If you’ve been following Lighthouse Teaching for the last few weeks, we have been covering all of our core values that we call “pillars”. We’ve discussed crucifying the flesh, a vital way that we become more like Christ. Walking in step with the Spirit, which is crucial in relating to God, was also a topic of discussion. Last week was all about serving through love, which is meant to be our attitude towards the world, unbelievers and believers alike. The last of our core values is also crucial, and that is to restore in a spirit of gentleness.

To tackle this rarely discussed concept, we want to start by acknowledging that there are two parts to this. To restore, and in a spirit of gentleness, thus I don’t believe we can truly do the first without the second.

Galatians

If you aren’t very familiar with our pillars, then it’s pretty important to note that all of our pillars come from the book of Galatians. If you haven’t read that book, it’s very powerful and gives us clear ways to live as Christians.

The keys point of this book is justification. In Galatians, Paul spends much time arguing that we are justified by faith alone. It is that faith that operates, allowing us to be reconciled with Christ. This is the main point of Galatians.

The reason that it is so powerful, however, is because it shows us a way that we can live in freedom. From that place of freedom, we are shown of ways to live as Christians. The most overlooked of those ways, I believe, is to restore.

Galatians 6:1 tells us this,

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”

This may seem like your typical verse that’s just thrown in there as filler, but it’s a powerful truth. The verse tells us that if anyone is caught in any transgression that we should restore them. To be clear, a transgression is anything that goes against a law or rule, which in this case is the law. Surely, we’re all caught in some form of a transgression. So, this means everyone should be restored, not just unbelievers and not just believers.

So, what does it mean to restore then?

The True Meaning of Restore

When I think of the word “restore” or restoration, I am brought to an image of a house. A really bad looking house, with broken windows, broken doors, broken everything. Then I think of a fixer-upper coming in and fixing the place up. Making the place look clean, complete, and finished.

Maybe you like to think of an old car that was once paint chipping, bumper sagging, and taillight broken. But that is now a beautiful “vintage” car that everyone turns their head to see. Whichever way you view restoration, most would agree that it involves making things look good, and new. Maybe as good as new.

That is how the dictionary would define it as well. The common definition would be to “return someone or something to a former condition, place, or position.” In other words, to bring back the old houses beauty and to make the old car, look good as new. How does this relate to us, however?

The Greek word that is used in Galatians 6:1 is the word, “καταρτίζετε”, which most closely means “to complete, prepare, restore, mend, to get ready”. If we take out restore in that verse, we could look at it as “should complete him in…” or “should prepare him…” and those don’t seem to make much sense. How do we complete them? How are we to prepare them? There is seemingly only one answer that works.

Our Original Design

Let’s go back to the idea of restoring something back to their former self.

When the Lord created the universe, He had a design that he went with and that was the way that we were originally made to be. To clear everything up, this design was Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with him, and it was perfect. They had everything that they should have ever wanted, and it was perfectly how God wanted things to be. It’s impossible to think that a perfect God could make something that isn’t perfect. It just is not possible.

In this Garden, Adam and Eve walked with God, and had authority over the Earth. This was the original design. However, when sin came, and mankind fell into it, we lost the opportunity to walk with God personally, as they did.

Fortunately, Jesus won that back when we died on the cross for our sins. So, we have the opportunity now to walk with God and have both relationship with him, and authority on the Earth. That is, because of another big word, reconciliation.

Restore through Reconciliation

Reconciliation is another rather rare thing to hear taught, though it’s important to our lives as well. The dictionary definition for reconciliation is this: “to restore to friendship or harmony”. You can see there’s a familiar word in there, restore.

The act of reconciliation is simply to restore a relationship. Or in other words, to bring a relationship back to its original design and newness. A couple similar words would be to reunite and bring together again.

You’re probably wondering why this word is randomly mentioned other than its affiliation with restoration. 2 Corinthians 5 gives us insight into why.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).

