Next week we'll deal with a little
bit of Latin and then we'll do some other Japanese and now that
y'all see that I'm joking we'll probably go straight into Hebrews.
Galatians 5 last week and the week before we sort of split
this into two weeks. We saw that Paul has taught us
about the freedom of the gospel that we are not bound in the
context of the of circumcision. We're not bound under the law.
We're not going to be condemned because of the law. He illustrates
the fact that he is persecuted for the sake of his preaching,
so therefore he's not preaching the law. He's not preaching adherence
to the law with grace, because if he were, his people and the
people that hate him would not hate him. And he goes on to say
how he feels about these people. He says that they should emasculate
themselves. That that would be their the best wisdom that he
could give them if they think that the law would do right by
them then by goodness why don't you just take the law to its
extreme and obey it so we don't use our freedom then even though
we are free we don't use it as an opportunity to serve the flesh
that we might live in the flesh and love the flesh but we do
fight against the flesh but even when we don't we are to rest
in the sufficiency of Christ. But ultimately, in the context
of the flesh, Paul talks about loving each other. And if you
look at the Pauline epistles and even the other letters of
the New Testament, we see that the instruction to the church,
the instruction to the saints is always centered on and around
our love for one another because of God's love for us. So we're
not supposed to confuse the Ten Commandments with this illustrative
idealism of God's expectation of us. We are to understand that
the law of Christ by all things is a law of grace. and that because
of his grace that he instructs us, he instructs us in intimacy
and fellowship with him through the intimacy and fellowship with
each other. And there is one thing that ruins
intimacy, which ruins fellowship, and that is when we think of
our flesh and gratify our flesh in any way at the cost of one
another. And so last we looked at verses
16 through the end of chapter 5 where it says walk by the spirit. So we walk by the spirit just
as a way of reminder by believing in the finished work of Christ
we believe and we trust by the gift of God through the repentance
which is faith showing us that we are indeed in Christ and that
our flesh has been put to death through the crucifixion of Christ.
Yet we are still in these mortal bodies and these mortal bodies
are not renewed. They are not renewed. But we
one day will see them renewed in the same way Christ's body
was renewed and glorified. So that we focus then in the
desires of the Spirit, who is this new man in us, and we are
led by the Spirit. And because we are led by the
Spirit, we believe in the gospel. And because we believe in the
gospel, we are not under the law. Paul explains what? clear identifiers of the flesh
are, and he uses a long list of which we all discern through
a small quick test last week, are guilty. But yet we are not
seen in that way, we are not looked upon as sinners by the
Father because our guilt has been imputed to Christ and His
righteousness has been given to us. How do you know? Because
God grants you the faith to believe this is absolutely yours. That's how you know. And then
we see the antithesis of the self-centered focus that not
only in the unconverted identity, but also in the converted that
sometimes these things are tempting. These fleshly desires do rise
up in us. And even so, we also remain in
the flesh when we think that by the flesh we put to death
the flesh. Instead of trusting that Christ
has died and we with Him have died, that Christ has been raised
again and that the promise is we too will be raised as Christ
is raised. So though our flesh fights in
itself, we will always be victorious even if we're not in this life.
we will be victorious because Christ is the first to show us
glory. And the fruit of the Spirit,
of course, is the working of the Spirit, but the reality there,
as we saw in verse 22 last week, love and joy and peace and patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These
are who God is. These are who Christ is. These
are who the Spirit is. This is the essence of the ontology
of God and His goodness and righteousness that is given to us. So we then
stand in this way And because we stand in this way, then in
a practical sense, when we love one another, we are putting on
these things. But in a real and true sense,
these things are imputed to us because our righteousness is
an alien righteousness. And so we who belong to Christ
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires so that
when we see these things, and we've already looked at Romans,
so we already know what chapter 7 of Romans teaches us, that
even when we war, what is the hope? It's the body of death
that kills, but we have escaped it because there is no condemnation.
How? Because we are in Christ. So if we live by the Spirit,
verse 25, let us also keep step with the Spirit. Let us not be
conceited, provoking one another or envying one another. So I
go back to the motif of Paul's writing here, that he charges
the church to be an intimate fellowship of believers who are
grounded in righteousness because of the imputed perfection of
Jesus Christ. And because of that, that the love that we have
for one another is actually a living out of our love for the Lord
Jesus. The Bible doesn't say you must
love the Lord Jesus in order to have justification. The Bible
doesn't say you must have perfect obedience in order to have justification.
