Alright, well, go ahead and make your way back to your seats.
And let's open our Bibles to the book of Galatians.
It's good to all be together in the same service.
This is exciting.
It was great to be able to hear the voices of God's people singing together in worship
to the Lord.
This microphone is going to distract me this whole time if I don't move that thing.
That's way in the way.
Let me get that out of the way.
Galatians 6 is where we'll be.
If you're new, my name is Joe.
I have the privilege of being one of the pastors here.
I would love to meet with you, connect with you after service.
And just to give a little more clarity on a few of the announcements, we're partnering
with Bartow Family Resource Center.
We did this last year.
We're doing it this year really to kind of adopt some families in the community that
may be not as fortunate as we are and to give some gifts to those families as a way of displaying
and hopefully declaring the gospel to them.
It's a pretty simple task.
You grab an ornament, it has a gift.
You get the gift, you bring it back with the ornament so we can keep it organized next
Sunday.
We have a few weeks, so maybe if you can't do it this week, do it next week.
I think we're going to try to get those turned in by the second Monday in December.
And also, if you're interested in learning more about who we are as a church, membership,
we do have a class.
Sawyer made reference to it.
We have childcare available.
We do just ask that you sign up so we can prepare.
You can go to our website, rhccartersville.com, and you'll see it there.
If you have the app, the Church Center app, you can go to the app store, get the Church
Center app.
We have all of our signups and communication on there as well, so that's one way that you
can sign up.
So if you have downloaded our digital study guide on our website, you would have noticed
that today we're supposed to get through verse 10 of chapter 6, but after much prayer, that's
not going to happen.
We're going to get through verse 5, and I'm thankful for Nathan for stepping in and filling
in the pulpit last week.
He did a phenomenal job of really showing us this conflict we have between our flesh
and the spirit that indwells us and leaving us comforted by the gospel.
He did a phenomenal job.
So Nathan, I don't know if you're here.
I think you're here somewhere.
He's probably upstairs.
I'm going to tell him thank you for feeding us.
Yes, yes.
Give him a...
So my task this morning is going to be Galatians 6 verses 1 through 5.
Galatians 6 verses 1 through 5.
As you're turning there, let me read you this.
Feeling called to live a life focused solely on spirituality, Sister Rachel Denton is a
Catholic hermit in the UK.
She took vows as a diocesan hermit under the guidance of the Catholic Church.
Listen to her daily life.
Living a life of spirituality, Sister Denton lives a life revolving around prayer and meditation
and study and writing with minimal contact with the outside world.
She lives in a house and not in a cave or a desert like the monks of old.
She does the same things that they do.
She practices deep isolation and simplicity.
She seeks spiritual union with God in her solitude.
She occasionally connects with others, not in person though.
She does through email or social media.
She rarely leaves her home and she depends on donations to sustain her modest lifestyle.
She is a modern hermit.
Sister Rachel Denton.
You know her life raises an important question.
What does it look like to live by the Spirit?
Does it look like isolation away from the outside world?
Every day in solitude and prayer and meditation.
I mean not that prayer and meditation on scripture is bad, but is that what living by the Spirit
looks like?
It's with that in mind we read Paul's words.
Remember last week Paul told us that we're in this conflict as believers who are walking
in the freedom of the gospel.
This conflict between the flesh and the Spirit.
And what he's going to show us now is concrete evidence.
What does it look like to live by the Spirit?
Here's God's word to us this morning through the pen of the apostle Paul beginning in verse
1.
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in
a spirit of gentleness.
Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.
Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing he deceives himself.
But let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone
and not in his neighbor.
For each will have to bear his own load.
This is God's word.
Let's pray.
Father, we come to you again in prayer asking that you through your Holy Spirit would illuminate
this word to us in our hearts and our minds.
We thank you for not leaving us in darkness but revealing yourself to us through your
word.
Condescending and putting on flesh to rescue ruined sinners through the work of your Son.
May that word go forth this morning.
Would you get me out of the way?
Would you minister to the hearts of your people through the preaching of your word?
Would you point us to Jesus this morning and remind us of what life in the Spirit looks
like?
We thank you.
We need you desperately.
May your word go forth in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So what does it look like to live by the Spirit?
Does it look like Sister Rachel Nitton's life of solitude if we consider the words of Paul
in chapter 6 verses 1 through 5?
But perhaps today before you came and you were thinking about life in the Spirit, somebody
asked you what does life in the Spirit look like?
Perhaps you would have connected that to a degree of spiritual gifts.
You know, you've got to be a really gifted person to be living in the Spirit.
Maybe you would have connected it to more of the miraculous gifts or speaking in tongues
or something of that nature, maybe the gifts of knowledge and wisdom, the ability to teach.
