Freedom That Restores — Galatians 6:1–5 | Season 1, Episode 13

Have you ever blown it and wondered who would stick around? Or have you ever watched someone else stumble and felt quietly relieved it wasn't you?

Paul has something to say about both of those moments.

In this episode of the Set Free Stay Free Bible study podcast, host Matt Dawson opens Galatians chapter 6 and Paul lands on something surprising as he closes out his letter. After spending the entire book fighting for freedom, he turns to show what that freedom actually looks like in practice — and it doesn't look like self-righteousness, comparison, or condemnation. It looks like gentleness. It looks like humility. It looks like bearing one another's burdens and helping restore those who fall.

Because freedom, Paul says, isn't proved in isolation. It's shown in how we treat each other.

Using the SOAP method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer), Matt unpacks the critical difference between Holy Spirit conviction and the guilt and shame that comes from our sinful nature — one tears you down and keeps you there, the other lifts you back up. And he asks the church a searching question: are you part of the restoration, or part of the condemnation?

This Galatians Bible study is for anyone who has confused self-righteousness with spiritual maturity — or who needs a reminder that we're all fighting the same battle.

In this episode:

• Why restoration requires gentleness and humility — not judgment
• The difference between Holy Spirit conviction and guilt and shame
• Why comparing yourself to others will never give you real satisfaction
• What it means to be accountable for your own conduct before God
• How bearing one another's burdens fulfills the law of Christ
• A closing prayer for the humility to help restore rather than condemn

📖 Passage: Galatians 6:1–5 (New Living Translation)

