Galatians chapter 6, this morning
we'll be looking at mainly verses 2 through verse 5. But let's go ahead and just read
verse 1 and get the context here. Verse 1 of chapter 6 says, Brethren,
if any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness. Considering thyself,
lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to
be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let
every man prove his own worth. And then shall he have rejoicing
in himself alone and not in another, for every man shall bear his
own burden." The title of the message this morning is, The
Antidote for Self-Importance. The Antidote for Self-Importance. Now, there is nothing wrong with
a believer in Christ having a good self-esteem. Having a good self-esteem
is important. It's important for us, according
to the Word of God, to take pride in what we do, to do the best
at what we do, to be the best that we can at what we do. And
therefore, this helps us. This gives us confidence. And
we should have confidence. We should have confidence. There's
nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with enjoying
our labors. Matter of fact, all the way through
Ecclesiastes, he said, what else you got? This whole body gets
old and it gets, you know, yes, God gives us all things to enjoy
and we should enjoy them. And believers in Christ should
do the best and be the best. The scripture says, whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with all your might, as unto
the Lord. So whatever you're doing, if
you're sweeping the floor, If you're working at a job, if you're
at home raising your family, whatever it is, we do our best,
and this is good. There's nothing wrong with this.
We are to take pride and confidence in the achievements we have.
We're not to pretend we don't have them. Isn't that right?
Isn't that just laziness? I mean, on our part, if we have
a gift, if we have an ability, and we say we don't, we're just
trying to escape. doing it, we're trying to escape
working. Well, that's not right. If we
have a gift, we have an ability, we should use it. And that's
good. To have a gift of God and not
to use it is unthankful, it's being unthankful to the Lord
for our gifts. I know Paul was talking about
salvation, he said, who make it be to differ from another?
But he said, why are you acting like you haven't received it?
If you've received it of the Lord, why do you act like you
have? That's just that's just wrong. We shouldn't do that.
Now, self-esteem, that's self-esteem, but self-esteem must be separated
from self-importance. There's a great difference between
self-esteem and self-importance. For us to take pride in our work
is not the same as being proud or boastful concerning our work. You ever have those people that
love to talk about how good they are at something, and you never
see them do anything? I remember working with a man,
and he had been a plumber his whole life, and I wasn't very
good at it, but this man, all he did, I saw him talk more of
working than he actually worked. And that's not what we're to
do. That's boastful. That's self-importance. He tried to make himself feel
important. That's not self-esteem. Self-importance
is different. For us to take pride in our work
is good, but boasting about it to others, to exalt ourselves,
is just self-importance. This is the work of the flesh
to esteem ourselves above others, especially when a man is taken
in a fault, especially when a believer is taken in a fault, and that's
the context here, is that a believer is taken in a sin, and if we
take ourselves and we exalt ourselves above our following brethren,
that's nothing but self-righteousness and self-importance. We think
that somehow we are better than the person that's fallen. Somehow
we've obtained some measure of spiritualness that they have
not obtained, and we try to bring them up to where we are. That's self-importance. If we
will not bear under the burden of our brethren, but rather try to raise him up,
that's saying that we have something that he doesn't. We desire only to compare the
fallen. We are only to compare ourselves
with Christ and not with our brother. If our brother has fallen,
don't compare yourself to him. Don't compare your spiritual
ability or the spiritual grace that God has given you to sustain
you from the fault that he has fallen in. We're not to boast
in that, not to boast over them because they have less understanding
or less grace to overcome. Someone once said that Christians
are the only ones that shoot their wounded. Well, that's not
true of Christians. That's true of religious folks.
That's true of the self-important folks. But it's not true of Christ's
people. It is not to be true of us. We are never to ascend above others,
but as our Savior, we must condescend to men of low estate. Flip over
to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. When a
brother is fallen, notice our mindset. Notice what mind should
be in us. Verse 5, he said, let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made
of himself no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant. and was made in the likeness
of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
You see what mind should be in us? Do you see how Christ condescended
to men of low estate like ourselves? Then we too are to bear under
with our brethren. We are to bear under the burdens
of our brethren. We know that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God and He is equal with the Father and the Spirit.
