“Be Authentic” – Part 1 – Galatians 6:1-5

This may not be the best time for this but in the spirit of being debt-free, as Scott has been telling us about this morning, I would like to kick it off by selling something that is dear to me.  I wouldn’t normally do this but I think it would be appropriate in this instance to illustrate the power of getting out of debt by selling this family heirloom.  It has been passed down for generations and is very valuable but I have no real use for it.  So, if my parents don’t mind too bad, I would like to sell the Blair family Faberge egg.  And here it is.

You know it’s the real thing because it even says Faberge on it right there.  It even has the little line over the last “e” to verify its authenticity.  Now, I looked online and the last Faberge egg that was sold was sold at auction for over 18 million dollars.  But to help me get out of debt and so as not to gouge any of you, I am willing to let this one go for just $1000.  So, the first one to pledge a thousand dollars gets it.  And I will take checks.  I trust you.  Anyone?  Don’t fight.  Just raise your hand.

Maybe you don’t understand the significance of this.  It’s worth millions of dollars.  It’s a real Faberge egg.  Just look.  I don’t know why nobody is interested.  Ok, I confess, it’s not the real thing.  Obviously we have a group of Faberge experts here who looked at it real close and finally figured out that it is an imposter.  It’s not real.  It’s a fake.  You might even say it’s a hypocrite.  It says it is something that it’s not.  And I hate that in an egg, especially in church.  It’s almost as bad as a person in church who says they are something that they are not.

And we all hate that, right?  Nobody likes a hypocrite.  Nobody wants to hang around somebody who says they are holy and doesn’t act holy.  Nobody wants to be around somebody who says they are a sanctified child of God when they act like a certified son of the devil.  And everybody feels this way and yet…there are a lot of hypocrites in the church.  How does this happen and how do we keep it from happening to us?  Those are the questions I hope to see answered today as we start a sermon series entitled simply, “Be Authentic”.

Robert Redford was walking one day through a hotel lobby. A woman saw him and followed him to the elevator. "Are you the real Robert Redford?" she asked him with great excitement. As the doors of the elevator closed, he replied, "Only when I am alone!" http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/h/hypocrisy.htm

"Only when I am alone!" he said.  It would be appropriate for an actor to say such a thing.  The word “hypocrite” was originally used to describe someone who was an actor back in the days when actors wore masks to portray different characters.  Today we use the term in a similar fashion to describe someone who says they are one thing but is in reality something different.  It is a term no one likes to be called but all too often fits almost all of us some point.  And it can be poison to a church or to an individual.

So, for the next few Sundays I want us to focus on how we can be authentic Christians in who we are, how we worship, how we live, how we trust and how we think.  Today let’s look at how to be authentic in who we are by looking at a beautiful passage in the book of Galatians.  The overall theme of the book of Galatians is how we are saved by grace and through faith, not by the Law.  And how wonderful that is but we still have a responsibility to live holy and right lives and we do that only with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit that lives within us as believers.

Chris Tiegreen says in his daily devotional that “there’s a difference between pretending to be who you’re not and disciplining yourself to be who you ought to be.”  There will always be tension between living our lives in a holy manner and being who we really are without putting on airs or pretending to be more holy than we really are.  And this passage will help us to know how to help others with the life we lead without having to put on a mask of holiness.

Let’s read Galatians 6:1-5.

“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. ² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. ⁴ Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, ⁵ for each one should carry their own load.”

Years ago my uncle first started preaching he preached a similar message on hypocrisy except for the whole message he pronounced it “hippocrissy”.  We don’t want to have hippocrissy in the church no matter how you pronounce it and so we look at this passage and we see how to be authentic Christians in who we truly are without pretending to be more holy than we really are. 

And I want us to see 3 things as we study this passage closer.  I want us to see how to restore your brother, regard yourself and revere others.  Verse 1 says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore that person gently.”

There’s a lot in that one sentence but real quickly let’s see that he starts out with “Brothers” or some versions say “Brothers and sisters”.  He is talking to what we now call Christians and talking about Christians.  This does not apply to non-Christians.  I’ve said before that you can expect non-believers to act like non-believers.  Don’t be surprised when someone who does not have a life-changing relationship with Jesus doesn’t act like their life has changed.  It hasn’t.  But a fellow Christian should act that way.  He should be different, set apart and holy.

