J. I. Packer:

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator.

In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father.

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up I the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God.

Evangelical Magazine 7, pp. 19-20, cited in Knowing God, p. 201. Packer says on p. 202:

Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption.

Galatians 6:2–5 As a Christian, we should sincerely have concern for people. This concern should compel us to speak truth into their life, which can include everything from pointing out sin to giving wise counsel, and intercede for them before God.

Still, as a Christian we cannot take responsibility for everyone and everything for which we have concern. As finite beings, there is only so much we can do and we must discern whom God has called us to help. When we take responsibility for people and things we ought not, we are sinning by taking off someone’s shoulders a load God has called them to carry and sinning against our own health, family, and priorities by offering to carry it for them.

Driscoll says , "I envision that everyone has a backpack with responsibilities that God has given for them to carry. Some people’s backpacks are big, and others are small. Nonetheless, God has called us each to fill up our pack with specific responsibilities. Some people are lazy and try to take things out of their pack and get others to carry them instead. Examples include the able-bodied man who lives with his mom, making her responsible for his housing and food; the lazy employee who cannot keep a job and expects his or her friends and family to always give money; and the irresponsible young women who assumes the government, her family, or a wealthy boyfriend will pay the price for her foolish life choices. Tragically, for many, the whole definition of someone being loving, godly, and spiritual is that they are willing to carry the loads God has called others to carry. This is not ministry. This is co-dependency, co-idolatry, and sin.

At first glance, this Scripture passage seems contradictory. It says that everyone should carry whatever load God has placed in their backpack. It also says that Christians should take some burdens out of the backpacks of some people and carry them out of love. In Greek, the difference is between “load” and “burden.”
A “load” is a light enough pack that one should be expected to carry alone. Practically, this means that the typical person needs to find a job, pay their bills, read the Bible, attend church, pursue Christian friends, pray, repent of sin, share their faith, watch their diet, exercise, and look after themselves and their spouse and children if applicable.

A “burden” is a heavy load that is simply too much for one person to bear without the loving help of Christian friends. Practically, the person with cancer or another debilitating ailment, the mother of young children who is abandoned by her husband, the poor elderly widow who cannot pay her bills, and others like them should not feel guilty for seeking reasonable. Rather, the church exists in part to help lessen their burden by taking some of the financial, emotional, and practical weight out of their pack and carrying it for them.

Are you someone who is expecting too much time, energy, money, and/or investment from people? Which loads do you need to just buck up and carry without whining until someone else does your job? Have you manipulated others’ concern for your load to get them to take on your responsibilities as their burden in the name of loving Christian community?"

Are you weighed down by all the loads you are carrying for others who need to carry their own load? How have you sinned by allowing concerns to become your burden?

GAL 5:6 One way to bear the burdens of those who carry major responsibilities of teaching in the church is to support them financially so that they can be free for prayer and study. Evidently there was some problem with this in Galatia. We don’t know what they were saying, but we do know that of all the burdens Paul could have mentioned, he chose to mention the material burden of those who teach God’s Word.
He had learned the principle from Jesus. When Jesus sent out the 70 to preach, he told them not to take their own food because “the laborer deserves his wages.” Paul picks this up in 1 Timothy 5:17, 18, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; for the scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’ ” Probably the closest parallel to Galatians 6:6 is 1 Corinthians 9:11 where Paul says, “If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits?”

The Ministry of the Word and Giving I see four implications of Galatians 6:6.
1. Teaching the Word of God is essential in the church. We will not know without.
2. Those who carry the main responsibility of teaching need freedom to study and meditate and pray. Teaching, it takes much time and effort.
3. It follows that pastor-teachers should be paid so that they don’t have to do other work to support themselves. Some, like Paul, may renounce this right, but those who are taught the Word ought to be eager to free up their teachers financially.
4. When you give your money to support the teaching ministry, you are fulfilling the law of Christ according to verse 2 (helping bear the teacher’s burden). So when Paul says in verses 9 and 10 that we should do good to all especially to those of the household of faith, he has in mind at least the use of our money to support those who teach us the Word of God.

