Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)
We come to the Apostle Paul's description of the spiritual man. This was the desire of the Galatians, to be spiritual, yet like most Christians, they made spirituality about themselves.
You will remember that in the previous passage, Paul warned the Galatians about conceit and envy. This is the danger of spiritual success, the flesh is always beckoning for attention and glory for itself. And, as a result, we can begin to believe that we are special and we do not need God to produce spirituality in and through our lives.
So, the Apostle, in this crescendo chapter, gives us a fourfold description of what the spiritual man looks like. We will only consider the first of these four today.
The first characteristic of the spiritual man is: he mends the broken.
Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.
The picture of the broken here is of one who is trying to get away from sin unsuccessfully. Paul writes, "if someone is caught in a sin..." The picture that Paul is painting here of one who is too slow for sin. The sin is faster and the one caught is being dragged down from behind. This one who is caught by sin is broken, bloody, and suffering greatly by the destruction of sin.
Now, the word the Apostle uses to describe the actions of the spiritual man is quite instructive. Paul uses the word "restore". The Greek word Paul uses here means to reset very carefully as a doctor would reset a compound broken bone. This word is also used of a fisherman who carefully mends a torn fishing net.
Note how the Apostle describes how the restoration should take place: motivated by the Spirit, gently, watchfully, and humbly. The spiritual man is led by the Spirit to have the heart of God toward another. The spiritual man is gentle with the hurting. The spiritual man is watchful for the enemy to trip him up. Finally, the spiritual man is humble. He does not think more of himself when God incredibly uses him in the life of the broken.
Watchman Nee once said, “Attempting to follow God without denying the self is the root of all failures.” It is obvious that God defines spirituality much different than most men would, given that His first description of the spiritual man in Galatians 6:1 is that of a compassionate, humble lover of people in their brokenness.
Finally, this description of the spiritual man is a product of the amount of time he spends with the One who loved us and gave Himself for us while we were at our worst.