The Bible says you must believe that Christ's love and perfect
obedience is your justification. But because we have that, our
intimacy and our fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ in a relational
way. You hear that phrase a lot of
times in the world. Yeah, I'd have a relationship
with Jesus. Well, the way you have a relationship with Jesus
is to have a relationship with Jesus people. There's no other
way. The relationship with the Word
of God is intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. And it speaks in
and of itself. Every letter of the New Testament
tells us that we are to be intimate with one another because we are
the body of Christ. And if we're serving one another,
we are serving Christ. And when we're doing these things,
our flesh is no longer focused on itself. We are not looking
to please ourselves. We are not looking to live for
ourselves. We are living for one another. And when we're doing
that, we are living as unto the Lord for His glory and for His
namesake. And we know that that living does nothing for us in
the context of our salvation and our redemption and the way
God sees us and loves us, but it keeps us from harboring not
only in the sin and temptation of the flesh and its desires,
but also in the self-righteousness of the flesh and its desires.
And he continues there. That is the only context of this
letter, of this application, of this practical righteousness,
if we could call it that. Don't put words in my mouth,
just hear what I'm saying. But he says, brothers, what do we
do then? The question often comes, before
I read this, the question often comes, okay, what I'm hearing
is My performance in this life is not tied to my redemption,
absolutely. It's not tied to your redemption,
but your performance in this life should flow out of your
love for the Lord Jesus Christ because of your redemption. So
that our love for the Lord Jesus is a motivating influence and
a powerful encouragement for us to consider how we might live
according to the Spirit. But life is in the Spirit only.
So we then have to recognize, well, if we are alive in the
Spirit, then why is there still infraction? Why is there still
sin? Why is there still problems in the flesh? Why are there still
divisions amongst the church of Christ? And what are we to
do about it? And that's where he closes this
letter. Brothers, if anyone is called in any transgression,
You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Now let's just take this one sentence at a time. So it shows
very clearly that we as brothers and sisters will see often that
some of us, if not ourselves, but we have seen in our own lives
and we'll continue to see that there are times when some of
us, some of the church, will fall into sin, will have sin. That's very obvious. We are not,
let me go ahead and get on this little soapbox for a second.
Here we go. We are not supposed to police
each other's lives looking for sin. We're not supposed to do
that. But as we engage together with
one another when sin is obvious to us, we are to see it. And then when we see it, we are
to approach it as the scripture tells us to approach it. And
here's the thing, even though every sin is not divisive in
the sense of its existence, every sin is divisive to intimacy.
Every sin is divisive to fellowship. So it does damage to the body
as a whole. If I fall into sin to such a
degree that I am no longer able to pray, to study the Word, to
have my marriage on task, to parent my children the way that
I should, and to focus, how am I to feed the things that I am
supposed to feed to you according to the Spirit of God? I cannot
do it, so my sin will affect your lives. The same thing happens
if your sin is not handled. And you might say, well, what
sins? Well, sins, specifically, that cause people to stumble,
that cause people to fear, that cause people to doubt, and that
causes division in the body. So if we see someone, if we catch
them, if we observe it, oh, wow, I see that. Not that we're poking
through their drawers to find it, but we see it. When we see
the transgression, It says here, you who are spiritual. So let's
talk about that for a minute. Remember the context of what
we've already read? And the language that Paul's already said, being
led by the Spirit. What is the first attribute of
being led by the Spirit? Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ
and following after Him by faith. Which means to trust in Him by
faith. To live in Him as our life. It's nothing to do with
the outcome of our life and attitude and morality. But that is the
first step. We believe by faith alone this
is the first and prominent and always obvious reality and only
test of true fellowship or only test of true salvation that we
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The other things are congruent
to good intimacy and fellowship. So the other aspect of being
spiritual is that Those who are falling into sin and struggling
in their own lives don't have the room nor the prerogative
to be able to come in and then start telling one another how
they ought to manage their own lives. Jesus says it that way. To judge only with the way that
you will be judged. To judge in a manner that you
will see judgment, or discernment, or discrimination. Only live
in that context as you do it. So before you go to your brother
to help the speck that he's got in his eye, recognize the log
that you've got in yours, get it out, then help your brother. Help your brother get the speck
out of his. You see that helping hand? So
to be spiritual is to understand the gospel of free and sovereign
grace, to understand our hope that is in this truth and in
this work and in this person who is Jesus the Christ, and
to know that we are all guilty, all sinful, but that there is
a level of spiritual maturity for we who are able to help others. And you know where some of that
spiritual maturity comes from? That someone has helped us with
the same speck. That's where it usually comes from. I love
well-meaning people throughout my pastoral tenure who have come
to me to tell me about the sin and the lives of other people,
and they've never experienced that temptation in themselves.