You know that when Christ spoke, He never was bashful about that,
was He? He said, I and my Father are
one. Before Abraham was, I am. He wasn't bashful about that.
He was God. He is God. God manifests in the
flesh. But recall to mind how He humbled
Himself. He obeyed God even to the point
of suffering for our sins. I'll tell you this, we cannot
suffer for the sins of our brethren. We can't do it. That's not what
he's telling us to do. But friends, we can understand
them. We can understand their sinfulness. We can understand their sinful
state. Christ laid down his life for
the brethren, John says, even so should we lay down our lives
for the brethren. What does that mean, literally?
Absolutely. But I'll tell you, it is easier to do that than
to have a lifelong experience of bearing under with our brethren. See, when you die, you only do
it once. But our brethren sin constantly. We sin constantly. And we need someone to bear under
with us, and we need to bear constantly under our brethren. Let this be our goal, then, to
restore our brothers in Christ by understanding their sorrow,
understanding their guilt of conscience, and considering them,
embracing them. Not bringing them up, but going
down to where they are. I'll tell you this, if someone
is injured, someone is hurt really badly, you don't ever want to
jerk them up. You don't know what's wrong with them. They
could have a broken neck. You don't want to do that. You
would hurt them. That's the same with our brethren.
Sometimes we don't know what they're going through fully.
But I'll tell you this, we can get down with them. We can come
down with them and talk to them and understand what it is to
be a sinner. I understand that, don't you?
I do. Believers, by our grieving with
them, we are testifying to our own sinful nature. We weep with
them. And not only because of their
sin, but because of our potential to sin. When I weep with you,
if you have fallen and I weep with you, you see, I'm coming
down understanding this, that I have the same potential to
fall just as you did. I have the same potential to
sin as you do. I'm inclined to sin as much as
anyone else. And it's only the grace of God
that sustains us and keeps us from the sin of this flesh. If
God were to let us go for just a minute, friends, there is no
telling what this flesh would do. I'm talking one minute. If God were to take his gracious
hand off of us and give the flesh exactly what it wants, there's
no telling what we would do. Now, let me say this. When I'm
talking about coming down and sympathizing with our brethren,
I don't want to be misunderstood. None of us are to condone sin. That's not what we're doing.
When we weep with our brethren, we are not condoning their sin.
We are not allowing them to continue in the sin. We're talking about
brethren who are struggling, who are weeping over their sin,
not living in their sin. We're not talking about brethren
who continue to sin and live in the consequences of that sin.
We're not talking about that. We're talking about those who
are really heartbroken over their sins. We don't excuse sin. You should not excuse my sin
and I should not excuse yours. But I tell you, I know what it
is to fall. I know what it is to sin. And
to the believer, it is dreadful. It is dreadful. When we grieve with them, we
are confessing sin must be grieved for and forsaken. Now, how then
do we as believers overcome this issue of self-importance? The only antidote for self-importance
is this, self-examination. There's the antidote for self-importance,
self-examination. And that's what the Apostle Paul
says here, "...bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law
of Christ. For if any man think himself
to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. Let every
man prove his own work." Now, before we begin to restore our
brethren in Christ who has fallen, we must first turn the microscope
of scripture within our own selves. If we miss self-examination,
we will think that we are helping our brethren, but rather we are
deceived. Now, I'll tell you this, if you're
deceived, You don't know you're deceived. Isn't that obvious? If you're deceived, then you
don't know it. And sometimes if we don't examine our own souls,
our own selves, consider our own relationship with Christ
and what Christ has done for us, then we can truly be deceived
when we try to help our brother. We don't do this, we can't help
and will to be destroying him. That's what Paul says. Go to
Romans chapter 14. Look at verse 15. Go to verse 14. It says, I know and
am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean
of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him
it is unclean. Friends, we're not all at the
same spiritual understanding. We're not all the same spiritual
maturity. Paul said, I understand that
this is nothing, but there's somebody, one of my brethren,
who might think that this is something. What am I to do? Am I to try to impose my maturity
on them? No, in no wise. But if thy brother
be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not lovingly. Destroy
not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died." Now, is that not
something? Christ died for His people, and
if that man is His child, then we are not to try to destroy
them with our our meat or whatever it is we think that we have liberty
to do. But we're to bear under with
him. I mean, is it anything, if someone comes in here and
thinks that, I don't know, somebody comes in and says, well, drinking
red dye 40 is a sin. Now to my son, truly, I don't
want to give him any of that. Because he gets all hyper. But if someone comes in and really
believes that, and he's one of Christ's, what is it for us not
to have that? Really, what is it? It's nothing. Why should I bring it? I mean,
I wouldn't want to destroy him over something so simple. That's
Christ's child. That's not my servant. That's
Christ's servant. And I'll tell you, Christ will
reveal it to him. And when Christ does, he'll grow
in grace and see that it's nothing. But that's not for me to put
it on him. No, to bear under him. If someone
has fallen into drunkenness and we feel liberty to drink wine,
what is it for us not to do that? It's nothing. There's nothing
to quit that. There's nothing to it for us.
It's something to them. We should not destroy them with
it. We should love them and consider them, considering our own selves. So I'll tell you this, any one
of us could be fallen in drunkenness. If God take his hand off of us,
we would understand what that person is really going through.
So we should examine ourselves first. We should turn it in.
Who do we think we are to judge Christ's servants and to exalt
ourselves? If we do that, we're deceived.
Why? Because we're nothing. If you don't know you're nothing,
you're deceived. If you don't realize that you
are absolutely nothing without Christ, that you have no strength
in yourself without Him, then you're deceived and you'll hurt
your brother rather than help him. Go back to our text. If any man think himself to be
something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." All believers
still possess this body of sin, this fleshly nature that is full
of sin. The Bible doesn't make any bones
about this old man. When God saved us, this old man
did not change. He is still just as corrupt and
as vile and as full of unrighteousness and sin and hatred toward God
as he was when he was born. And to think ourselves any different
is to deceive ourselves. To think any different of this
old man is to deceive yourself. To think you've gotten better
To think you've got everything under control and you've made
everything all right and you're doing well by yourself, you're
deceived. If not for the sovereign grace
of election, if not for the sovereign grace of redemption, if not for
the sovereign grace of regeneration, and if not for the sovereign
grace of God keeping us, we would not be saved. None of us. None of us. Believer, we have been completely
saved. And God saw nothing in us to
merit it. Isn't that grace? That's grace. That's mercy. And friends, you
know what? He still sees nothing in us to
keep us. He doesn't keep us because of
us. He keeps us because of Himself. What self-importance is it? What
sin of self-importance is it to think that God needs us? You're deceiving yourself. God
doesn't need us. But praise God, He does love
us by His own grace. When John Newton turned the examination
of Scripture into his own heart, he said, "'Tis a point I long
to know. Oft it causes anxious thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I His or am I not? When I turn my eyes within, all
is dark and vain and wild. Filled with unbelief and sin,
can I deem myself? A child, you see, he's not asking
about someone else. He's talking about himself. He's
examining his own soul, his own heart. And that's exactly what
we're to do. If we're to help anyone, we have
to examine ourselves. It's then we may be truly able
to help. It's only when we've been brought
low that we're able to help. I remember that story about the
truck, a big truck that went under the bridge and got stuck.
And everybody was trying to figure out how to get that thing out.
