Congratulations, chapter 6, verse
1. Good to be back, by the way, this week. This being here last
week, we had a great time of fellowship with the First Baptist
Church of Delaware, Oklahoma. We always enjoy our time over there.
We get to spend with them any time we get to spend with them. Lovely bunch of people Brother Jonathan Wigner, who
is the pastor there, him and his wife, they were on an anniversary
trip, vacation, and so I filled in for him over there. Back today, and back in Galatians. Matter of fact, what I preached
over there last week actually would have been a good in-between
message for us here, in-between what we talked about last time
and We looked at verses 25 through verse 1 of chapter 6, 525 through
6, 1, last time we were together. And we talked about, as it says
there in verse 26, let us not be desirous of vain glory. We
spent some time talking about how if we live in the spirit,
we're not going to be living under the works of the law. We're
not going to be looking to the law for acceptance. We're not
going to be looking to the law for righteousness, that we as
a new creation, as new children of God, as those which are born
from above, we look to Christ in faith, that His righteousness
has been given to us, and that we are under that righteousness
before God, and therefore, whenever God looks at us, He sees perfect
obedience, He sees no sin. And so we looked at how we walk
in the Spirit, or if we're led by the Spirit, if we live in
the Spirit, all those phrases that have to do with looking
to Christ and having faith in Christ, that whenever we do that,
then we are not going to be envious of one another or provoking one
another, which we found also in verse 26, let us not be desirous
of vain glory, provoking one another and injuring one another.
And we saw how within churches, especially whenever you're preaching
the law, what it's easy to do is, well, that person, as soon
as you get, because our pride, it wants to jump up, take front
and center. And whenever you tell somebody
they've done something wrong, what's the first thing they want
to do? They immediately want to defend themselves. They immediately
want to make excuses on why they did what they did or that they
didn't do it, make an argument that that wasn't me that did
it. That was somebody else that did it. Always wanting to lay
blame on someone else or something else. And so whenever you preach
the law within an environment of people who are prideful, that's
what that is. Whenever we get defensive, when
someone tells us that we've done wrong and we get defensive, that's
pride. The Bible says that God resists
the proud. Pride is not a great thing, okay? Pride is something that the Bible
overwhelmingly speaks against. The Bible says to take heed how
you stand lest you fall, that pride cometh before fall. Meaning
that whenever you become puffed up, whenever you become proud,
thinking that you are something that you are really not, then
your demise, your failure is surely to come because anybody
who pumps themselves up and thinks they are something when they're
actually not, then when the course of the natural man that God has
put us in this flesh, when the course of nature, and that's
what I mean by that, not some fatalistic thing, but when the
course of nature, how we are in Adam, Whenever it comes around
and rears its head up, we see him, we fail, we fall. Just as
soon as you point your finger at somebody else, you got all
your other fingers pointing right back at you, right? We've heard
that little illustration before. Whenever you start pointing your
finger at somebody else, just wait because it's not going to
be too long until somebody's going to be able to point their
finger at you. That's what Paul is saying here. He says, if we
live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit and not be
desirous of vain glory, not be desiring of pumping ourself up
or making us something that we are not. That's not what worship
is about, for one. Number one, whenever we come,
I preached to Delaware last week. When we come to worship, the
reason that we come to worship is to worship God. It's not about
making me feel good. I didn't come here so that somebody
would sing a song that would just bless my heart and, you
know, sound real good, make me want to, you know, put them on
a record label. It's not about a funny preacher.
It's not about a good storytelling preacher. It's not about, you
know, anything other than God. We come to worship God. So if
we come together, as Paul was writing to this church and whenever
they come together, And they're hearing this law being preached,
and therefore, in that, they begin to become judgmental one
to another, because the law only brings judgment. Whether it's
upon yourself or in you towards other people, the law always
brings judgment. We're always judging each other
by the law, by the law, by the law, and we're judging each other.
Well, you didn't do that. Well, you didn't do that. Hey,
what about you? You didn't do that. And so Paul
says, let's not be desirous of vain glory. Whenever we desire
to pump ourselves up and to make us holy and righteous, religious-looking
to other people, all we're doing is setting ourselves up for a
fall. All we're doing is being hypocritical. We're all sinners
for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. If anyone
says that he has not sinned, he makes God out to be a liar.
We are full of sin, Paul said, that in me dwelleth no good thing. And in you dwelleth no good thing
either. And so there's no room, no place, no reason for us to
ever pump ourselves up in pride and vainglory and boast it over
other people. And that's exactly what the law
breeds whenever it is being preached for righteousness. Now, the law
should be preached, but it should be preached for the purpose that
it was there. The law was given to reveal the sin that is in
us. to leave us no way of escape
from it, that it is final. Those who sin shall die. The wages of sin is death. The
soul that's sinning, it will surely die. There is no getting
around that. If you are a sinner, if you have
sinned, and we all have, the wages of that is death, we all
are deserving of the wrath of God. But praise the Lord that
The grace of God has bestowed salvation upon His people, that
He has redeemed them by sending Jesus in their place. And so
we shouldn't be puffed up about anything, because it's all about
Christ, and this is what Paul was getting to. That's what preaching
grace is about. Preaching law lawfully by driving
the man to his knees in utter desperation to look to Christ
alone because he knows that in him dwells no good thing. To
drive that man to his knees is what the law is all about. To
reveal and expose and to manifest what sin is there that you cannot
attain to the righteousness of God. You cannot keep God's acceptance
with your righteous acts of good or whatever you think is good.
