What about my Brother

Open up your bibles to Galatian six one to two.

Galatians six one to two. That is where we will be.

My name is.

Richard, and I work here at the church as the

minister of Connections, and it is a privilege to bring

the Word with to you this morning. With you this morning,

whatever I mean, I'm under the Word as well. Starting

next week we will be in a back in a

book of the Bible, like you know, Josh, just making

our way through it.

This week.

Josh gave me an opportunity for something that was on

my heart, and so I said, man, Galatian six one

to two, let's be there. So with that, let's have

Genevieve here come up and read Galatians six one to two.

Galatians chapter six Versus one and two. Brothers, if anyone

is hot in any transgression, you who are spiritual, should

restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on

yourself lest you two be tempted bear one another's burdens,

and so fulfill the law of Christ.

This is the word of the Word a man, thank

you so much.

All right, So again I know that we haven't been

in Galisian, so let me just do a little recap

work to help us as we're splashing down into this

right at the end of chapter five, Paul had given

a list of sins, not certainly not extensive, but he

called them the works of the Flesh, in which there

were some pretty normal everyday sins it's bad to say,

but and then there were some like really rated r

stuff that I can't even say from the stage. But

in five point twenty one he kind of wraps up

with this warning. He says, I warn you, as I

warned you before, that those who do such things will

not inherit the Kingdom of God. All right, So that's

the warning that we've got coming into this passage. Paul

is flagging to those in Galatia then and to us

here today. Sin is not a game. We don't just

play with it. This is dangerous. There are eternal consequences.

And so I think that where we want to focus

in today is a question, Well, but what about my brother?

What about my sister? I think Paul's trying to get

us to think, what responsibility do I have to a

brother or sister who is stuck in sin? And I'm

so glad you asked, because actually Paul has a role

for you to play. He wants you to get involved here.

So we'll be looking at Paul's answer to the solution

and kind of three pieces, one big command and then

two heart attitudes of how we need to actually live

out of that. And we read this in the first verse, brothers,

if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual,

should restore him and a spirit of gentleness. So that's

actually the first piece of the puzzle. Restore your brother.

Immediately.

Paul is alerting us to this problem if anyone has

caught in any transgression. And I do want to do

a little experiment here, I will need one participation. It

is a raise your hands kind of a question. Raise

your hand if you are a sinner, okay, And I've

been working on my Spanish, so again as un pecador,

see was that right?

Okay, there we go.

I just had to make sure and again everyone saw

you raise your hand. Your small group saw it, the

people around you saw it.

They know it. I know it.

I just I think it's helpful because I think sometimes

we want to feel more pious. We want to say,

oh I don't struggle with sin, that that's not me.

And yet we actually so desperately need help from other people.

So I just want to encourage that little exercise you

did when you raised your hands said you were a sinner.

I just want you to remember that as we go

throughout this passage, everyone saw your hands.

It's okay.

Paul isn't just giving us a hypothetical situation. He's actually

giving us marshal orders. When someone is caught in a transgression,

we the body need to know how to help, and

so Paul is helping us here.

This is real life, right, real.

Life Christians get stuck in sin. I would love to

tell you that with sanctification, it's just a straight up

trajectory and then you're in heaven. But we know from

experience that's just not true. And again, Paul had just

given this long list of sins, some of which again

can't even talk about. But then there are other sins

on that list too. Impurity is on that list. Deep

seated dislike or ill will towards someone else on that list. Strife, jealousy,

fits of anger, drunkenness, envy, those are also on that list.

And that's not to say if you have one impure thought,

then you're stuck in a sin, right, that's not what

Paul's saying here. But how long have you been feeding

this fleshly desire? How long have you just taken one

more look it's something that you were not supposed to

be looking at. How often do you just go back

for one more drink and then just one more drink.

How often do you find yourself scrolling through Instagram with

jealousy and envy in your heart for that other mom

who has the perfect house and the perfect kids. How

often do you use your tongue to sow dissension to vision.

One individual action of envy or strife or jealousy doesn't

always make a pattern if it is just one time.

But I can't see your heart right now.

