Galatians chapter 6. We'll start reading at verse
1 and then we'll read down to verse 5. It says, Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a
one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest I also
be tempted. Bury one another's burdens, and
so fulfill the law of Christ. For if any man thinketh himself
to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own
work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and
not in another. For every man shall bear his
own burden. Heavenly Father, we thank you
today, and we praise your name, your holy and spotless, gracious, sound-epic name, the name of
Jesus, the Savior of his people. Father, we are so grateful today
for that salvation. We're grateful for all that you've
done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we're so
grateful for all the mercies and the blessings that we have
received in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the
world. We thank you for your sovereignty. We praise you for
your work of providence in the lives of your creation. In bringing
forth the glory of Christ Jesus to all the ends of the world,
Lord, through the preaching of the gospel, we're so grateful
that Christ is displayed and may we be found faithful in preaching
that gospel. Father, we pray that you would
just help us. We need your help, Lord, this
morning because we're so enabled to do anything spiritually without
you. You say in your word that without you, we can do nothing.
And so Lord, we look to you this morning. I pray that you would
help me to preach. I pray that you would help these
brethren to listen and to apply wisdom to what is being heard,
that you might grow them in the grace and the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Father Lord, we truly desire
your touch from above. We pray that you would just edify
us today, feed us with your word. Lord, we pray that it might be
magnifying of the work of Christ, of his glory of saving us. Lord, we are so thankful for
these brethren that you have given to us together with. We're
so thankful, Father, for an opportunity each week together in freedom
to be able to preach and to teach and to seeing and to pray. And
Lord, we just are so appreciative to be able to still do that here
in our country. Lord, we thank you for, uh, this
week, uh, the, uh, the rolling back of Roe versus Wade and what
you've done in the hearts of the congressional people and
the, uh, Supreme Court and these things coming to be. Lord, we
are so thankful for that, and we pray, Lord, that people will
see that life is life, even in the womb, and that, Lord, that
this is truly a miraculous thing that you have done on this nation
that has turned their backs on you, that has gone so far away
from your word. But, Lord, we know that you're
elect. The ones that you've given to know the things of Scripture
sees these things, and we know that you are bringing others
of your sheep into that repentance of knowing and trusting on Christ
alone and to be able to see the principles of scripture. And
Lord, we just are just asking that you'd be with our family
and our friends and all those who are around us, Lord, that
you just might give us opportunity to minister and to testify of
Christ Jesus. For it's in his name that we
pray, amen. All right, brethren, Galatians
chapter 6, and we started last week and we looked at verses
1 and 2, and I kind of wanted to just recap briefly on that
because what Paul is getting at here in this
portion of his letter to these Galatian churches is, as I've
mentioned before, is a letter that is ongoing, it's not just
in segments of here's a segment for this, here's a segment for
this, here's a segment for this, but it's one flowing letter and
Paul has been conveying some thoughts, some instructions,
some corrections to these brethren and particularly in the area
of the law and how they were believing that they still had
to keep the law or if they even could keep the law of Moses and
believe in grace. And so Paul is correcting them
now through this letter that we are no longer under law but
under grace. That we do not have to keep the
law for righteousness sake. We do not have to keep the law
for acceptance before God or keeping before God or to have
a relationship or fellowship with God. That that is not the
basis upon which righteousness is established, whether it be
eternal or whether it be physical in time. We do not establish
a righteousness by what we do outwardly in keeping the law
of Moses. Our righteousness is established
by the Lord Jesus Christ and it is laid to our account, it
is imputed to us. And so Paul is writing that the
gospel is not about Jesus plus this, it's about Jesus only. He is now in the part of the
letter where he is telling these brethren, there are some of you
that realize this liberty and you're living within this liberty,
but there are some of you here that believes that they still
keep the law, that they are still to keep these things, and it
is becoming a burden because as we have said before, prior,
that this is a yoke that nobody can bear. Our forefathers wasn't
able to bear this yoke. We're not able to bear this yoke.
these gentiles who definitely have not been under the law all
these years and because if you remember the gentiles never was
given the law, it was never under the law that Moses had given,
God had given to the Israelites. That was only for the Israelites.
