Alright brethren, let's go to
Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6. Verse 1. Our Lord says, our Spirit of
God says through Paul. Our Lord is saying this through
Paul. He says, Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, Ye which are spiritual, restore such one
in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bury ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to
be something when he's nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let
every man prove his own work. Then shall he have rejoicing
in himself alone and not in another, for every man shall bear his
own burden." Whether we're the one in need
of being restored or we're being used of Christ to restore, whichever
place we're in, We're the one needing to be restored or we're
the one being used to restore. Two things the Lord is gonna
teach us and he does this every time and keeps doing it. Number
one, he makes you to remember that all flesh is grass. He makes you to remember that
about yourself. My flesh is just grass. And then he makes you
to remember this too, thy God reigneth. These two things he's
showing us all the time, our weakness and God our strength. Whether we're restoring or we're
being restored, this is what he's gonna teach you. This is
going to be taught in the heart of his people before it's over.
That's what he's gonna teach you, he's gonna show you. Now
first of all, I want you to see that this is two brethren. Who
are brethren? Who are brethren? True brethren,
who are they? Those that are true brethren
were brethren before we ever knew it. Because God chose us
freely in Christ. Before this world was made, He
put us in Christ and made us one in Christ long before we
knew anything about it. And then when He comes to us
in grace by His Spirit, now listen to what the Lord says about brethren. It says we're in the unity of
the Spirit, the bond of peace. It says there's one body. That
means we're each members of that body. Now this is speaking of
true believers, born of the Spirit, brought to faith in Christ. We're
all members of the one body of Christ. We're one spirit. We're called in one hope of your
calling. Each believer has one hope. That's
Christ. That's Christ. We have one Lord,
and he is the Lord. He is ruling everything. We have
one faith. There's not multiple faiths.
We just have one faith. One faith. One baptism, we were
baptized in Christ, in justice, on the cross. And that's what
we confessed in that water baptism. We died with Him, buried with
Him, rose again with Him. We have one God and one Father. He's the Father of all, He's
above all, He's through all, and He's in you all. That's oneness. That's oneness. We have this
unity for one reason. It's because Christ, by his righteousness,
fulfilled our righteousness for us, sent us the Spirit of God,
quickened us through the preaching of the gospel, and brought us
to believe him. Go to John 17. I want you to
see this. This is just astounding. And if we get this, get a little
glimpse of this, boy, it's just a, this is a blessing. John 17,
verse 22, this is the glory he's talking about, that gospel that
he sent to proclaim. He said in verse 22, the glory
which thou gavest me, I've given them, that they may be one even
as we are one. Christ is saying this to the
Father. He said, I gave them this gospel that you gave me
before the world began, to make them one, even as Christ and
the Father are one. I in them, and thou, Father,
in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world
may know that thou hast sent me. He's talking about his elect
throughout the world. That they may know that thou
hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. That's amazing, brethren. That's who brethren are. We're
one, even as God the Father and His Son are one. That's one. That's one. Christ is in each
of us, and God the Father is in Christ, and we're made perfect
in one, in Christ Jesus. He's our perfection. And God
the Father loves Each of the brethren, each of his people
who believe, he loves each one of his people with the same love
wherewith he loves Christ. That's brethren. That's who brethren
are. He's going to keep brethren together through this life and
when we die, we're going to be together, perfect oneness at
the Feet of Christ, giving all the glory and the praise to our
Lord for doing this. Perfect, one mind, one song,
going in one, together. Oneness. Now, that's who brethren are.
That's who this is addressed to. That's who this is addressed
to. Now, the next word is this. It
says, if, though, a man, a brother, a sister, be overtaken in a fall,
ye which are spiritual, restore such a one. Now let's stop right
there just for a minute. Every warning, every exhortation,
every admonition, every word of forgiveness, every word of
grace in these scriptures, they're here because Believers are still
sinners You know When he says don't do this or that it's because
we are prone to do it and So this this word here to restore
is because we're gonna need to be restored Because we're sinners
we're gonna be overtaken in a fault we're gonna sin we're gonna need
be restored and Now the new heart that Christ creates, when he
gives us a new heart, we have a new desire, we have
a true motive in our heart to walk in newness of life as Christ
commands us. That's so in every believer.
