Bear One Another’s Burdens | The One Another Way - Galatians 6:1-5 | Brian Squires

You know, as we were singing there I I don't even know how to how to phrase this.

What what what a wonderful, awesome time of worship.

That we lift our voices to the heavens, right?

And I thought, you know, you you you can't do this by yourself.

Right?

We need each other.

We need each other to worship.

And so I want to say thank you.

Thank you to everybody who's sitting in this room that you are faithful.

You got up, you got dressed, and you came here to do this thing.

And that is worship God.

And it helps me.

It is a benefit to me, and it's a blessing to me that you're here.

And so I thank you.

I really do from the bottom of my heart.

And that was not in my notes, but man, that's on my heart.

So there you go.

So we continue this morning in our series on one another, the one another way.

And as I was studying for the topic this morning, it reminded me, so I'm going to do a little, I'm going to do a little demographic test here this morning.

It reminded me of a song.

And so I'm going to give you a couple of verses of this song.

I'm not going to sing it, but I'm going to give you a couple of verses.

And I want to see if you can help me finish this off, right?

It goes like this.

What would you think if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears.

And I'll sing you a song.

And I'll try not to sing out a key.

Get by with a little help from my friends, right?

And I told somebody, I said, I'm going to stop right there because, you know, the next line is I get high with a little help from my friends.

I mean, I didn't write it.

But you know, we the title of the message this morning is Bear One Another's Burdens.

And from time to time, we do need help, don't we?

We need help.

When the load gets too much, we need help.

I was thinking about a time in my life when I first got out of school.

I went to work down in Columbus, Georgia, and one of the guys that I work with was a little older than me, and he had a house and he had a shop.

And so he would let me come out to his shop in the evenings and work.

And I built this wall unit that I thought I needed to have in my apartment.

And so I got it all built, and then one weekend my dad came down to visit, and I said, Hey, can we go over to my buddies and get this thing and bring it to the apartment?

Well, my apartment's on the second floor, and the bottom of this wall unit had like three sheets of plywood in it.

Yeah, yeah, so you guys know, right?

It's heavy.

So we get out there and we start trying to muscle this thing up the stairs, and you got to pick it up over the handrail.

And about that time, my neighbor, who was an airborne ranger, comes out to do whatever.

He's gonna run some 40-mile thing or whatever they do.

And he's like, Hey, you need some help?

And we're like, Yeah, we need some help.

And so he grabs one end of this thing, well, we wrestle it up there and put it in the thing, and he goes off to do his thing, and my dad looks at me and he goes, I wasn't carrying very much of that.

Were you?

And I said, No, I didn't have much either.

And we kind of concluded that my neighbor, he kind of basically carried the thing up the stairs and we just guided it where it was going.

You know, and that's kind of a it's it's an amusing story, but it is the story a lot of times of our life, isn't it, that we get in over our heads with something and we need some help.

Whether it's emotional or spiritual or even physical, sometimes we need somebody to come alongside us and help.

And so our passage this morning is in Galatians chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

It's the first five verses, and so I'm just gonna go ahead and read that this morning.

Uh it says, This brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

Each one should test his own actions, then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else.

For each one should carry his own load.

And so we see in this passage, uh Paul gives us uh the command to carry burdens.

The command to carry burdens.

Now, I'm gonna start out with verse 2 because that's where the command comes in in uh in verse 2, which we have on the screen here.

It says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

So uh one thing that I need to clarify for you as we get started here is this word burdens.

Uh in our language it just says burdens.

But if you go back to the original language, the original uh Greek, I wrote this down so I wouldn't mess it up.

It is uh it the word is barrao.

Or if you're from southern Greece, it's barrao.

And what that means is it means a load too heavy for one person to bear.

That's really the literal description of that word in the original Greek.

It just means a load that's too great for one person to bear.

And that's going to be important.

That word is gonna be important to us later.

So Paul is very clear in the first part of this verse, isn't he?

Carry each other's burdens.

Carry each other's burdens.