And some little girl come along or some little child come along
and said, won't you let the air out of the tires? And it would
go right through. That's what it is. We got to
let the air out of our tires. We have to examine ourselves
in the light of the gospel. And this self-examination. This
self-examination, what does it do? It proves our own salvation
first. It says, let every man prove
his own work. The work of grace inside of us. We must examine ourselves first
to see if the work has begun. John Newton, at the end of that,
he said, Lord, if I've not loved at all, let me love. Today, begin
the work now. Friends, there is a day when
every one of us will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ individually. We're not going to stand as a
collective group. You're going to be there individually. You will stand in the judgment
of Christ personally. My children, I will not stand
for them. You will not stand in judgment
for your children. They'll be there. We'll all come
before the judgment seat of Christ. Scripture says in Revelation
that the books were opened. Now, friends, God doesn't need
a book. That's His figurative language. He doesn't need a book
to remember our sins. He doesn't need a book to write
them down like we do. He's not going to forget. It's
just a picture to show us that God doesn't forget, that his
mind is like it is written in a book. It's put down, and he
chronicles every thought, every sin, every deed of the flesh. He keeps the law. David said,
if thou shouldst mark iniquity, Lord, who should stand? And truly,
God does mark iniquity, because God is holy, God is just, and
He must do so. But God doesn't need these books
to remember our works of sin or righteousness. If a man's
done righteous, will not God show him that he's done righteous?
Of course He will. Should not then every man fall
down on his knees and make such proof of his salvation, to make
your calling and election sure? This is not something we do once,
this is something we do all of our lives, constantly. Am I looking to Christ? Do I
know Christ? Do I serve him? It's here in this judgment that there will
be no second chance. There will be no time for self-reflection,
self-examination. There will be no redemption,
no mercy, and God will send those who have any sin to hell forever
without pity. Those who are in heaven, you
know that there is not going to be one weeping eye for anyone
in hell? I'll tell you now, we weep when
we know people are lost and die in their sins. We weep. There,
we will not weep for them. We will not pity them. But everyone
who is found in the other book, I like that, the books were opened
and another book was opened. I like that book. That's my favorite
book. It is the book of God's election.
It's the book of God's salvation. And those who are written in
that book. God says they are righteous. Is that not amazing that there
is anyone that would be in that book, especially me? That I should be there in the
book of God's salvation? We who are found in the Lamb's
book of life shall be found completely righteous and free from guilt
and sin. And these that are in this book only seek to be found in the
righteousness of Christ alone. Do you seek to be found only
in His righteousness? I do. I have none of my own. I want His righteousness. Paul said, I count and do count. I counted and I count right now
and I will count forever everything I've done, as done that I may
be found in the righteousness of Christ. Not having my own
righteousness of the law, but being found in His righteousness. We were written in this book
before the foundation of the world. And God chose us to be
his children. And at the appointed time, he
in grace came to us. We didn't seek him. It wasn't
anything special. We were nothing. Remember, we're
nothing. And he came to nothing. He came to us. I like the scripture that says
he called us to light out of darkness. Out of darkness, out of nothing.
He gave us life. He put the seed of life in us
and he caused it to grow. And so that righteousness. I
didn't do it myself. But I'll tell you this, Christ
did it for me and God sees it truly as mine. Is that not amazing? Is that not humbling? Of course
it is. And just as sure as we were elect
and holy in Christ before the foundation of the world, so will
God save all of his people. This is self-examination, not
humbling ourselves Is it not humbling ourselves to believe
the gospel? To believe what God says about
us? I like this, to take God's side
against myself. I take his side against me. I'm
wrong and whatever he does is right. That's the true mark of self-examination. And it's only at this point can
we truly help that we can truly bear under and rejoice. And look
at this in our text, in closing here, it says, let every man
prove his own work, the work of grace, and then he shall have
rejoicing in himself alone and not another. Praise God that
I'm saved. That's caused a great rejoicing
for me to know my salvation is of the Lord. And by this rejoicing,
I can come to where you are. And by this rejoicing, you come
to where I am. I pray that God blesses to our
hearts and help us to love each other and to serve each other,
even as Christ condescended to our lowest state, let us condescend,
not deceiving ourselves concerning self-importance. We're not important.
Christ is all. Christ is all.