You have a new heart to walk in newness of life, not in the
old life, in newness of life. Now understand this and remember
this. When He creates fruit in His
people, He gives it according to the measure of the gift of
His grace. Some He creates more, some a
little less, some a little less, and some less than that. And
He doesn't create all the fruit at once. You're going to grow,
He's going to grow you, and He's going to produce fruit in His
people. Some people grew up in a wonderful household that didn't
have a lot of immoral sin and they weren't engaged in immorality
and in trouble and everything was peaceful and they were raised
not to act that way. And sadly, a lot of the sin that
those folks encounter is they think that because they don't
do those things, They're not sinning and that is itself sin
to think that. Didn't you have other brethren
who didn't have that life? They had a hard life. They had
a broken home. They had all kind of craziness
going on and lived in a place where they were wild as a buck
when God called them. And it's going to change them
when he calls them. It's going to give them a new
heart and they're going to love righteousness, but they're not all going to
look the same outwardly. Just forget that. If there's
less fruit in one, you know what else there's going to be in that
one? There's going to be more sin in that one. Here's the thing
we need to understand. Godliness is not what you see
on the outside. Perish that thought. Just get
that out of your mind. Faith is in the heart. Repentance
is in the heart. Love is in the heart. Now these
things will manifest themselves outwardly as he grows you in
grace. It will. But don't look at whether
somebody has that outwardly or does not have that outwardly
to gauge how godly they are. That's wrong. That's just flat out wrong. We
have a sin nature. We don't want to sin and we endeavor
not to sin. But we have a sin nature and
we do sin. We do sin. Sometimes our greatest sin is
thinking we're not sinning because of how good the outward looks. And yet sin is mixed with our
best thoughts. Sin is mixed with our best deeds. Sin is mixed with everything
we do. And we can commit grievous sins, and we can commit grievous
sins repeatedly. And anybody that says that the
believer won't do that, they're being dishonest with themselves.
They just are. But God's gracious to provide
brethren to help. He's gracious to provide brethren
to help. We saw this morning how It's
the discipline of forgiveness that's going to bring us to repent. And when he works that in you,
he'll make you give up that outward sin. You're still going to have
sin in your heart, and there's still going to be other outward
sin, but he can break your bone and make you give up whatever
it is that he's purposed for you to give up at that time.
You're giving it up. And He's the one that works that,
and He does it through this thing of forgiveness, showing you you're
forgiven. And that makes you, you hate it. You hate it. But when He does this, and He's
broken your heart, and He really made you to mourn for Him, and
really made you to cry out for mercy, He always, always is gracious
to provide you brethren, who He's worked this grace in, and
prepared to restore you. This is the Lord. This is how He operates. He says,
you which are spiritual, now all believers are spiritual because
we are born of the Spirit of God. We are. But He is going
to say here a little bit later now, be careful you don't fall
into a trial and start thinking to yourself something when you
know nothing. That is showing us, brethren, we might not always
be spiritual. But here's the man who's spiritual. When he's needed, the Lord's
going to have him prepared. You think about this. I've said
this to you before. Churches will get three or four
people, and the first thing they're going to do is make all of them
deacons. Our Lord had saved, I think, about 8,000 people after
Pentecost before He brought a need up where they needed to minister
to their widows. and disperse money and things
to the widows there, the widows in need. But you know what he
provided before he provided that need? He provided seven men,
faithful men, to meet that need. And they became the deacons.
When he is going to have some brethren that are spiritual to
restore somebody who needs to be restored, he is going to provide
those spiritual brethren. And what are they? What is a
spiritual brother? There's somebody that's been
humbled by God's grace. And we've been all humbled that's
been born of the spirit of God. You've been given a spirit of
meekness. Do you always walk in a spirit of meekness? You
always humble? But when He needs you in a spirit
of meekness to deal with a brother who needs to be restored, He's
going to give you that spirit of humility and that humble spirit.
He's going to make you know your own sin, your own need of grace,
your own need of forgiveness, so that He consoles you so that
you're able to console them that are in need when they need it.
He's going to make you to remember Christ is your master. He was
able to make you stand when you needed to stand and nobody else
could make you stand. He was able to make you stand.
So that now you are spiritual and you can remember He is going
to be able to make this brother stand. He is going to make you
to know that He is the only one that can restore. He is the only
physician that can heal because He healed you. Now we've all
been healed by Him who believe Him. We all experienced this.
But I'm saying when He needs you to console somebody, this
is going to be freshly, you're going to be freshly reminded
of this. It's going to be renewed in you that He's the physician.
He can heal this. You're going to know by fresh
experience that the gospel alone is the power of God to salvation.