 

But even those of us that are Spirit-filled, Jesus-loving, God-worshiping believers sometime mess up.  We all do it.  But I want you to note the phrase that is used here.  If someone is “caught in a sin” we are to restore him.  That phrase literally means to be caught as in a trap or to be surprised or overtaken.  Sometimes we go looking for sin and sometimes sin comes looking for us.

 

Just before Jesus was arrested, He and Peter had a conversation that went something like this.  Peter said, “Now Lord, I just want you to know that no matter what happens, I got your back.  No matter what the others do I will be there for you.  James may fail you.  Matthew may high-tail it.  Even John may run away but I never will.  You can count on me.”  And Jesus told him that Peter would deny him 3 times before morning.  “No, no!  You must be thinking about Judas.  That’s not me.”  And we all know what happened.

 

Can you imagine the guilt Peter must have felt?  Can you comprehend the shame that wouldn’t let him sleep or eat or function normally at all?  It had to be his every thought.  It had to be in every dream.  He never would have imagined he could do such a thing.  Sin came looking for him and he fell right in the trap.  He was caught by sin.

But what did Jesus do?  When Jesus appeared to the disciples He could have told everybody what Peter did.  He could have heaped well-deserved shame on him and driven him away.  But instead, Jesus made it a point to go to Peter and gently restore him.

 

That word “restore” is a word that Peter would know.  It was the same word used when it says in Matthew 4 that Jesus saw James and John mending their nets.  They would restore or mend their nets when they were broken by gently patching the net to make it usable again.  They would make that tear or break into a strong point again.  And that is just what Jesus did with Peter.

 

Jesus gently restored Peter, not by pretending it didn’t happen.  He didn’t say, “Aw, it’s ok.  It didn’t really hurt that bad.”  No, Jesus just showed great grace and mercy and forgiveness to the one who was broken and hurting and made him whole again and usable for the Kingdom.  And when Jesus restored him, he was restored better than ever.  He was a better man, a better apostle, a better preacher, a better husband.  I bet he was even a better fisherman when Jesus gently restored him.

So, you brothers who are spiritual; you who are living according to the Spirit living inside you; you should gently, not harshly, not publicly, not loudly, not gleefully but gently restore that friend and brother who has been caught in the trap of sin and make him strong again in his faith and in the Kingdom.

 

So we see that we are to restore our brother but you are also to regard yourself.  That next phrase is extremely important.  In fact, it is the secret to being an authentic believer as opposed to a genuine hypocrite.  “But watch yourself.”  Why does it say to watch yourself?  What possible harm could come of somebody restoring a brother gently?  Well, you think about that question as I tell you this story about what happened the other day.  I don’t want to mention any names but you won’t believe what I caught Scott doing the other day.  Oh, yea, it was horrible.  I just hope his wife and kids don’t find out.  That would be sad.  We need to pray for that family, I’ll tell ya.  But don’t worry.  I was able to step in and restore him gently back to a usable state just like the Bible says.  And I did it right and with love so look at me.

 

Ok, no, I did not catch Scott doing anything.  I just used him in this example to show the traps that we can fall in when we restore somebody.  What traps did I fall into?  Did you hear me fall into the trap of pride? Slander? How about gossip?  Except it’s not gossip if you say we should pray for them, right?  That makes it a prayer request.  No, it still makes it gossip!  And do you know what prideful, slandering gossips are?  They are hypocrites and they are not being authentic.  And they are sinning.  And do you know what sinners need?  They need somebody to restore them.

 

Mark Twain said, quote, “We're all like the moon, we have a dark side we don't want anyone to see.” Unquote.  And that dark side can come out into the open at any time.  We have all been there and we will probably be there again, needing someone to restore us. We will probably find another trap and be caught by sin again.  And we know that God is good and faithful to forgive us our sin when we repent; when we turn away from that sin and ask for forgiveness, knowing that it was for that sin that Jesus bled and died.  And so that forgiveness is not a problem.

