Once again, seeking the Lord's
help to grant me the words to speak to you this evening, I'd
like to direct your thoughts to Galatians 6 and the text you'll
find in verse 2. Bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfil the law of Christ. Those of you who were here with
us this morning will hopefully remember that we spoke about
unity and as we looked at the Book of Acts when the Holy Spirit
descended upon the church on the day of Pentecost that they
were all of one accord and in one place. They were of one mind. They were united. They were unanimous
in their mindset. And it was on that day that the
Holy Spirit descended upon them and gifted them and used them
as instruments in his hand to gather in the first fruits of
the church. And as we see the church growing
and the advancement of the gospel of Christ, we saw that there
was that unity which was manifested amongst them. Although they came
from different backgrounds, different cultures and even different languages,
yet they were united in that one thing that they had been
baptised and were followers of Christ and they And they were united together.
They deemed each other greater than themselves. There was no
divisions and we noticed that unity was a very precious thing
and is a very precious thing. And it's a very fragile thing
that can easily be broken by all manner of things, especially
Satan. Satan hates unity for when there
is a united church then they are a strong church. When there
is a united army that is a strong army and we know that Satan does
not like that when Christ's church is united and he will do all
he can to seek to destroy and to disrupt. We notice that he
is called a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour And like those
in the nature programs seek to divide, those lions seek to divide
the herds up into smaller groups to attack the weak ones. So Satan
seeks to destroy and deharmonise the church so that he can pick
off this one and that one. And we notice that it's not necessarily
the weak ones that he attacks. For we hear of those who we would
class as strong in the faith being made bankrupt, bringing
shame on Christ. And we saw how Paul questioned
Peter when he did not act according to the scriptures and he separated
himself and began to eat with the Jews and how Paul rebuked
him to the face because he was to be blamed. And so there is
that time for the unity of the church when there should be confrontation
and in love, done in love, and when there should be that holding
of the tongue And so we saw that unity is very fragile and it
is very precious. It is disliked by Satan yet Christ's
body is united and they go forth as an army, soldiers of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so in this chapter that we
have read together, there were those who were seeking to disrupt
the unity of the church by bringing in a false teaching, trying to
drag the church back to the law. They were trying to preserve
themselves from persecution, and they wanted to teach that
someone needed to follow the law of God and to follow Christ. They wanted to impose circumcision
on the Christian church, saying that if that was not done, then
they could not be saved. And the apostle is grieved. He
tells them, who has bewitched you? that they had been given
the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and now as he had left
them those false teachers had come, the Judaizers, trying to
pull the church back underneath the law when they had been given
liberty in Christ. And so he tries to tell them not to shun those who had been
affected by this teaching, those who had been bewitched as it
were by this teaching, but to care for them. He says that he
himself had suffered persecution for the cross of Christ. And
the reason why those people were getting circumcised was to spare
themselves from the persecution. But he tells them to take care
of these brothers who have been overtaken in a fault. In verse 1 it says, Brethren,
if any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such a one in the meekness of the spirit, considering thyself,
lest thou also be tempted. And so he tells them not to despise
these ones who have succumbed to the false teaching, to be
tempted by the false teaching, but rather to seek to restore
them back to the truth of the script, to the simplicity of
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that once someone
has been circumcised, they cannot be uncircumcised again, so he's
not telling them to do that. but he is telling them to go
back to the simple truths of the scripture, but to beware,
to beware lest those doing the restoring may also be tempted
and drawn aside themselves. As we looked at on Wednesday, We spoke about casting thy burden
upon the Lord and in this chapter it says bear one another's burdens. And on Wednesday we noticed that
the first burden that is to be cast on the Lord is the burden
of sin. that sin which has been revealed
to a person that they're unable to bear themselves is to be cast
onto the Lord and cast onto the Lord Jesus Christ and it's a
him and him only who is able to forgive us of our sin. And so in Galatians he's not
speaking about casting our sin or bearing each other's sins. He's speaking of something else.