And they know exactly how that person can get their life together.
They know exactly. It's easy for them to come up
with a list of things that can just absolutely work, certainly. And the funny thing is they're
hardly ever biblical. They're usually philosophical, or at
worst, therapeutic. But if you're spiritual, you
should restore Him. Now what does that say? Restore
Him. That means the point of helping
the speck out of his eye is because that speck is causing him great
pain. The problem that we have in today's
evangelical living is that we want to feel better about those
people with specks in their eyes as they blink and cry and bleed
out of their orifices thinking that because we're not bleeding
that we're better. Which is the greater sin according
to the scripture. which is an attitude of self-righteousness.
So when we see other people with specks in their eyes, when we
see other people who are hurting, that's what sin does to the brothers
and to the sisters. It hurts us. It's never fun. But sometimes we have our foot
caught like in a bear trap of temptation and we don't know
how to get out of it. And the false gospels of the
North American church will say, well, you better get your life
together if you're on fire for Jesus. That's like telling a dog not
to eat food. It's like telling a fish not
to swim. Telling a sinner just to stop
doing it. It's a battle. We ought to look and try to restore
them, to heal them, to correct them, to put them in a place
where they're no longer hurting. I mean, think about it. When's
the last time you ever heard someone preach on a sermon concerning
sin, and the primary focus of that sermon was the fact that
the person who is in sin is hurting? You can't even hit the pull-pat
and say that, can you? Gotta stop the hurt and the pain. I
mean, you know, that doesn't even work. It doesn't give us,
it doesn't give us the umption to really feel a little bit powerful. Why don't we feel powerful when
we preach on sin? Why do people are empowered when
they get the amen? You know, the big belly roll
amens. Amen. I'm sick of the sin of America
and the sin of this and the sin of that. Amen. Everybody that
says amen should be saying, you're talking about me. I'm the center, but they're not
thinking that. Yet, in seasons of our fellowship
where we have had to excommunicate brothers and sisters from our
family, we've had to refuse fellowship with them to turn away from them
and to push them into the world that God may restore them to
us one day. Witnesses who have not been part
of our fellowship, not knowing what has happened several times,
thought someone had died. Because of the weeping, because
of the tenderness, because of the heartfelt hope and somewhat
hopelessness in the sound of how we had to deal with removing
people because of their unwillingness to turn from sin, that ought
to be the label That ought to be the characteristic. That ought
to be that ought to be the heart song when we see sin in our lives
and the sin of the lives of others. These people are hurting. And that's why we should think
of restoring them, not catching them. And spiritual people want
to restore them. Spiritual people don't want to
make them feel guilty. Spiritual people don't want to scare them.
Spiritual people do not want to use the law as a way of binding
them to something else. But spiritual people want to
restore them, and the spirit in which they restore them is
what? You who are spiritual, restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Gentleness. Let me tell you the language.
Let me show you the attitude and the approach that we should
have here. If I fell off the stage and tore my arm out again,
God help me, I would cry, please put me out of my misery. And
none of you who have any type of first aid training would come
up and begin to yell at me and stomp at me and say, how dare
you fall and pull your arm out of socket. Even if it was my
fault because I decided to do some advanced martial art technique
that I did when I was 26 that I can't do anymore 20 years later.
and I hurt myself on purpose because of my ignorance, my stupidity,
and most of all, my pride, the worst thing you could do, and
you wouldn't, is to accuse me as I agonize on the floor. And
then decide in your own wisdom to just do one of two things.