Your parents can't see your heart right now, your spouse,

your roommate, they can't see it. No one else in

this room can see your heart. I guess that's not

entirely true. There is one person who can see your heart,

and you need to be deadly honest with him. I've

walked alongside many Christians who are stuck in sin. I've

been a Christian who is stuck in sin, and none

of the conversations afterward ever started with you know what,

Today seems like a really good day to just give

my life over to this sin completely. You know what,

I want to rearrange my schedule around this sin, because

now it's that big of a deal in my life.

No one's ever like, you know what.

I want to feel hopeless and helpless against this sin

that I'm struggling with. No The conversations, usually accompanied with tears,

sound more like, man, I have no idea how I

got here. I have no idea how it got so bad.

Sin is so deceitful. As our brother Nate will often say,

sin will take you further than you want to go,

keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost

you more than you want to pay. And at some

point we've all found ourselves there. We don't have to

stay there.

We don't have.

To give in and say, well, I guess this is

just my life now. Now, in the words of the

band's switch Foot, this is your life. Are you who

you want to be? You guys laugh, But you know

that song came out when I was in high school.

But now I was an adult, I realize, like, man,

I'm not resigned to be the guy who was stuck

in the sin now God has given us brothers and

sisters so that we might move forward. We're not condemned

from this. We don't need to let this define our lives.

We can move forward in faithfulness. Thank God, he hasn't

left us alone, which actually brings us into our point.

We start with a brother or sister. Satan doesn't care

caught in a transgression. But now what And again I

go back to the question, what responsibility do I have

to a brother or sister?

What about my brother? What about my sister?

The next part of the verse says, you who are

spiritual should restore him in.

A spirit of Some of you look very relieved right now.

You're like, oh, good, those spiritual The God's not talking

to me here. Okay, those very mature Christians. Oh so

grateful for them. I'll pray for them. Grateful for them, God,

would you help them help those people who are caught

in sin?

Not talking about me.

Good news, guys, we know exactly who Paul is talking

about Galatians five twenty two twenty three. You might know

it as the fruit of the spirit. Fruit of the

spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

self control, to be spiritual in this sense is definitely

not like the way the world talks about being spiritual,

and it's definitely not about It doesn't mean that you're

a cut above the kind of normal, everyday Christians. These

descriptions are just the description of a Christian whose life

life is committed to God. They have the Holy Spirit

actively working inside them. So if you have the Holy

Spirit actively working inside you, this is probably where you are.

So congratulations, God wants to use you today. And honestly,

if we read through that list and we're claiming to

be a Christian and yet we would say, actually, that

list doesn't define my life, then you should be paying

attention because you might actually be a brother or sister

who is caught in sin and needs restoration. You, who

are spiritual, should restore him or her in a spirit

of gentleness. I just want to let that verse sit

with you for a minute.

If you hear.

Those words, it's not a little bit scary, a little

bit intimidating, if you aren't just a little bit just

freaked out by what Paul said, if it doesn't make

you just kind of pee your pants a little bit

to realize that he's probably talking to you that I

think you need to reevaluate everything. I remember I was

sitting in a biblical counseling classroom when I heard this

verse fifteen years ago. I mean when I really heard it.

I mean like I was born in church. I read

the Bible as a kid, so I know that my

eyes passed over this passage. But when God got a

hold of me and said, hey, I mean you, the

weight of this verse struck me, and I realized that

God uses everyday Christians like you, like you, like you,

like you, like you, sometimes like me, to help accomplish

growth and reconciliation in the lives of others. This verse

is not a suggestion like, hey, if you have some

free time after those really important things, just you can

go ahead and do this. This is one of the

most important stewardships that we've been given as a believer

to other believers, the stewardship of the lives of the

family you have around you, their sanctification, their walk with Christ.

It's not just about you. God said that you bear

responsibility for those who you are in community with. And

that's not just nameless faces. It's the people in your

small group. It's the people in the membership directory. Those

are the people who we bear responsibility for, who we

have this stewardship to take care of. And that's why

we think discipleship is such a big deal, because it's

not just about us. It's about us together as a community.

Men and women of all ages, all season of life,

have this command to take part in the Lord's work

of restoration. God is wanting to use us. God's wanting

to use you in the lives of believers who are

stuck in sin. And I don't exactly know why he

wants to use us. I think there are better tools

out there, and yet our lives are his to use.