It's not going to happen. So if you try to preach the law
for righteousness and acceptance before God, all that's going
to do is stir up pride. All that pride's going to do
is start pointing to other people. You don't weigh up as good as
I do. You don't weigh up as good as I do. Remember the rich young
ruler that came to Jesus? There's all these people gathered
around Jesus. He's talking. And this young
man came up and asked him, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus began to give him some law. What did he start
doing? He told him the law. He was going
to expose his sinfulness to this man through the law. So he said,
well, do this, do this, do this. And that young man said, all
those things have I kept from my youth. Now, he didn't really
do those. He didn't keep all those things from his youth. He thought he had kept those
things from his youth, even as Paul, as he said, whenever he
would, before his conversion, Paul said that he was the the
cheapest of uh... prophecy of keeping the law he
was without blame well we know that's not true that would mean
that he would have been sinless and he wasn't sinless he had
broken the law matter of fact what he was doing was breaking
the law uh... before uh... whenever he was
gathering up all the christians and killing them however uh... Paul uh... Even though he says
that, even though we talk about that, then, you know, that doesn't
mean that he was actually blameless. That doesn't mean he actually
kept the full law. So, sorry guys, I just lost my
train of thought on that. But anyway, whenever we begin
to preach the law, we, sorry about that. Whenever we preach the law, it
breeds pride, and pride then looks and points to everybody
else. And so that rich young ruler, he came and he said, hey,
I've kept all these things. That's what I'm trying to follow. The rich young ruler said, hey,
I've kept all these things. And so Jesus just kept giving
him. And he said, all right, well, if that's the case, then
you call me good master. There's only one who's good.
That's God. So let me tell you something. Go and sell everything
that you have and follow me. The guy went away because he
was sad, because he had a lot of things. And so he didn't necessarily
go do that. And at that point, you know,
Jesus said, you know, anybody that's rich, it's hard for them
to get in. It's easier for a camel to go
through an eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter
into heaven. Now, Jesus wasn't saying, just talking about men
who had a lot of money. He's saying someone who is rich
in righteousness of their own. People who think that they provide
a righteousness before God that God is pleasing with and acceptable,
they think they're rich. We feel that we're rich. Like
I said, not in currency and money, but we are rich in righteousness.
And this man believed that he was rich in righteousness. Now,
he was rich in money, but he was rich in righteousness. And
that's what Jesus was showing. And he's also showing people
that have a lot of wealth, sometimes the problem with them is they
feel, hey, we don't have to worry about anything. How many of us
is in here, and I'm sure every one of us said, man, if I only
had a million dollars, we wouldn't have to worry about anything
anymore. Well, that's not true. In fact, I've heard it said that
the majority of suicides among adults are mostly among people
that have wealth. There's more suicide rate among
those who are wealthy than there are among those who are poor.
So being rich doesn't solve all your problems. But Jesus was
trying to drive home a spiritual thing because whenever he said
that, it's easier for a man to go through, a camel to go through
an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Immediately
one of the disciples asked him, well then who can be saved? And
Jesus said, with man it's impossible, but with God all things are possible.
So they automatically knew. He wasn't talking about that
man's pocketbook. He was talking about that man's
spiritual understanding. That man thought he was spiritually
rich in keeping the law and providing for himself a righteousness. As a matter of fact, we always
read this, and I'm not so convinced it's not opposite of how we read
it. A lot of times whenever we read
about that rich young ruler, we read about him coming and
saying, You know, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus said, well, do all
these things. He said, well, I've done all those things. And
Jesus said, do this. I've done all that. And Jesus
said, well, then do this. He walks away all sad. I almost
picture it as this man has come to Jesus and he says, good master,
what must I do? to inherit eternal life. Thinking,
hey, look, I've already done all these things. I've already
provided the righteousness. I've been keeping the law. So
what is it that I have to do for eternal life? Because I'm
already doing all this. And Jesus kind of used the law
as it's intended and exposed his sinfulness. He exposed that
he wasn't perfect, that he didn't have a righteousness that was
before God. Now, I will say this, and I didn't
mean to preach on my Richard and Gruber, but he walked away,
and the Bible says when he walked away, he said that Jesus loved
him. Now, I gotta think that that
man eventually was converted to become Christ, because if
Jesus loved him, then that means that he would have been one of
God's elect, because that's the only ones that God loves, is
his elect. So that man surely had to have
been an elect of God who had yet to be converted, but yet
walked away sad because he had much wealth and he wasn't ready
to give all that up. But whenever the Lord comes and
changes the mind, changes the heart, gives a new desire within
us to walk after Christ and not after our own self, then we come
willingly. And so that man, I believe, eventually
would have been converted. But saying all that, leading
into verse one, rather than if any man be overtaken and fall,
ye which are spiritual, those who are walking in the spiritual,
not looking at keeping the righteousness before God by law-keeping, but
looking at Christ as our righteousness, those are the spiritual men.