Well, let's make it a matching pair and pull this arm out. Or
worse, decide to fix it on your own. Why don't you just get up
and put it back in a socket? What's wrong with you? And without any
tenderness at all, just start jamming and shoving and doing
whatever you could to get it fixed. That's not what you do
in a triage situation. It's not what you do with a broken
bone. It's not what you do in an instance where someone is
hurt. You take your time, you assess, you look, you're gentle.
And even when things are going to be harmful or hurtful, physically
or emotionally, you're still gentle. Best doctor I've ever had has
told me, this is going to kill you. And I'm thinking, oh my
goodness, I prepared myself for the worst pain ever, and it wasn't
that bad. This is going to hurt a bit, and then what happens?
Yeah, it's awful. Gentleness. And the spiritual
person has this mindset, has this attitude. And this is how
we should approach sin in the church. We should approach sin
in the church the same way that the Lord Jesus approached the
sin in the church. He gave his life for it. He died for sinners. So that we just, and you're thinking,
where is this coming from? The whole of scripture. And I
hate using that argument because it's such a cop out. Just read
the Bible. I mean, you know, cover to cover. But it is. Have this mind among you, which
is yours in Christ Jesus, who was equal with God, did not take
equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself
a nothing, a slave, obedient, even to death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted
him. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, who
gave himself for her, that he should present her spotless and
blameless, without blemish. This is the mind of Christ. This
is the attitude of Christ. This is the gentleness of Christ.
This is how God looks at sin in the church. He gave his son.
He didn't condemn anybody. Hallelujah. Yet false gospel
purveyors will continue to hound and harass the sheep of Christ
to their own demise. Yes, even when firmness is required,
even when excommunication is. Just unavoidable. It is still
gentle. It is still gentle. And that
spiritual person knows to keep watch on themselves, look at
the next sentence, same verse, next sentence, keep watch on
yourself, lest you to be tempted. Now sometimes people are like,
you'll be tempted in the same sin? No, you might be tempted to think
you don't have any. You might be tempted to think, that's why
John in his first epistle, that's why he burrows into this idea,
if you say you have no sin, you're a liar. Nobody who's born of
God says, I have no sin. They're a liar. And in that theme,
He then gives instruction on the test of fellowship and intimacy
within the brethren, within the fellowship, within the brotherhood.
So we are to be careful knowing that we too could be tempted
in some way. Not that we have a control of our lives, not that
we have mortified the flesh, not that we have grown in wise
stature before men. We don't grow. Any man that thinks
he's wise and his morality and his righteousness is on the way
to falling on his face. Lest we to be tempted. And that's
just verse one. See, this is the practical application
of the gospel of grace as a living body together in intimacy. Verse
two, bear one another's burdens. What's a greater burden and struggle
with sin? I don't know about you, I've
lost people, I've been sick, I've been hurt, I've been depressed,
I've done a lot of things, but the burden of those things is
just nothing compared to the burden of temptation and sin
in my life. Because when sin enters into my life, it may not
be immediately, but ultimately God brings me to the place of
seeing the vileness of it. And he brings me to a place of
seeing the cost of it. What's the cost of my sin? Christ
dying. That's the cost of my sin. That's
what it cost. Christ died. And I shouldn't
be angry about that. I should be mournful about that.
I should weep. But I should also rejoice over
that reality, over that truth. So we're to bear one another's
burdens. All the burdens, we carry them. You know what, beloved?
I'm equipped to carry certain types of burdens for people.
But I'm not equipped to carry every burden. Are you? No. I'm not equipped, some of you
aren't equipped to learn certain things about certain people's
sins. Some of us are not able to handle the reality of certain
people's mindsets, or attitudes, or actions. Some of us are so
frustrated, or so fearful, or so concerned, or so overwhelmed
that we don't know what to do. But together, collectively, there
are always people who can bear the burdens of every person in
this room, and every person in our fellowship who's not here
tonight, and every person that we have in our life and the faith.
that are outside our fellowship that we have intimacy with. We
can bear one another's burdens. And in doing so, what does it
say? Fulfill the law of Christ. We're to carry the garbage for
one another. We're to open the doors of fellowship
for one another. We are to pick up the pieces
when we fall apart. This is what it means to live
as a New Testament church because of the grace of God. And all
these, it's not just here, but it's almost like Paul said, well,
I gotta finish this letter, I gotta get through. He doesn't go into the details
he went to the Ephesians. He doesn't go into the details
like he did in Romans. He doesn't give some specific
things that were happening in Galatia like were happening in
Corinth. But the instrument is still there.