Christ is the only sin bearer. Christ is the only one who has
the ability to carry and to bear the sins of his people. It is
him and him alone who was upon the cross at Calvary bringing
about reconciliation between God and man. No other person
that can bring about salvation. We ourselves cannot save ourselves. Christ is the only one that can
save us. He is the only one who the God
the Father was well pleased with and it's him that we are to take
our burdens of sin too and him alone. We noticed on Wednesday
that we are yoked together with Christ. When we cast our burden
upon him we are yoked together with him. He the stronger takes
the strain and the difficulties of life. He is the one that's
able to carry our troubles and our difficulties and it's him
who gives us those trials and difficulties yet we by faith
hand them back to him asking for him to help us and to uphold
us and to take the strain out of the trial and the difficulties. But as our burdens are handed
to Christ, as our sin is handed to Christ and dealt with upon
the cross at Calvary, as we looked at this morning in the Bible
study, we are united with Christ. We are adopted into the family
of God and we become heirs of an eternal inheritance. And so
we are brought into the body of the Lord Jesus, the spiritual
body of the Lord Jesus, which is the church. The church, we
know, is the called out ones, those who have been called by
Christ, drawn by the Holy Spirit, placed onto the narrow way that
leads to life. And they are part of his body,
which is the church. And they are called then to bear
one another's burdens. In Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is nearly a whole chapter set aside for the explanation
of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it speaks, and the
apostle uses the illustration of a human body. to enable us to be able to come
to understand the workings of the church. By our fallen nature
and indwelling sin, we would be unable to grasp the unity
that is felt by our very understanding. We are prone to elevation and
to suppression of people. We are prone to elevate some
and we are prone to despise others. For instance, if someone was
to come in here and say, I'm a doctor, we would immediately
hold them at high esteem. We would understand that this
person has been educated to a high level and we would treat them
with some respect. But if someone was to come and
say a rough looking person and say I'm a ground worker or I'm
a street sweeper we would immediately put them in another category. And we would maybe not physically
in our culture look down on them but maybe in our minds we would
think less of them than somebody else. And so if this illustration
was not given to us, that is how we would tier the church
of Christ by degrees of ability. We are told that the Christian
church, the head of that church is the Lord Jesus Christ and
him alone. every other person that has ever
been saved and ever will be saved is part of that body and that
body is to be united and they are united in one way in that
they are united to Christ Every single one in that body, whether
they're a doctor or whether they're a slave, whether they are a king
or a road sweeper, they are in that body because of one thing. The undeserved love of God in
Christ Jesus. That's it. They're not better
than each other. They have different abilities
and different gifts. those gifts are not to elevate
themselves but for the edification of the church and so the whole
chapter really speaks of this body but in verse 25 it tells
us there that there should be no schism in the body but that
the members should have the same care for one another and whether
one member suffer all the members suffer with it. Or one member
is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the
body of Christ and members in particular. And so he says there
that the body exists together, it cannot be divided, it cannot
be severed, that an arm is useless when it is not attached to the
body. When the body doesn't function
according to how God created it then there are problems. And so the body of Christ, when
it doesn't function as God intends it to function, having love one
to another, having the same care one for another, when one elevates
themselves and seeks to go off by themselves, as it were, then
that body is almost divided. There should be no schism or
division in the body. And we saw that on the day of
Pentecost, that all of those different people were united. There was no division. They were
united around a common Christ. And we read in the book of Revelation,
of the true church of the Lord Jesus. That it is not one denomination but it is a people from every
nation and every tribe, every tongue and every family. That there are in the church,
in that body of Christ, all manner of people. and you can go to any country
that the gospel has been preached and you will find somebody there
who is part of the body of Christ, part of the church of Christ
and immediately as you begin to speak with that person you
will be knit together with them because you have one thing in
common, Christ. You may have been brought up
completely different, in another culture Yet what unites you together
it is Christ and that person is your brother or your sister
part of the body of the Lord Jesus. You may not agree with
everything that they do but on the fundamental truths of the
gospel you can be united and you can have a love for each
other. James tells us In chapter 2 verses
1 to 7 he says, My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Or, My brethren, hold not the
faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect
of persons. For if there come into your assembly
a man with a golden ring, and godly apparel, and there come
in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that
weareth the gay clothing, or the flamboyant clothing, and
say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place, and say unto the
poor, Stand thou here, or sit here under my footstool. Are
ye then not partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil
thoughts? Harker my beloved brethren, hath
not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs
of the kingdom which he has promised to them that love him? But ye
have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and
draw you before the judgment seat? Do not they blaspheme the
worthy name by which ye are called? And so even in in the days of
James. After the church had enlarged
and after false teaching had crept in, that unity, that simple
unity that was once there right at the beginning began to break
down. And people began to bring about
division and schism in the body of Christ due to cultural or
status in society. They began to say, oh, here's
a nice rich man. We'll give him a good seat. Maybe
he will put a good lump of money in the collection for us if we
treat him nicely. Oh, we're pleased that he's come
to our meeting today. And then they look at the poor
man. And they say, well, he's not going to give us anything.