Those are the ones who are to go to those who are thinking
that they're performing a righteousness, and what does it say here? Restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself in the spirit
of meekness. Now, I want you to pay close attention to that,
because we're going to talk about that today in our passages that
we look at. In the spirit of meekness, whenever
we go to somebody who has overtaken in a fault, now what fault was
these brethren overtaken in? Remember the context. We talked
about this last time we were together. What's the context
of the fault? Anybody know? The context is what Paul's been
talking about in all of Galatians. the fault that they are believing
that they can provide a righteousness through the law remember the
judiazis came in began preaching that you still had to be circumcised
and still had to keep the law of moses to be saved or to stay
safe and paul was coming in to correct him on that no that is
not the gospel that is not what is taught we are not under the
law we are under grace that the law is dead to us and we are
married to another which is christ he is now our husband and not
the law And so the fault that is in verse 1, that is in context
with everything, first and foremost is self-righteousness. The fault of self-righteousness.
Thinking that we are keeping the law, thinking that we are
providing righteousness to stay accepted with God. This is the
thing that Paul is saying, ye who are spiritual, you who understand,
who have been given to look to Christ and to know that your
obedience is from him, he is your obedience before God, and
that he is the one who took your sin, and in the flesh condemned
that, and that you are no longer under the law of God, and that
it doesn't have any more power over you, it doesn't have any
more condemnation over you. There is no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus. And so we look to that, and so
those men are to go to those who are seeking that self-righteous
standing before God. And it says here that we are
to go and restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. And
so that is why, if you remember when we were last time together,
I said it's unfortunate that verse one is in chapter six and
that these verses didn't just flow right straight together
and that they put this chapter verse break. The reason being
is because we have to have that mentality of what God has said. Those who are spiritual, those
who are looking unto Jesus for their righteousness alone are
to go to those who are still troubled by law keeping and in
a spirit of meekness restore them. In a spirit of meekness,
brethren, that is how we are to approach any kind of discipline. That is how we are to approach
any kind of debate among each other. That is how we are to
approach any kind of discussion on doctrinal matters. If we have
a disagreement on doctrinal things, we are to go, but we are to go
in a meek way. Why do we go in a meek way? Well,
number one, we have to realize that we could be wrong. If you
always have that in the back of mind, I could possibly be
wrong. You'll be a little more careful in the way that you do
things. I'm giving you an example. I
work on x-ray equipment. Some of these pieces of x-ray
equipment can be, you know, 400 volts, 420 volts, 480 volts of
electricity inside this thing. And then whenever we're going
through the generator, it could be thousands of volts of electricity
coming through there. And so whenever I go in there
and a troubleshoot these things, even after, you know, all these
years of me doing this work, I still come with a little fear
and trepidation as I go in there and start testing these things
because you get on one of those little wires or one of those
little pieces that you think, hey, that ain't going to matter
much. And all of a sudden, because you can't see electricity, you
can feel it, but you can't see it. And you get on that thing,
it can kill you instantly, kill you. And so whenever I go into
that, I go in knowing, listen, that can kill me. That right
there can kill me. So I'm going to be careful whenever
I'm going about doing this, even though I know better, I'm going
to be careful in what I'm doing because if I'm not careful, then
I can end up like somebody who has no idea what they're doing.
Okay? And so I go into that also knowing
that I don't know everything about electricity. I don't know
everything about generators and x-ray stuff. As long as I've
been doing this, I still have a lot to learn about them. Whenever I go in there, I say,
hey, I could be wrong. I think this thing right here
does not got electricity running on it. So let me see if I can
touch that. Well, no, no. If I don't know,
what do I do? I go over and I shut all the
power off to that just to make sure. Okay. Why? Because I could be wrong. Why
do I, whenever I confront somebody with something that is disagreeable
between us or something that I think is sin. Whenever I do
that, we come in a way of meekness and love. And listen, let me
just say this, that to correct somebody or to come and prove
and rebuke somebody, according to Scripture, is a godly thing
to do. That is something that the Lord
has told us that we are to be doing with each other. And if
you truly love somebody and you come with them and correct them
where they err, in God's Word, that should be something not
only comes from a meek love out of our heart, because we love
them, and we come in a meek way because we know that we are susceptible
to all sins as well, and that could easily be us, had it not
been for God's grace restraining us from this, and even if it
isn't that, I surely have problems in this area. I have problems
in that area. So we come knowing that we're
of the same We're all sinners. And so when I come to you, I
don't have no reason to stand and platform myself up higher
than you because I have sin in my life. But whenever we come
and correct somebody with God's Word and love, that truly is
a sign of love to them. And if you're a child of grace,
you should be thankful that somebody comes and brings that to your
attention. Now, someone may come in a self-righteous
way and bring something out of context with God's Word. At that
point, you need to discuss what God's Word really says. But,
you know, still, that should be something of love. So Paul
here is saying, we do this in meekness, considering thyself
quiet, lest thou be tempted also. So, we start in verse 2 today,
and let's work down, because that has bearing on what we're
going to talk about. Scripture says, bear ye, that word ye again
is a singular is a plural but it's a singular plural if you
allow me that. It means a specific group of
people. The word ye is plural in Greek
and that word ye means a group or more than one but it means
a specific group of people. It's just not ye as in everybody
that's out there. Whenever he was speaking to the
Galatians he was talking to them directly. You within that church,
ye, Jesus, I used this last week, this example. Last week, Jesus
said that, hey, go ye, therefore, and teach all nations. Who was
he talking to, everybody in the world? No, he was talking to
the church. Go ye, therefore, teach all nations.