And so we say yes, Lord, the restoration of our

brothers and sisters is a terrifying stewardship. And yet that's

so wonderful. It's such a gift, even this word restoration.

Let's just camp there for a minute. Something is broken,

something is fractured, something is out of place and needs

to be reset. And God has chosen to use us

with the Holy Spirit in our lives, using his words

to help others be restored in their relationship to God. Now,

we've all had broken bones before, well, most of us

have had broken bones before. I've never had a broken

bone before, so which is why I need to see

my sister's story. Julie, she's a member here and she

gave me permission to share this, so don't at me

as a college student. My sister and some of her

friends had gone ice skating and it was late at night,

and I think it's a rule of ice skating that

you have to fall. Like I've never been ice skating,

but I think that's a rule.

Is you have to fall.

But apparently there are ways to fall and not to fall,

and this is just a free thing.

This isn't part of the sermon.

But fall on your knees or on your bottom because

there's lots of padding and so those are good good

ways to fall, not good way to fall on your wrists.

Because apparently you can break a bone. And she my sister,

so she absolutely broke a bone in her arm. So

I get a panic call from her roommate. She's freaking out,

and so I'm I rushed to the hospital. I get

there my sister. She's just waiting in the car. She

knows exactly what's happened. She's broken a bone, she knows that.

And I go to sit next to her in the car,

trying to give her some comfort, trying to help her out.

I hold her arm and you can just kind of

tell by the way that it was bending where there

had been one bone, now there's two bones.

And so.

I'm freaking out a little bit. And she's like, I'm fine,

I'm good, it's broken. Yeah, And the doctors were like,

as wows a clean break, Like, we're very impressed. So

they had to like put a metal rod and screw

it into her bone to help reset it and make

sure that it grew back together.

Well.

And some of us are like Julie's broken arm right now.

Some of us are broken.

Some of us are in desperate need of a skilled

surgeon to come and help fix what was broken. But

the good news is we don't have to wait for

a surgeon. God has actually given us faithful, loving men

and women around us who can help do the restoring

work that we need. Someone who is stuck in a transgression,

you don't need a surgeon. You need a loving brother

or sister who can help you get unstuck. And praise

God that like that means some of you right now

are ready to love your brother and sister in this

way to help them get unstuck from their sin. And

the goal is that one day that brother or sister

who was stuck, who was broken, who was caught in

a transgression and not able to get out of it

on their own, one day there they're actually able to

be the ones who God is using to help restore

other brothers and sisters.

That's the goal.

And sadly, because of the deceitfulness of sin, if that's

not where you are right now, but if you're doing well,

we also need to realize that we might be the

ones today who are doing well, and that we're actually

going to need a faithful brother or sister to help

us get unstuck. But all of this is only possible

if we are in community together. Paul didn't write this

note to isolated Christians, but to local churches in Galicia.

Do you notice how Paul assumes that even the brother

who is caught in sin is known enough, is in

community enough that someone actually sees that he's caught in sin.

This brother is not isolated. The guy who's trapped, ensnared,

stuck is known and cared for, and he's loved. If

you're currently stuck, in a sin. Don't just keep trying

to unentangle yourself.

Expose your sin, bring it to.

The light with a brother or sister, and let this

body show how we can care for you. That's the point.

That's one of the points of the body. And if

you are maybe trapped in a pattern of habitual sin

and yet you're not a part of this body, I

would beg you to join. You're kind of keeping us

at arm's length, and the body is here to help

you be restored. The body is here to help in

that restoration process. So please join the church, or if

it's not us, find another faithful local church. Join the church.

Become a part of the body. Stop by the Step

one table after the service next Sunday is a Step

two class three to five. Love to see you there

and welcome you into the life of this body.

In one of the little.

Books out there that we have in the lobby, it's

called what should I look for in a Church? It

says this, A church isn't a crowd of Christians who

just show up at the same time every week for

music and a message. A church is a people who

are committed. They have committed themselves to help each other

get to heaven. That is what a church is. That

is what we want you to be a part of.

We're not meant to live this Christian life alone. I

don't know if maybe you've been a part of community

and maybe you've been now apart from community now, or

maybe you you are a member of this church but

you just aren't being honest with people. But either way,

the world is dangerous. Our hearts are deceitful, and so

let a brother or sister walk alongside you in love

to help you out, because if not, we're in great danger.