The gospel is what needs to be spoken. And that's what he's
going to make you speak to him. Just keep reminding him of Christ
and what he's accomplished and keep encouraging him to go to
him. That's what he's going to make you do. If he's using you
to restore, that's what he's going to do. And the one, he's
going to be one that rejoices in mercy. Somebody that's going
to be able to love and able to be gracious and able to forgive
and able to restore. He's going to be somebody that's
been freshly made to rejoice in mercy. That's right. Somebody that's been around 70
or 80 years, that he's grown from 20 years old and kept growing
them in grace and they've experienced these things, they'll be mature
spiritually. They usually are just the ones
you want to talk to because they're spiritual. But if He uses one
of us, He's going to make you spiritual before He uses you.
He's going to make you freshly renewed in all these wonders
of His grace and He's going to use you. That's what Paul said
to the Corinthians, remember? He said, we suffer these trials
and we're consoled by Christ. Why? So that we can console with
the consolation with which we're consoled. That's what I'm talking
about here. This is going to be new to you
and fresh to you from a just recent something you went through,
where He showed you this all over again, and you're going
to be the one He's going to use to do this. And this is the blessing of it,
brethren. When you need this, when you need to be restored,
He's going to provide you, brethren, that can restore you. Just bank
on that. This is our gracious Lord. And
He says here, to the spiritual, he says, now restore such a one
in the spirit of meekness. This word restore means mend
what's broken. Mend what's broken. It means
strengthen. It means use great carefulness like you would if
you were trying to set a bone. Or deal with somebody who has
a broken bone. That carefully. When the Lord
brought David to behold his sin, and the Lord made him to go to
the Lord confessing his sin. David cried out and he said,
Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast
broken may rejoice. Has the Lord ever chastened you
so that you felt like something was broken? Your heart was just
broken. That's what we're talking about.
And when that person has been broken, when a person's, you
take a child, your child, if that child has fallen and broken
a bone, you're not going to go and administer force and put
your foot on that broken bone. You're going to take that child
as gently as you can, carefully as you can, and try to comfort
them every way you can, and you're going to take them to the doctor
as fast as you can. That's what He's telling us to
do here. That's exactly what He's telling us to do here. Remind
them, keep restoring them, remind them if we confess our sins,
He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's the propitiation
for our sin. Now this spirit of meekness is
given by the Holy Spirit reminding us what Christ did for us. Reminding
us, reminding each of us personally, that He's going to use. He's
going to remind you personally, I'm the ungodly sinner. And Christ
did this for me when I was the ungodly sinner. Christ said,
I restored that which I took not away. Christ sent the gospel
to us, and He used some vessel to speak in love, declaring to
us that Christ restored His people in perfect righteousness by completely,
thoroughly emptying Himself on Calvary's cross. He restored
us in righteousness. He didn't take it away. You know,
if somebody sins, we have this thought of, why should I restore
them? I didn't take it away. Christ restored us and He didn't
take it away. We sinned against Him. And He
came and emptied Himself of everything for His people to restore us. Restored us by making us complete.
Restored us by making us accepted in His precious blood. Restored
us in newness of spirit, giving us His Holy Spirit. That's exactly
what he's saying here. In the spirit of meekness, restore
them to Christ the great physician who alone can heal. And then
he gives us this warning. Verse 1 at the end, he says,
Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted, and in verse
3 is what he means, For if a man think himself to be something
when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. This is the great trial
right here. when brethren sin. This is a
great trial. It's easy for the sin of another
to turn into a trial for ourselves. It's so easy. Easy for us to
act as though we're something when we're nothing. Trying to
interject ourselves into it and do something about it. What was it we were talking about?
Don always said that give information, don't give advice. Give information. Information
in this book about examples and illustrations and things that
the Lord did without telling somebody what to do. Because
we are so prone to approach this thing like we are somebody, like
we know something. The most important thing we can
remind ourselves is what great centers we are in ourselves.
That's what it is. Consider yourself. You know,
the scripture tells us to examine ourselves and you start looking
over your life or something like that. If you start finding something
to have confidence in, you're in a bad place. That's not what
it means. If you examine yourself and you
have something to have confidence in, you're in a terrible place.
Consider yourself. And when you really are in a
good place is when you realize, I have nothing in myself to commend
me to God. Not anything. Not anything. When we see the sin of others,
if we could do this, always remember this, when you see sin in your
brethren, whatever it is, if it's not ever so little or ever
so great, have this mindset, I'm looking in the mirror. I'm
looking at myself. That's me. Not, you know, just
that's me. That's me. Everything we have
we receive freely by God's grace. He's our provider. We're not
anything of ourselves. And here's a good thing to remember
this too. Everything we are that's accepted of God, we are in Christ
at God's right hand. in Christ at God's right hand.