Baptizing them in the name of the Father. So, he says, bear
ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So 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. Now verse
3 is saying the same thing as verse 26 basically. Let us not
be desirous of vain glory. If a man thinks himself to be
something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. pump yourself
up in vain glory. What is vain glory? Well, that's
whenever you are providing self-righteousness before God, and you're thinking
that that's accomplishing something. The Bible says that's vain glory. You're bringing glory upon yourself,
and that glory isn't going to shine very great because you're
to it in vain. You do that. What does that mean,
whenever we say you did that in vain? So you did that for
no reason. You did that with no, there is
absolutely nothing you're going to do that's going to do anything. If we went out there with that
barbecuer and it was pouring down rain, I mean pouring down
rain, and I open that thing up and I put my wood in there and
I start, try to start a fire on that, and I'm telling everybody,
hey, I'm going to barbecue today, I'm going to barbecue today.
Everyone's out there probably saying, man, that guy is nuts.
He's not going to accomplish anything doing what he's doing.
Why? We can't build a fire in rain.
It's vain glory. It's vain to even try to do that. You're doing it in vain. There's
no reason behind it. There's no reward in it. There
is nothing to it. You're doing it for no reason.
You're doing it for a reason in your mind, but you're not
doing it for any profit. It's not going to profit you
to do that. That's what vain glory is. Whenever we pump ourselves
up or pride ourselves in front of other people, it is for no
reason because whenever it's compared to Christ, who is the
one who we will be compared with, who is compared with, when we
compare ourselves with Christ, anything that we do, the Bible
says this is filthy rags, compared to Him, who is holy. So he says here, Bear ye one
another's burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 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 rejoiced in himself alone, and
not in another. For every man shall bear his
own burden. Now we're going to stop. Well, I didn't mean to
read five. I was going to stop at four. We'll pick up at five
next week. Now. Before we get really more
into this, and we may bleed this over in the next week also, for
if any man think of himself to be something when he is nothing,
he deceiveth himself. That's self-deceit. You are deceiving
yourselves whenever you think that you can do something for
righteousness, for God. Now, I was thinking about some
of these things this morning, and I thought, you know, I think
I'll, because it says here, It says, bury one another's burdens. And then it goes right into if
any man thinks of himself more than he ought to. There's a couple
of things I can get out of that. Number one, somebody can pump
themselves up and think, well, I don't have any burdens. I'm
carrying along just fine. I'm doing all right. We think
we're cruising along. So bury one another's burdens
is like, well, just toughen up. Look at me. I'm doing all right.
Just be like me. Quit acting like that and be
like me. We look at others. Again, we start doing the finger
pointing thing. Whenever we try to present ourselves
before God as something or present ourselves to the church as something
that we're really not. What happens? We begin to be
prideful and we begin to pump ourselves up But it says here,
bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Well, what is the law of Christ? Well, remember, it's love God
and love your brothers as yourself. Okay? So, to fulfill the law
of Christ, we are to bear one another's burdens. So I thought,
well, let's look up burdens and see what burdens it talks about
in the Bible. And there's a bunch of places
where the word burden is found, or burdens is found. But one
thing particularly stood out to me, and especially as we look
through Galatians and dip it back into Romans where Paul had
said some similar things. But we find in Galatians that
these burdens are reaching back again into the context of the
burden of the law. Remember the Bible used the word
yoke. We talked about that, that we
are no longer under that yoke. Remember, Paul in Galatians was
going back to his time whenever him and Barnabas went to the
council in Jerusalem, and they said, you know, why should we
put any yoke upon them that our forefathers couldn't keep, neither
can we? So why put a yoke upon them? Well, they use that word
often to describe the law. And so whenever we see here in
verse 6, the burdens that he's taking, that he's talking about,
is talking about the law and more specifically our breaking
the law, our sin of breaking the law. That is the burden that
the child of grace feels all the time. See, the righteous
man, the man who has not been converted and shown his sin,
that man, he believes like that Pharisee that stood and said,
I'm thankful, Lord, that you've not made me like this poor, wretched
sinner here, begging for mercy, you know, that you've made me
to be righteous. Holy. See, in pride we begin
to think like that and he says here, he says, bear you one another's
burdens and we find that that is talking about sins. And it's hard to bear someone
else's sins whenever you think you don't sin because the first
thing you want to go to is judgment upon the other person. You want
to judge them for their sin because that makes you look even better,
not only into your own mind, but before others. That's why
we always want to talk about people behind their back, about
how bad they are and what they do. Why? Because it makes us
feel better about ourselves. I feel better about myself whenever
I do that. You know, I run into that in our business a lot of
times. You know, we've got this one
competitor, whose name I won't mention, but that runs around
Arkansas. And, uh, it was actually, it
was when I first come to work for my company and, uh, Anyway,
they were running around telling everybody that our company, all
we did was just processors, chemical processors, and we didn't do
anything digital. And one of the main reasons why
my boss hired me is because I had some digital background. And
so I could work on digital things and had worked on PAC systems
and things like that. And so that was kind of one of
the things that drew him to hire me is because I brought a skill
set that they didn't have at the job there. And x-ray was
moving into the digital age during that time, or had already been
moving into the digital age. So that was part of the problem.
But we had a competitor that was running around Arkansas that
was telling everybody, hey, you know, this guy, this guy that
they got working for them, all he is is just a processor guy.
He ain't a digital guy. So that got things rolling. People's minds said, well, they're
going to buy digital from this guy and just call us if they
have something that's not digital. And so whenever we went in doing
digital, Whenever we go do a demonstration of our equipment and everything,
or I would go in there on a service call if they couldn't get the
other people out, they would say, you know, those people told
us that you guys are just a processor company. We didn't even know
you guys did digital. I said, oh yeah, we're a digital company.