So that was if you're stuck and sin. But what

if you're here and you're like, no, dude, I'm doing great.

Everything's great with me. So what's the deal?

Like, what is.

What about my brother? What about my sister? What kind

of responsibility do I have to a brother or sister

who is stuck in sin? Well, this verse and plenty

of other passages in the Bible as well, would say

that you have a tremendous responsibility. That responsibility means being

an active part of God's work in other people's lives.

It's not always clean, it's definitely not.

Easy, but it is worth it.

It's an incredible privilege that God uses just every day

normal Christians to help restore others, to help growth in

the lives of others. A couple of weeks ago, you know,

the or recently, the new school year started, and my

daughter was praying for one of her brand new classmates

who had just only just started the day before, and

so she was praying that he would feel welcomed, and

she was praying that he would make friends who would

play with him. And after she said amen, I said, Hey,

do you ever think that, like, maybe God wants to

use you to be his friend, That if he's not

playing with anyone, maybe you have that opportunity to say, hey,

let's let's.

Go play together.

That maybe you're not just the one praying this, but

maybe you're the answer to someone else's prayer. We have

a huge role in this, and so I just want

to encourage you guys in this way. I want to

encourage you to kind of slow down a little bit,

put your task list down. And that's not to say

anything against task lists. Two of my favorite people in

the world, Seth and my wife Liz, love their task lists,

and you can serve people well by using it. But

I think you need to ask yourself. Are you so

focused on things? And maybe good things, but are you

so focused on things that you're not seeing the people

around you who might be hurt. Maybe you've noticed people

around you who are hurt or stuck in sin, and

yet you're like, man, I'm too busy to actually deal

with that right now. The Pharisee said that on his

way past the man who was beaten, So we want

to be careful to not be that guy. Or in

a very different way, are you in a very comfortable community.

Maybe you are a member here and just no one

ever seems to have any issues.

People do have issues, people do.

There are real things happening, they're not sharing it, And

so I just want to encourage you take the step

of transparency to say, you know what, actually, guys, this

is an area where I need help, I need prayer.

Would you come alongside me and help me in this?

And you would be amazed at what God does with

just a little bit of vulnerability there. Right, it's not

worth it to just try to live the perfect Instagram

life when real life is happening. And what about this restoration?

What is it that we're seeking to do in the

lives of others. We're seeking to help brothers and sisters

be restored in fellowship to God, be restored in their

relationship with God. Restoration is helping our brother to see

victory over sin, over these deeply entrenched sins, and get

them back on the path of sanctification.

This is our stewardship.

This is our aim, and it's not to nameless faces.

It's not just to others. You know exactly who these

people are. They're the people in your small group. They're

the people inside the church directory like you know them.

The people are the mission.

And isn't it amazing that God chooses to use us

in this process. It's one of the greatest privileges that

people will say, you made an impact on my life forever.

You helped me in that moment. I will never forget that.

How does an incredible gift.

But we all know.

That with great power comes great responsibility as well. It's

not just that we have the responsibility to restore a

brother or sister, but we need to do it humbly.

And that's actually the second point. Do it humbly. Paul says,

keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted Okay,

So humility is actually the posture that we need to

have while we are restoring our brother. It needs to

be pervasive in everything we do as we're interacting with them.

You can rest assured people will almost never be as

vulnerable as they are in that moment when they are

caught in sin, and so you need to be so

very careful and loving and how you engage them. And

so I want to give three areas that we need

to walk out that we need to watch out for,

and instead we need to respond with humility. Number one,

watch out for the allure of sin. Watch out for

the allure of sin. Paul's immediate concern seems to be that, again,

just the issue that there is pride in our hearts.

And though we might think, oh man, my brother is

stuck in that sin ha, I would never do that,

then we actually get caught in the trap that our

brother was trapped in that we're trying to help him

get out of. In fact, how many times you don't

have to raise your hand for this one, but how

many times have you heard of someone caught in sin

and thought, Wow, that's awful. I would never do that.