It wasn't for everybody else. Everybody else didn't get that
law. So all those thousands of years that the law was enforced
over the people of Israel and the The things that they were
to do because of those laws didn't pertain to the Gentiles. Now,
the Gentiles, you know, why put them under that yoke? That's
what the people in Jerusalem were saying. And so, Paul in
writing this is saying, listen, those who have come under this
burden, and we've seen last week that that word burden there in,
look there in verse 2, if any man be overtaken in a fault,
ye which are spiritual restore such a one. We talked about how
that fault is referring back to what's in context here. What's
in context? Well, what's in context is the
fault of believing that one can obey to gain righteousness, that
one can keep the law for righteousness, that one can produce a righteousness
in and of themselves. And Paul says that is a fault
that somebody can fall into, that that is a mentality that
somebody can come under. Even those who have already believed
the gospel can be overcome, bewitched, by this teaching. I know that
there's a lot of people who say, well, the person that's born
again, they're never going to be fooled by this or that. That's not true. There was lots of people that
were fooled by certain things who had the Spirit of God in
them. God does bring us back to right thinking. He does grow
us in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
don't think that we can't make errors after we have become children
of God. I mean, after we become born
again, we're always children of God, even before we were ever
created. But whenever we were born again, that automatically
doesn't just apply to all the knowledge that you can have.
You still have to grow, and you still can make mistakes. You
still can be deceived, and you can be swayed away for just a
little bit. But the Lord will always bring
us back to right thinking in this. And so Paul is saying,
listen, those who have come under this fault here, you who are
spiritual, you who are walking in the spirit, and that was in
chapter five. It's in chapter five that we live in the spirit
or walk in the spirit. He says, you who are walking
spiritually, you who are walking knowing that righteousness comes
from Christ alone, you need to go and meet in this and you need
to come alongside these people, and in verse two, bear ye one
another's burdens, and so fiddle all gone. We've seen last week
the word burden there also means iniquities. We found that in
Psalms 38 verse four, for mine iniquities are gone over my head
as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. So whenever we see that these
burdens or these iniquities, these trespasses that these men
are coming under because they're trying to keep the law and they're
seeing that they can't and it's becoming discouraging to them
because of what they're hearing priests that you have to keep
this to be saved and here they're saying I'm trying to keep it
but I can't. I keep failing. Then that discouragement
becomes even heavier, even heavier because those who are religious
that are pointing their fingers at them saying, look at you,
look at you, and then pointing to themselves as looking better,
like it's making them look better. And so that's kind of what Paul
is getting at whenever we bear one another's burdens, we're
to come alongside of them and realize that, hey, these people
are in the same boat as I am. These people are just like me.
I'm just like them. We have the same nature. I could
be in their place tomorrow. And so we come alongside and
we lift up each other and we support each other. What does
that mean to bear one another's burdens? Well, whenever a brother
is in a trespass, and I would say, as I mentioned last week,
the context of this is the trespass of going back and looking to
the law for righteousness, self-righteousness. But we can talk about any kind
of trespass. Now, particularly this one is
talking about the trespass of self-righteousness or thinking
you can keep the law for righteousness sake. But it can be any trespass. Anything that our brother or
sister comes under, we who are spiritual, we ought to go to
them and we ought to, with meekness, see that in verse one? With meekness,
help them. We can sympathize with them.
We can feel their struggle that they're going through, that I
can't keep the law, I can't keep the law. And we go to them and
say, listen, we know, we understand, we're just like you, we know
we can't keep it. But that's why those who are
spiritual can go alongside because they know it's not about looking
at the law, it's about looking at Jesus Christ. Looking at Jesus
Christ, he's your righteousness. And so we come and we encourage
our brothers That's how we bear up their burden, is by encouraging
them to look to Christ. Yes, do we tell them that's a
sin? Do we tell them, yes, that we need to turn away from that?