🔍 Keywords: Galatians Bible study, Bible study podcast, SOAP method Bible study, Christian Bible study, Scripture-first Bible study, Set Free Stay Free, Matt Dawson, walking through the Bible, Christian discipleship podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Have you ever actually just blown it? And you kind of wondered who would stick around, who would stay? Or have you ever felt tempted to compare yourself with someone else that blew it? And you're just kind of thankful it wasn't, it wasn't you, it wasn't you that did that? Here's the deal. Paul talks about freedom as he's closing out this letter to Galatia. He's he's he's talking about freedom in such a surprising way that it's not freedom because we're better, doing better than everyone else, or that we ourselves have blown it and people are not paying attention or didn't catch it. Paul talks about freedom in a very surprising way. He talks about the idea of walking in freedom, really looks more like gentleness, and it looks like restoring others and bearing one another's burden, even quiet self-examination. As we look at the last part of the letter of Galatia today, we're gonna notice something very different that freedom really does restore us. Welcome to the Set Free, Stay Free, a Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Matt Dawson. We're gonna be looking at Galatians today. Hopefully, you have your Bible with you. We're getting towards the end. We're using the soap framework to walk through scripture, scripture, observation, application, prayer. And uh, if you don't know anything about that, I've made a video and some resources for you. I'll drop in the description below. We're diving into chapter six today, but before we do, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. Just open it up to us, let us see what you want us to see. God, as always, we're trusting in your spirit to do the work in and through our lives. And we pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, we finished episode 11, chapter 5, just understanding what it is to walk with the Spirit, right? To walk in step with the Holy Spirit and what freedom really looks like. But I want to just look at the first five verses of chapter six. Um, it's a very short thing today, but we're gonna look at it and kind of break it down. What are the things God wants us to observe? Verse 1 says, Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back up onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other's burdens, and in this way, obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done. And you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else, for we are each responsible for our own conduct. I think what's important about this chapter is that Paul is coming out of the end of what we call chapter five in terms of what it looks like to live by the Spirit. And if you live by the sinful nature, if you're living by the by the flesh, then it has these sinful result. And I don't, I think Paul doesn't want them to feel like, hey, but what happened? I mean, I blew it yesterday. We were gathered together and reading this letter, and all I could think about was how I just blew it, and then I'm not gonna accept, I'm not gonna be in the kingdom of God anymore because I I totally lived by my flesh to sit you know to satisfy my flesh yesterday. And I think Paul again wants to continue to remind them, not just of grace, but the role of the church and of fellow believers with each other as we encourage and restore one another. See, I think that goes back to the whole point that freedom is not proved in isolation. Freedom is shown by how we treat and love one another. And he starts off by talking about a fellow believer who falls into sin and he calls us. He says, look, do in a gentle way, not in a condemning way, but in a gentle way and humbly help that person up. Why does humility matter? Well, humility matters because if we are truly understanding the war that's within us and we're we're trying to help someone who has stumbled and has fallen, we understand that we are just as likely to do this. Right? Like humility says, look, we are all engaged in this battle, man. We're making choices to satisfy us or the spirit. And at no point do I sit in a place of self-righteousness that I'm gonna judge you for your sin. Okay, and that's not our place anyway. But we understand the fact that look, guys, they failed that, they they failed that battle. Okay, they did. They failed that battle, and it's pretty clear. And so we're gonna go in humility because we we're not all that, and in gentleness to lovely restore them, help them get back on the right path. That's what we're called to do. That's what freedom is supposed to let us do. And it does say, careful not to fall yourself, right? But whatever that temptation might be, maybe it's something that you struggle with. You need to be very careful about that again, with humility, understanding it. It's not apart from the God's grace, like we're all on that path. We're all very susceptible to that. And then he says, when you share one another's burdens in this way, you obey the law of Christ. And this is so important because he's only said this twice so far in the book of Galatians, that they talked about the law, they talked about the Old Testament, the circumcision. And Paul's pretty careful not to use this in the wrong way, but he wants them to understand that the law of Christ, right? This faith expressing itself in love. He goes on earlier to say the two commandments to love your neighbor as yourself and love uh what that looks like in terms of obeying the law of Christ. So he's really careful to use that word in the proper way. This is what this looks like. Even helping one another as we stumble and fall, as we choose the flesh and we lose those battles, it doesn't mean we've lost the war. Matter of fact, Jesus has already won the war on our behalf. And so he goes on and says, we share each other's burdens. And he says, but if you think this is a good challenge, if you think you're too important to help someone, you're fooling yourself, you're not that important. Man, again, I just the call to humility here is to help people with another issue of pride. It's another thing that feeds us, which is self-righteousness, right? We are not that important. It is not all about us. It is not like we are, we are, we are so not going to, well, that's something we would never do. Don't, man, do not set your pride goes before the fall, is what the Old Testament proverb says, right? Don't set yourself up for that kind of failure. And he goes on to say, when you really are paying attention to your work, and he's not probably just talking about your job, okay? He's talking about the work of living out this life. He says, when you when you're paying attention to that, you're not comparing yourself to others. Right? You're you're you want to take satisfaction in the fact that, you know what, today I was doing my very best to live in surrender to the Holy Spirit, to stay in step with the Spirit. But he's basically saying, But again, we're we're tempted to just compare ourselves with others. Well, I did