The application, the practical reality is still there. We bear
one another's burdens, whatever they may be, Spiritually and
physically, emotionally, all of them, we bear each other's
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For we are loving
our neighbor as ourselves, which is loving Jesus. That's what
it means to love Jesus. When we physically, actively,
purposefully, intuitively, passionately carry one another's burdens. And then he further explains
the attitude of this. For if anyone, verse 3, thinks
he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Now why
would Paul set that in there? Why would Paul set that in there? Because there are some very dear
people in the faith who can bear burdens well. Especially those
who have great means. You ever notice how a dollar
can heal a lot of pain? Well, you know, I know y'all
are Y'all are struggling, here's a check. Well, that's one part
of this burden I have to worry about. How am I going to pay
my bill in this time of need? And then there's another way.
The food is the, what is that called? The gateway to the soul
or the way to a man's heart or whatever. You know, when people
die or get sick, the church likes to feed people. Great, feed people.
Why? Because that's a burden that's
been taken off. You don't have to figure out
what to eat. You're not having to go to McDonald's and buy 20 hamburgers
for 50 cents. It's just part of it. But there
are people who are very good at that. And sometimes, if we're
not careful, we get so good at ministry, we get so good at loving
one another, that we get a little irritated about those people
who are not so good at loving one another. Sometimes we're
so affectionate in certain ways of service, like maybe it'd be
teaching, maybe it'd be prayer, maybe it'd be works, maybe it'd
be hospitality, maybe it'd be whatever. We get so good at it,
but nobody else is good at it. We start thinking, well, these
people just, we would never say it, but we may feel in our hearts
that, you know, I think I got this service thing down. People
need to start serving like me. And then we may think that we're
something. And Paul wants to remind us that we're nothing. We're all the one body. We all
have a part to play. We all have a role in our loving
abilities. And yes, I guess everybody wants
to be a head. Everybody wants to be a hand.
Nobody wants to be a fingernail. Nobody wants to be an eyelash.
That's insignificant. Oh, what a terrible role. What's your man? I'm the director
of eyelash ministries. We just blink every now and then
and keep dust out of the eyes. We try to keep the specks out
of the eyes of our brothers. I don't really like it doesn't
feel well, you see. But in my opinion, I'd rather
have a lot of eyebrows, not eyebrows, eyelashes. I'd rather have a
lot of eyelashes, keeping specks out of my eyes, then I can see
where I'm going. Eyelashes help you keep your focus on Jesus.
Don't take these things literally. This is just crazy stuff that
comes into my head in sleep deprivation. Because we're really nothing
by ourselves. But together, we do great things
by the Lord's mercy. But instead of thinking that
we're something when we're really nothing, let's each one test his own worth. Look at verse 4. Test his own
worth. So look at it, evaluate it, think
about it. And then his reason to boast
will be in himself alone and not his neighbor. In other words,
don't look at what your neighbor is doing or what he or she is
not doing and say, okay, I'm not doing well enough because
I don't do as much. Or I'm doing better because I do more than.
Who are you and what are you called to do and are you faithfully
serving the body of Christ? Are you faithfully available?
Are you faithfully praying? Are you faithfully intimate with
the Lord Jesus through your brothers and sisters? And some of our
brothers and sisters may say, well, I can't be in the fellowship,
but I'm listening right now on the internet. I just thought
about this as I think about some of our sisters and brothers from
across the country. But if you can pray, if you can
connect, If you can encourage, if you can teach, if you can
invest in the life, however you're able to, you are serving in that
way. I believe that that's enough.