But then he goes on and he says, in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

So what he's telling us in that last part, in your outline, is that carrying burdens fulfills the law.

Carrying burdens fulfills the law.

Now that's an interesting statement, isn't it?

Carry chose burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.

And if you're like me, when I read that, I'm like, well, now wait a minute.

I'm not under the law, right?

That's what the whole New Testament is about.

Christ said, I come to fulfill the law.

So I'm not under the law.

Well, I'm I'm I'm under grace, right?

We we see that in Romans 6.14.

It says, For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

So if we're not under the law, then what is Paul talking about being under the law?

Well, the key to that is he says it's the law of Christ.

The law of Christ.

So we are not, we are no longer under the Mosaic law.

We're not under all those rules that they came out with, that they expanded the Ten Commandments into 600 and something rules, and we're not governed by that anymore.

Because Christ died for us, and because we're believers, we are under grace, but we still have a law.

And that law was given to us by Jesus in John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

And he says, this a new command I give you.

Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

So, what is the law of Christ?

The law of Christ is love.

It's a law of love, it's a law of grace and mercy.

And so when helping carry each other's burdens, what Paul is saying is when you help carry each other's burdens, you are showing that you have the love of Christ in you.

And Jesus described his law this way, comparing it to the Old Testament.

In Matthew 11, 28, he says this, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

You know, he's talking about the difference between being under the Mosaic law and being under his law.

He says, look, if you will yoke yourself to me in love and in grace and mercy, then I will walk with you and I will give you power to love people and to care for people.

And you won't be under that law.

It's not a, it's you're not under the thumb of the law anymore.

You get to walk with me in my power, in my grace, in my love.

So, understanding that Paul has given us this directive to carry one another's burdens, and the reason that we carry one another's burdens is because we are in Christ, and in Christ we are constrained to love people.

And so, knowing that, I think it begs the question: do you know somebody who's having trouble bearing up under the load?

Do you know somebody that you need to walk beside and help carry their load?

So Paul he tells us that in verse 2.

If we back up to verse 1, what he does in verse 1 is he gives us an example of carrying a burden.

He said, Well, what's that look like?

Well, that's a good thing you ask because Paul's going to tell us in verse 1 an example of carrying a burden.

This is what it says.

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

So in this verse, Paul gives us kind of a practical example of somebody who's in over their head and they need some help.

And so the first thing that I want to look at in this verse is the problem.

What is the problem?

Um and we see that in the first part, these slides are going to go pretty quick, so you better write it down while you can.

I can ask you after after the service, if you've missed something, just ask me and I'll ask Lynn and she'll tell you.

The problem.

So we see this in verse 1.

Look what he says.

If someone is caught in a sin, there's the problem, there's the burden.

Now, when you read that, you might be tempted to think, well, caught in a sin, that's kind of like the guys that caught the lady in adultery, right?

They got caught in a sin.

And that's really not what that says in the original language.

What it's talking about is somebody who gets trapped, who falls, who succumbs to a sin.

It's not somebody who got caught, it's somebody who is caught.

Right?

And what do we learn about that when we when we look at that?

What do we see?

Well, we see, first of all, that Paul is talking to the church.

And so sometimes church people get caught.

Sometimes we make bad choices.

Sometimes we get led astray.

Sometimes we get in over our head and sin.

And so that sin becomes a burden that's too much to bear.

And so the implication of this verse is that believers sin.

And sometimes they sin and fall so deep into their sin that they need help getting out.

And so that's the problem.

Now let's look at the next thing.

Let's look at the provider.

The provider.

Where does the solution for this come from?

Well, we're still back in verse 1, and verse 1 says this Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

So I've highlighted a couple of things in that verse.

First of all, I've highlighted the word brothers.

Brothers.

And so what does that mean?

I think it means a couple of things.

I think, first of all, it means that he's talking to the church.

He's talking to brothers, he's talking to brothers and sisters.

Yeah, you don't get off the hook.

Ladies.

He's talking to believers.

Okay, and he's talking to the church collective because he uses the plural.