But here we see Paul's not talking about giftedness here.
Every believer has a gift.
We've talked about spiritual gifts when we walked through 1 Corinthians.
That's, and I'm not diminishing spiritual gifts, nor am I diminishing time alone with
the Lord in prayer, solitude.
I do think that that's important.
Those have their purposes, but a life lived in the Spirit isn't necessarily evidenced
by the degree of giftedness one has.
Here we see a life lived in the Spirit is actually evidenced by being in what we would
call biblical community.
It's being engaged in the messiness of everyday life with other people.
That's what living by the Spirit looks like.
We can say it like this for the note takers out there, living by the Spirit is looking
outward in love while looking inward in humility.
If we considered all of these verses, verses 1 through 5, and put them in a sentence, it
would be this, living by the Spirit is looking outward in love while looking inward in humility.
Now we're in chapter 6 of Galatians.
Some of you are new.
You weren't here for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, or maybe even 5, right?
Paul has laid out before this church that has been duped since he planted these churches
by these false teachers that there is one gospel, and the gospel is this, that God came
down in human flesh to live a life we couldn't live, to die a death we deserved to die.
He rose in victory, and that is imputed to us by what?
Faith alone.
We are made righteous solely by the work of Christ, not by anything that we have done.
There's no additive needed to the gospel.
That was his argument in the first half of this book.
That was his indicative.
We are righteous by faith alone, in Christ alone, and that's where true freedom is found.
True freedom is found, right?
Christ has redeemed us from the market of idolatry, the slave market of idolatry.
Why would we go back to the same slave market and just package it under legalism, right?
That was kind of his argument there in chapter 4, and then we moved into chapter 5, and he
reminded the church of true freedom, and true freedom isn't using freedom just for freedom's
sake.
It's actually using freedom to serve others.
Free people love people, and then last week Nathan reminded us in verses 16 through 26
that we are at war as believers.
We live out freedom because we have the indwelling Holy Spirit inside of us, but we also have
the indwelling sin, the flesh, and there are fruits of sin, but there's the fruit of the
Spirit.
And so we considered last week what the Spirit does in the life of a believer, and this week
we'll consider how that looks, the concrete evidence for living by the Spirit.
That's where we're going this morning.
So my outline is simple, three outworkings of living by the Spirit.
We'll see in verse 1, the first is this.
If you're living by the Spirit, you repair wonders.
Now what do I mean?
Paul says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should
restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.
Notice Paul's language has shifted.
He's not perplexed, although he is, but he's not as upset as he was earlier in the letter.
They're not fools.
They're brothers.
They're brothers and sisters.
They're family.
Paul's concerned.
He cares about these Galatians.
Notice he says, if anyone, underline that, is caught in, underline, any transgression,
sin.
Paul is implying a reality that we all know to be true.
Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean sin gives up the battle.
Christians still sin.
It shouldn't surprise us that we scroll on social media and we see a well-known pastor
caught in sin.
Shouldn't surprise us that we have a friend that's a professing believer and has been
for a long time caught in sin.
And sin.
But Paul's going to tell us how we deal with that sin.
The word caught in the Greek is a word that literally means to be taken by surprise, to
be caught off guard.
What Paul is doing is he's highlighting a practice in the church that we call church
discipline.
Church discipline.
Maybe you're new to Christianity.
Maybe you're new to the church.
And you heard the word discipline and that didn't sit quite well with you.
What do you mean discipline?
It's actually a good thing.
Discipline's a good thing.
Right?
Just like in a home, discipline's healthy for your children.
Discipline's a good thing in the church.
And here's the deal.
We're all being disciplined as Christians.
Right now you're actually being disciplined by the Holy Spirit through the Word.
All of us are being disciplined in what we would call a formative way.
We're being formed into the image of Christ as we're convicted of our sin, as we daily
repent of that.
But at times there needs to be more discipline.
And we call that corrective discipline.
When a brother or sister is not repentant.
When they're wandering away in sin.
And it is the responsibility of the church body to pursue that individual.
That's what Paul is talking about.
We would say Jesus gives this prescription for a healthy church in Matthew 18 verses
1 through 5.
We're going to go there in a moment.
We're talking about step one, the first step.
And if we execute the first step the right way by God's grace through the work of the
Holy Spirit, hopefully there's not step two.
You with me?
There's not step two.
So discipline is not a bad thing because Christians are going to sin.
They're going to be caught off guard.
They're going to be deceived.
We read a text from Genesis 4 that likened sin to a lion ready to pounce on its prey.
Let's first understand this.
Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're immune from sin.
And if you're not vigilant in your battle with sin, if you're lax, oh you will be caught
off guard.