Yes. Listen, brother, true love is
helping a brother out and recognizing that what they are believing
and what they're holding to is sin. That's not hate speech. A lot of people want to call
it hate speech whenever you talk about somebody's sin. Whenever
you point out the unbiblical the unbiblicalness, the non-biblical
understanding that they might have. Whenever you point that
out, it's not hate, it's love. You love them and you want them
to say, hey, this is what God's Word says. This is what God's
Word says. This is how we should be thinking,
not thinking like the world. That's what Paul was talking
about in Corinthians where we said we don't come with the wisdom
of the world, we come with the wisdom that is from God, that
wisdom that's hidden from those who are perishing, but to those
who are being made alive, those people, they are the ones who
have been given the knowledge of this wisdom of what Christ
is all about, what God's Word is meaning, those things like
that. And so we come alongside of those who profess to be Christian
and we say, hey, listen, this is not right, this is a sin. You're looking at this from the
wrong perspective. And we come alongside of them
and we help them And we love them, but we come to meet. We
don't come blasting a horn at them, pointing our fingers at
them, judging them, unfriending them on Facebook or whatever. I see so much of that on Facebook. Guys that I've talked to and
had conversations with, the moment that you disagree with them,
they're automatically mad at you. And the next thing you know,
you're seeing them as add a friend, meaning that they've unfriended
you. Brethren in Christ, we come alongside
of each other knowing that. And that's what Paul was getting
at. In the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou
also be tempted. We've seen that that there means
that whenever you go, be careful because you know that you could
be in the same place and you could even be tempted by their
sin to fall in line with that. And then in verse two, he says,
bury one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Verse three, starting today. We see, for if a man think himself
to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. Now, this is going right along
with what Paul has been saying all along. Matter of fact, go
back with me, if you would, to chapter 5. Chapter 5. Verse 13, it says, For brethren,
ye have been called unto liberty, only use not your liberty for
an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Now, that serving one another
is the same as bearing one another's burdens. That's part of serving.
How do I serve you? Okay? A lot of times we talk
about that. We come to the church service,
right? We're having a service right
here. And a lot of times in our mind, whenever we think of service,
we're thinking of an activity of meeting and sitting and listening. But service is actually something
that we are actively doing. Whenever we come to church service,
it's to come to serve one another. That's one of the reasons we
come to church. If you remember, a few weeks ago, whenever I preached
on why we meet, We've seen that one of the reasons that we meet
is to worship, one of the reasons that we meet is to be edified
by God's Word, and the other one is for the fellowship of
the saints. That's where we encourage one
another, we serve one another. Well, how do we serve one another?
Well, one of the ways that we serve one another is by bearing
one another's burdens. So we see this tied back into
what Paul's already been saying. Look at verse 14. It says, for
all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. Now we know that we can't perfectly
do this, right? We can't have perfect love. We're
still in this flesh and it's gonna be biased, it's gonna be
flaky, it's not gonna be able to love perfectly. It's not gonna
be able to love as God loves. It's not gonna be able to have
that agape love. It might have a phileo love,
a friendly love. It might have an eros love or
a romantic love or an intimate love. But even if that's going
to be sketchy, I love my wife and I've loved
her for 30 years. But sometimes I don't feel like
that. Whenever we get mad at each other, Am I showing love
to my wife whenever I get mad at her, scream at her, holler
at her, or anything? No. I might love you as a friend,
but are we going to have a problem with one another? We might. You
might do something that makes me mad, and you go off to your
house, and as soon as you get out the door, I thought, man,
that's our dog. I can't believe you keep on blah, blah, blah.
Why? Because we don't have perfect
love, right? We don't have perfect love. Now,
because I said that, does that mean I don't love you? No, it
don't mean I love you. It just means that I can't love
you perfectly. I desire to love you. I desire
to be friendly. I desire to be serving you, but
I can't do that perfectly. The only one that's done this
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one who has actually
loved his neighbor as himself because he went to the cross
for us. The Bible says that that the
whole purpose of God sending his son is because of his love.
For God so loved, this is how God showed his love for the elect,
he sent his son to die for us. And the Bible says that no greater
love hath any man than he to lay down his life for his friend. Christ is the one who fits the
bill here, brethren. So again, it always comes back
to not our performance, but it is pointing to Christ's performance.