Brothers.

Everybody.

He's talking to everybody who names the name of Jesus Christ.

In that first word there, that's what he's saying.

Anybody who names the name of Jesus Christ, this command is for you.

But then he goes on and he qualifies it a little further, doesn't he?

He says, You who are spiritual.

You who are spiritual.

Now what does that mean?

What does it mean to be spiritual?

And there may be people here today who say, well, you know, this bear and burden thing, I don't know that I'm spiritual enough to do that.

Well, let's look at what spiritual means.

If you back up in your Bible to the previous chapter, Paul's going to help define this for us.

If you go back to Galatians chapter 5, or end of the chapter there, we know these verses.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

He says this, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, mind says forbearance, that's the new international, gentleness and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Those, this, listen, listen.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, and here's the key.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

So, who are spiritual people?

Spiritual people are people who keep in step with the Spirit.

There are people who walk in the Spirit.

There are people who are led by the Spirit.

And how do we know who those people are?

They are people who exhibit the fruits of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I think that's all of them.

I think there's nine of them.

They're in groups of three.

I know that.

So you ask yourself this this morning.

Do I exhibit those things in my life?

And if I don't exhibit those things in my life, why not?

If I claim to be a Christian and I claim to follow Jesus Christ, and I can't claim to be in Christ, then why in the world would I not exhibit those things in my life?

And the answer may be because I don't walk in the spirit.

Well, where do you walk?

I walk in the flesh.

I just let the world drive me wherever it wants to drive me.

I listen to society, I listen to the culture, I do what I want to do, I live my own life.

Nobody's the boss of me.

Well, I got news for you.

The Holy Spirit is the boss of you.

If you claim to be a Christian, if you claim to be a believer and a follower of Jesus Christ, then the Bible is very clear that believers walk in the Spirit.

They keep in step with the Spirit.

And so when Paul says, if the brother gets caught in sin, you who are spiritual should restore him.

Man, I should be able to find a whole lot of people in the church that meet that qualification.

And so it makes a question for us, then doesn't it?

Have I aligned my life with the Spirit?

Do I walk in the Spirit?

Still drive what I do.

So we see the problem and we see the provider.

And the next thing I want to look at is the process.

So how?

How do we do this?

How do we bear this burden?

How do we come alongside this person?

And we go back to the first verse and we see that it says this.

If someone's caught in a sin, you're spiritual.

Should restore him gently, but watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Now that phrase, restore him gently, that comes out of their language in their time.

It's a medical phrase.

It comes from setting a bone.

Somebody has a broken arm, you set the broken arm, that's what you're restoring that.

And so what is he saying?

He's saying, you need to come alongside this person, not in a harsh way, not in a judgmental way, not in a I just say what I say way.

But you need to come alongside them in a loving way, in a tender way.

And you need to walk with them.

And you need to help them get better.

That's really the goal.

Is to help this person get better.

But see, there's a danger in the process, right?

There's a danger in the process.

He says, watch yourself, or you too may be tempted.

And what is that?

What is the danger?

Well, the danger is the danger is that I become self-righteous in this.

That I become judgmental.

The danger is that I grow hard-hearted toward my fellow believers.

You know, I've heard it said that the Christian army is a unique army.

It's the only army that shoots its wounded.

And so many times we see that, don't we?

Somebody gets caught in sin.

They're in over their head.

Instead of coming alongside them gently with love, we want to go talk to our neighbor about them.

I can't believe they did that.

I guess they're getting what they deserve.

Listen.

You know what we deserve.

We all deserve death and hell.

That's what we deserve.

None of us want what we deserve.

Only through God's mercy do we get his grace.

Only through his grace do we receive his love, and only through his love do we receive eternal life.

That's what we deserve.

So who am I?

We got to be careful.

We come alongside.

We want to mend.

We want to heal.

We want to help.

Whatever it is, if it's spiritual, if it's emotional, even if it's physical, we want to come alongside this person and help them.

But why?

Why would we not do that?

Why would we not do that?

