It's wonderful to be with each and every one of you today.
And as Chris mentioned, we have several of our number here that
are visiting with us and we would hope and pray that you
would feel as you are. And that is our honored guest as
always is the case, it is a privilege to speak concerning
the word of God. And I hope that we have some
things this morning that will be both encouraging and edifying to
you. In some way our passage is taken
from the book of Galatians, chapter 6 and Beginning there,
in verse 1. Brethren.
If a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual
restore, such an one in the spirit of gentleness considering
yourself. Lest you also be tempted, bear
one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
When a person obeys the gospel you've heard me say this in days
gone by he or she has a three-fold responding
obligation. In other words, when my sins are
washed away, Baptism and I Rise to walk in newness of life, it
doesn't end right there and my responsibility only begins and
the first responsibility that I have, I have a responding
obligation to God himself and you know the Bible talks about
living a holy life, it says be holy for, I am Holy.
So, in other words, I have a responding obligation to God to
serve him with my life for the rest of my life.
Secondly, a few months ago, I talk on the subject of Christian
growth and that's the second responding obligation and that
is our responding obligation to our self to grow in Christ.
But thirdly, that's what we want to talk about today.
We haven't responding obligation to each other.
We need each other in the Battle of living the Christian Life,
day by day. And so we're going to talk about
the idea of what it means to Bear one another's burdens.
And I want to make a couple of introductory remarks though,
foundational. Things concerning the things
that people go through in life. It doesn't matter where you come
from. It doesn't matter your
background and it doesn't matter the circumstances in your life.
If you are living your life today on this Earth, You will
strive against and you will struggle with temptation.
You know, temptation is the same for everybody.
What makes it different is perhaps, you might have a
weakness and the devil knows what that is and you may be
tempted with something that doesn't bother me at all.
But on the other hand, I might be tempted with something.
That doesn't bother you at all and the devil knows those things
and he it is called the devices of Satan and he throws these
things at us. So understand everybody is going
to struggle with temptation. In our life.
That's number one. Let me say two things about
that. Number one, number one, it is
not God's fault. You know, don't ever let
somebody tell you that God is tempting.
You The Book of James says that God wouldn't let, no man say
that when he is tempted, I'm tempted of God because God
cannot be tempted with evil. Neither tempteth, he any man.
So, when is a man tempted, James says, when he is drawn away with
his own lust and enticed, and then when lust has conceived, it
brings forth, sin and sin when it is finished brings forth,
death. So number one, it is not God's
fault. And you know, think about it
this way to God is our refuge. If God was the one that through
obstacles in our path, and in our way, we have no refuge.
God is the one that we can go to, though, when Satan throws
Temptations are way. So, number one, understand this
about Temptation. It's not God, it does not come
from God. Number two, temptation is not
sin. Temptation is not sin.
How do I know that? How do I know that temptation is
not sin? We know that Jesus Christ, the
Lamb of God, lived, a life that was perfect in view of his
death. And he sinned, not at all.
In fact, the Bible says of Jesus, he was tempted, like all
men are yet without sin. So temptation is not sin.
And it does not come from God. And yet it is something that we
all struggle with. But when lust has conceived, it
brings forth, sin and sin. When it is finished, it brings
forth death. You know, I realize that sin is
something that we all struggle with.
We're not perfect in James chapter 3 and verse 2.
The Bible says for we all stumble in many things in
Romans, 7 and 24. Paul said, o Wretched, Man, that
I am. He told Timothy, he was the
chief of Sinners and yet. We cannot find a greater man
than the Apostle, Paul when he gave his life to Jesus obeyed,
the gospel was baptized into Christ became an apostle.
We don't find a better man, but there's something else as we're
in the battle together. We need the support of other
Christians to remind us that we are not alone.
You know, what this does, you know, this means it means
confrontation. You heard somebody say, well,
I'm just not good at confrontations.
He ever had somebody say to you? I don't like confrontations.