I'll use a sports analogy because college football is so crazy this year.
You know what?
The sun came up, Dawgs fans.
The sun came up today.
But it is kind of a crazy season, right?
I mean, every Saturday there's an upset.
Because why?
Because superior opponents are not taking serious inferior opponents.
And by the time the third and fourth quarter roll around, you've got a game and then you
get an upset.
Sin, if you do not take sin serious before you know it, you will be walking in it.
Beware.
So that's going to happen.
What do we do when that happens?
Paul says you who are spiritual, restore him.
Now what Paul is not doing is saying there's a certain category of Christians who are responsible
for executing this discipline.
Paul's not into that.
Paul's not into creating divisions in the church.
There's not a spiritual elitist club.
Who are those who are spiritual?
Those who have the indwelling Holy Spirit in them.
If you're a Christian, he's talking to you.
He's talking to you.
You don't get out of this.
By the way, church discipline isn't merely to be executed by the elders.
It's not how it works.
It can get to that point.
This happens on the ground.
The elders might not ever even know about it.
Hopefully.
You who are spiritual, you're living in step with the Spirit.
You get this privilege.
It's a privilege.
And it's an obligation for the purity of the church, for the defense of the gospel, for
the glory of God, for your good and the good of the wonder to participate in this.
And Paul tells how, right?
Here's where we really have to lean into.
How do we do this?
He gives two tools.
Notice he says, it should be done in a spirit of what?
Gentleness.
Didn't we see that word last week?
What does the flesh produce?
What does the Spirit produce?
The fruit of the Spirit.
Nathan did an excellent job of showing us those traits.
They're not fruits of the Spirit.
If you're indwelt by the Spirit, you can't say, I'm a patient person, but I'm not a gentle
person.
You might exercise more patience than gentleness at times, but you have gentleness in you because
you have the Holy Spirit in you who is a gentle God.
He told us that these are all produced by a heart that's unified because of the regenerating
work of the Holy Spirit.
Again, maybe not perfectly, but they're there.
So this would make sense.
If you're a spiritual person, you would restore this person exercising a fruit of the Spirit.
Gentleness, which means if you're ever in a situation where you're confronting another
brother or sister in sin and you're deeply concerned and you go to them, the first thing
you probably should not say is, I cannot believe that you would have done something as stupid
as this.
Or I would have never done that.
Or what were you thinking?
Those are probably not the first words you should lead with.
Why?
Well, that's not very gentle.
And then notice what he says next, keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
So the first way that we go about discipline is in gentleness, and the second way is in
humility.
Humility.
I do think it's important to note that the purpose of this type of discipline is not
punitive.
It's not punitive.
The word restore here is actually the Greek word used to describe the mending of fishing
nets.
And it was actually used to describe a medical process of repairing a broken bone, resetting
the bone back in place.
It's healing.
And it's needed.
And the way that we go about it is gentleness and humility.
Now why would Paul say, keep a watch out on yourself, lest you too be tempted?
That puzzled me this week.
Perhaps Paul means you could fall into the same sin that you're trying to confront.
But remember what Paul said in verse 26, and we're going to come back to this in a little
bit.
Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another, or perhaps you've
got some pride in you that you need to deal with before you go address this brother or
sister.
I'm not quite sure.
It's either one or it's both.
But I'm reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 through 5.
It's words that you probably have heard.
Jesus says, judge not that you not be judged.
We like to throw that out a lot.
But let's read what Jesus says next, because Jesus is not condemning judging in the sense
of looking at the fruit of someone's life and saying, that's not in step with the gospel.
That's not what Jesus is saying.
He says, 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 you don't even 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 a 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.
Jesus is condemning hypocritical judgment.
See, I think Paul is warning us of hypocrisy here.
Watch out.
So before we ever pursue someone, the correct heart posture is one of prayer and examination
and looking in the mirror.
And looking in the mirror.
I want to focus on that word repair for a moment.
That setting back into place of a broken bone.
When our oldest daughter, who is away at college right now, when she was two years old, my
wife and I, I think she was changing the diaper in our bedroom, and we had a queen size bed,
and she just walked out for just a split second to go get a diaper, go get a wipe, something
like that.
I can't remember exactly.
She rolled off and she broke her radius bone right here, the lower part of her radius bone.
She was two, keep that in mind.
Very traumatic event, probably one of the most traumatic events in our 20 years of marriage.
I know the most traumatic event in my daughter's life.
Very traumatic.
So we go to the emergency room, she gets a cast, we've got to go to the doctor, like
a couple days later we go, and the doctor looks at me and says, there's only one remedy
for a break like this.
I have to reset that thing.
And she's too young for anesthesia.