better than Sue today. I did better than Mark today, right? Like that's it's like that's not gonna give you any satisfaction. Not really. That's not really gonna satisfy you. That's just something to make you feel better in the moment. He says, No, I want you to pay attention to this work because the work in you needs to be from you. Why? And then this is a big part. He says, We're responsible. And the better word there would be we're accountable for our own actions. We're not gonna show up in front of our Savior and say, I didn't do that bad. I didn't do as bad as Mark or Sue. Okay, Jesus, you should be proud. No, it's it's very much like, okay, Matt, but I gave you all the gifts, talents, abilities, fruit of the Spirit. I gave you, I deposited all that in you. What did you do with what I gave you? What did you do in terms of the work of your life that I gave you? I don't care that you think you did better than Mark and Sue. You're going to be accountable, right? You're going to be accountable for your own conduct, for the way in which we live. Matt, you're going to be accountable for living and the freedom that I set you to be free in. Guys, that's a huge continual call, echoing the words of Christ, right? When he gives those talents and the master comes home, said, What did you do with what I gave you? What did you do with what I entrusted to you? This is just a few verses where Paul's like, guys, the church in Galatians, what are you doing? What are you doing with the freedom that God's given you? I know I'm already told you he set you free to stay free, stay free from slavery to the law. Don't let this false teaching take you aside. But still, that freedom looks like loving one another, not the division. Again, he talked about the devouring and the biting and the fighting and the quarreling. It's like that's not what this is. Guys, help each other, bear each other's burdens. You're the family of God. Like, help each other out. Do it with gentleness, not condemnation. Do it with humility. There's no self-righteousness allowed. And I just love that challenge, even in this first five verses, of what freedom looks like. Freedom should be something that restores us to Christ. I tell people all the time, some people have asked me the difference internally as to what sometimes when they sin or when they stumble and fall, that they feel bad, that they that they struggle. And again, if they understand the war that's fighting, you're going to have the flesh and the enemy of your heart trying to guilt and shame you to tear you down because of the things you've done, even though he led you into those things. Then you have the Holy Spirit, which is going to convict you. Okay, which means it's like anything else. It would be like breaking a bone to reset it properly, if that makes any sense. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is not done to tear us down, even though momentarily we're going to feel the weight of our sin. We're going to feel the weight of that. But because of God's grace, the Holy Spirit that convicts us builds us up in Christ. Right? This is where peace comes. This is where the love comes. This is where grace comes. And I tell people, that's one of the primary ways you can tell the difference between conviction of the Holy Spirit. Sorry, over here, conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the guilt and shame that comes from our sinful nature. Right? They want you to stay down. The Holy Spirit wants you to come up. And the question I would have, and this is what Paul's asking the church, is are you going to be a part of the Holy Spirit's work to help restore people who stumble and fall? Are you going to be a part of in gentleness and humility, part of the restoration of someone who fell and someone who sinned and someone who's struggling? And say it's okay. I mean, God's told you if you've confessed, you've forgiven, okay. Let's, what does it look like to get up? What does it look like to go forward another day? What does it look like to move in restoration, to be restored? Because that's the work the Holy Spirit is doing. And so sometimes I I struggle because Christians sometimes are the least humble, the least gentle with other Christians who fail and who fall. We're the least why? Because you should know better. You should know better. So it's condemning and it plays, I believe, into what the flesh and our enemy wants us to do is to feel the guilt and the shame. And that's what you sh that's what you need in order to feel really sorry about this and to change your life. That is not how the Holy Spirit works. That is not what conviction looks like. Paul in the Romans said, it is his kindness that leads us to repentance. Just think about that. That it's kindness of God that is supposed to lead us back into like I failed and I want to go see my Heavenly Father. I want to be in His presence versus what most people I failed. God's going to be mad because the church is mad, because other Christians are mad, because the and I'm going to run away from God. Freedom shows that we're going to be a part of the work of the Holy Spirit. If we really are living in step with the Holy Spirit, this shouldn't be a challenge because the Holy Spirit is going to prompt us to help restore and help people up who have fallen. And then we ourselves are not going to just compare ourselves to being better than Mark and Susan. Right? We're not going to, that's not going to be how we're going to live out this freedom in Christ. We're going to understand that we're responsible and accountable for what he's given us and how we live. And we're going to do that in a way that shares the burden of this internal battle, not just of you, you got your own battle, but you know the brothers and sisters in Christ around you are fighting their battles as well. How can we be a part of the restoration? How can the freedom that He's given us help restore those to God? It's a great question to end with today. Let's pray. Father God, I just pray that you would actively, by your Spirit, be kind of pointing things out in our heart and life that would just really begin to tear down the self-righteousness or the condemnation that sometimes we feel about other Christians who have fallen, who have stumbled, who may be misled, as Paul was dealing with this whole church that was being misled. And God, what does it look like for our freedom to help restore others? That we might be a part of the Holy Spirit. Again, fulfilling the law of Christ as we share one another's burdens and we restore each other back to faith. God, I pray that you would give us opportunities today to express that humility and gentleness, to help others around us. We're all fighting the same battle, God. And we're all praying for your Holy Spirit to give us the strength to win more battles than we lose and to continue to walk in freedom. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Thank you guys again. We're moving towards our last episode and going to finish strong in the book of Galatians. Don't forget to rate, review, like, reply, engage, comment. I think I said all the words. Love you guys. Have a great day.