God Is Not Mocked Verse 7 comes in now to reinforce the command of verse 6. God is mocked when his messengers are treated with scorn (2 Chronicles 36:15, 16).
We honor God and his Word when we take our money, which might have bought us some comfort or security or prestige, and give it to support the ministry of the Word (domestically and on the frontiers). But if we are deceived and think that more happiness comes from spending that money on our private pleasures, then we mock God, and our greed will come crashing back upon us. We will reap what we sow.
Sowing to the Flesh and to the Spirit verse 8 makes clear what is really at stake and gives us hope. What is at stake in your attitude to the teaching of God’s Word and the use of your goods is eternal life? I know that for some that sounds like a return to salvation by works which Paul has demolished in this letter. But it isn’t. Works are the attitudes and actions of a heart that looks to itself for the achievement of virtue, which expects to be credited for its achievement. Nobody can save himself by such works. But love is not a work of the flesh; it is a fruit of the Spirit. There are attitudes toward money and the teaching of God’s Word which cannot continue to coexist with true saving faith in the all-sufficiency of Christ.
The hope of verse 8 is that eternal life can be enjoyed simply by sowing to the Spirit. “He who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” What does this mean? If you look to “your flesh” to produce fulfillment, you will get corruption. But if you look to the Spirit, you will get life. **When you get your paycheck, do you look to the Spirit for how to turn this money to best advantage for God’s kingdom, or do you invest it in the field of the flesh for private use?

Exulting in Nothing but the Cross. That is very strange. Like: exultation in the electric chair. Exultation in the gas chamber. Exultation in the lethal injection. Exultation in the lynching rope. That is very strange: exultation in the cross. But that is exactly what is being said here.
If you exult in God, you are exulting in the cross of Christ. Why is this the case? Because for redeemed sinners, every good thing—indeed every bad thing that God turns for good—was obtained for us by the cross of Christ. Apart from the death of Christ, sinners get nothing but judgment. Apart from the cross of Christ, there is only condemnation. Therefore, everything that you enjoy in Christ—everything you boast in, everything you exult in—is owing to the death of Christ. And all your exultation in other things is to be an exultation in the cross where all your blessings were purchased for you at the cost of Christ’s life.

We are sinners and, by nature, children of wrath apart from Christ. So, how did we come to have such a gift for our good? Answer: Christ died for our sins on the cross and took away the wrath of God from us and secured for us, even though we don’t deserve it, God’s omnipotent grace that works everything together for our good. So when I exult, I am exulting in the cross of Christ.

Crucified with Christ Look at the rest of verse 14: Boasting in the cross happens when you are on the cross. Is that not what verse 14 says? The world has been crucified to me, and I have been crucified to the world. The world is dead to me, and I am dead to the world. What? We learn to boast in the cross and exult in the cross when we are on the cross.

Now what does that mean? When were you crucified? The answer is in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” When Christ died, we died. That death, that he died for us all, takes effect as our death when we are united to Christ by faith.

Dead to the World And how can you become that radically cross-centered—so that all your exultation is traced back to the cross? Answer: realize that when Christ died on the cross, you died; and when you trusted him, that death took effect in your life.

Meaning: when you put your trust in Christ your bondage to the world is broken, and the overpowering lure of the world is broken. You are a corpse to the world, and the world is a corpse to you. Or to put it positively, according to verse 15, you are a “new creation.” The old you is dead. A new you is alive. And your faith exults in is not the world, but Christ, and especially, Christ crucified.

The world is no longer my treasure. It’s not the source of my satisfaction and my joy. Christ is.

So are you dead to the world? I could be. I hope I am. Because being dead to the world doesn’t mean going out of the world. And it doesn’t mean not feeling things about the world—some negative and some positive (1 John 2:15; 1 Timothy 4:3). It means that every legitimate pleasure in the world becomes a blood-bought evidence of Christ’s Calvary love and an occasion of boasting in the cross.

