At Christchurch W4 Turnham Green on 20 November 2025 for the 12:00 Communion Service

It’s great to be together with you. I’ve just been in Jersey for a symposium looking at the phenomenon of religious nationalism. At the beginning of Psalm 2, the psalmist says: “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.’ But the one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger, saying, ‘I have installed my King.’ ”

The connection between that psalm and today’s passage —and indeed the whole book of Galatians—  is a stark reminder that whatever is going on in our nations, in our companies, or in whatever other organisations we are part of, we are not simply to be people who do everything everyone else does, only being a bit nicer. It’s not just that we don’t have affairs with our secretary, or that we smile at the cleaner, or that we give some of what we earn to charity. It’s far more radical than that.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer—and we’ll pray it in just a few moments—we don’t pray, “Make our kingdom greater,” but “Lord, your kingdom come.” God’s kingdom works on different rules. His way of doing things is completely different. Jesus says that if you want the new wine, you will need a new wineskin to put it in. And that, I think, is both the challenge and the comfort running all the way through the book of Galatians, which we’re coming to the end of today. 

So however great things might be in any organisation, nation, or society we belong to, we are reminded that we are called as a people—from different nations, businesses, walks of life, and backgrounds—to give our primary allegiance to the kingdom of God. The kingdom is not just a different kingdom; it is a different kind of kingdom.

You might summarise the whole book of Galatians with chapter 2, verse 16: “A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” That’s radical. That’s not how the world works. In every country, you normally have to prove your worth. But the good news is that God doesn’t treat us as slaves who must continually measure up—that’s what the world does. God instead adopts us as his children, loves us unconditionally, and looks not to our works but to the work of Jesus Christ. That is our starting point.

Someone explained to me over the summer—he had been asked to mentor some teenage boys—that so many people spend their whole lives trying to earn their father’s blessing. But the good news is that in Christ we have already received our Father’s blessing, and so it is in the light of that blessing that we are to live our lives.  This is the message that Paul has been building throughout Galatians. The things we do—the way we behave, like the things he asks of us in these opening verses of chapter 6—are to be the result of our secure identity as beloved children of our Father in heaven. We don’t do these things in order to receive his blessing. We do them because of his blessing

Chapter 5 laid this out in contrasts: between law and faith, between flesh and Spirit, and between works and fruit. As Paul is wrapping up the letter, listing instruction after instruction, it’s important we don’t miss the whole point he has been reinforcing again and again. It’s not by works—it’s by faith. So don’t read chapter 6 as just a list of things to do. The key is in verse 26: “Let us not become conceited.” Or proud, boastful, arrogant—or, if you go back 400 years, vainglorious.

It’s an old-fashioned sounding word, vainglory, but it has actually never been fashionable, because vainglory is simply how the world works. And that is not how things work in the kingdom.

The image you can hold onto is the contrast between a shiny Christmas bauble—which we’re about to see far too many of—and a piece of really juicy fruit. Choose your favourite fruit; for me it’s probably a mango, a proper African mango that’s worth eating. Think of the life, juiciness, and nourishment that come from the fruit, compared with the fun, shiny, but hollow, fragile, easily crushed bauble that gets packed away in January. That is a visual picture of the contrast Paul has been making—wrapped up in this word vainglory.

Why is this so important? Because Scripture talks constantly about glory: the glory of God, and the glory God gives to us—those made in his image, chosen, blessed, redeemed, restored, and sanctified.  And Paul says: don’t miss the real thing for the sake of a shiny bauble. Don’t chase after the empty glory the world pursues. Fix your eyes on the real glory—on the real fruit.

In Hebrew thought, glory isn’t just shiny gold or bright light. Paradoxically, it is bound up with heaviness. Glory is weighty, solid, substantial. It’s not fluff. It’s a rock you can stand on. And the gospel is that this glory is given, not earned. The glory that is earned is the Christmas bauble: hollow, empty, vain. So stop chasing after that, and stand instead on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and the good news that you are loved—and act from that.

That is really the message. So let me skim for a moment through why this is the key to the passage.

Paul says: if you avoid vainglory, if you live by the Spirit, if you stand on the true glory God gives—if that is where you set your heart—then you become secure. And secure people don’t need to push themselves forward and puff themselves up, which is annoying for everyone else. That’s why he says, “Don’t provoke one another.” And you won’t feel insecure either, thinking, “Oh, I’m not as good as they are,” and putting yourself down, envying others. That’s the other half of verse 26.

Instead, when you see someone struggling, you won’t think, “Well, I’m much better than they are, so look at me being magnanimous.” You will help them out of compassion and out of security. That’s what he calls us to in 6:1—remembering that tomorrow we may be the one who needs restoring.

When someone is carrying something heavy, we come alongside and lift the other end of the table. We don’t leave them to it, because we think too highly of ourselves. We know we are redeemed children acting from security, not trying to earn it. So we don’t say, “That job is beneath me.” Instead, we take a sober look at ourselves. God has made us all different, has given each of us different kinds of glory, brought us into a community to make our contribution—not to envy someone else’s, nor to elevate ours above theirs.

That’s why we’re called not only to share burdens (v.2), but also to carry our own load (v.5). If we don’t, the whole body misses out. And that might include financially supporting others (v.6)—especially those who keep us in step with the Spirit when the world is constantly dangling shiny baubles to draw us away.

Paul goes on: don’t be deceived (v.7). Keep your eyes where they should be. Remember that fruit does not appear instantly (vv.8-9). You can pull a bauble out of the loft on 1 December and—bing—there it is. But fruit grows through roots going deep, through patience, through continually re-establishing ourselves where our focus should be. And then the fruit will come, in season and out of season, just as much a gift as our adoption as God’s children in the first place.

Tim Keller summarises this attitude well: it’s not about thinking more of ourselves (that’s the provoking bit) or less of ourselves (that’s the envying bit), but about thinking of ourselves less. Our security, identity, and contribution to the community are rooted in the glory of God.

And so we come to the table, re-establishing our connection to the Lord who loves us unconditionally and has saved us eternally.