We don't really want him dirtying our nice clean seats. And so
they tell him, you sit just down here on the floor. And yet that poor man could be
just a child of God as much as the rich man. And yet because
of their outward appearance and the status that they had seen,
they divided the body of Christ due to their sin. And so the body of Christ should
have no division. and we should not judge people
on our first appearances of them because often we make false conclusions. The scripture tells us that there
is one body made up of many members and each of those members are
as useful as the other. There is to be no division in
the body of Christ. Bear ye one another's burdens. He tells them, look out for each
other. Christ took the biggest load
Christ has taken the sin of the people. Christ has taken the
sin of the believer. He has taken that greater load
that no man can bear. He also carries the loads of
the trials and sustains his people in those trials. But he can do
so by using other members of the church to encourage that
weak and that cast down believer. And so Paul doesn't say just
everybody continue on in your own pathway. Don't worry about
everybody else because Christ is going to carry the burdens
of everybody. No. Christ uses his people to
bear the burdens of his overloaded saints and so unity has to be worked at and burden-bearing
and compassion for one another is part of that. When we were in Kenya After we
had been there for three years we came back and then we returned. Samantha and James Jemson came
with us for a month to help settle everything back in again and
then they left. We were there for a while on
our own and we were washing with dirty water. We did have clean
water to drink. Washing up was done with brown
water. Washing our bodies with brown water. Washing clothes
with brown water. There was dust in the dry season. There was mud in the wet season. There was sand in the beds. There
was mud in the beds. Mud all over the floor. And it
became quite difficult for Elsie. She was alone. We know what God did. He sent a girl, 20-year-old girl,
from Holland. Else had never met her before. She messaged and she said that
she felt that the Lord was telling her that she wanted to come over
to help. And so she came. And she knew the pathway that
Elsie was walking in. She had experienced those types
of things before. And she was able to edify and
encourage her by the experience that she had walked through.
And so she was able to bear Elsie's burden. Although Christ was bearing
the burden, yet he sent someone who Elsie had never met before
from another country that Elsie had never even been to before.
He prompted this girl. fly all the way to Kenya where
the girl had never been before to help someone that she had
never seen before. And she bore the burden that
Elsie was carrying. That is part of the church. It
is part of what being a Christian is. To listen to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit that indwells within us and to act on those
promptings. when there is part of the body
of Christ that is weeping, part of the body of Christ that is
in pain, part of the body that is struggling. It is for other
believers to look out for. Those that are falling behind,
those that are buckling under the pathway that Christ is causing
them to walk and to act on those promptings and to be used as
a bandage, as a plaster, as a carer. to sacrifice your time and life
for others. I've used the illustration before
of our own bodies. If we cut our arm our other hand
doesn't just leave it to bleed, it immediately covers it over. We immediately seek out as a
body to find bandages and plasters or somebody else to help us. And so it should be with the
spiritual body of Christ. When one is seen to be buckling
under a weight, under a load, we are to take care of them and
to administer that burden bearing, whatever it might be. If you remember the Pharisees, the Pharisees found a lady that
had been committing adultery in John chapter 8. In verse 4 it says, And they
said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the
very act. Now Moses in the law commanded
us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? And they
tempting him that he might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped
down and wrote with his finger on the ground as though he heard
them not. We know that the Pharisees were
illegal. and the law of Moses stated that
anyone who was caught committing adultery should be stoned under
the eyes of two or three witnesses, stoned to death. Now, these Pharisees brought this
woman to Jesus in a Pharisaical way, deeming themselves better
than her. They thought that she deserved
to suffer. And no doubt the law said she
deserved to suffer. But their motive was, I am OK. We are fine. I am without sin. This woman is the sinner. And therefore, they were not
carrying her burden, but they were shunning her for judgment. There was no grace in their minds. in their hearts, they were self-righteous. But Jesus writes on the ground
and he says, He that is without sin among you, let him first
cast this stone at her. Jesus tells her, where are thine
accusers? They all leave. Where are thine
accusers? No man hath condemned thee. She
said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. And so this lady had been, we
can say, tempted. They'd been tempted and she had
sinned, a grievous sin. But there was no love and compassion
in the restoration. The law of God demanded judgment
and these Pharisees were happy to provide that judgment. But
with Christ, Christ's attitude is completely different. He looks
on this lady with compassion and grace. He knew the hearts
of these men that they were just like wolves wanting to devour
her. Yet he says go and sin no more. And how often we can be like
that as individual believers. Instead of looking at the weak
ones or the ones who have been tempted with compassion and grace,
we look at them and despise them. We want judgment to be brought
upon them. We think they need to be dealt
with, they need to be done away with, cast out. And we fail to
acknowledge our own sin and our own weakness in those things.
