body in Christ.
We need one another. When we grasp this along with a thankful in all things attitude, being all in together, see the blessing in service, live an unselfish life, know that every part matters, take on our warrior’s call of taking this message to the world, live shameless for Christ, we will have decreased ourselves and increased the Lord.
We will have then begun to follow a strong course of discipleship in our lives.
So today remember when we walk in step with the Spirit we will walk in step with each other and therefore we will be in step with ourselves.
We can do all this by the power of the Spirit we all have in us from the glorious savior we all share.
But that is the key, having believed in Christ the savior for your salvation that only He can give.
If you have not done that then no amount of work and striving to obtain this life of a disciple will work.
You will fall and fail and struggle along. It takes Christ in you and you in Him to make this walk happen.
Acts 16:31 ““Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
It really is that simple. And if you want to talk more about that, I would love to visit with you.