You've got to see where this is going.
My daughter, by the way, hates doctors, and I don't blame her.
I mean, I don't blame her.
To this day, she can't stand, I don't blame her.
So I had to hold my daughter as the doctor, and it was painful for him.
It was painful for me.
You can imagine how painful it was for my daughter.
So here's the deal.
Church discipline is never, never painted in the picture as like an easy process.
It's going to be a painful process, but it is the process that the good physician has
given for the health of his church.
There's not another process.
We can't just go make up one.
This is the process.
Could it be painful?
Can it be, can it hurt?
Yes, but it is good at the end of the day.
It's for the glory of God.
It's for the beauty of his bride, and it's for the good of the one that is walking in
sin.
That's the process.
It's a remedy.
Discipline is painful, but this is for our good, which I don't know if you've ever made
the connection here.
This is why belonging to a church is so important.
There is no way to practice church discipline apart from the church.
How can you do it?
So maybe you're here this morning, you've never really thought about that.
You would say you're a Christian, but you haven't identified as a part of a church,
and I'm not here to shame you.
I'm just here to encourage you.
I'm just here to make you think.
Who's going to confront you when you've been deceived by sin?
Who are you holding yourself accountable to?
Are there other brothers and sisters in your life that you're that close with that are
Christians as well, that you've said, I'll identify with you?
You know that's what membership is.
Who is even going to know that you're struggling with a sin that you've turned a blind eye
to?
That's what happens when you get caught in a sin.
You don't even know you're in that sin.
Or you do, and you're so hard you don't want to repent.
And you're going to continue to wander away until someone points it out.
See when you join a church, and I know for some of you that language doesn't sit well,
but it's a good thing.
See one thing that you are doing is you're willingly submitting yourself to loving discipline
such as what we see here.
And you're willingly agreeing at the same time to participate in humble discipline.
In for the glory of God and the purity of His church and ultimately for your good.
As we consider living a life of the Spirit means we repair those who are wandering.
Let me ask you a question that you have to answer.
Are there people in your life that profess to follow Christ?
Perhaps they're in our own church, in your small group, or in your Bible study.
And you know they're caught up in a sin, but you won't say anything.
And maybe you've made excuses as to why.
Maybe you'd say something like, well I'm not a very confrontational person.
Did Paul say you who are confrontational?
He said you who are spiritual.
That's what he said.
Whether or not confrontation's in your wheelhouse, that doesn't matter.
Paul doesn't say that.
Nor does Paul say there's a level of knowledge that you have to have about this individual.
Because you could say, well I don't know them well enough to do that.
That's not what Paul says either.
You who are spiritual.
You see what we need to understand is without humble, gentle confrontation there can be
no healthy restoration.
Jesus said in Matthew 18 verses 1 through 5, what's the first step if your brother sins
against you?
Go.
Don't stay.
Go.
Tell him his fault.
How?
Between you and him alone?
It's not a shameful process.
It's not a condemning process.
It's a very gracious process.
And it escalates from there.
But he says if he listens to you, and hopefully he does as you pray and you ask the Spirit
for conviction, what?
You have gained your brother.
He's back in the family.
Let me ask you this.
Maybe you're the wanderer and you didn't even know it.
Has sin caught you off guard?
You've been living in isolation.
You haven't been near the church.
You're not in a group.
Maybe you come on Sundays, but that's kind of your level of commitment right now.
Well let me tell you this.
Restoration can't happen in isolation either.
Because living by the Spirit means you're involved in the messiness of everyday life
with other people.
It's how it works.
And this is a gospel issue by the way.
The motivation for this is because Jesus is the one who pursued us when we wandered.
He's the one that chased us down to the hound of heaven, his Holy Spirit, when we didn't
want anything to do with him and restored us back to fellowship.
He is the one that took upon himself our guilt, our shame, our condemnation, our sin, and
dwelt us with his Spirit.
I mean look at what God has done to pursue us.
We pursue others.
The second outworking of living a life in the Spirit is bearing burdens.
We bear burdens.
Verse two says, bear one another burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Let's deal with the second part before we deal with the first part, or I'm going to
forget.
What is the law of Christ?
Well we saw in chapter five verse fourteen that the law is fulfilled in one simple statement.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Now Paul has talked about the law in a way of, like it's negative if you're going to
use the law to seek God's favor.
But that's not why God loves us or accepts us because we obey.
That's not it.
That's legalism.
God loves and accepts us not on our work but based solely on Christ's work.
We place our faith in him and we are made righteous by that.
But something happens.
We're free now.
We're not free to go back to the chains of idolatry.
We're not free to go back to the slave market of legalism.
We're free now through the Holy Spirit to love others.