There's our acceptance, Christ at God's right hand. It's not
anything we've done, not anything we are, it's who He is, what
He's done. There's our acceptance. The point
I'm making to you, brethren, is considering ourselves, we're
remembering we don't have any reason in ourselves to think
we have the ability or the qualification to do anything. We just don't. We just don't. We need to, it's
gonna be those humbled and meekness of spirit. Remember Moses? Every
time they murmured against Moses, every time they blamed him for
trying to kill him, they blamed him for thinking he was taking
too much on himself, we're all holy, blaming him for taking
an Ethiopian woman, everything, they were blaming him for everything.
Where do you find Moses? On his face, praying to God,
interceding for them, asking God what to do, asking God help,
help Lord. That's what we're talking about.
One time Moses thought himself something. You know what he did?
He smoked a rock a second time and yelled out, you bunch of
stiff-necked rebels. And God said, you're not going
in the promised land. He smoked a rock twice. That
didn't mean God didn't save him. God saved him. But the Lord didn't
use him to take him in there. Considering ourselves involves
this. If the shoe was on the other foot, or if it were my
child, How would I want to be treated? Now here's the great
reminder. Here it is. Bear ye one another's
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Here's what love does. Love bears all things. Love bears
all things. That's what love did. Love came
in person. God is love. He came in person
and He bore all our sins. He bore all the shame of our
sin, the shame He despised, He bore it. He bore an ignominy,
a shameful death on the cross, stripped naked before the whole
world, but worse than that, bearing the sin of His people before
a holy God who hates iniquity with a perfect hatred. And He
bore the curse of His people unto death and was buried in
a grave for His people. Now that's bearing the burden.
And He bore it away. He bore it away. He bore all
our sin away. He took it away, brethren. He
took it away completely. And so the scripture tells us
it's that love. He tells us this. He says, now
you love as I have loved you. Now we can't ever love like that,
nearly like He loved us. And we certainly can't put any
confidence in our love. And we can't really look down
on anybody else that don't love us because we don't love as we
ought. But here's what we're to endeavor for. He said, let
this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. He thought
it not robbery to be equal with God because he is equal with
God. But what did he do? He made himself of no reputation. This is our number one problem.
Pride. We got a reputation. He made
himself of no reputation. And he took the form of a servant. A servant to serve. And he was
made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled himself and became obedient unto that death of the
cross. Remember when he washed their
feet that night? That's what he was showing. He
was showing that work he did by coming down and washing us
completely from our sins. But he also was showing them
how that as we walk through this world, you're going to get your
feet dirty constantly with sin. There's not a prayer we pray
that we don't ask the Lord to forgive us. Why? We need cleansing
daily. Well, I thought Christ cleansed
us back there. He did. We need it today. We need Him
to cleanse us, to teach us the way, to cleanse our thoughts,
and to keep us knowing He's the way, and keep us following after
Him, and to put away our sin. We need it daily. And so do our
brethren. And so when you think about it,
He bent down to their dirty feet and washed them. And when he
got finished, he said, if I then your Lord and your Master have
washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For
I have given you an example that you should do as I have done
to you. He's not talking about literally,
physically washing feet. Although if your brother's feet
are dirty, then he'd wash and wash them. But he's saying this
is what we're to do in restoring one another to Him. In constantly
being a help for one another. To bear one another's burden. He bore all the burden of our
sin. He bore the burden of our shame. You know when you sin, what a
shame it is to you before God. And what a shame it is to you
before your brethren. It's just shameful to you. It's
shameful. You feel so much shame because
of it. Well, when somebody starts wanting
to speak about your brother about that and shame them, bear that. In other words, stop it. We're
not going to talk about my brother. I'm not going to listen to it.