Well, I got to tell you if you like confrontations.
It's quite possible. You're a troublemaker.
Who in the world likes confrontations?
What I'm saying is is we that live the Christian life
together? We're going to have struggles
and we need each other. And sometimes, sometimes it
takes one Christian, going to another Christian and pointing
something out. That that person perhaps is
doing wrong. We talked about your friends for
just a minute. We talked about friendship and
Proverbs 27, verses 5 and 6. Listen to this verse 5 says,
this open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed Verse
6. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
I got to tell you, I have not always made the right decision
and neither have you. We have we have not lived our
life and sinless Perfection as did Jesus.
And even though we look at the Jesus, as the author and
finisher of our faith, and even though Jesus is the standard of
our life, he is the barometer. He is the bar.
That's all true, and being a Christian means to be
christ-like at all of that. We get that.
The idea is this, though, when we talk about life, we don't
always make the right choice and when I look back on my life,
we're not going to be perfect. When I look back on my life of
all the times that I made a decision that was not the best
decision, and sometimes it was a really bad decision, right?
Do you know that there was always somebody standing by that
was dumber than I was, it was telling me what a great idea I
had. I'm going to tell you something
right now. If you have friends in your life
and you make bad choices and they support you in the bad
choice, they're not your friend. If they encourage you to make a
bad choice or rebel against the structure of what is, right,
they're not your friend. A friend, is somebody that will
tell you exactly how it is even if it hurts, your feelings, as
the proverb says, open rebuke is better than love carefully.
Concealed and faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the
kisses of an enemy are deceitful, you know, sometimes
we have to point something out to someone.
Sometimes that's bad news in July, on a hot afternoon at
2:30, in the afternoon, on in judge alai.
Chat in the excuse me, in the month of July in the year 2010.
I got a phone call that changed my life forever.
I got a phone call from a doctor that had to make a call to me.
And it was not very fun to hear. And she told me I had cancer.
You know, I would imagine it was a hard conversation for her to
have with me. I would imagine it was a hard
phone call for her to make. But can you imagine how
irresponsible she would have been if she did?
I just don't want to bring the bad news, I don't want to really
tell him what his true condition is.
I don't want to do that. I'm going to tell you it ruined
my day just so you know, it wrecked my day, what a terrible
phone call that was it wrecked my day and saved my life.
And sometimes spiritually we have to do the very same thing.
So if we're going to help each other though we're going to help
each other. We have to make sure that our
own backyard is clean in Matthew chapter 7.
Beginning in verse 3, Jesus says and why do you look at the speck
in your brother's eye but do not consider the plank in your own
eye? Or how can you say to your
brother? Let me remove the speck from
your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye hypocrite.
First remove the plank from your own my and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
What he's saying is, he's not saying everybody has their own
issues, leave everybody alone. He said this, get the plank out
of your eye so you can see, clearly to help your brother get
even the speck out of his eye. We need each other and there's a
pattern and its founding Galatians chapter 6 and
beginning there in verse 1. Notice what Paul says here, he
begins by saying Brethren. If any man is overtaken in a
trespass, you know, sometimes the word is translated in
various translations as overtaken in a fault and what
it's talking about is this if anybody that you know, that's
what a man means. If anybody that you know whether
it A man or a woman that is a child of God.
And you see that they are overtaken in any trespass.
You have a responsibility to do something and that is to work
toward restoration to restore and notice who does it, those
that are spiritual. I got to make a point about
being spiritual. I think being spiritual the word
spiritual. He's one of the most
misunderstood Concepts. Okay.
What does it mean? What a spiritual mean, years ago
as a painting contractor, we were painting a doctor's office
and there was a gal that worked in the front there.
She was the only girl that worked there.
So she was the receptionist, the secretary of the office manager.
She paid the bill, she ran the book, she did everything.