That's what we saw in chapter fifteen and verse fourteen he says that's really the law.
In summary, love others.
Love one another.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
And here Paul is saying bearing the burdens of others is fulfilling that law, the law
of Christ.
But what does bearing burdens mean?
Maybe you've heard this verse disconnected from verse one and verses three, four, and
five.
We don't want to do that.
That's not a good way to study scripture.
We don't want to pull a verse out of its context.
I think it's important to note that the primary way that we bear burdens is by pursuing those
who are walking away from the faith, who are living in sin.
Note that.
In fact, throughout church history, the reformers, the faithful church fathers before them interpreted
verse two in light of verse one to mean that bearing burdens has to do with confronting
brothers and sisters who are walking in unrepentant sin.
So we can't fully disconnect those.
That's primarily the emphasis here and he's saying those who live by the Spirit are called
to bear these burdens.
Now the word burden is different than the word load that we're going to see in verse
five and it's important that we note that right now so we can see kind of what Paul
is saying as we work our way through this text.
The word burden means something heavy, a load that you carry a long distance.
Now I do think it's important that we note that burdens are more than just sins.
They're loads that we have that we can't carry alone.
Which is why God designed us to live in community.
We're not to live in isolation.
That's not good.
He said that man should be alone.
Now we will see there are certain burdens, loads that we have to bear on our own that
we're accountable for.
But if you've been a Christian for any amount of time you've probably dealt with a burden
that you can't carry alone.
Maybe it's a physical ailment, maybe it's a relational burden, someone in your family.
Maybe it's a financial burden, a load that you can't bear on your own.
Maybe it is a temptation or a sin that you just can't kick.
There is a corporate responsibility to bear one another's burdens and this is one way
we show how much we love one another.
This is how we use our freedom.
I've quoted Martin Luther quite a bit.
Let me quote him at least one more time.
He said, Christians need to have broad shoulders and husky bones.
Christians must have broad shoulders and husky bones because we're bearing the loads of others.
Now I do think it's important that we make a few disclaimers here.
Paul is not teaching us that we're responsible for the sins of others.
We're responsible to confront others who are professing believers and gently and lovingly
point out their error while we inspect our own hearts.
Now we're not responsible for whether or not they repent.
That's the Holy Spirit's job.
We're not the Holy Spirit.
We're also not responsible to force them to repent.
They're going to be held accountable for their own sin and there are certain burdens that
we, we just can't bear that burden the way that the person who has the burden can bear
it.
We cannot weigh ourselves down because there's this change we want to see in a person and
it's not happening.
Because the point of bearing burdens is to get the person to the ultimate burden bearer
who is Jesus.
And if you're not getting them to the burden bearer, you're not really bearing the burden.
You know, you're doing what the world can do.
A temporary fix.
A band-aid over a problem.
You're not getting them to the remedy.
Now I know what some of you are thinking.
Aren't we supposed to take our burdens to the Lord individually?
Of course we are.
First Peter 3 says that we're to cast our cares.
I think it's First Peter 3.
Peter writes this somewhere.
Cast our cares on him because why?
He cares for us.
Yes.
We are to cast our anxieties, our worries, our financial worries, our physical worries,
our children at time.
Relationships.
We're to cast that on the Lord.
He does care.
And this does not mitigate the command to do that, does it?
No, it doesn't.
Why?
Because here's one way that Jesus bears the burdens of his people is through his people
bearing one another's burdens.
How do I know that?
Second Corinthians 7 verses 5 through 6.
Look at this text.
Paul says this, for even when we came into Macedonia our bodies had no rest, but we were
afflicted at every turn fighting without and fear within.
Fighting outside and we were feared within.
He was burdened.
And I'm sure Paul went to the Lord and casted those burdens on him, but look at what the
text says, but God who comforts the downcast, how did God comfort Paul?
How did he relieve some of this burden?
Look, comforted us by the coming of Titus.
It wasn't just through prayer that God relieved the burden and comforted Paul.
It wasn't just through Bible reading.
Am I saying those things aren't important?
Of course not.
Those are very important.
It was through another Christian brother.
Who is your Titus?
Some of you don't have a Titus.
You haven't put yourself out to even be known by other people in the church.
I'm encouraging you, get a Titus in your life.
Someone you can go to, someone you can confess your sins to, someone you can be real with
and honest with.
You don't have to put on a mask or put up a front.
Someone you can just share the messiness of life.
It's very important that you have a Titus.
But here's a better question to ask.
Are you a Titus to someone?
Who's your Paul?
That's a better question to ask.
Why don't know?
Maybe you've been coming just for a few weeks and you don't even know the importance of
gospel community groups.
We don't just do them to do them.