We're so quick to pass judgment and so quick to attack the weak
that we're not willing to care. or to speak or to comfort. They say, I'm better than you. At school, that's what children
do, isn't it? They find somebody who doesn't
look just right, someone who's a little bit different, someone
who's weak, and they begin to attack them. and bully them. Instead of seeing them in their
weakness and trying to elevate them up and to lift them up and
to help them, they jump on them and want to make their life even
more miserable. That is completely the opposite
to how the church is meant to behave. The church is meant to
try as much as possible to instill unity amongst itself, deeming
each other greater than themselves, not pouncing on the weak but
seeking to protect the weak, to bear one another's burdens
and to encourage one another. in the pathway. For we are all
in the same boat. We've all been brought into the
same body by the same manner and we're all facing the same
trials and the same temptations. It's just some, some get we can
say caught out. Some sin is exposed. we all have those seeds of sin
within our hearts if we are honest with ourselves. I thought of
chickens. You know chickens like to attack the weak one.
If you put a new chicken in amongst other chickens they will immediately
begin to attack it and peck it to sort out their pecking order.
But if one of those chickens also become weak, they also attack
it. They do not want any weak chicken,
weak member of their flock. They shun it. But it should not
be so with the church. We are all weak. And we are to
bear one another's burdens. to seek to carry and to encourage
and to help one another. In Romans it tells us a very
similar word that we've got in Galatians.
You will notice as we go through the scriptures that the scripture
repeats itself because it is constantly what is needed as
the churches were being established at the same difficulties were
coming into the church, the same problems were entering into the
church and so the writings that the spirit wanted to be sent
forth have a similar tone to them and therefore it is still
needed today because people haven't changed. We are still the same
by nature and so in Romans in 15 it says, we then that are
strong or to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please
ourselves. Let every one of us please his
neighbor, for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself,
but it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell
on me. so it has a similar tone. Bear
ye one another's burdens then we that are strong ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Everyone is to please his neighbor
for his good and edification even as Christ did not please
himself. work of the Lord Jesus Christ
was to walk in obedience to the Father and that in doing so he
would be able to work a righteousness for his people and to pay the
penalty of their sin. It was a painful experience yet
love drove him to the cross to save his people, did not did it for his people in other
words. Like the hymn we sing sometimes, for his people Jesus
said, I will bear the punishment instead. And so as Christ did
not please himself, did not live a life for himself, so he expects
the members of his body also to live a life not pleasing unto
themselves but to live a life that is pleasing unto Christ
who called them out of darkness to light. that those who have
been blessed with a strong faith or are at this moment in time
going through a steady period of Christian life are to look
out for those weak believers who are falling behind and not
to attack them and to peck them and to seek to pull them down
and to accuse them but rather edify them and encourage them
and help them in the pathway that Christ has called them to
walk. In doing so you are bearing their burden. We say don't we,
a problem shared is a problem halved. A load of 100 kilos split
between two becomes 50, split between four becomes 25 and therefore
the burden is eased as it's spread about over the group. And so we as believers are to
look for those who are struggling and to listen to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit and the movement of providence that we may be
enabled to live our life As the Lord Jesus Christ lived his life,
Christ pleased not himself. And so our life is not there
for ourselves but it is to fulfil the law of Christ. The law of
Christ. What is the law of Christ? John
or the Lord Jesus tells us as written in John 13 that it is
to love, love one another. John 13, 34. A new commandment
I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another. And this shall all men know,
that ye are my disciples if ye love one another. In Romans 13. verse 8 it says, O no man anything
but love one another for he that loveth another has fulfilled
the law. If you remember the other week
when we spoke about that man who came to the Lord Jesus Christ
and asking how he could inherit eternal life and Jesus pointed
him to the law and he told him you do this and you'll live you
will inherit these things and Jesus tells him that all of the
law is summed up in this that thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all of thy heart soul and mind and thy neighbor as
thyself that is the law of Christ thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself James tells us in the chapter we looked at, chapter
2, in verse 8, if ye fulfill the royal law according to the
scripture thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ye do well. And so the law of Christ, the
royal law, it's love. The whole of the 600 laws of
the Old Testament can be boiled down or summed up in that one
word which is love. Love God and love your neighbor
as yourself and that fulfills all of the law of Christ. Chapter
5 that we read together in verse 14. For all of the law is fulfilled
in one word, even this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. It's to love one another. Jesus
says, they will know you because you love one another. Because
Christ's design for the church is that there will be no schism,
no division in the true church of Christ. Yet when people look
at the church, They see we are so divided. Divided into denominations. We're divided on doctrine. We're divided in so many ways. And so when people look, they
don't see a united cause of Christ. As they look at us individually,
as they look at us here as a small church, do they see that we love one
another? Do they see that we love our
neighbours as ourself? You see true love is seen in
Christ. God is love. Greater love has
no man than this and a man lay down his life for his friends.