And I remember her always talking about this idea and she
would say this, she would say oh you know, last night I this
happened. So I said a prayer and then she
said, oh and mention God in this next statement that she would
perhaps a and then one day she said, you know what, my husband
and I got up at 5 a.m. today. We got our coffee, we went out
in the backyard and on the patio area.
There we sat there at 5:00 a.m. we drank our coffee, and I said
a prayer. And you know what I said?
I said you know, it's really impressive.
She's always talking about God and she's always talking about
praying. So I said this I said, may I ask
you this what religious affiliation are you part of what
church? Are you a member of?
And she said this I'm not a member of any church.
She said, I'm not even religious.
I'm just spiritual The question is this though, is, can you be
spiritual and not be religious? I'm gonna let the Bible answer.
What is spiritual? What is it?
This is what the definition of being spiritual really is in
Galatians 5. And 16, I say, then walk in the
spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
That's number one. Okay?
And we're going to get to how you do that.
But for a person to be spiritual according to Paul in Galatians,
Five. You have to walk in the spirit.
Let's take it further. Let's go to Galatians, 5 and 25.
If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.
So whatever that means a person that is spiritual is somebody
that is living in the spirit and somebody that is walking in the
spirit. So if we can understand what it
means to do that, then we can know exactly what Paul is
talking about. Notice another pass It describes
the fact that it's the word of God.
So who is who are those that are walking in the spirit and living
in the spirit. It's really simple.
It's somebody that's following the word of God, you know, who
that is. That's a Christian.
Don't you see, it's not somebody that's reached some sort of
higher level of perfection or higher level of spirituality.
It's talking about a person that's not perfect, but it's
talking about a person that is spiritual in that they're doing
what they're walking in the spirit.
They're living in the spirit. That is what that is.
Following the revelation of the spirit.
That's the word of God. That is a Christian.
That is a faithful child of God. So who are those that do that,
though? What we find?
Finding Galatians chapter 5 in verses 22 and 23.
These are those that we've just spoke of, but the fruit of the
spirit is love, peace long-suffering, kindness
goodness faithfulness, gentleness self-control against
such. There is no law, so not a
perfect person. But somebody's got to come to
the rescue. Did, did you get that?
if somebody isn't sin, if I'm in sin, one of you has to come to
the rescue. And remember, remember, there is
something that you got to do. And if we're not talking about
policemen, we're not talking about those that are Boston,
other people around. And that, by the way, nowhere in
the word of God does it. Say if Frank brancato is not
doing right? Somebody go and really line him
out and say that at all it says something different.
Let's go back to the passage. It says restore.
I think the idea that we have to
all remember is anytime somebody is corrected spiritually or
something is brought to their attention spiritually that
they're not doing right or they're cast aside or they're
doing things. They should not do, remember
when you go and you confront them, those that are, spiritual
faithful, Christians shows up for the purpose of restoration.
What does that mean? I love this word.
The word actually comes from the Greek word.
That means to mend it. Really means to fix that, which
is broken. Get, that means it means if I'm
in sin, I'm broken. I need one of you.
That is following the word of
God. That is manifesting the fruit of
the spirit. That is trying to live in the
spirit. Walk in the spirit.
That's trying to do. What's right?
I need you to come. Help me and restore for the
purpose of restoration. Now in verses 20 to 23, it
talked about the fruit of the spirit.
Now my point being is this. There's two kinds of people.
And those that are spiritual and those that are carnal and I
didn't come up with that, Paul did, in fact, in 1st Corinthians
chapter 3, it says, if I'm following the dictates of the
flesh, I'm carnal. And you know, really that is one
of the hardest things that is one of the hardest Temptations
in life. It's not to be carnal, not to be
fleshly. We're going to be guided by one
of two things, either by the word of God, which is the spirit
or we are Guided by the world or the dictates of the flesh.
It's one of the other you are a slave to one of the others.
So am I a Christian that is spiritual has to come to the
rescue here and it also gives us a very compelling reason to
live, right? Have you ever stopped to
consider the people in your life?