Let's be content with where we are. Let's test our own ministry
as it stands alone and say, is my heart right? Am I doing this
by faith? Am I loving the Lord Jesus in
this context so that we're not comparing ourselves? Because
comparison is a dangerous thing. And as we see what he says in
verse five, for each will have to bear his own load. Now see,
this is where it gets a little interesting. I mean, you think
about the hair on our head. What does it do other than look
extremely cool? You ever thought about that?
Hair changes the look of everybody. If we were all bald, we'd look
pretty much the same. You'd have to look really close
for facial features and things. But after all, I mean, you know,
you go in the army, you can't pick your kid out in the picture.
Oh, I got the same haircut. None. What are we doing there? But
what does hair do? What load does it bear? It's
sitting on top of everything. It's the crown. It's the corona
of the body. It is there. And I guess if your
hair was very, very long, it'd be a little exhausting. But for
the most part, it just sits up there. It gets carried around
everywhere. It's not even that important
in our culture. Maybe for sunburn, but we don't
get cold enough. Maybe it hides ugly sometimes
and we can appreciate that, but it doesn't really carry a lot
of load. But what about the heel of the body? What about the calf
muscle? The calf muscle and the heel
and the bones of the shin? Oh my goodness, they carry a
lot of load, don't they? They carry a load that the other
parts of the body can't imagine. And you think to yourself, hmm,
I wouldn't want to be a heel to be up underneath the entire
body all day, walking, hurting, blistered, stinking. But somebody's
got to be the heel. As God gifted you to be the heel,
can you carry the burdens? And the crazy thing is, is we
don't have to be the heel. There could be many who carry
that burden. But everybody has a load and
sometimes the load is greater. Scripture says to whom much is
given, much is required. Sometimes the Lord gives for
or to us so that we might be prepared for others. And that
load, a lot of people look at the idea of the pastor as carrying
the heaviest load. And quite honestly, it may be
in a spiritual or emotional sense, and sometimes physical sense,
it may feel that way to myself, but let me put me into this formula
here. But I better be careful and not
look and say, you know, I'm studying all this time, and I'm counseling
all this time, and I'm praying all this time, and I'm teaching
all this time, and everybody else just sits there and looks at
me. That's all they do is sit there and look at me. What are
they doing? Sit there looking at me. Goodness,
these people need to do better than this. I have to check myself.
I don't measure myself, I don't look at the other elders of the
church, why are they teaching more? And I thought, they need
to get up here. I told them I was gonna spin a wheel. I didn't
show Jesse this yet, but I've told Trey this, I'm gonna take
a wheel, I'm gonna put him in, I'm gonna put 30 numbers on it,
I'm just gonna go. That's the date this month you're
preaching. Like the Wheel of Fortune or something. Price is
right, there's your date, buddy. Instead of trying to plan it
out, oh, is it time, is it not time? Just do it. But I don't
want to get in that place where I'm going to test my own work,
not look at my neighbors, not look at the burdens. If I can't
carry a burden, I'll just stop carrying it. If somebody can't
pick it up, it just won't be here. We don't have to fight
and fuss and bicker in our spirit and feel frustrated and feel
bitter because what we can't do isn't getting done. Who cares?
When the Lord is ready, it will be picked up. It will be picked
up. And every load is important in
the church. For example, like that instrument
right there. I love to play that instrument, but I hate playing
it on Sunday mornings. And you two, specifically, have
taken a third of my burden from me in life. And it came through
me jumping off the stage and hurt him. But the Lord is faithful
in that. It may seem insignificant, but
for me, which makes it for the church, it is a heavy weight. It is a heavy weight. Praise
God for that. So we don't boast. because we're doing better. We
don't groan because we're not doing as well as others. We are
who we are. We are where we are. We are serving
as we are, and we are doing it because we want to be spiritually
in tune with one another because of the gospel. So we don't let
our flesh control us as much as possible. You know, one of
the primary instruments through which God helps us walk in a
manner worthy of his calling is prayer. Jesus says to pray,
lead me not into temptation and deliver me from evil and help
me forgive those who sin against me. How often do we pray that?
I think we should pray it as much as it comes to mind, and
we should pray as much as we pray, we should pray in some
way that. Before it's a war to put names
to that prayer, we ought to pray for the Lord to help us have
that mindset. Because I know all of us I mean, we share life
together in such a way we know the burdens that we do in context
of prayer. I have names that I have to put
there often. Lord, help me to forgive this
person. Help me to forgive that person.