And what was they doing? They was telling and making someone
else look bad so it would make them look good. That's what they
were doing. Well, that's an essential, essentially what we do. is we
always are looking at other people that are not keeping the law,
or we look for people who are not keeping the law, okay? We are looking for people who
are not doing the law so that we can point that out so that
we can feel better about ourselves. I'm not just as guilty as anybody
else about that. But that's not what the Lord
is calling us to do. He is saying, bury one another's burdens. bear
up each another's sin. We all are in the same boat.
We should be able to sympathize whenever a person falls into
sin. We should be able to sympathize because we ourselves fall into
sin. They say, bear you one another's burdens. That's how you fulfill
the law of God. If you want to love your brother as yourself,
your neighbor as yourself, if you want to love the brethren,
the way that you do that is you bear their burdens with them. The Bible says that we weep with
those who weep and we rejoice with those who rejoice. We are
bearing each other's burdens, whether it's the burden of sin,
the burden of sorrow. These things are the things that
we bear up with. And what does that mean? It comes
alongside of them and be there for them, console them. You may
not have all the words to say. Sometimes as a pastor and people
are having issues and problems and going through things, I don't
have an answer for them. And if you guys know me, I don't
like silence whenever there's a conversation. It kind of bothers
me for there to be an awkward silence there. And so I just
keep talking, keep talking, keep talking. If they don't talk,
then I keep talking. And there's a lot of times I
don't have anything to say. I don't know what to say. That's whenever
I feel like I have to say something. And so then what do I start doing?
I start talking dumb. Okay, I start talking about dumb
things, making up things the best I can. Sometimes it's just being there.
You just be there. Knowing that people care for you. I don't
know what to say. I don't know how to, I don't
know how to, advise you on this, but just know this, we love you,
and we know what it's like to go through things like this,
and we're here for you. Whatever you need from us, we're here
for you. Okay, that's bearing one another's burdens, but let's
talk about bearing one another's burdens of sin. How do we do
that? How do you bear someone's sin
for them? And is it even sin that we're
talking about, preacher? Does the Bible even talk about
that being sin? Well, I think we'll see that in a second, if
I can get there. That's what I was trying to get
to, to begin with, Yes, we can bear one another's burdens. How
do we do that? Well, I preached last week to
the people over in Delaware that whenever we come to worship,
one of the reasons we come to worship is to worship God. The other one is to be equipped
or to be edified for the work of the ministry. And then the
last thing is so that we might fellowship with one another,
love in one another, fellowship with one another, And all that
comes around God's Word. We do that with God's Word. How
do we come and comfort one another? Because the Bible says, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. How do we do that? Well, how
do we lift someone's burden up? How do we comfort them? That's
what that would be. To comfort somebody would be to lift up
somebody's burden or to take on their burden or to bear one
another's burdens. How would we do that? Well, how
do you do that with sin? We come alongside of them and
say, I've been in your shoes. I know where you're at. But listen,
this is what God's Word says, and that's not right. We love
you. We want to see you repent of that. But no, that is not
what God's Word says. God's Word is against that and
everything. And we come and bear their burdens
up, but the main way that we do that is by telling them what
Christ has done. Comfort you, comfort you, my
people. Tell the people what the Lord has done. See, the Lord has taken on their
sin. Yes, you've sinned, but listen, while we in our heart
don't wanna do that, and to the best of our ability, we're gonna
try to keep from doing that. Ultimately, it's God who, by
grace, gives us restraint on that. But our mindset, like Paul
is, you know, I desire to do good, I want to do good, even
though I know that every time I try to do good, evil's with
me. My heart and my desire and my service to God, in my mind,
in my spirit, is to Him. That's what my mind is set on.
My flesh can't accomplish it, but that's what my mind is set
on. And so we tell each other that the Lord has taken on that
sin, and that we have no condemnation over us, and that we shouldn't
continue to grovel in that, but we should look to Christ to be
rejoicing in the fact that he has taken on our sins, bearing
one another's burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ of
serving the brethren. We serve each other through the
Word of God, through, specifically, the work of Christ. Now, turn
with me, if you would, to Psalms 38. I told you that I did a little
quick study this morning on the word burden because that was
just really sticking out to me for some reason. And maybe it's
because that's what the Lord wanted me to go towards this
morning. Well, we know what it is, or
let me go on there, right? Psalms 38, and
look with me at, if you would, at verse 4. The psalmist writes, for mine
iniquities are gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too
heavy for me. So here we see that the word
burden is equated to iniquities. For mine iniquities have gone
over my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. So we see a physical principle
here that one of the burdens or one of the ways that burden
is used is in relation to our iniquities. And our iniquities
are truly more than we can bear. It says here, he says, they are
too heavy for me. I can't bear up underneath all
the sin that I continue to experience. And that's how the child of grace
is. Whenever we have been given spiritual understanding to see
our sinfulness, it is too heavy for us to bear. We know that
there is no hope in our law keeping. There is no hope in our trying
to obey and to be pleasing to God in the flesh. And that that
becomes a burdensome thing to our heart, knowing that we cannot
be accepted of God based on our performance on anything that
we do. And so, just like the psalmist says, they are too heavy
for me. My iniquities have gone over my head. They are a heavy
burden. They are too heavy for me. Is that where you find yourselves
today, brother? Do you find yourselves overwhelmed
by your burden of sin? Or do you think, you know, I'm
doing all right. I'm okay. You know, I'm getting
by. You know, I don't think I'm doing
too bad. You know, the child of grace is going to be shown
the depth of that sin that they cannot overcome. Look with me at Job chapter 7. Job chapter 7 and verse 20. Job writes, or in Job it's written, it says,
I have sinned. What shall I do unto thee? O
thou preserver of men. Now who's he crying out to? He's crying out to God. He's
the preserver of sin. Why hast thou set me as a mark
against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? What's he saying there? Why hast thou set me as a mark
against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? Anybody remember what
the definition of sin is? That's the wages of sin. What's the definition of sin? What does the word sin mean?