I want to be very personal right now.
People in your life that you have an influence over that.
Nobody else does. I'm talking about whether you're
a Christian, whether somebody is a Christian, I'm talking about
people that are in your life that you that they know you, you
have influence over people that perhaps nobody else has.
And we know that by way of the influence that we have over
people that are in the world and our neighbors and people we do
business with we know that from that standpoint but have you
ever stopped to consider that there?
Maybe even people in the church spiritual people that you have
the influence over that maybe nobody else has remember when we
talked about the church at laodicea, remember that we
talked about the lukewarm Church.
Know, when Jesus said, I would that you were hot or cold if you
are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.
Okay, what that means is this. He's saying, I'd rather have you
be a faithful Christian that's hot or cold, being somebody that
is the alien sinner in the world.
You know why? Because the word of God can
still affect your heart. But the lukewarm person, the one
that's just going through the motions, that is a Christian
that's just going through the motions and they're not led by
the word of God. They enjoy the status quo,
perhaps to the person that's living a double life.
Doing things out in the world trying to hold onto the world
with one hand and Jesus with the other.
That is a lukewarm Christian. Have you ever stopped to
consider that the lukewarm Christian can do more harm to
the cause of Christ? Then somebody that's in the
world? Doesn't profess Christianity at
all. Do you know why here it comes?
What if I'm that guy? What if I'm the lukewarm guy and
you say, wait a minute, why don't you come and attend
Services? They might say, wait a minute.
I know Frank. I'm as good as that guy.
Is that guy doesn't live it? I'm as good as he is.
In fact, if he's going to heaven, I can sure go to heaven.
Not even say. I'm better than that guy.
Frank, you kidding me. You see the point?
that is a great motivator for living spiritually as you should
because you have influence over other people in the world and In
the church compelling motivation to do just that in first
Thessalonians, chapter 5 and verse 14.
Paul says, now we exhort you Brethren warn those that are
unruly Comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak
and be patient with all, okay? How are we going to do that?
Unless we are living our life as we should?
Let's go back to our text here. It is Brethren.
If a man is overtaking and any trespass you that are spiritual
restore, such an one in the spirit of Get on this.
In the spirit of gentleness. you know, I got to tell you, if you
look at the preaching of Jesus, In Matthew 23, it was a time in
the last week in the life of Jesus when Jesus was Furious.
And it was similar to the time that he overturned, the money
changers, the table of the moneychangers.
Remember that too? So in the last week of his life
Jesus was confronting sin and error, he was confronting a lot
of bad people. But there's nothing that says he
even raised his voice. You can say something in a
proper way and be as strict as you possibly can be.
You know, my grandmother lived to be about Louise Brown Connor.
She's about this tall. I think and grandmom lived to be
about, I don't know, I think 96 or so maybe older.
And she was a little Italian lady, and she would say Frankie,
it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
My whole life. I've heard that little
grandmother, she didn't make that up.
Everybody knows that, right? What matters is how you say, it.
I'll give you an example by the way about that.
Some of you have heard this little story, but it's true.
I used to weigh a whole lot more than I weigh.
Now I think I used to weigh 50 pounds more than I weigh now.
And I'll never forget, I went to the doctor and had a physical
and I go in there for this physical and the doctor took my
blood and did all these tests. And they said, well, you know,
you got this all out of whack and this number is not good, and
on, and on, and on, and I'm sitting there and the doctor
says, very kindly and very nicely.
And even very gently. He said Frank You got to lose
some weight. I think your numbers will be a
lot better if you lose a little weight.
You know I said are you kidding? It's muscle weight.
Its muscle weight. I'm in great shape.
You don't understand right. Sold myself on the bill of goods
that it was just muscle weight. Well, I went my way it took me a
long long time but eventually I got the weight off.
Okay. And I came back for a follow-up.
I think it's like two years later and here I come in.
I'm so proud of myself. And I sit there and they did
some other blood work. And everything is in really
great shape. And here it comes.