We don't just do them so you can have fellowship and fun with one another.
And oftentimes that is the case.
But we do them so organically you can have a Titus and someone else can be the Paul.
Just to help bear the burdens of one another.
Let me ask you this.
If you're feeling weighed down by a burden, have you allowed others in on the burden bearing
process?
And I would argue if you haven't, you know why you haven't?
Because you've bought into the lie of self-sufficiency.
Because that is what our culture preaches, isn't it?
Put your head down and get through it.
You don't have to bother them with your mess.
And we think that.
Now disclaimer, there's certain things in life that you shouldn't bother a brother.
That is your, we'll see in a moment, your load to bear.
Right?
Your load to bear.
It's not the church's responsibility to be the babysitters for your kids, right?
God gave you those kids.
Now we helped support you in your discipleship process.
But self-sufficiency, you know where self-sufficiency comes from?
It comes from Satan.
It's a lie.
It's always been a lie.
You can do it.
Eve, you can do it.
Adam and Eve, you can be like God.
You don't need him.
That's a lie.
Christians don't operate that way.
Christians are not independent.
They are interdependent.
Which is so counter-cultural to the world.
You know why the world's not attracted to Christianity?
Because we look just like them at times.
We're in our own little bubbles, our own little isolated bubbles, and there's no attraction
in that.
That's what the world does.
Self-sufficiency is a lie.
And here's another thing.
You can't bear others' burdens if you don't know the burdens of others or you're unwilling
to get underneath their burden.
Be known.
No others.
So you might say, how can I bear burdens?
Number one, seek.
Seek them out.
Are you seeking them out?
Just look around.
Be involved.
Number two, and don't miss this, the most important way that we bear one another's burdens
is praying for one another.
It makes no sense to skip this step, if we call this a step.
Who is the ultimate burden bearer?
Jesus.
Our responsibility is to get the load to Him.
Prayer is one of those ways that we do that.
Constantly, continually praying for one another.
So like my small group, Gospel Community Group, I've got to start changing the language myself,
I'm sorry.
We send out the prayer request after our group.
And I'm guilty of not looking at it during the week after it's sent out.
Here's a practice we can all grow in.
Start praying for them throughout the week.
Go back to the text message.
And the third thing we can do is actually serve.
What do we have that can help bear the burden of that person?
Maybe it is financial.
Maybe it's not.
Maybe it is time.
Maybe it's not.
What do you have you can lean into, just like Jesus came to serve us, He condescended, He
got up under our burden.
What can you do to help get up under that burden?
Because this too is a Gospel issue, right?
He is the ultimate burden bearer and we reflect Him as we bear others burdens.
But as we bear others burdens, we have to do this in humility.
That's why I said living by the Spirit is looking outward in love, but it's also looking
inward in humility.
Because notice where Paul goes next.
Look at what he says in verse 3, 4, if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing,
he deceives himself.
The third outworking of the Spirit in the life of a believer is that we examine ourselves.
Now at first glance, this puzzled me.
In fact, this has puzzled me nearly all of this week.
What is this doing here?
We cannot disconnect this from what Paul has already said in chapter 5, verse 15 and what
I read to you from chapter 5, verse 26.
Let us not become conceited.
That's puffed up, vain self-glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
Where do those things come from?
They come from a deeply insecure heart that is very prideful.
Paul knows the propensity of the human heart to be prideful when we look at caring for
others, confronting others, and he is addressing it right now.
He is saying, yeah, you look outward, but not forget.
You are just as capable of falling into sin.
You can slip up.
You can wander.
It can catch you.
If you think you are something, you are nothing.
It's a jab.
But what Paul is doing is he is countering the two obstacles to bearing burdens and the
first is conceit or pride.
We are conceited people and we need not be.
The gospel will not allow us to be conceited people.
Conceited.
I think of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
What did the Pharisee pray?
I thank you God that I am not like that man.
I am not an extortioner, a murderer, an adulterer.
You guys remember that story?
But what did the tax collector pray unlike the Pharisee?
Have mercy on me, oh God, a sinner.
The difference was the tax collector was looking upward and the Pharisee was looking outward.
It's really easy to become prideful if all you do is start looking at other people, comparing
yourself and saying, I'm not deal with that.
One of the obstacles to burden bearing is conceit and the other is comparison.
And I get this from verse 4, but let each one test his own work and then his reason
to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor and that is very confusing
because if you know Paul, you're like, Paul, wait, aren't you against human boasting?
What is happening here?
What do you mean, Paul?
His reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor?
Well, first of all, Paul's not referring to prideful selfish boasting.
We need to think about what Paul is talking about.
What does he mean not in his neighbor?