You remember I said that it was an old archery term. To miss the mark. Okay, the word
sin is to miss the mark. Okay, the mark being the bullseye,
the intended target, the center of the bullseye, that's where
we're aiming for. That's the standard, that's where
we're going, right there, okay? That's the mark. He says here,
O thou preserver of me and God, why hast thou set me as a mark
against thee? Why are you setting me against
you? So that I am a burden to myself. See, I see the travail of my
soul. I see what I cannot do. I see that you, the standard,
I cannot keep that. And you have put me against you
so that I will always be reminded I'm not good enough. See, that's
what the law is there for. The law is a reflection of what
is holy. and what is right, and what is
true, and it is always there to remind us that we are not.
And so God has, in His decree, in His predestination, has predestinated
our vanity. The Bible says that He has subjected
all the creation, and specifically us, to vanity. He has subjected
us to that. That was his intent, his purpose.
And I know some people, they don't like that. You mean to
tell me you're preaching that God predestinated sin? Absolutely, God predestinated
sin. I find it very compelling that
people cannot look in the Scriptures and take the Scriptures for what
they say. And the Bible clearly says that God has predestinated
sin and evil, and that it takes place At His decree, it takes
place at His willingness. He is willing that those things
take place. Otherwise, He would not have
decreed it or predestinated it. And some people say, well, no,
that's just God permitting that to happen for His purpose. That's
not getting yourself out of the predicament of the fact that
if God permitted it, then that means He willed it to happen.
And if He willed it to happen, He willed it to happen because
it was part of His purpose. And He predestinated all things
according to the counsel of His will. So I just cannot find anybody
getting past that. So did God predestinate this
affliction that Job was going through? Did God predestinate
the fact that we are pitted against His holiness and that our righteousness
would not measure up? Absolutely He did. That's why
He created Adam natural. The Bible said that He created
Adam natural of the earth, earthy. And that natural man could not
receive the things of God, nor can he, because they are spiritually
discerned. God has made man so that he cannot
understand God or seek God out or know who God is or understand
what God does. God has made man that way so
that man cannot boast in his own salvation, that man cannot
provide for himself his own salvation, that man would be destitute and
without hope except for Christ. God has made natural man so that
he cannot obtain salvation, that he cannot attain a righteousness. God has made it such so that
Christ would be glorified in the redemption from the satisfactory
substitutionary work that he accomplished on behalf of his
people that God gave him. And so here, In Job we see, thou
hast set me as a mark against thee, and that I am a burden
to myself. What is that? My continual missing
the mark. But turn back to Psalms 55. Psalms 55. See, the law heals. That's all it tells us to do.
Or tells us about ourselves is that we are unrighteous. And so our burdens that are heavy,
our burdens that we cannot bear, the burdens that have overcome
us, those burdens that are so heavy that it's become such a
yoke that we, as axes, cannot bear them. In Psalms 55, look
with me at verse 22. Scripture says, cast thy burden
upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the
righteous to be moved. Who are the righteous? Not the
ones who have bore their own burden. Not the ones who have provided
a righteousness of their own because there are none. The righteous
are those whom God has elected in Christ Jesus. and whose righteousness
is the imputed righteousness of Christ on them. It says, cast
thy burden upon the Lord. Cast your sin, your inadequacy. Cast your failure to hit the
mark. Cast all this that you see in
this natural man that's in this flesh that cannot do and please
God. Cast all that upon the Lord and
he shall sustain me. Well, how does he sustain you?
by telling you over and over and over and over and over again,
I am your righteousness. It is finished. I have done all
that the Father has asked me to do. And guess what? I'm your
representative. I'm the one standing as your
substitute in your place. So if I've done it, God reckons
it that you have done it. So if I have kept all the law
in my obedience throughout my lifetime, if I've done that,
guess what? You've done that because I did
it in your place. I did it for you. As your representative
in your stead, I did it for you. It's been accomplished. So your
record says perfect obedience. And yes, you deserve to die.
I did that for you too. You deserve to die because of
your sin, and God will not let sin go unpunished. So He punished
me as your substitute, and you didn't have to be punished. So
you was punished, but it was in me. You were punished through
my flesh. Your flesh that deserved this,
my flesh took upon you, and it took the full wrath of God. So
it says here, Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain
thee. He does that through reminding
you of His work. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. See, that's what keeps us, brethren.
That's what continues to sustain us is the preaching of the gospel. Go with me to Matthew chapter
11 and verse 28. Matthew 11 and verse 28. Jesus says, Come unto Me all
that labor and are heavy laden. Heavy laden. That just means
the word laden. means just holding something.
You know, something that's been piled on, you know? Like you
guys took all your dirty clothes and put it on top of the hamper. That hamper will be laden with
your clothes, okay? Covered, weighed down. It says, come unto me all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, those who are trying to work
for righteousness, those who are full of dead works, and heavy
laden with the burden that whatever I do is not good enough for God.