Even in this, For all the law is fulfilled in one word, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now Jesus is our example and
that's the thing that we desire to be like and that in our thoughts
and in our minds we strike out to do that and to try to do whatever
we can the best that we can. But brethren, please don't ever
get in your mind to know that we can do that perfectly. that
we cannot do that in a capacity that would fulfill the law of
God. The only one that can do that
is Christ. But yet, because Christ is in
us, because that Holy Spirit is in us, we desire those things. And like Paul says in Romans
7, I desire to do those things, but every time I want to do what's
good, evil is present with me. My flesh is always there. corrupting
everything that I do, but thank God there is no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, and I will serve the law of God
with my mind, even though that I will be serving the law of
sin with my flesh. Our minds and our hearts desire
that holiness and righteous walk, but yet we cannot do that. So
whenever we look at this scripture, for all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,
We are to understand that as even that Christ has accomplished
that for us. However, that is our desire to
do. We are desiring to do those things. But if you buy it, look at verse
15, but if you buy and devour one another, take heed that you
be not consumed one of another. So you see the context that Paul
is saying in verse three of chapter six, If any man think himself
to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. He's going
back to what Paul has been talking about all along here is the fact
that, listen, if you bite and devour each other, and how are
they doing that? How are these Galatians biting
and devouring each other? They were comparing each other
and how they were keeping the law. That's why Paul came into
this portion of his letter to start dealing with this. Instead
of the doctrinal part, which was at the first part of Galatians,
he was dealing with doctrinal things. But now we see, look,
this is the application of the doctrine. The application of
the doctrine of no longer under law but under grace is that we,
because of that grace, can bear one another's burdens because
all of us are under that same guilt. We cannot keep the law. And so therefore, we who desire
in our minds to keep the law but yet fail, when we fail, we
have a brother or sister that's there to encourage us, to pick
us up, maybe to even warn us whenever we might be blinded,
deceiving ourselves. Because he says that right there.
Does he not say that? He says that For if a man think himself
to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. So that
tells me that someone who is a child of grace, who has heard
the gospel and believed the gospel, can be deceived into thinking
that he himself is producing something in and of himself that
he really can't. That means he's deceived. And
so we come along because someone can even be deceived. And so
we share with them God's word, instruction, Because the Bible
does say that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and
is profitable, and it's profitable for correction. One of the things
is for correction. One of the things is to reprove
and to rebuke. That's not right. This is what's
right. Believe what is right. That is
the encouragement that we do. And so it's not in a bad way
we do it in meekness, but we see that this is the issue that
can easily arise in a church that preaches and teaches law
for right walking, for right righteousness, I should say,
maybe. But it says, for if any man think
himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. Now let's just think about that
for a minute. That should be a warning, that should be a blaring
alarm to all of us who are God's people
that we need to be careful how we think of ourselves. We can
become self-righteous not only in thinking of our self-righteousness
before God, but our self-righteousness before others. See, whenever
we begin to start bearing one another's burden, what does that
mean, okay? Okay, I come to Zach, and I start
telling Zach, hey, brother, I've been noticing that you're kind
of drifting off in this area. You know, I just want to come
and encourage this, you know, say, hey, you know, remember
what God's Word says about this. Well, whenever I come to start
doing that, what am I doing? I am dealing with the fault that
this brother might have. Not a fault with me, not a fault
with the church, not a fault in general. We're talking about
whenever he comes and he is trespassing God's Word. See, that's what
matters. I posted a little thing this
week on my Facebook. the final authority. This is
the final authority. It's not my opinion. It's not
your opinion. It's not what I think we ought to do. It's not what
you think we ought to do. It's not what, you know, the
experts out there say we ought to do. The final authority is
this in all matters of our life. What we do, this right here is
our final authority. This is the words of God, God
himself spoke these words and it was written down for us. So
this ought to be our final authority. Not what I think the Republicans
or the Democrats or the Conservatives or the Liberals are saying. It
doesn't matter what that. It doesn't matter what this preacher
or that preacher or John MacArthur or Steve Lawson or all these
other men that are out there on the TV and the radio and all
these things. It doesn't matter what they say.