That is not an attitude of humility. We need to

recognize that God is still at work in our own

hearts until we get to heaven. Not perfected, we are

still sinners, and we come alongside our brother and sisters

say that, Hey, I'm in need of the same grace

and mercy that you need. I'm in need of the

same Jesus that you need. You're not coming as their savior.

You're coming saying I need the exact same thing. So

let's walk together through this. It might be quick, it

might not be quick, it might be a long road,

but that is what we have to do. The answer

isn't to say, oh, I'm strong and my brother was

just too weak, but to walk alongside in humility and say, there,

but for the grace of God, go I. Number two,

Watch out for the log in your eye. Watch out

for the log in your eye. There is a twenty

year old song that came out when I was in

high school by a band. I don't know how the

Spanish translation is going to do with this, a band

called Hubastank. I'm sorry I didn't name them, but they

have a popular song. It was popular and the first

line and it's going to be very difficult for me

to not sing says I'm not a perfect person, you know.

Yeah, yeah, Liz and I.

Every once in a while when we make a mistake,

Liz and I will just kind of ingest sing that

first line to each other. I don't think she's ever

son beyond that line, I'm ready to go by the

way if you ever. But honestly, there's no one who

knows better that I'm not a perfect person than Liz.

So again, we kind of say it in jest, but

even that acknowledgment is very helpful as we seek to

help others. There will always be some defensiveness, even in

the most tender of hearts. But if you come owning

your own sin, not trying to dismiss it, whether it

has anything to do with your brother sin or not,

there will be less resistance to your message. Again, you're

not looking down on them as your savior. In fact,

in Matthew seven three to five, right, that's the whole

log and Speck paradox, Right, Jesus saying, Hey, if you

see your brother has something in his eye, you do

a little examination. You do a little eye exam first,

And actually it's not like, ah, well, if you've got

something in your eye let him be He's fine. No, Actually,

what Jesus said is you get that log out of

your own eye, and then you will actually be able

to help your brother get that speck out of his

We want to help, and so we need to be

humble in how we how.

We approach others.

Right, samurais and surgeons.

Both wheeled blades.

I think we can all agree to that, and yet

how they wield them is very different. I don't need

to tell you about samurais. I know some of us

have had run ins with them in the past, But surgeons.

Cut so carefully.

Their cuts are actually restorative to the goal of moving

forward with restoration. Proverbs twenty seven to six is faithful

are the wounds of a friend. So we want to

use our wounds not towards destruction, but towards reconciliation, towards restoration.

And if you've been on the receiving end of one

of those wounds, I would beg you to at least

consider what your friend has said. All of your defenses

will be fully bolstered. Your inner lawyer will be like

ready to go and give a defense argument for why

this actually isn't that bad. And maybe you need to

watch mind your own business, take it down, just calm down.

A little bit. Give your brother grace.

It was actually easier for him to not say anything.

It's one hundred percent easier to do nothing than to

do something.

And he probably didn't know if he.

Was doing it right, and he kind of already felt

uncomfortable about it, but he did it out of concern,

out of love for you. That's why he said something.

So please consider what was said to you. And this

is the third way we need to watch out. Watch

out for animosity, Watch out for animosity. It's kind of

easy for us to help people that we know and love, right, Hey,

I care about you, I want to want to help you.

But what happens.

If our heart was actually already a little cold towards

this person to begin with, we didn't really have a

strong friendship. What if there is some kind of subtle

animosity towards them? Well, Paul Tripp actually wrote a short

devotional that will be sending out in the Monday Morning

email tomorrow. It's a very helpful short article. I'd encourage

you all to read it. And though I would just

love to read the whole thing, let me just give

you one sentence right now in speaking of ways things

that we need to have in mind as we're trying

to con properly biblically confront someone. He says that this

confrontation is not motivated by punishment, right the punishment of

the other person, but by the hope that the Lord

would free this person from the prison of their own

sin to know the freedom of walking in fellowship with

him in humility. We need to recogniz that we will

actually do more harm to our brother, to ourselves, and

to God's name if we come in with anything but humility,

if there's any type of pride, if we're motivated by

anything but God, with this person being restored to God,

we will hurt everyone in the process. In all these

areas and so much more. We need to be humble,

how we need to be just praying so much about this,

Praying for them and their hearts as they receive it,

Pray for us and.

The words as we speak it.