Freedom to Love Galatians 5:1-15 at issue was nothing less than the future of the church at Galatia because unless the people returned to their freedom in Jesus and love for each other it would die a slow, painful, and ugly death as brothers and sisters in Christ feasted upon one another in hate.

Christ Has Set Us Free 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Would you rather eat flesh of Men or Fruit of God?

Spirit and Flesh Galatians 5:16-26 The human problem is not that we do not know good, or that we are incapable of even desiring it. Our problem is that we cannot obtain it because we are mastered by our flesh instead of being lead by the Holy Spirit.

Walk by the Spirit 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Listen carefully now. This is utterly important for your life. Yet it is understood by so few. It is possible to undertake the most sacrificial acts and still not please God. Give away all your goods and your own life, too, and come to nothing in God’s eyes. It is possible to be eulogized by the world as the greatest philanthropist or the most devoted martyr and still not please God. Why? Because what pleases God is walking by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit! The great problem in Christian living is not learning the right things to do but how to do the right things. The problem is not to discover what love looks like but how to love by the Spirit. For Paul it is absolutely crucial that, if we came to life by the free and sovereign work of the Spirit, we will learn to walk by the free and sovereign work of the Spirit.

Regeneration is monergistic, God's work alone. Sanctification, the process by which we are made holy, is synergistic, God's work with us.

(Gal. 5:1) The Way of a Slave or the Freedom of a Child A slave tries to become acceptable to his master by presenting him valuable service; but the heir trusts that the inheritance of his father is his by virtue. A slave is never quite sure he has done enough to please his master. A son rests in the standing he has by virtue of his birth.

So in 5:1 Paul reminds the Christians that through Christ, God has adopted them into the freedom of a child. They don’t have to work to get into the family. They don’t have to put themselves in the position of slaves any more. Don’t do that, he says. Why do you want to treat God like an employer instead of a Father?

PRODIGAL SON We are like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son in Lk 15:25–31. You recall how the father with overflowing grace received the broken, contrite, poverty-stricken younger son. The father didn’t make him a slave to earn his way back into favor.

But what was the response of the elder brother? He would not go into the feast. He answered liked the false teachers in Galatia: Hey, these many years I have SERVED you, and I never disobeyed your command …

The elder brother had the mindset of a slave. And as long as he insisted on treating the commandments of his father as a job description for slaves, he would be cut off from Christ.

Christ is at the feast with broken, forgiven sinners who have learned that their service is utterly inadequate. And he invites you to forsake the mindset of a slave and accept the gift of adoption. “To as many as received him to them gave the power to become children of God” (John 1:12).

5:2–3. Rabbis said that the law was a whole, and one had to keep all of it; rejecting any part of it was tantamount to rejecting the whole thing.

5:4. Although most Jews believed that they were born into the covenant by virtue of being Jewish, they recognized that one could be cut off from the covenant by disobey it. But because salvation is only by Christ, Paul declares that seeking it any other way leads to being “cut off”.

5:5–6. The heart which is acceptable to God is not one which depends on its works—whether right wing circumcision or left wing uncircumcision—but rather one which trusts so fully in God’s grace that the result is a life of love. Love is an essential part of the process of salvation. It is not optional whether you love one another. No one can say, “I am saved by faith regardless of whether I love people or not.” For the only faith which saves is “faith working through love”. Saving faith always gives rise to love and love gives evidence of genuine faith.

5:7–8. Ancient writers often compared the moral life to running a race. Paul here speaks of someone “cutting in”, which throws the runners off balance and perhaps out of the race.

5:11. If Paul were simply converting Gentiles to Judaism in the ordinary manner (circumcision for the men, baptism for both men and women), he would not be experiencing Jewish opposition—to which his opponents in Galatia have succumbed (6:12–13).

5:12. “cut off” could mean to cut themselves off from the community, but most think Paul is saying, “While trying to circumcise others, I hope the knife slips and they cut off themselves.”