It matters what does God's Word say. And so whenever I come alongside
of Zach and I'm trying to encourage him and try to, with God's Word
and meekness, try to instruct him, the temptation might come
up in me to look at Zach and say, I'm a lot better than that. I'm
not sinning. So I'm going to go to this brother.
I'm going to tell him his sin. And if he don't listen to him,
then I'm going to be self-righteous. Now we usually don't say that
to ourselves, right? We never say, I'm going to be
self-righteous. But what happens? The temptation
to look down upon the brother who is sinning and to begin to
compare ourselves. We now begin to start comparing
ourselves one to the other. I'm doing more than that brother's
doing. I'm doing more than that sister's doing. Look what they
did. Look how we start beginning to
compare ourselves. And as Paul said, we begin to
bite and devour each other. We begin to bite and devour each
other. Brethren, that can happen within a church. Don't think
that just because you're a New Testament church and you have
people in there that are born of God that these things can't
happen. It happened to the Galatian church.
Our church is. And Paul sent this to more than
one church in Galatia, so obviously it can happen. So Paul says, for if a man thinks
himself to be something, but you see how he added, when
he is nothing? See, anytime you begin to think
of yourself as something, you need to be reminded that you're
nothing. Remember Paul said, oh wretched man that I am? Paul said that he couldn't do
it. He admitted his failure. There is no good in me. In me
dwelleth no good thing. So whenever I come to Zach and
I begin to deal with Zach and his trespass, if I'm going to
come in a meek way, if I'm going to come in a humble way, I need
to be coming within my mind knowing what God's Word has said about
myself. God's Word has said that there
is nothing in me that's good. So I'm no different than this
brother. He's doing the trespass now, I may be doing the trespass
later, and he may need to come to me, and whenever he comes
to me, am I gonna be puffed up or am I gonna be humble? So whenever
I come to him and he's not humble about hearing the correction,
guess what, am I gonna get Judgmental against him. Well, you've done
that I don't do that blah blah blah and there begins we divide
and devour No, what do I do? I come knowing hey, this brother's
in the trespass And he's I'm in a trespass and this brother
is coming and correcting me I at least need to check out God's
Word and make sure if what he's telling me is true Maybe I am
wrong. Let me go to God's Word and see
that and then Whenever you do that, you are with a mind that
is, hey, I am a sinner and I am nothing. And that brother is
a sinner and he is nothing. But he can sympathize with whatever
I am. He loves me enough to tell me
that my doctrine is wrong. He loves me enough to tell me
that I'm moving away from biblical principles. He loves me enough
to come underneath me and to hold me up and to edify me. That's why we meet together,
remember? to edify me. Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law." If you love your brother in Christ,
remember that's what he said the law was, right? For all the
law is fulfilled in one word, thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. If you want to fulfill that law
of Christ, what is it that we are to do? Bear ye one another's
burdens. How do I show my love for the
brethren? by encouraging them in correct
doctrine, by encouraging them in the word of God. How do we
show our love? It's not by taking Zach some
soup when he's sick. That is to show a friendly love,
a care for each other. Do I show it by mowing their
lawn or giving them a little money whenever they're down out?
Nope, that's surely a loving thing to do as far as the love
of friendship that is there. But I'm talking about what is
this love that God is talking about? How do we love and serve
one another? We do that by encouraging one
another in the doctrine of Christ. See, Paul was writing to these
people that your doctrine of Christ has veered from the truth
and is into error. You are saying Christ plus Moses. And so he is coming alongside
of them in love, and he is rebuking that with the word of God, and
in doing so, out of his love for them, teaching them that's
correct. So, again, to say that hatred,
to correct somebody whenever they are off in scriptural matters,
is not a sign of hate. It's not hate speech. It's not
hating the person. But it is being loving according
to the scripture. Why? Because you are exhorting
them in Christ. You are encouraging them in Christ
and thus fulfilling the law of Christ. So you see, if we're going to
come in this way, we need to realize about ourselves that
we are no different than those that we're going to. For if a
man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth
himself. But let every man prove his own
work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself. Now that kind of sounds weird.