I keep trying and wanting to do, but that which I want to
do, I don't do, and that which I do, I don't do, because of
the flesh. Remember that argument in Paul?
Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and guess
what? I'm going to tell you what more
you can do to make it even better. Is that what he said? He said,
no, come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, I
will give you rest. Rest is not work. It's the opposite. Rest is not get up and go and
do this. Maintain this. Bear this. Be laden with this. Now, rest
is rest. He says, I will give you rest.
If you come unto me with your heavy labor and your... Come unto me all you who labor
and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke, there's
that word again, take my yoke upon you. Now remember we said
that the word yoke is often interchangeable in the scriptures as meaning
the commandments, right? Commands of God, the law. So
Jesus is saying, come unto me all you who weary and are heavy
laden, under the yoke of Moses, Under the yoke of Sinai, under
the yoke of Hagar, all you who are heavy laden under
that law come unto me, and I will give you rest from that law. And he says, now take my yoke
upon you, take my commands upon you, and learn of me For I am
meek and lowly, and heart, there's that word meek again. See, even
Jesus, who was an example for us, shows that whenever we take
up this yoke of his, that we should do it in meekness and
lowliness. Now, what's the commands of Christ? What's the commands
that he give us? To love God and to love our brethren,
right? To love the brethren. He says, learn of me for I am
meek and lowly of heart. So that's how we do that. And
ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and
my burden is light. So here you see, he says, my
yoke is easy and my burden is light. Why? Because to do the
commands that he has commanded us to do cannot be done without
the Holy Spirit of God. We have to have the Holy Spirit
of God. It's Him that causes us to do these things. That's
why it's so easy. It's because it's Him in us. The burden is
light because it's Him who is sustaining us and doing it for
us, in us, through us. It's Him. To keep the law, We
cannot do, because the flesh cannot do anything pleasing to
God. Everything that's done, even though it may be motivated
by our mind, as Paul says, it's motivated in my mind to do it
for God. And I think it's God that's doing
it through me. And it may be God that's doing
it through me. But the fact remains, it's still tainted with my flesh
that's doing it. And everything that my flesh
does is not pleasing to God. Everything that I do in my natural
self is not pleasing to God. That's why I said, the will is
present with me, but how to do those things I find not. Why?
Because sin is always present with me. Not that it's lurking
over my shoulder, but it's because it's in everything that I do.
So if we come to Christ and we cast that burden upon Him and
take up His burden, we find out, hey, His burden is life. We just
trust Him. We just have faith in Him, that
He has done everything for us. and that He will through us shed
that love abroad in our heart so that we can love Him and so
that we can love our brethren. We are trusting in what Christ
again. It goes back to faith, brethren.
That the God-given faith, the fruit of the Spirit, is faith. It's love. It's joy. It's long-suffering, gentleness,
meekness, temperance. All those things are the fruit
of the Spirit. And those things will be produced
in the child of grace by the Holy Spirit. Now, one last verse before we
conclude here, and it's in 2 Chronicles. Find your way back to 2 Chronicles.
Now, I found this in my study this morning of the word burden,
and I'm sure I've read this verse before, but it didn't ever really
hit me. The Lord never really did reveal
much about this until I was reading through it this morning. But
I think that this right here is a perfect verse to illustrate
what the Lord has done. Now it's going to tell us in
type and foreshadow, right? It's going to tell us in symbolism.
But we're not going to look at the natural, we're going to look
at the spiritual side of it, right? There is a natural and
physical, historical account of what we're fixing to read.
But we're going to look at spiritual things with spiritual eyes, if
the Lord has so given us that. Look at verse 3. 2 Chronicles
35. Sorry. 2 Chronicles 35. Start looking with me at verse
3. Now, if you guys remember, as
a matter of fact, if you will, look at verse 2. He says, and
he sent the priests in their charges and encouraged them to
the service of the house of the Lord. Okay, so the Levites were
given, you know, all the children of Israel, all the different
groups within them, all the tribes that was within Israel, God had
given them certain promises and blessings and given them a portion
of land Each tribe had their own land. But see, God called
a certain group of people out of Israel to be priests, and
they were called the Levites. They were all of Aaron's sons,
okay? And they were to be the Levites.
They were set apart for the service of the house of the Lord. They
didn't receive any land. They didn't receive any way of
making their own provisions. like the rest of the people did,
their whole service was dedicated solely to the worship and the
sacrifice in the house of the Lord. Day and night, that's what
they did. So they couldn't go out and raise
a farm. They couldn't go out and raise a herd of cattle or
a herd of sheep or whatever it was that they herded. They didn't
have the ability to do that. They were constantly working
in the house of the Lord. So God gave them special provisions
because they were Levites, and that's what the tithes and offerings
were about, that those tithes and offerings were to go to help
sustain those who were of the Levites, okay? Because they couldn't
go out and do it themselves. So people brought tithes and
offerings to give to the Levite, or to the House of the Lord,
and the Levites took those. They also had a portion of being
able to eat some of the things that were being brought in. So
the Levites were taken care of through that way, okay? But they
were separate. And it was for the House of the Lord. It was
for the service of the House of the Lord. Now brethren, We, the
Bible teaches that we are priests unto God. As the children of
God, we are priests, and I got to have Christ as the great high
priest. He is the high priest who makes that sacrifice, as
well as he is the sacrifice. But he makes that sacrifice.