And I find that when I'm there, I have failed to pray, Lord,
lead me away from the temptation and help me forgive my brothers
and sisters. Help me forgive just in general.
Help me have a forgiving heart. So we're talking about the loads
that we carry and the loads that we bear. And let's just read
through 6 through 10, and we'll talk about this next week as
we close out this letter. So he says, let the one who has
taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows,
that one he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own
flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows
to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us
not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap
if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity,
this is why I wanted to read this, let us do good to everyone. and especially to those who are
the household of faith. Let us serve. What is the opportunity
to serve? It is now. Yesterday is over. Tomorrow may never come. I think
Vince Gill wrote that, didn't he? Today is the day. Today is the day of service.
Today is the day to pray for each other. Today is the day
to encourage one another. Right now in this moment is the
only thing that is promised to us by the Lord Jesus in the context
of this time. And when that moment is passed,
it is no longer optional. It is no longer an opportunity.
So it's always now. That's why I am not a big fan
of prepared ministry. If there's a need, let's meet
it. If there's a prayer that's required, let's pray it. If we
gotta wait till next Monday to pray, we probably shouldn't pray
at all. If we're getting ourselves together
and getting our ducks in a row so that we can be in ministry,
we're not gonna be in ministry when we get there. If we're discontent,
and you know what I really feel? This is closing thought. I feel
a lot of people who are called by the Lord in this culture,
and I'm doing quotes for those of you who can't see me, call
to the Lord is that they see what people do and they're called
to that doing. Oh, you know what? I could see
myself sitting in a library studying the Bible, writing and lecturing
and teaching sermons. Yeah, I want to do that. That's
not a call of God. Oh, I could see myself helping
plant churches and going to different states and doing all this stuff
and training people. Yeah, I could do that. That's
not a call to God. You don't get called to doing these things.
You get called to a people. The call of God is to a people.
As a pastor, I was called to you. As a Christian, you were called
to one another and to me. Our ministry is only as good
as the faces they represent. It's only as intimate as our
love for one another in real life. No matter how far apart
we may be. Logistically, we must love each
other in real life. We need to understand the ministry
as we know it and the local church as we see it and that I have
seen in my entire life all nearly 50 years of it. We are not seeing
true biblical ministry because what we are seeing is organizations
calling themselves a family yet doing nothing intimate and serving
no one unless it is involving a program. Now, of course, that's
that's a broad dogmatic statement. There are always exceptions.
But keep in mind. Because we are Christ's body. We have an obligation to one
another. And when we are serving one another. We are actually exhibiting listen
to this, we are exhibiting. Love. We are expressing and experiencing
joy. We are involving one another
and encouraging one another to believe and hold fast in peace.
We are learning to be slow to anger and have patience with
each other while teaching patience. We are as God was with us in
his loving kindness. We are kind. We see goodness
and as we continue, even when it gets weary, do not grow weary
in doing good. For in due season, you will reap
a harvest. We do that and we continue in that by the mercies
of God, we are producing faithfulness. And as our attitudes stay focused
on our love for each other and that we too could fall into sin,
we too could be problematic. We too have been someone else's
burden. We are learning and living gentleness
as we focus not to hear and listen to our flesh and to look and
to fall into pity or to be angry or to be self-centered or to
be bitter. We are understanding the reality
of self-control. Against such there is no law.
But even in those moments, if there were a law, we would not
be good enough to escape its consequences. So the law of Christ. It was ours by faith that he
is the loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, self-controlled,
absolutely faithful, gentle shepherd who laid down his life for us. So we lay down our lives for
one another. And I'm hoping that that's not
the first time you've heard it preached that way. Because any
other way is a pretext, especially if it comes with guilt. Let's
pray. Father, as Paul wrote this letter,
he closes it with these words, I bear the marks of Christ on
my body. Oh Lord, as we bear not the marks
on our body, let us bear the semblance of the fruit of the
Spirit as your body. And until that day, when you
perfect us forever, help us to rest in you. And not look to
our love or to our service in any way, except as a means of
expressing our love for you. To each other. In your name,
we pray. Amen.