I want to look real quick at the reason for not carrying burdens.

Why would we not help somebody?

Why would we not help carry their burden?

Well, we find that Paul gives us one reason in Galatians 6, verse 3.

Galatians 6:3

He says this, if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

I love that verse.

Hey, if you think you're something and you're nothing, you're lying to yourself.

That's what he says.

Right?

Well, what does that mean?

What are the implications of that?

The implications are that we might pass on burden sharing.

Why?

Because we think it's beneath us.

Let somebody else handle that.

That's too messy for me.

I'm not getting involved in that.

Well, that's just gonna take way too much of my time.

And I don't want to get involved in that.

So what are we really saying there?

What's at the root of this?

If anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself.

What's at the root of that?

The root of that is what?

Pride.

It's pride.

Pride is what keeps us from doing all the things that God's called us to do.

It's always pride.

Always pride.

Pride's what messed us up to begin with.

And pride's what keeps us messed up.

And when we won't come alongside somebody who needs our help, it's usually almost 100% of the time pride.

It may not look like pride on the outside.

It may look like, oh, I'm just too busy.

Well, really, busy with what?

Busy with your stuff.

Well, I don't want to get involved in that.

That's messy.

Why?

Because I'm not getting my hands dirty.

It's always pride.

It's always if he thinks he's something when he's nothing.

Because guess what, folks?

And I don't want to sound all rain on your parade kind of thing, but we are nothing.

We are.

We're a lot of nothing.

The only things that make us something is God.

Jesus said it like this in John 15, 5.

I am the vine, and you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

And Paul tells us this in an earlier chapter of Galatians, in Galatians 2.20, he says this, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live.

Why?

Because I'm nothing.

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5, he says it's not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves.

2 Corinthians 3:5

But what?

Our competence comes from God.

Listen, we don't carry people's burdens.

We can't help them.

We can't love people.

We can't show those things to people.

We can't do any of that stuff without God, without Christ who empowers us to do that, without the Holy Spirit in our life.

That's where our competence comes from.

It comes from God.

So if you do something good, don't think it's you.

What is it they say?

He's born on third base and he thought he hit a triple.

All the good that I have in my life comes from God.

And you know what?

If we can grasp that, our pride will go away.

That is a pride killer to understand the power of God in our life.

So we see the problem.

We see why we wouldn't do this.

Now he's going to give us the fix.

What is the fix for not carrying burdens?

Well, let's look.

The first item about this is found in verse 4, where he says this each one should test his own actions.

Then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else.

Now that's funny, isn't it?

Because in the previous verse, Paul just kind of said, Don't be so prideful.

Don't think you're something when you're not.

And in this verse, he says, hey, then you can take pride in yourself.

So what is the difference there?

Those seem to be contradictory.

But in fact, they are not contradictory.

Because where does this pride come from?

This pride comes from God.

Listen, here's how this works.

We need to learn.

We need to learn to use the correct standard.

Use the correct standard.

So sometimes, sometimes we have this tendency to look around us and we compare ourselves with other people.

And I don't know about you, but when I do that, I generally will find somebody that I judge to be less than me.

Right?

That's generally the way we do it.

And we say things like, well, I may not be this, but at least I'm not that.

Right?

And you know what?

If you look around enough, you'll find somebody that's worse than you are.

Hey, we all know that, right?

In our own judgment.

Right?

Or sometimes we look around and we see people and we go, I could never do that.

I could never do that.

I could never carry that.

I couldn't, I just, oh, I just don't, I'm just not.

Hey, listen, both of those things are wrong.

They're both wrong.

When you look at that verse, when you look at the verse that we just read, he says, each one should test his own actions.

Then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else.

So if we're not comparing ourselves to somebody else, then what are we comparing ourselves to?

We're comparing ourselves to what God has called us to.

Listen, it's okay when God works through you to do something for somebody else.

It's okay for you to go, man, I am thrilled.

Man, that cranks my tractor.

To see God use me in this person's life?