 

It’s the forgiveness and restoration of our friends and family and, Lord forgive us, our churches - that is the problem.  And we wonder why people are turned off by the premise of getting up on Sunday morning, getting dressed in clothes we can’t afford and in which we aren’t comfortable to go be with hypocritical condemning judges who smile at your face and talk behind your back all the while doing worse than what they are accusing you of the whole time!

 

I won’t be a part of a church like that and I thank God I am not a part of a church like that.  Because some of us have that dark side that Twain was talking about just barely hidden.  Some of us remember being in that trap of sin and remember the loved one that gently restored us not so long ago.  And we are eternally grateful for that loved one but we don’t want to go back into that trap because we know the consequences of that sin.

 

So, restore your brother but regard yourself, lest you fall too.  Because like Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”  Who wants to live with God’s face hidden from them?  But we don’t have to and Paul is warning us here how to keep from it.

 

And lastly he tells us to not only restore your brother and regard yourself but we should revere others.

Let’s see that in verse 2 where it says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

 

I saw a quote that said, “Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.  Hosea Ballou  Maybe you know that feeling.  As a believer, sin should grieve us.  It grieves God and what grieves God should grieve us.  It should be a burden on us.  If you can sin without it feeling like a burden or without it feeling grievous then something is wrong.

 

Thankfully we have forgiveness of our sins.  1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  So, we know God will forgive us; that no sin is too horrible for Him to forgive.  Then when we get over the hurdle of our friends and family forgiving us, then we can start to forgive ourselves.  That’s where verse 2 comes in. 

Helen Keller said, “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”  Ecclesiastes 4:10 says, “For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”  There is not a worse feeling than being alone after you have messed up.    That’s when you know who your friends are when you have made some bad choices and you are suffering the consequences and someone comes along beside you.

 

They don’t lecture you.  They don’t scold you.  They don’t talk down to you and it’s usually because they have been there before.  They just come and love on you as you need to be loved on.  Maybe that means you have a long talk.  Maybe that means you just go fishing.  You need someone in your life who you know has forgiven you and just wants nothing other than to get you through to the other side.

 

I have heard counselors say that this person should be someone other than your spouse.  Evidently, we are the hardest on those we love the most intimately.  And that’s a shame because who better than the one who knows you best to do what is best for you.  If your spouse is going through a trial brought on by their own sin and they have sincerely asked God for forgiveness of that sin then who better to help carry that load than you?

 

Because when you carry that load, when you lovingly and gently come alongside of that person, look at what the verse says about that.  “And in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ”.  Now what is the law of Christ?  Well, He tells us plainly in John 13:34 where Jesus says, “I give you a new law. That law is, "Love each other." As I have loved you, so you also love each other.  ³⁵ This is how all people will know that you are my disciples.'”

 

DL Moody told the story of a little boy that went to Sunday School in Chicago at a church on the other side of town from where he lived.  When his friend asked him why he went to that church instead of one of the other churches closer to where he lived, the little boy said, “I go there because there they love a fellow.”

 

When we carry each other’s burdens and we restore each other gently, making sure that we don’t get prideful about it or start to gossip about it; when we do those things we do exactly what Jesus did and what He commands us to do.  It shows that we love people.  Nobody wants to go to a church filled with hypocrites but everybody wants to go where they love a fellow and prove it biblically.

 

So we see in this passage that we are to restore our brother, regard ourselves and revere others to keep ourselves and our church authentic.  But do you know what the most hypocritical thing a person can do is?  Do you know what drives more people away from church than anything else?  It is saying you are a part of the body of Christ when you are not.

 

Maybe you have gone to church all of your life.  You might even be a member here or somewhere else and your daddy was a preacher and your mama was a Sunday School teacher but you don’t have a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus.  You are on all the right committees and you know all the verses to all the songs but if you have never asked Jesus into your heart to be Lord and Savior then you, my dear friend, are a hypocrite.  You are not being authentic.

 

The good news is that there is Good News.  And that Good News is the Gospel of Jesus that says He was born, lived, died and was resurrected to pay the debt for sin that you could never pay.  Because we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God the Bible says that what we get for that sin is death.  Sin requires a payment of death but Jesus paid that for you on the cross and is anxiously waiting for you to just accept it and receive His forgiveness.

 

Will you do that today?  Don’t be a hypocrite.  Be authentic.