5:13–14. Paul prefers this summary because this was the summary Jesus offered (Mk 12:31).

5:15. The ancients used the metaphor of being eaten by others as a grotesque description of inconceivable wickedness (cannibalism horrified ancient sensitivities even more than now).

The main point of the text is, “through love be servants of one another.” If you do this, you fulfill the whole law; if you don’t, you destroy yourselves. We are called in our freedom to desire and seek the happiness of others with the same zeal that we seek our own.

5:16. How do you allow the Spirit to control you? I want to try to show you that the answer is, you allow the Spirit to control you by keeping your heart happy in God. The Spirit reigns over the flesh in your life when you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you and now is working everything together for your good.

How, then, do we walk by the Spirit? The answer is plain. We stop trying to fill the emptiness of our lives with a hundred pieces of world, and put our souls at rest in God. The Spirit will work the miracle of renewal in your life when you start meditating on his unspeakable promises day and night and resting in them.

5:17. “Flesh” is human weakness and mortality, and means the best (or worst) anyone can do in himself or herself. Because flesh has nothing in common with God’s power, one can be either a person of the Spirit (a Christian) or a person of the flesh (one who runs his or her own life without depending on God); one cannot have it both ways (5:16, 18).

5:18. Philosophers often said that the wise man needed no laws, because he would simply choose to do what was right by the law written in his heart; the Old Testament also speaks of the law’s being written in one’s heart, a benefit of the new covenant (Jer 31:31–34).

5:19–21. Paul sets up what your flesh is capable of (best).

5:22-23.The Spirit fights against sin not merely in defense but also in attack by producing in Christians the positive attributes of godly character, all of which are evident in Jesus in the Gospels. Love appears first because it is the greatest quality in that it most clearly reflects the character of God. Joy comes in at a close second, for in rejoicing in God's salvation. Christians show that their affections are rightly placed in God's will and his purpose. Peace is the product of God having reconciled sinners to himself, so that they are no longer his enemies, which should result in confidence and freedom in approaching God. Patience shows that Christians are following God's plan and timetable rather than their own. Kindness means showing goodness, generosity, and sympathy toward others. Goodness means working for the benefit of others, not oneself. Faithfulness means consistently doing what one says one will do. Gentleness is a quality Jesus attributes to himself in Matt. 11:29; it enables people to find rest in him and to encourage and strengthen others. Self-control is the discipline given by the Holy Spirit that allows Christians to resist the power of the flesh. Against such things there is no law, and therefore those who manifest them are fulfilling the law.

5:24. Paul nearly always uses verbs in the past tense for this death; one does not die to sin gradually by works, but one accepts one’s completed righteousness by faith and learns to live accordingly (5:19–23).

5:25. “walking by the Spirit” is something the Holy Spirit enables us to do by producing in us strong desires that accord with God’s will. This is what God said he would do in Ezekiel 36:26, 27: A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you … I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. Thus when we “walk by the Spirit,” we experience the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Holy Spirit produces in us desires for God’s way that are stronger than our fleshly desires, and thus he causes us to walk in God’s statutes.

5:26. Paul returns (5:15) to a call to harmony. Eat the fruit of the spirit, not the flesh of circumcision.

We will study Luke 15 for the next few weeks. Hope you can come.

John Stott, writing 27 years ago (I Believe in Preaching, p. 69):

It is difficult to imagine the world in the year A.D. 2000, by which time versatile micro-processors are likely to be as common as simple calculators are today.

We should certainly welcome the fact that the silicon chip will transcend human brain-power, as the machine has transcended human muscle-power.

Much less welcome will be the probable reduction of human contact as the new electronic network renders personal relationships ever less necessary.

In such a dehumanized society the fellowship of the local church will become increasingly important, whose members meet one another, and talk and listen to one another in person rather than on screen. In this human context of mutual love the speaking and hearing of the Word of God is also likely to become more necessary for the preservation of our humanness, not less.