Why would he say you don't need to boast in your neighbor?
Because how many times have we said, at least I'm not like my neighbor?
I don't struggle with bitterness like she does.
My kids are a little more well behaved than them.
I can just figure this parenting thing out like me and my husband.
At least I keep a clean house.
Make a little more money than that guy, right?
We're constantly comparing, or at least I don't struggle with that sin.
Oh, I'm over that.
See what Paul's doing?
So if you look at your neighbor and you compare yourself to your neighbor, it's easy to boast.
It's easy to boast.
It's easy to lift them up and say I'm not good enough like them, which is condemning.
That's not the standard of righteousness anyways.
Or to exalt yourself over them, which is very prideful.
Paul's making sure that Galatians know that each of them has an individual responsibility
before the Lord and cannot grade themselves on a curve where the standard is someone else's
life.
We can't do that.
That's comparison.
Who's the standard?
Is it someone else's life or is it God himself?
That's the standard.
So oftentimes when we love and serve one another, we're tempted to compare ourselves to one
another, which leads to conceit and pride.
And Paul is saying no.
If you're going to boast, and Paul's not saying this negatively.
Paul would say this in 1 Corinthians 3.
That's a great cross reference to go there.
You're going to boast in what God has done in you and through you with what he's given
you because of his grace and mercy towards you.
Not in how much better you think you are than your neighbor or how much better you think
they are than you.
Because your own heart, examine your own self.
That's why he says in verse 5, for each will have to bear his own load.
The word will have is important.
He doesn't say for each has to bear his own load or each has borne his own load.
He says will have.
That's important to note.
That's in the future tense.
Paul's looking forward to a time where we'll have to individually bear a load.
Every commentator agrees.
Paul is talking about the second coming of Christ, the final judgment.
And it's also important to note the word load here is not the same as the word burden in
verse 2.
The word load here is actually the same word used to describe something akin to a backpack
in the Greek world.
Something much lighter but different.
So we have corporate responsibility in verse 2.
We have individual responsibility here in verses 4 and 5.
What is Paul talking about?
When Jesus comes back, there will be a judgment.
But Paul is not teaching us.
Paul is not teaching us that our works merit God's favor and Jesus will say, come in because
you did this for me.
No, on that great day when the Lord returns and the trump sounds and we see King Jesus
coming back, he's going to look at the Father and say, they're mine.
Why?
Because look at my hands and look at my feet.
I was nailed for their sins.
They are mine.
But then something's going to happen and Jesus says it.
He says you better watch out because you're going to be held responsible for every careless
word you say.
Romans 14 verses 1 and 2, I mean verses 10 through 12.
Paul says, why do you pass judgment on your brother?
Why do you despise your brother?
For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
For it's written as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall
confess to God so then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Paul is getting our gaze on eternity to help us examine our heart right now.
Here's what I know.
The Holy Spirit is a gracious gift in the life of a believer.
A gracious gift that God himself indwells sinful people.
None of us, none of us can ever take that for granted.
And when Jesus returns and we stand before his throne in judgment, here's what I know
will not happen.
He will not take you and your neighbor and put you side by side and start tallying up
the score.
That ain't happening.
He will not do that.
Nor is he going to look at you, man in the room and say how many fantasy football championships
did you win?
And hey, I play fantasy football too.
You get where I'm going.
He's not going to look at you.
He's not going to look at you and say what college degree did you get?
How many zeros are in your bank account?
What car did you drive?
How nice did you keep your house?
How well mannered were your children?
It's not what he's going to ask.
He's not, and I'm not against a well cleaned house.
I'm not against money.
I'm not against those things.
Please hear me.
But if you think that that's what we're here for, you're dead wrong.
You ever read John Piper's book, Don't Waste Your Life?
If you've never read it, go read it.
What are you doing with the Holy Spirit who is indwelling you and where God has sovereignly
placed you?
What are you doing with your time and your talent and your treasure?
What are you doing?
We're going to be held accountable not just for our words, but our actions and our lives.
What are you doing with the breath that God has given you?
What are you doing with the neighbor that God has placed you beside that doesn't know
Jesus?
What are you doing with that coworker who's so far from Jesus?
What are you doing with your kids?
What are you doing with what God has given you?
So Paul is telling us, believers examine their self.
We don't compare ourselves to one another.
I think the problem with Christians is the same problem that Peter had after Jesus restored
Peter.
Maybe you don't know this story.
It's at the end of John.
It's a few little verses.
Jesus tells Peter, here's the death.
You're going to die for me.
After he's restored him, Peter's forsaken Jesus.
He's abandoned.
He's rejected Jesus.
What does Jesus do?
He pursues the one or he comes back to Peter.