That is the pinnacle, the example of love. And so true love is
not about me. Not about self-love as we have
in our day. True love is like what we saw
the other day with the Good Samaritan. I returned aside. He bent down
and he stooped down and he washed the wounds of the injured man. I carried him to the hotel on
his donkey and he paid everything that he needed and said if you
have any more I'm going to pay there. True love is to deal with people at your own
expense. It's to deem others greater than
yourself. Often we love as we like to be
loved, yet true love loves in a way that the other needs to
be loved. Christ knew what his people needed
and so he did what they needed by coming to earth, putting on
flesh and dying upon the cross. And so true love does not worry
about self, how self feels, what self wants, but true love, the
object of that love, is the other. And that is how the body of Christ
is to work. That is a high standard, a high
calling, and very, very difficult to do, yet That is what we are called to
do and that is what Christ gives us the ability to do. Like that young girl prompted
by the Spirit to fly across thousands of miles to visit someone that
she never knew to help her. A cost to herself
but the benefit was felt. Bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ, the law of Christ. Love thy neighbor
as thyself. And so I thought that the tightest
community on earth should be the church. Those who are meant to be looking
out for each other. Those who are not pulling each
other down but building each other up. those who love each
other because Christ loves the other. The tightest community, the most
blessed people on earth, the most helped people on earth,
sustained people on earth are those who are part of the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfil the law of Christ. And so unity has to be worked
at. Fragile. We have to pray for
wisdom to know what to say and know what not to say and when
not to speak and when to speak. But also we need to be enabled
to bear one another's burdens, to have the lookout for those
who are struggling, for those who need help, a word in season
or for those who are being overloaded by the pathway that they are
passing through and to be granted a compassionate heart and spirit
not to attack but to offer words of counsel and words of wisdom
and to be wary lest we ourselves, should we accuse others, we ourselves
be tempted and to be drawn aside and to walk in a path of difficulty
also. So may the Lord then enable us
to bear one another's burdens, to be sensitive to the spirit. Our first burden which is essential
to be given to Christ. May we be enabled to feel our
sin and the weight of our sin and offload it to the Lord Jesus
Christ and then he will adopt us into his family, place us
into his body and you become a precious member of the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ and be part of this most blessed
family on earth. which are all of those found
in the Lord Jesus Christ and to be used by him. What a privilege,
you know that girl, what a privilege it is to be sent by the Lord
to go and offer comfort like a Barnabas. Go over there, offer
comfort to that lady there with her family. What a blessing it
is to be sensitive to the spirit of God and to be used by God
as an instrument in his hand for the help of a fellow believer
to bear their burden. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen. Our closing hymn for this Lord's
Day is hymn number 344 from Gadsby's Perseverance. For us, the dear
Redeemer died. Why are we then ashamed? We stand
forever justified and cannot be condemned. Hymn number 344,
the tune number 101. ? Can the just live on ? ? And
cannot the aid of faith ? ? Though we believe not He is true ? ?
The work is in His hands ? His Word shall stand. If once the love of Christ we
feel upon our hearts in prayer, of that celestial sin can never
be erased. The deer will never take away
his cuffs, not on a felled bee. to all eternity, endure not,
I know the end there is. Almighty God, we do thank Thee
for Thy word that Thou has given to us, and we thank Thee for
the illustration of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
we thank Thee, O Lord, that of every nation and every tribe
and every kindred and every tongue, there are a people whom Thou
has given to Thy Son and redeemed them, not of any good that they
have done, not because they are rich or poor, clever or uneducated
yet, for thy grace and thy grace alone. We pray that thou help
us then to be sensitive to thy spirit, help us to bear one another's
burdens and to fulfil the law of Christ, to love our neighbour
as ourself. We pray then Lord that thou dismiss
us with thy blessing, help us to meditate upon thy word and
return us here on Wednesday according to thy will. Now may the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with
the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with
us each now and forevermore. Amen.