He said, I'm so glad you lost the weight and I'm thinking
finally, here it comes. I'm going to finally get a pat
on the back. My doctor said I'm so glad you
lost the weight because man, you were really fat I'm glad you
didn't say that the first time. Because how you say it's
everything? The idea of restoring by the
way, is fixing that which is broken.
And by the way, let me also say this to, when you talk about
gentleness, if you have to remove a fly from somebody's
forehead, you don't need a hammer.
There's other ways to remove the fly off of forehead of another
person without using the hammer. You could do it, right?
You could say it right? We could approach each other,
right? Don't ever approach, though.
Look at this, when you do this whole thing, then he says, you
got to do this. You've got to consider yourself,
lest you also be tempted. This phrase means two things,
two things. Number one don't have the
attitude of a haughty Spirit or a condescending Spirit or don't
be puffed up. Like you're better than the
person that just committed that sin and don't think, wait a
minute. I'm way better than that.
Don't do that. Lest you also be tempted but
there's more Don't ever act like it could never happen to you.
Man, you have no idea. I'm telling you right now, it
can happen to anybody. And I know people that you would
have never thought. Whatever drift back into sin and
do things that they've chosen to do.
Or be overtaken and faults and decide to leave and leave God.
Lead the Lord. And they were people that you
would say they would never have done that.
How many people said this about themself?
It'll never happen to me? What about Peter do you know
when Jesus rose from the dead, and Jesus is now speaking to
Peter, and the apostles I call it.
The second conversion of Peter member that he said, do you love
me? He said, you know, you know, I
love you, three times three times, he got Peter to profess,
I love you one for each time he denied him.
Accident. I don't think so.
One forever time. So Peters on the way, right?
And then all of a sudden, Peter's doing great.
They, you know, Peter does Peter falls?
Why? Because he refused to eat with
the Gentiles, for fear of the Jews?
You know what Paul had to do? He withstood him to the face?
That was wrong. That was wrong.
Anybody can fall. Don't ever think you cannot
number two. Number two, you don't, sometimes
we do. Sometimes we're hardest on
people, okay? Sometimes we're the hardest on
people. that are guilty of doing things that we are self are also
guilty of I knew a guy, one time he was so hard on somebody else
about a particular sin that he was doing.
He was really hard on him and, you know, I found out years
later. He had the same problem.
Same exact problem. Sometimes we think it could
never happen to us and sometimes we are harder on others that are
guilty of the same thing that we are self are also guilty of.
Let me give you a Bible example. Now, though, because back to
John chapter 8, Cullen touched on this last week, when he
talked about the woman that was caught in the very Act of
adultery, I'm not going to go into the whole story, make a
couple of points though because it shows that this idea that I'm
talking about, it's nothing new. When the woman was brought
before Jesus, The Bible says, they said she was caught in the
very Act of adultery. Now obviously if she was caught
in the very act and there was a man somewhere and he also was
caught in the very act but nobody said anything about him.
Remember what Jesus does? He does two things that are very
significant one. It is significant what he said
and to it is significant what he wrote with his finger we just
don't know what it is. Jesus said, let he who is
without sin cast the first stone, a couple of things about
that. This is not a general passage
sometimes this is taken as a general passage.
In other words. Nobody's perfect.
So let him who is without sin or Perfect cast the first stone
nobody's going to be perfect, right?
That's not what it means in the original in the original, it
says this. Let him who is without this sin.
Let Him cast the first stone. And then he does this, he kneels
down and he takes his finger and he writes something on the
ground. I don't know what he wrote the
old type preachers used to say. Isn't it entirely possible
though that he was writing the names of the men that were there
that were guilty of the very same sin.
It's perhaps true. Maybe You know what they did,
they all walked off. And Jesus says, where are your
accusers? And she said, there are none.
He says, neither do I accuse you go and sin, no more.
Sometimes we're hardest on people that are guilty of the
very same thing that we are guilty of.