Prayer is our way at which we can show love

to them. And that's actually the third point. As we

restore our brother, we need to do it point three,

we need to do it in love. We read this

in verse two, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill

the law of Christ. Now, why does Paul reference the

law of Christ here? Right, we haven't heard anything about

the law. But to answer we have to understand why

he even wrote Galatians. There were false teachers who are

coming into the church and saying, hey, in order to

be a Christian, in order to believe in Jesus, you

have to keep the mosaic law. And the kind of

the bull's eye on this was was the question of

whether people needed to be circumcised in order to be saved.

For them, the.

Equation was Jesus plus circumcision equals salvation.

And Paul was enraged because.

Paul knew that Jesus plus anything puts way too much

emphasis on the anything and way too a little emphasis

on the Jesus. Jesus alone saves. So Paul wrotealations to

counter these false arguments, these false teachers. Paul's saying, hey,

they're telling you what a Christian looks like. A Christian

looks someone who follows a mosaic law. He said, actually,

let me tell you what a Christian is. Jesus said,

what a Christian would look like. Why don't you hear it?

From his words John thirteen thirty four, A new commandment.

I give you that you love one another just as

I have loved you. You also are to love one

another Jesus in John fifteen twelve, this is my commandment

that you love one another as I have loved you.

And here in our passage Paul has just said in

Galatians five fourteen, for the whole law is fulfilled in

one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The

law of Christ is love. We are under no obligation

to keep the mosaic law in order to be made

right with God. But we do have mar orders from Jesus.

These aren't marching orders that make us right with God

and the words of Josh this is what saved people.

Do. We love?

And in this case and in Galatians six ' to two,

bearing one another's burdens is a manifestation of this kind

of love.

For our brother. We love our brother enough to.

Be to step in when they're caught in sin. We

love our sister enough to get elbow deep in real life,

because that's just where she is right now.

That is real love.

In another book, Paul Tripp wrote this, I've come to

the understanding that I need others in my life.

I now know that.

I need to commit myself to living in intentionally intrusive,

Christ centered, grace driven, redemptive community. That is what we

all need. And so what about my brother, what about

my sister? What kind of responsibility do I have to them?

You have the responsibility to love them enough to seek

to restore them, to seek to restore them and their

relationship with God. And since God is the one who

gave us his command, we need to trust that He

will do the work of restoration. We can't control it.

It won't always turn out the way we like, but

we need to trust that He gave the command, he

gave the Holy Spirit, he gave his word, and he

put you in this community, and He will use it

for your good and for His glory. Things won't always

go the way we want, but we need to remember

that God. God doesn't use other means. God uses everyday

believers in the lives of others for eternity, and it

is the greatest privilege to be used in someone's life

at that level. That's a Roman sixteen list stuff we

were talking about a couple weeks ago. Bear one another's

burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, the law

of love. I want to invite the band up, but

don't put your bibles away. I'm not done, like literally,

the best part's coming up, so just keep it out.

But I do want to invite the band up, bear

one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Jesus never asks us to do anything that he doesn't

do himself, that he wouldn't do himself.

John fifteen thirteen says.

Greater love has no one than this, And someone lay

down his life for his friends. We were the ones

who were caught in transgression. We were the ones who

were stuck in sin. Worse than stuck in sin. We

were dead in our sin. And Jesus said, but what

about my brothers, What about my sisters? What about these

brothers and sisters who are dead in their sins? What

responsibility do I have towards them? And the truth is

he had no responsibility to save us.

There was no obligation.

We are the ones who had rebelled, We are the

ones who had rejected God.

And yet he came to earth.

He was born of a woman, lived a perfect life

of obedience, fulfilled the law that only brought us death.

And in the words of the hymn.

Then on that cross my burdens, gladly bearing, he bled

and died to take away my sins. Friends, if you

sit here as a child of God, a brother or

sister with Christ, then you are sitting as someone who

has already had your eternally damning burdens gladly born by another.

And those burdens were await that you and I could

have never carried. They've been born by Jesus. And so

now Jesus is coming to us, is coming to you,

and in an infinitely smaller way, saying, hey, I want

you to do this for your brother. I want you

to do this for your sister, just like I did.

He's given you this command

In love, humbly restore your brother.