I'm not going to listen to you shame my brother. You want to
shame somebody? Shame me. Here I am. I'm right
in front of your face. Shame me. They won't. Just remember
this. The person that's talking about
your brother to you when your brother's not there, they're
talking about you when you're not there. Don't listen to it. Just don't
listen to it. I've been guilty of being the
one speaking. You've been guilty of being the
one speaking. He's saying, instead of being the one doing it, let's
bear each other's burden and make sure it don't happen to
our brethren. Restore completely. He restored
us in the free bounty of His grace. That's what He's saying
to do. Restore one another with the gospel. Just keep reminding
each other what Christ has done for us, that He's our life. He's
our forgiveness, our completion. And bear that burden, be merciful,
wash one another's feet, cleanse one another, forgive one another,
keep point one another to Christ. He said, if your brother trespass
against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn
again to thee saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive. That's what
Christ said. How many times does Christ forgive
me in a day? A lot more than seven times. And
again, law looks upon sins as crimes to be punished. Grace
and love looks upon them as weaknesses needing our help, needing to
be restored. Sickness needing to be taken
to the physician. Brethren need the love of brethren
most when they're overtaken in sin. Brethren need brethren most
to restore in love when they're overtaken in sin. Now you just
imagine this. Imagine if one of you came in
here and you'd lost your job. And you come and you told some
of your brethren about losing your job. And your brethren dealt
harshly with you on it. and scolded you for losing your
job, and you ain't been working right. If you'd have been working
right, you wouldn't have lost your job, and all that kind of
stuff. We'd say, that'd be pretty hard. How much more when a brother
has sinned? You know what I'm saying? It
needs, it's something to sorrow over. This was the difference
that Cory, Paul said, you haven't mourned. You haven't had your
heart broke. You know, to be puffed up about
it and ready to take vengeance, that's not what he's saying.
It's to be broken. And when we're broken, we're
the spiritual man who can restore, who can help. And you'd only
do that now when that brother is broken and they're repenting
and they're mourning. Because without it, you know
what's going to happen? over much sorrow. So bear it, that's what he's
saying, bear it. And look at this now, one last
thing, and I'll be very brief here, I know you're tired. Let
every man prove his own work, then shall he have rejoicing
in himself alone and not in another, for every man shall bear his
own burden. Now you can read down in Galatians
6, 12 and 13, He's saying, men that want to make a fair show
in the flesh, want to show out before men, they constrain you
to be circumcised, or constrain you to do whatever they think
you should do. Because they don't want to suffer persecution for
the cross of Christ themselves. And so, they're not keeping the
law, but they're trying to get you to do so they can glory in
what they made you do. What he's saying here in our
text is, we're not to constrain others to do anything, And we're
not to be constrained and do things because somebody else
constrains you to do it. If I stood here and I put so
much pressure on you and made you so ashamed of yourself until
you just cried out and said, OK, I want to confess Christ,
I might constrain you to do that. But it wasn't done in spirit.
It wasn't done in the heart. It's not faith. And if you do
something because somebody constrains you to do it, you treat somebody
a certain way because somebody put pressure on you and you're
scared to death of them, that's not faith. I hope God give me the grace
to treat you the same regardless of how you have sinned and regardless
of who's present. Because you're my brother. You're
somebody Christ died for. We're one in Christ. and be merciful and gracious
to somebody who's not being that way to you. Because that's sickness
that needs to be healed too. See what he's saying? Do what
you do because the Spirit of God is working in your heart
and you see Christ and you're doing it because this is what
the Spirit of God is compelling you to do. And then you know
what you'll have? You'll have rejoicing in your
own heart. You'll examine your own self
and you know that Christ has worked this and I'm rejoicing
that Christ is the Lord and the Master and I want to do this
for Christ. And your rejoicing will be in
Him rather than Somebody else rejoicing and you rejoice because
you pleased somebody else. He's saying do what you do to
the Lord because of the Lord. That's what he's saying. And
I'll give you an example of this. We're going to bear our own burden,
he said. This is something we're each going to bear ourselves. Nobody's believing for you. Nobody
is repenting for you. Nobody is walking this walk of
faith for you. You are doing this yourself and
you are going to stand before God yourself. Nobody else is
going to stand there for you. So he is saying this thing between
you and the Lord is what he is saying. Now you remember whenever
Peter had sinned, he denied the Lord and he went out and he went
fishing and he led others to go with him. Awful. He led others with him. The Lord
came to him, and the Lord restored him. He took him off from the
group, and he talked to him, and he said, Peter, do you love
me? And he, yes, Lord, you know I love you. And he restored him.
Well, right after he did that, John walks up behind him. And
Peter, being like us, he turns and sees John, and he goes, well,
what about him, Lord? And you know what the Lord told him?
What is that to thee? Follow thou me. And that's what he's saying here.
He said, bear thou the burden of your brother, thou restore
your brother, then you will have rejoicing in your heart in what
the Lord has trained you to do, rather than in men. You get that? That's what he's saying. I pray
God bless you. Amen. Alright, Brother Greg.