And then we read this little story.
After he tells him, here's how you're going to die, Peter.
You're going to die for me.
Follow me, Peter.
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had
leaned back against him during the supper and said, Lord, the one who had said during
the supper, who is it that's going to betray you?
Verse 21, when Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man?
Verse 22, Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is it to
you?
You follow me.
Don't get your eyes on other people.
Yeah, we do look outward in love and we should, but always doing what?
Inward.
Eyes on Jesus.
You follow me.
Comparison gets our eyes in the wrong place and we often overlook what's right in front
of us.
Paul's getting our eyes on ourselves for a moment, calling us to humble self-examination
of our motives, our thoughts, our actions, our words.
What I really think Paul is doing as we think about these five verses is something we saw
last week too.
Paul is showing us that living by the Spirit is really a life that looks just like Jesus.
We think about the evidence I gave to you, the outworking of the Spirit.
Isn't this what Jesus actually did?
He Himself empowered by the Spirit.
The King didn't stay in His castle in Heaven's throne room in isolation, did He?
He didn't distance Himself from His creation.
What did the King do?
He condescended.
We're about to celebrate Christmas.
We're about to celebrate the very fact that Jesus Himself pursues those who are rebels,
those who are wanderers.
In love and humility, He directed Himself outward, clothing Himself in flesh to rescue
a sinful people.
And He pursued the wanderer constantly, not just Peter, but I think about the time Jesus
finds the woman at the well who wasn't even looking for Jesus.
Jesus goes out of His way to find that rebel and that wanderer, doesn't He, and restore
her.
Jesus always, eyes open for those that were wandering, He is the one that repairs the
wonders and He is the one that has borne the burden, hasn't He?
What burden?
The unlikely candidate to be the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, has condemned a criminal,
though He is an innocent man.
And He walks out of the gates of Jerusalem and heads towards the place of the skull called
Golgotha.
And that man who, if we were to look at him, would be of no significant stature physically,
he had no beauty or majesty that we should look upon him, the prophet Isaiah says.
And His weak, frail body carries the burdens of His people up onto a mountain.
As He carries a Roman cross, and then He's hung there in mockery and shame as He's spat
upon, as He's cursed at, as He's beaten, as nails crush His hands and His feet, taking
upon Himself the greatest burden that we all have, and that is the burden of the law, the
burden of sin, the burden of our guilt.
He who knew no sin did what?
He did the unthinkable.
God Himself became sin.
He bore the burden of our condemnation.
How do I know, because He was laid in a tomb.
And the third day something amazing happened.
God breathed life back into His Son, and the Son of God rose up in power and in victory,
crushing the head of the serpent so that everyone who looks upon Him is free indeed.
He bore our burden.
And Jesus would often get away by Himself after He had ministered a long day to do what?
To plead to His Father in His humility and in His human nature.
Jesus would say, not my will, but your will be done.
Jesus is the perfect example of what it looks like to live by the Spirit.
The band would come up.
Church, this is a passage that's an invitation to model Jesus.
Let me say this.
Maybe you came in here today and you didn't know there was even a burden on you.
If you're not in Christ, the bad news is there is a burden.
We sin against the Holy God.
He will hold us accountable for those sins.
But that burden can be transferred.
The good news is you can walk in here with a great burden of sin and guilt on you, and
you can leave relieved because that can be placed upon Jesus by faith today.
You can be made new.
You can be a new creation.
This is we celebrated Clayton's baptism.
That can happen to you inwardly today by faith in Jesus.
And if you have, here's the call.
Live by the Spirit.
Look outward.
Look outward in love and inward in humility.
Look like Jesus, the same Spirit that empowered Jesus to live a life of obedience, the same
Spirit that rose Him from the grave.
Do you know it's the same Spirit that lives inside of every believer?
So let me ask you two questions.
Number one, are you living outward in love?
Are you seeking those who are wounded?
Are you bearing the burdens of others?
And number two, I think it's appropriate before we approach the Lord's table, are you examining
your own heart, your own motives?
You're understanding that there is a load that you will have to bear too.
What are you doing with what God has given you?
Let's pray.
Father, we come to you first in a prayer of repentance, acknowledging that we failed to
live in step with the Spirit, but know that you are a merciful and gracious God who forgives
us.
So we throw that on you.
May the Gospel fuel us to look outwardly.
Lord, and we pray that we will not squander the gift of the Spirit or the time, talent,
and treasures you've given us, but we will do something for the kingdom that lasts because
of your Holy Spirit and your work in us.
So Lord, before we approach the table, we ask that you would examine our hearts, you
reveal sin and inconsistencies so we would live in step with the Spirit.
We love you in Christ's name.
Amen.