To think that God gave me this opportunity, that God thought that much of me, that he would put me into this situation and in this circumstance that I could walk with this person and help them.

Paul says it like this in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

He says, For by grace, by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

If you are a Christ follower, then God has something for you to do.

And when you do it, it reminds me of the chariots of fire guy, Eric Little, was that his name?

In the scene, and he's talking to his sister about running, and he says, When I run, I feel God, I feel the Spirit of God, or I feel something about God, but he's like, I feel close to God.

Listen, I'm telling you, when you serve, when you answer the call that the Holy Spirit puts on your heart, you will never be more closer to God than you are then.

So we ask ourselves then, again, am I being led by the Spirit?

Am I following the leading of the Spirit?

Am I walking in love?

So when we use Christ as our standard and we use God's calling on our life as the test, it's okay to feel okay.

He wants you to feel okay.

He wants you to feel okay when you do that.

So that brings us to our last fix, and that comes out of verse 5, where he says this.

For each one should carry his own load.

Which sounds incredibly contradictory to verse 2, where he basically says, you should help other people carry their load, right?

So, how does that work?

Well, I told you earlier that in verse 2, that word burden, it meant a load that was too great for one person to bear.

In this verse, the word load, it means a soldier's backpack.

So, what is he saying?

The actual word is for tion.

So it's different from the other word.

It's for teon, and it really means a manageable load.

And what is he saying?

He's saying that we all need to own our own stuff.

We need to own our own stuff.

And what do I mean by that?

Well, when we look back to verse 4, we see that we all have these duties of service.

The Spirit calls us to do things.

We have things that God has put on us.

You know, Pastor Tony talked about this a week or two ago when he talked about the passage where Paul says, hey, we're a body, and not all the body is an ear, and not all the body is an eye.

We're the body.

And everybody in the body has a purpose, and everybody in the body has a calling, and everybody in the body has skills and talents and gifts that God has given us.

And so everybody in the body has a load.

You have a load that God has called on you to carry.

Don't dump your load on somebody else.

Because when you don't show up and when you don't do your thing, somebody has to do that thing for you.

You know what's interesting.

I led the Iwana program here for several years, and uh we had a good friend, and she worked in Iwana when she showed up, and uh, and so then we started a middle school ministry, and and her and her husband were running the middle school ministry.

And I come in, it was when we used to do uh Wednesday night uh suppers, and I'm eating supper, and she comes in and sits down on the table across from me, and she says, I owe you a huge apology.

And I said, For what?

She said, For all those times that I didn't show up.

Because now that I'm on this side of the table, I know what it means when somebody doesn't show up.

God's got something for you.

He's called you out.

It may be to bear somebody's burden.

It may be to walk with somebody, it may be to work in the nursery, it may be to work in the youth, it may be to go on a prayer walk and meet that guy in his neighborhood and introduce him to Jesus Christ.

I don't know what he's got for you, but he's got something for you.

And if you won't pick up your load and carry it, then it's not gonna get done.

And that load may be to come alongside that person that needs it.

We all have a duty of service.

And so the question that we ask is are you doing your part in the kingdom?

And do you know somebody who may be carrying a load that's too big for one person to bear?

So all of this, all of this is really about unity.

All of the one another's that we're studying it's about unity of the body.

It's about us coming alongside each other and helping each other and loving on each other, and communicating with each other, and all of those things.

You do understand that when you become a Christian, you become a part of the family.

That's the deal.

That's the deal.

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, God, I thank you so much for your word.

God, I thank you that you have put us in community.

God, it's so awesome to come into this room and to worship with these people and to hear their voices lifted, singing worship songs to you.

And God, it's great to see the people who are plugged in, who are walking beside each other, who are helping each other out, who are carrying burdens that's too much for one person to bear.

God, I thank you that you have created us that way.

Lord, that you have established your church.

And God, that you have said that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

And so, God, I pray that you would help us to be the people that you've called us to be.

And God, I pray that you would help us to be sensitive to those around us that may need a helping hand to carry that burden that's just too great.

Lord, I pray these things.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.