And then it comes to verse 2 In this inverse to Bear one
another's burdens now. What is a burden?
The word burdens actually means heavy.
Loads that are hard to carry. This is a two-fold thing, but I
get very specific in a minute. Heavy loads that are hard to
carry and sometimes that is things.
You go through in life, sometimes it's illness.
Sometimes it's loss. And it's true that we need to
Bear one another's burdens. In fact, we can go to another
Bible passage and show. Just that when we're talking
about heavy, loads that are hard to carry in a general sense, no
matter what they are. We can go to First Corinthians
12 and 26, where Paul said, and if one member suffers all the
members suffer with it, or if one member is honored all the
members Rejoice with it, right? We can look at that and we can
say, look, if I am having a problem in my life, I'm having
Struggling my life. I need the, I need God's people.
To come to my rescue. I need God's people to help me,
right? And, you know, sometimes we are
so good at this and sometimes we come up short.
Sometimes we are really good at this and sometimes we come up
short. But when you talk about the
church, that's what Paul was talking about.
In First Corinthians chapter 12, he was talking about the church
as a body. It's as a family and just, as
you would your own child, or your own sibling, or whatever it
is to come to their aid. That's what happens in the
family of God. We come to each other's Aid.
So Paul said that if somebody's going to suffer, we're going to
suffer. With it.
If one member is honored all the members Rejoice with it.
So bearing one another's burdens in a general sense, would
include the things that you go through in life that are hard
and painful. Yes, but specifically, in the
context, it means this It means heavy weights that cause your
brother to sin. That's the context.
How do I know if anyone's overtaken in a trespass?
Somebody, that spiritual here comes a Christian.
You got to come to the aid, help to restore such a one in the
spirit of gentleness consider yourself.
Lest you also be tempted and bear one another's burdens.
Heavy loads or heavy weights that cause your brother to sin,
we need help. And by the way, if your brother
is falling into sin, you know what happens?
It needs somebody pick him up. You got to pick him up?
If they're down, you got to pick him up.
That's what right, that's what restore means fixed that which
is broken, but you know what? Our responsibility doesn't end
there. You know why?
Because the Temptation is not going to go away.
So if a temptation is there and we're talking about habitual sin
here by the way and by the way, habitual sin things you keep
falling back into has great. Heavyweights.
It's great heavyweights. Have you ever heard the word?
Guilt naturally? And when you feel guilty, it is
a heavy burden. It is a heavyweight.
So when you go to the rescue to restore that person, you got to
do more than that, you have picked them up but now you have
to help them. And you got to hold them up.
That's what bearing, one another's.
Burdens literally means. You got to hold them up.
In James 5:16. Confess your trespasses to one
another and pray for one another that you might be healed.
The effective, fervent, prayer of a righteous man avails much.
What does all this mean? Well, first of all, we know
this, we know that what is first, and foremost is prayer.
This is not something that is just talking about something at
the invitation, by the way, that will happen.
Just a minute. We're talking about something
that is very important, and that is prayer.
Now, let me ask you this, Don't let well first of all let me
make a statement. Don't let somebody tell you that
says if you are a child of God and you have sinned, don't let
anybody tell you that you have to call somebody on the phone
and ask him to pray for you because you can't be forgiven
until that happens. That is not in the Bible.
That's not in the Bible. We are a kingdom of priests.
You know what that means? That means we have access to God
through the high priest. That is Jesus Christ.
So, when I sin, I don't need to call Terry Terry, pray for me.
I want to be forgiven, I get to do it, I get to ask God to
forgive me through Jesus Christ. If you buy before that acts 8,
Simon the Sorcerer, when he sinned, remember that Simon, the
Sorcerer Sandy was a Christian, he was a new convert and he
sinned and when he sinned, Peter said, repent of this thy
wickedness and pray God that the thoughts of thine heart may be
forgiven thee. You know what he said, he said,
please you pray for me. So what that shows is two
things, you can pray for yourself.