This passage starts off strong. If anyone is in Christ and has been saved, they are a “new creation”. Which is powerful enough in itself, but then we see that Christ has reconciled himself to us and given that same ministry of reconciliation to us, so that we can share that with others.

Through this reconciliation, we are restored back to our original design of being “with God” through Christ, making us a new creation in Christ Jesus.

Restore to Favor

But there is more in this verse. If we look at the Greek again for this word, “reconciliation”, we can see a very powerful truth.

The Greek for “reconciliation” is the word, “katallagé” which means “restoration to favor.” How powerful is that! Not only have we been reconciled with God, able to walk with them and have relationship with him, but we have also been restored to favor. This is also where Christians are able to exercise this type of ministry.

Looking back at the verse that we started with, Galatians 6:1, we can see that we have the command to restore others in Christ with a spirit of gentleness. This command is to those who are spiritual and for those who are caught in sin.

I believe that the way to restore our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but also, the entire world, is to exercise this ministry of reconciliation. It isn’t necessarily to tell them kind things or to encourage them or do this or do that. But the way that we restore others, is by bringing them back to relationship with Jesus. It is by reconciling them with the Church and Jesus and restoring them back to favor.

There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to try and do that. One way with a spirit of gentleness and one without.

Gentleness

This is another thing in scripture I would typically overlook. “In a spirit of gentleness” sounds like a typically Bible verse, and that is why we always do overlook it. However, take a second to think about the effects of living life in the opposite of gentleness. I imagine that life is full of yelling, fighting, arguing, hate, and lives being changed for the worse. In fact, it seems as though most of the complaints about the church are about Christians being “pushy” and “aggressive”.

While most Christians would mistake their actions for them just being “passionate for the Lord”, there are certainly better ways to act. It’d be much harder to reconcile and restore people to Christ when we’re not being gentleness, as Christ is. So, what does gentleness really look like?

The most popular response to this question would probably be “kindness” or being “nice”, but it’s much deeper than that, or so I believe. Elizabeth George said this,

“Gentleness is strength under control. It is the ability to stay calm, no matter what happens”

Take a tame horse for example. They have so much strength, more than enough to knock you off their back. But they are kept under control and are extremely calm and gentle, enough to allow kids to ride them. That is how we must be for Jesus and for others. Though we can be passionate, we must be able to hold our passion for Jesus and others under control and draw people back to what matters.

Why is this a Pillar?

As a pillar of Lighthouse Teaching, we believe that this is one of the most important things we can do as Christians. It’s not only a very effective way to bring people to Christ and help them know him, but it helps believers as well.

I’ve mentioned this before, but all of our pillars help us to relate to something in a powerful way.

Crucifying the flesh is how we become more like Jesus in ourselves. Putting down and denying ourselves of the worldly pleasures helps us live more like Jesus.

Walking in step with the Spirit is how we relate to God. It is the way that we walk with him and have relationship with him. It also helps us become more like Jesus, therefore becoming more of a light wherever we go.

Serving through love is how we relate to the rest of the world. Jesus served everyone, and in the end, is love, therefore we become more like him, and more of a light by serving the world like him.

I believe that to restore in a spirit of gentleness is also how we relate to others, ourselves, and things like the church and such. There is an original design to everything in life and to bring things and people back to that design, is a ministry we’re all called to. I can’t think of a better way to be a light wherever we go than to restore things back to a perfect design.

Final Thoughts

As we are closing up, I want to reinstate something that was said at the beginning of the post. In order to really restore things back to its original, perfect state, we must live in a spirit of gentleness. Without gentleness, people will not be able to restore others, and will only push others away from it. We must be gentle.

Another reminder to carry you throughout your days is that we are a “new creation”. If you are in Christ, you have been created new and you have the opportunity to walk in the newness of life. Regardless of any situation you are in, you can walk in the new life that Christ has for you and live set free. You have been reconciled with Christ, restored to favor, and made new in Christ Jesus. It’s time to let others in on the great gift that we have!