Facing Reality

Galatians 5:25-6:10

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.  Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.  Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another.  For each one shall bear his own load.  And let the one who is taught the word share all good things with him who teaches.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.  For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.  And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.  So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity                                      9/28/25

Facing Reality

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Everyone has heard of the shell game.  You may never have played it – I haven't – but you have probably seen it played on television.  The point of the shell game is misdirection.  You are intended to think you saw something you did not, that the pea or the little ball is under a shell that it is not actually under.  Some people play the game as a scam, taking the ball into their hand without being seen to do so, and then no matter which shell you choose, you have been deceived.

The Christian faith and life are a great deal like the shell game for many people.  For some it seems as though it is misdirection and for others it is a scam.  The longer we wait for Christ to return, the more years that pile up between then and now, and the greater the technological distance between the world in which Jesus walked and the world in which we live, the easier it is to be deceived, the more difficult it becomes to keep from allowing ourselves to be deceived.  But our text tells us not to be deceived.  Each part of our text speaks about dealing with reality as it is.  Our theme, in the light of this emphasis, is "Facing Reality."

In every sermon, I try to find the gospel in the text.  I frequently take passages that you have always thought talked about good works and showed you, hopefully clearly, that they were talking about faith and trust and doctrine, and not about your good deeds at all.  I cannot do that this morning.  This text is about your behavior.  It is about the way you live your life and how you treat one another as those who claim to be Christians, the elect and precious of God the Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In our text, the Gospel is presupposed.  That is because there are two type of righteousness for every Christian.  There is the righteousness which they may possess – and do possess, in fact, if they are truly Christians – in the eyes of God.  Then there is the righteousness which they may possess in the eyes of their fellow man.  The Gospel is primarily about how we stand before God.  We stand justified and forgiven, in connection with Jesus Christ.  The second sort of righteousness draws its motivation from the Gospel, but it is something that we do.  It is how we deal with our fellow-Christians, and fellow-man in general.

In this text, Paul is writing to Christians, and those who style themselves as Christians.  He is writing about what the Christian faith means to how they live their lives, and how they treat one another.  He issues a stern warning, a warning it is my duty as Pastor to communicate to you.  The warning is that Christians must not allow themselves to be deceived, or fool themselves into thinking that what is not godly is actually okay for them.  Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.  In other words, it is about facing reality.

This epistle is written to Christians.  The basic warning is true for everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, but Paul was writing to those who confess the Christian faith.  That is clear from the first verse of the text: If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.  Only those that believe live by the Spirit, and only those who live by the Spirit may believe, for No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.  Those who live by the Spirit are Christians.  And what Paul is saying here is that only those who walk by the Spirit are Christians.  Confess Christ all you want, if you do not walk by the Spirit, that is, if your life is not guided by the Holy Spirit of God, any confession of being Christian, or following Christ, is hypocritical. 

You cannot know, without the enlightening by the Spirit, what a sinner you are, how tremendous and terrible your sin really is.  If you know these things, you cannot then hold up another man as worse than you.  You cannot actually believe that your burden of sin has been taken by Christ, forgiven, and that Jesus died on account of your sins, and then refuse to forgive someone else.  You cannot look at the cross, the price paid for your sin and rebellion, and then be peaceful and comfortable with your unwillingness to forgive.  You cannot understand or believe the love which God has for you and has poured out on you, and then not be moved by it in such a way that the same love starts leaking out of you onto others.

Don't let anyone fool you – and don't kid yourself.  Face reality.  God cannot be fooled – and God is not mocked.  You cannot take from His hand all the good and the blessings He bestows and then act as if it was all by your doing, and that it is all there for merely for your purposes.  That would be mocking God.  He doesn't allow that, not for long.

Your sins have been forgiven.  What a great thing!  But God didn't just brush your sins under the rug and pretend you didn't do them.  He poured out His wrath against you and your sins, but He poured it out on Jesus.  He paid a tremendous price for what you have done, the sins you have committed, the unfaithfulness, the selfishness, the prejudices, the pride, the violence, the immoralities, the grumbling and the gossip.  You know what they are.  You did them – you still do some of them at times.  Jesus died for all of that.  You are forgiven, freely, but it comes at an enormous cost – the very life of the Son of God Himself.

If you believe that, begin by facing reality, then live that reality out.  God isn't fooled by hypocrisy.  He can see right through a good front and pious words.  Your life and your values and your attitudes are either shaped by God's great goodness to you, that is to say that they are shaped by the Spirit of God dwelling in you, or they are shaped by your flesh.  And your flesh is shaped and controlled by Satan.  Your life will either reflect that you trust God, as our Gospel lesson points out, or it will show the world that you do not.  The Gospel says not to worry – God is with you, and He knows you.  He is there so intimately involved that He knows the number of hairs on your head.  He is so close that seemingly insignificant birds are fed daily.  Even the grass of the field has His attention.  If you really believe that this God loves you, and you really trust in Him, live it out.

Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.  We are not in a competition, at least, not with one another.  We are a family, each one is given to care about the others – all of the others.  Some things we may do will work to strengthen our faith, and some things we may do will work to strengthen our flesh.  Pride, gossip, strife within the church serve the flesh, not the body of Christ.  Patience with error, with false teachings, and with unfaithful church practices also sow to the flesh.  But when we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption.  And "corruption" is just a Biblical euphemism for death and hell.

We want, rather, to sow to the Spirit.  We want to do those things which reflect and re-enforce our confidence in God and our trust in His love and goodness.  Paul doesn't tell us everything we could do, but gives us examples. He mentions restoring one caught in a trespass.  That means church discipline – starting with one-on-one, face to face confrontation with anyone that is caught up in what is wrong – anger, gossip, immorality, anything we might call a "trespass".  Restoring them is calling them back, and loving them as a fellow-member of the body of Christ by helping them to face reality and not allowing them quietly to slip away from us, or from the truth.  Some sins are so common that we are often minded to just ignore them.  Gossip is one of those.  Anger is another.  Unforgiveness is another.  They are easier to ignore than to confront.  But if we don't confront them, they will ultimately prove deadly to the sinner, and often damaging to the whole congregation as well.

Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the Law of Christ.  That is what we are doing when we confront sin.  Sin is a pain and a burden.  We also do this when we share someone else's sorrow, listen to their fears and pray with them.  We bear their burdens when we reach into the abundance of our own blessings and give to our brother or sister in Christ that thing which we have that they need at the moment.  And this not limited to physical things either.  Bearing their burden is what we do when we forgive them as we have been forgiven by Christ.  

This burden bearing is not accomplished just by giving them our money, like Habitat for Humanity or Citizens Against Domestic Violence.  Don't get me wrong, supporting charities like those is decent thing to do – but bearing one another's burdens is not about taking care of the whole world, it is about taking care of one another – fellow believers, fellow members of the congregation, or this circuit, or our Synod.  The group covered by the words "one another" starts just outside of your skin, and radiates out in concentric circles, but it is focused particularly on fellow believers, brothers and sister in Christ.  So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

It is a big job.  It is mind-numbingly unending.  It means thinking all of the time, and thinking about the other guy, the others members of our family here, and our regular visitors.  It means facing reality, thinking about them in the light of God's goodness to us, individually.  It means acting toward them on the basis of our forgiveness – and our salvation – and our trust that God will never leave us nor forsake us, but will always give us all that we need, both physically and spiritually, to survive and hold on until everlasting life.  This care for one another is never ending.  Which explains why Paul exhorts us – and let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.  Weary is easy and natural.  But we reap what we sow.  If we sow from faith and hope, we reap what God pours out on faith and hope.  If we sow from a sense of exhaustion and self pity, we reap what grows in that rocky and selfish soil.

Face reality.  God isn't fooled, and He is not mocked – He does not allow us to claim the prize if we quit the race early.  But the race is really quite short, if you think about it.  Short as life is, the race can still be tiring, which is why God has given us this holy meal, which rests on the altar this morning.  He gives us His true body and the very blood once shed for us for our refreshment and strengthening, for our forgiveness and edification.  He never leaves us without a hope and a comfort, and this is our comfort and our strength – the body once crucified, the blood once shed for us, now given to us to eat and drink hidden under the form of the bread and wine.  With this He gives us our unity and our family.  With it He gives us new strength and fills us again with His Spirit.

And, if we live by the Spirit (and we do) let us also walk by the Spirit.  Let us sow to the Spirit the seeds of our attitudes and prejudices and actions.  Let us bear one another's burdens, and be patient with each other.  Each man will give account to God for himself.  Just live in Christ the way you will want Christ to see you live in Him.  We never know exactly what is inside another, or what troubles and temptations they bear – each one does bear their own load.  So we want to be patient with one another, and forgiving, as God has been patient and forgiving with us, and so fulfill the law of Christ, which is the law of love.

Remember, facing reality goes two ways.  God will not be confused or deceived by hypocrisy – but He will also not be confused or deceived by the world.  His people shall be blessed and protected, fed and sheltered and finally brought home to eternal life.  The one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.

You may have noticed that there is one line in this text I have not preached.  I have rarely preach it because I don't know how to preach it without sounding self-serving.  But it, too, is the Word of God.  So, I will simply read it – it is clear and easy to understand.  And I will let you make of it what you will.  And let the one who is taught the word share all good things with him who teaches.

Life is often much like the shell game - confusing, distracting, deceiving.  It helps if we start with what we know, and face reality from the basis of the faith we confess.  Instead of trying to unravel the deceits of the world, we should keep our eyes on the Gospel, and live our lives facing reality.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

  (Let the people say Amen)