We were just told to bear ye one another's burdens, and so
fulfill the law of Christ. But now we're seeing, but let
every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing
in himself, and not in another, for every man shall bear his
own burden." Is this contradictory? Well, we know it's not because
it's God's Word. It's just that one thing doesn't mean the other
thing, or to the exclusion of the other thing. He says, for
if a man thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing,
he deceiveth himself. And I believe what Paul is doing
here in verse 4 is actually kind of moving into a sarcastic tone,
I guess you'd say, maybe that's not the word, ironic tone here. I don't believe that Paul is
encouraging us saying, listen, you go prove your own work and
whenever you prove your own work, Now that, then you can boast
upon yourself. It's okay to boast if you can
prove that your work is good. That's not, I don't think that's
what Paul is instructing us to go do. I think Paul is saying
this sarcastically, rhetorically, maybe, or that may not be the
word either. Again, I'm not a wordsmith around
here. The word that I'm looking for,
someone can type in, but what I'm saying is Paul is saying
that listen, If you think you're something more than you're not,
what's already established is that you're nothing. So if you
go and prove your own work and think that you can have a place
to rejoice, you're mistaken because you're nothing. Okay? Is that true? Yes, that's true. But is that what this is saying?
Well, to some degree it is. But let every man prove his own
work and then shall he have rejoicing in himself." But remember, he's
preaching to the children of God who have the Holy Spirit
in them, convicting them, teaching them, bringing them to the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we start to examine our own
work, what are we going to find? That we can do nothing. If we're
a child of God, if we're born from above, it's gonna always
lead us back to that we can do nothing. And so Paul's basically
saying, hey, all right, go examine your work. If you find that you're
keeping the standard, then you have something to rejoice in.
But don't let that standard, look what he says there, and
not in another, he's saying, but don't let that standard be
your brother and sister in Christ, because they're in the same boat
as you. They're in the same boat as you. Don't judge them as a
standard. The standard is never the other
person. The standard is always Jesus
Christ. He's the standard. Holiness,
God's righteousness, God's holiness, God's perfection. That's what
the standard is. So if you're going to go judge
yourself by yourself, if you're going to go judge yourself by
your standard and how you're keeping God's law, you're always
going to find out that you are nothing. And you who think you're something,
you've deceived yourself. You who think you can keep the
Word and boast within yourselves because you've kept the Word,
you're deceiving yourself. And the reason why is because
you're judging yourself among others, because if you were judging
yourself by Christ or by the law of God, by the righteousness
of God, then you would surely see that you're nothing, that
you can't keep it. See, that's what Paul's bringing
out here. See, Paul's not encouraging us that we have the ability to
do some work that would justly allow us to glory in ourselves,
that we are doing some work that we can point to something that
we have done. He's not encouraging that. He is sarcastically saying,
all right, you who are deceived, go off and try to do your work
and see if you have room to glory in yourself, but don't be judging
it by another person. You need to be judging it by
Christ Jesus. So let every man prove his own
work, and then he shall have rejoicing in himself alone and
not in another. For every man shall bear his
own burden. The only reason that we can bear
another one's burden is if we ourselves are bearing our burden. See, as I begin to bear my burden,
if I begin to see and understand the burden of trespass that I
have before God against the law, whenever I begin to see that
and that burden that I am bearing, The Lord tells me, cast all your
cares upon me. He said, come unto me all ye
who are weary and heavy laden, who has a burden. Cast all your
burdens or all your cares upon me. See, whenever we take that,
he said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. That burden
is not the law that is condemning you, but the law that tells you,
look to Christ alone. Love your neighbor and point
them to Christ alone. Whenever you look to Christ alone
and you point others to Christ alone, you're not going to invite
and devour each other because you're all going to see that
you're in the same boat together. And you're going to come under
whenever somebody is in a trespass instead of pointing fingers at
them and judging them and separating from them within the church or,
and that doesn't mean discipline when someone is unrepentant,
but what it means is we start getting in our little cliques.
Did you hear about Brother so-and-so? Did you see about him? And we
begin to backbite, biting and devouring one another. But see,
if we're all looking at this in the same way, if we're all
looking to Christ alone, if we're all encouraging each other in
Christ alone, That's why we preach Christ alone here. It's because
we're always encouraging people there. Because if I encourage
you to go out and do this, then I'm encouraging you to try to
accomplish something that you cannot accomplish. Now, I'm not
telling you don't ever think about it and want to do it. No,
I'm not telling you that. The Holy Spirit's inside of you.
