The church is not a place for those people who have it all figured out. It is not a place for people who have their lives in order and their problems, addictions and bad habits kicked. So often people think that in order to become a Christian or go to church your life has to be pretty much cleaned up. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I would say that Christianity is the place you need to be especially if you are having a difficult time with anything in life. Biblically, this is exactly what we see going on. The Bible is a book full of filthy scumbag sinners who repeatedly turn their backs on God and to whom God graciously sends His Son to die for. There is a name in the Bible for those folks (church folks especially) who think they have it all figured out and believe they are basically "good, clean-living people". They are called Pharisees. During his ministry Jesus was constantly in conflict with these “good, clean-living, law abiding” people and it was the same group of people who eventually called for Jesus’ crucifixion. Speaking of the Pharisees Jesus says:
“You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
Jesus did not come for those people who believed they had it all figured out and were earning their way into heaven by the "good" lives they lead. He came for the sick. When the Pharisees were hassling Jesus because he was always hanging out and eating and drinking with the low-life’s Jesus replied to them:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
In one of his parables Jesus tells the story about a Pharisee who thinks he is righteous because of his “clean living” and a tax collector who realizes that he is depraved, a sinner:
“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
How did these Pharisees, or church people, deal with those whom they perceived to be “dirty sinners”? They dealt with them very harshly and in a cruel manner. In our verse today Paul tells us to deal with those “caught in any transgression”, or sin, with “a spirit of gentleness.” Also, and most importantly, the goal of confronting anyone who is sinning is restoration to a right relationship with God through repentance. Paul tells us of a person caught in sin that we are to “restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” Jesus modeled this for us when the Pharisees brought him a woman who had been caught in adultery:
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Jesus dealt with this woman with a spirit of gentleness. Notice he did not say that it was OK that she had been caught in adultery. He did not make excuses for her or condone her behavior. He recognized that she was in sin, told her she was in sin and told her to knock it off.
Paul then goes on to say “Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” Pharisees, or church people, tend to always point out the sin in others while ignoring the sin that is eating them alive. Paul is telling the Galatians to make sure they are not so busy examining everyone else’s life looking for sin that they don’t examine themselves and remove any sin they are in. Jesus also warns us of this:
“For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
In his book, "The Reason for God", Tim Keller puts it much better than I ever could:
"A central message of the Bible is that we can only have a relationship with God by sheer grace. Our moral efforts are too feeble and falsely motivated to ever merit salvation. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has provided salvation for us, which we receive as a gift. All churches believe this in one form or another. Growth in character and change in behavior occur in a gradual process after a person becomes a Christian. The mistaken belief that a person must ‘clean up’ his or her own life in order to merit God’s presence is not Christianity. This means, though, that the church will be filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually. As the saying has it: ‘The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.’
… Now imagine that someone with a very broken past becomes a Christian and her character improves significantly over what is was. Nevertheless, she still may be less secure and self-disciplined than someone who is so well adjusted that she feels no particular need for religious affiliation at all. Suppose you meet both of these women the same week. Unless you know the starting points and life journeys of each woman, you could easily conclude that Christianity isn’t worth much, and that Christians are inconsistent with their own high standards. It is often the case that people whose lives have been harder and who are ‘lower on the character scale’ are more likely to recognize their need for God and turn to Christianity. So we should expect that many Christians’ lives would not compare well to those of the nonreligious (just as the health of people in the hospital is comparatively worse than people visiting museums).”
So what is the point of Galatians 6:1? Recognize that the church is a place for sick, sinful people and that you are one of them. Deal with each others sin gently but make sure you deal with it. And don’t examine other people for sin until you have first looked at your own sin, and repented of it.
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