And you can have somebody else. Pray for you too. but when you
talk about confessing your faults, And you talk about
bringing that to other people. Do you know there's a wonderful
secondary benefit? And that is accountability,
right? It's accountability.
You know, accountability is wonderful accountability, helps
us stay on the right way or the right path if I go to Terry and
I say Terry, you know what, you know what, I'm really struggling
with this. I need your help.
What have I done? I've confessed my trespasses.
I've confessed my faults to my brother and what does the Bible
say the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much?
So I ask him he is spiritual he is following the word of God.
He's a faithful Christian. What To do, he's going to pray
to God on my behalf. But then, what else?
I'm now accountable to Terry for my problem.
For my struggle. I'm accountable to him.
He's going to check in every once awhile.
Hey, how you doing that? Accountability is everything,
don't you see? It's not enough just to pick up
the person, you've got to hold them up.
And the way you hold them up, is by bearing their burdens, which
are heavy loads that are hard to Bear.
Heavy loads. You know, there was a young boy,
one time, they had a problem. He had a real problem with his
mouth. And he really meant to do.
What was right? You really meant to do better
but every time he got angry, he would just be overtaken with it
and he would use some really really bad language and then he
would feel really, really bad about it.
And the story is told that he kept going to a preacher and he
kept saying to the preacher, I'm from sinful, I'm I don't mean to
do it. I just keep following.
Following the preacher said this, I'm going to pray for you,
but this is what you're going to do.
You're going to carry a notebook with you and for the entire
week, whatever you do wherever you go, you're going to take the
notebook with you. And when you stumble and when
you send your going to write down, what you said, why you
said it, what were the circumstances?
And all of that and every Friday in my office you're going to
come and meet with me and you're going to sit there and we're
going to go over it. You know what happened after two
weeks after two weeks there was nothing on the page.
The third week there was nothing On the page, the fourth week
there was nothing on the page, see the point.
The preacher said to this young man, well what got into you?
He said I was so embarrassed to have to show you what I said it
gave me the courage and the strength to not do it ever
again. Look at it from the standpoint
of ever heard. Somebody say it takes 21 days to
break a habit in 21 days to form a new one.
Okay? If I go to my brother and I'm
accountable to him, guess what I'm doing every day that goes by
is another day that I'm establishing a better habit,
that's called bearing your burdens, that's called keeping
you and lifting you up. So, When you do that, you
fulfill the law of Christ. They also say this too.
If somebody ever comes to you and tells you something very
personal, don't tell anybody else.
You know, that's terrible. When you go confide in somebody,
And you tell them something, very personal about your life
and a struggle, perhaps that you have been going through.
And you tell them those things, and then they go tell other
people about it. You know, my dad says sometimes
it's hard to tell other people are trust other people with
things because if you hand the load over to them they got to
pass it on to somebody else, right?
My dad told me that my whole life, let's not be.
Then we need to be there for each other to restore.
Not only that, but build each other up and hold each other up.
And that's the responsibility that we have.
So what does it mean? The law of Christ to fulfill the
law of Christ? The law of Christ obviously is
the law of love and that's a got be love.
That is love of service and sacrifice for another and in
John Chapter 13 and verse 35, a new commandment.
I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you that
ye also love one another but this is the will this is all but
this that all will know you are my disciples if you love one
another. In Galatians 5 and 14 for all
the law is fulfilled in one word.
Even in this you shall love your neighbor as your self.
Okay. As we start wrapping things up,
we got to talk about this. Got to talk about burdens okay
because in one passage it says that you have to bear your own
burdens and in another passage it says that were to Bear each
other's burdens. Let's talk about that and this
is our last Point. Here it is.
In Galatians 6 and verse 5 for each one, shall bear.
His own burden, that's from the King James.
So in verse 5, he said, you got to Bear your own burden, three
verses prior to that is our verse under consideration today
and it says, bear one another's burdens.