It's going to give you the desires for righteousness. You're going
to desire to do the things that God wants you to do, just like
Paul says. I want to do those things. So we shall bear our burden,
and in bearing our burden, we will now have sympathy to bear
the burdens of our brother. We've been there. We can sympathize.
We know what they're going through. And now we have been taught of
God. We've been taught of God, what it means to fall into error
and to be brought back in love. We now have that experience.
We now have heard the gospel and seen what preaching the gospel
can do in restoring one back to right thinking. See, Paul
didn't tell them to go to the psychologist and try to figure
this all out. Paul didn't try to go with them
with all these Shep stories, you know, all these good feeling
stories, all these funny laughing stories to try to get them to
think about the subject and maybe change. He didn't strike up a
support group an extra biblical activity to go on to the meetings
of the church. He didn't bring in some highfalutin
evangelist to preach to get everybody, you know, feeling guilty. He
didn't do anything except preach Christ and Him crucified. I knew
nothing among you except Christ and Christ crucified. How did
Paul deal with this error in the Galatian church? It was by
pointing people to Christ alone. When we point people to Christ
alone, brethren, listen, that is where we make, if somebody's
truly saved. Again, if someone's truly saved,
that's the key. Because those who are not truly
saved doesn't have that preserving power of the Holy Spirit within
them to keep them from falling away. to keep them from going
away from Christ. But yet those who have the Spirit
of God, when they hear those things and that conviction comes,
the thing that brings him back to restoration is to keep doing
more. You've got to work harder. Look
at me. I'm more righteous than you are.
If you can at least get up to my standard, we're all going
to be good. No, it isn't anything like that. It's keep looking
to Jesus, because as we keep looking to Jesus, it drives us
to our knees begging for more mercy, giving you mercy, Lord,
because I can't do this. I can't do this. I desire to
do it, but I can't do it. We keep going to the Lord, and
we just say, thank you. Thank you for your grace. Thank
you that you have given me your righteousness, that you've provided
my obedience before God, and that my acceptance and my keeping
doesn't depend upon my performance. I desire to give you good performance,
but I'm thankful. that my disobedience has been
covered by your blood." See, brethren, that's what Paul's
getting at here. We begin to learn these things. We grow in
the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we also grow in our understanding
more of ourselves. And then we'll see next week,
Lord willing, we'll see that once we learn these things, we now can communicate those
to other people. Does anybody have any questions
or anything before we dismiss? Okay, well, we'll stop right
there. I do want to mention on the 17th, We will not be here. So we will not have services
on the 17th. That would be not, that'd be
a month from now, basically, almost. Not next Sunday or the
next Sunday, but Sunday after that. So two more Sundays together,
and then we won't be here on the 17th, okay? But then we'll pick back up on
the 24th. All right, does anybody have anything you'd like to say
or mention or anything? Father, again, we thank you for
this day and we thank you for the word that you've given to
us today. We thank you, Father, for your Holy Spirit that is
in us, that guides us, directs us, that instructs us in the
things of Christ and preserves us to the day of Christ's coming. Father, Lord, I just pray that
you would just be with us now as we leave this place to be
with each one of these brethren. And Lord, I pray that you would
just give them guidance and direction this week, Lord, that you would give them opportunities to testify
of Christ Jesus to their friends and their neighbors, their relatives,
Lord. And we just pray that you would help them in the time with
their family and speaking with these things. Lord, we pray for
the Cordova family this morning. We thank you for the time that
we've had with them and we pray, Lord, now that as you've led
them to Oklahoma City, we pray, Lord, that you would just be
with them in whatever you have for them there. Lord, that you
would guide them, direct them, keep them safe. Lord, that their
service there, Lord, would be a testimony of Christ Jesus and
Lord we just thank you for the safety that you've given them
as they moved yesterday and we just thank you so much for the
time that you allowed them to worship with us this last year
and Lord we just again thank you for all that you've done
and we ask you to bless this day in Jesus name we pray.