“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”
-Galatians 6:1
Oh, what a good verse that we are all so thankful God has included in his word. Don’t we all need people in our lives who love us like this. Who, when they see us caught in transgression, in sin, they love us enough to pull us out, to pull us back toward Jesus. There’s this idea that it’s loving not to do this kind of work in others’ lives. I mean, who are we to say that you’re a sinner or you’re stuck in sin.
Our Sinfulness
I mean, we’re all sinners. So we sit back and we are content with sin in our own lives and content with sin in others’ lives. And neither of these things are good. Like I need people in my life who love me enough, when they see me wandering towards sin or stuck in sin in some way, they, in a spirit of gentleness, work to restore me lovingly, call me back to Jesus.
Galatians 6:1 Keeps Us from Sin
I can think of so many times in my life that I have been kept from going deeper into sin, from being caught in deeper ways in sin, because people loved me enough to restore me in a spirit of gentleness. And yes, Jesus gives us instructions about this. He tells us to examine our own hearts. In fact, right after this in Galatians chapter six verse one, we see an exhortation to keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. So yes, don’t try to remove the plank from someone else’s eye when there’s a log in your own eye. Let this whole process of helping others grow in holiness help you grow in holiness.
So yes, let’s always be examining our own heart. And then let’s humbly surround ourselves with people who love us and will help us examine our hearts as well, and we’ll do the same in their lives. Not in a way that’s judgmental or prideful. That’s the whole point here. You who are spiritual, who are led by the Spirit, like we’ve read about Galatians chapter five, should restore him or her, should work, pull them back to Jesus in a spirit of gentleness, with the spirit of Jesus.
Galatians 6:1 Helps Us to Be Faithful
So we pray, God, help us to be faithful, to do Galatians 6:1 in each others’ lives. Help us to lovingly call each other to holiness. God, I praise you for your grace in my life. Expressed through people who have gently and lovingly come to me at very critical points in my life. And called me to follow Jesus and called me out of sin. God, thank you for your grace toward me through them. And I pray that you would help me and help each one of us to do this in others’ lives, to take responsibility for helping each other grow in Christ. And to do that not with a spirit of pride and certain to do that in all the ways that you call us to do that, with humility, with examination and introspection in our own lives and with gentleness.
Oh God, we confess we’re not good at Galatians 6:1, that we are so prone either to not restore each other in these ways, or sometimes to try to restore with a spirit that’s not gentle and humble. So God, we ask you to help us do Galatians 6:1 well. And for them to do it in our lives. in order that we all might become more like Jesus in our lives. In his name we pray, according to Galatians 6:1. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