Is there a conflict? Is there a conflict?
First of all, in verse 2. Let's talk about what they are.
What are the burdens inverse to Galatians 6 and to Bear one
another's burdens? What are the burdens?
They are heavy weights that are causing your brother to sin,
okay? Heavy weights that are causing
your brother to sin. We have a responsibility to each
other in that but in Galatians 6 & 5, everyone must bear his own
burden. That's the King James.
The new King James says load and I'm glad that it does because
they're two different. Birds, it's not the same word.
What's that mean? What is burden in the King James
verse 5 or load in the kit and the new King James in verse 5
Min. It means this, it refers to the
things that we will, all give an account for It's really simple.
It's really simple. I need your help.
With these burdens that caused me to sin.
But in the end you can't stand in for me.
I'm going to give an account to what I do.
You're going to give an account to what you do.
That's what that means. So why do we help each other in
this regard? Because we all will give an
account to the things that we do in our life.
That's all that. That means that is all that,
that means. So it says this in, Romans, 14,
and 12, to support this thought. So then each of us shall give an
account of himself and to God, now, I realized that sometimes
the Christian life is difficult, I do.
I really do understand. And I understand things are
hard. And I understand that sometimes
heartaches come too. And they derail us.
And I also understand that sometimes things that are thrown
your way are so difficult, it makes you want to shut down I'm
going to tell you right now. That's what the devil wants you
to do. The devil wants you to shut
down. If your shutdown, he wins.
He wins. If you persevere?
You win because the Lord wins. I realize it's tough.
I know it's tough but there's nothing in the word of God that
says be a Christian and have an easy life.
There's nothing that it says that nowhere. so, when hard
times come and they will, Draw nigh to Jesus.
Draw nigh to the word of God approach.
Your heavenly father repeatedly throughout the day to help you
through it. And you know what, I'm going to
tell you, you know, sometimes we do.
Sometimes we beg God to take it away.
We all do that. Sometimes it's hurts so bad, we
beg God to take it away. Let's do this.
Let's be better at this. Let's beg.
God to give us the strength and the courage to persevere.
I'm going to tell you if you do that, guess what?
The whole world's Watching God gets the price.
I'm finished in conclusion. Here's our passive one more
time. If anybody is caught in a sin.
Somebody's got to come to the rescue.
Who is it at the spiritual person?
Who's that? That's Christian what for line
them out. No restore help to mend that
which is broken. Let's do it in the right way
though. Let's do it in the spirit of
gentleness. It's not what you say.
It's how you say it. Let's do what else.
To let's never have the opinion or the idea.
It could never happen to us. So let's consider ourself less.
We also be tempted, let us bear one another's burdens which are
heavy weights that caused our brother to sin and help each
other through this life. And when We do, we fulfill the
law of Christ, which is the law of love.
I'm finished. Thank you so much for your kind
listening this morning. We never know the hearts and
minds of those that are present. Are you hearing the sound of my
voice and you are not a child of God the steps to become a child
of? God are very simple, Paul said,
so then Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Jesus said in Mark 16:16. He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be.
Damned Jesus also said in Luke 13 and 3, I tell you nay but
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
All That means is this. We hear the word of God.
We believe in Jesus. We believe in Jesus so much.
We're going to do what he says. He said, repent, what's that?
I got to change my life. What else?
Jesus said, if you confess me before men, I will confess you
before my Father, which is in heaven and that confession,
simply is, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and
all of those steps lead toward or up to the point of salvation.
First, Peter 3:21 though says, the like figure whereunto even
baptism doth also now save us. That's the point of Salvation.
That's where you contact the blood of Jesus.
That's where you have your sins washed away.
We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the
Church of Christ at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you
would like any additional information or you would like to
receive a free Bible correspondence, course by mail.
Please email us at info at True Church of Christ
Bakersfield.com. Our service times are on Sundays
at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.
Please make plans to join us. We would love for you to be our
honored guest.