However, the Bible says that he has made us priests unto God. And where do
we do that service? Where does the priest do the
service? Well, the priest does the service in the house of God.
Now here, it's talking about in this tabernacle, this form
that they made, okay? Whether it was in the tent or
whether it was in the actual meeting place, whenever they
finally built that tabernacle of stone and everything and it
was permanent and not moved around, whenever they finally made that,
the Lord met there and the priest did their service there, but
it was in the house of the Lord. However, the Bible in the New
Testament compares the people of God as the house of the Lord.
That we are as lively stones, the Bible calls us. And so we
see the spiritual look on this where he says, he sent the priest
in their charges and encouraged them to the service of the house
of God. The Levites, that's us, okay? Those who are the children of
God are priests unto God and he has charged us or given us,
encouraged us in the service of the house of the Lord. So
he's charging us to serve the people of God, those who are
the lively stones that make up the house of the Lord. But look
at verse 3. He says, And sent unto the Levites
that taught all Israel, which were holy unto the Lord. Now,
there's also our charge as the children of God, because it says
here, And he said to the Levites that taught all Israel, we have
a responsibility to teach each other. All of Israel are all
Levites. All Levites are the house of
Israel. The house of Israel is talking
about all the elect of God. That's all the elect of God.
And the Levites are to teach every man all of his brethren,
to teach them what Christ has done. That's why we always fellowship. Like I said last week, our fellowship
is always around the doctrine of Christ. He says here, And
send unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto
the Lord, put the holy ark in the house which Solomon, the
son of David, king of Israel, did build. Now again, we see
a lot of symbolism here. Number one, we see the Holy Ark. That's the Ark of the Covenant.
That Ark represents Christ also. It says, put the Holy Ark in
the house which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel,
lived in. That's the house of God. That's talking about the
tabernacle, okay, the permanent tabernacle that was finally built,
not the one that they put up and took down, the tent, meaning,
or the tent tabernacle that they took down and put up, took down,
put up everywhere God moved them around. But when he finally moved
them to Jerusalem, and what happened? Solomon finally got to build
that temple and stayed there. That's the one he's talking about.
And here he says, put the holy ark in the house which Solomon,
the son of David, king of Israel, did build. What is this representing
to us? Well, for one, again, it's representing
Christ. The ark represents Christ. On the ark was the place of sacrifice. Christ is our sacrifice. That
place of sacrifice was called the altar. Christ is our altar. That's where our sacrifice is
killed. Christ is our sacrifice, who
was killed on our behalf. That solid bar of gold is where
they would sprinkle the blood. Christ's blood was sprinkled
on our behalf. But inside that ark, the Bible
says, was the commands of God, the tablets of stone that Moses
had brought down. They had put in this ark and
they carried it around everywhere they go. And they put those at
the center of the Holy of Holies and that is where the priest would go in and he would
offer that sacrifice. And whenever God would accept
that sacrifice, His glory would come down and it would hover
over that ark of that covenant and that's where His glory shone. Did that right over the ark.
And that tells us, as far as spiritual things is concerned,
that Christ is at the center of worship. That Christ is at
the center of redemption. That Christ is at the center
of God's glory. And that God's glory hovers over
the message of Christ as the sacrifice. It shows that Christ
is the entrance, or excuse me, is the example of what God's
glory is all about. God's glory was seen in the face
of Jesus Christ. It shows that Christ and what
he has done imbibed all of the law. The law was inside of that
ark and it was on display for everyone to see that that law
is still a holy and righteous thing and that we should revere
what it is for what it is. But Christ, that law was kept
by him. And it was taken everywhere and
was displayed to everybody, this law, but Christ has kept that
law. And it was inside Him. He kept
the law. It was in His heart to do. He said that it was His
heart to do what the Father commanded Him to do, that He rejoiced in
doing those things that the Father had given Him to do. And that
was what that ark represented as well. It showed that Christ
kept all of the law. And He did it for His people. But the law is there. It still
is glaring with its holiness and its righteousness. But look
what the rest of the verse says. It says, put the holy ark in
the house which Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel,
did build. Notice that he built it. David's
son built it. Christ is the one who built the
temple. Jesus said, I will build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus is
the one who builds his church. He's given power over all flesh
to give eternal life to as many as God has given him. He's the
one who's doing the building of this house, this spiritual
house of God. And he says, it shall not be
a burden upon your shoulders. See, they were carrying around
this law. They were carrying around these tablets everywhere
they went and they would put on display. to always remind
how often they had to continue to offer sacrifice because they
kept breaking the law. It was a constant reminder to
them of their failure. And now God says, put this ark
in the middle of the tabernacle on display for everyone to see that God looks at Christ
alone. So it says here, it shall not
be a burden upon your shoulders. No longer do you have to worry
about looking at the law. Why? Look what it says there.
Serve now the Lord your God and his people. Isn't that what we've
been seeing in all this? Love God, love your neighbors.
How do you love God and love your neighbors? By serving them,
bearing their burdens, by conveying the gospel to them. We comfort
each other by preaching the gospel of what Christ has done and not
telling everybody what we have to go do? Listen, the Holy Spirit will
do that. I read a guy on Facebook just this week and he's begging
people to give him scripture verses of why we can't have sermons
on guys who believe like we do that we all look at faith alone.
and everything, and that would trust Christ, and that's what
walking in the Spirit is all about. He says, what about the
rest of Ephesians? What about all that stuff there? Well, the whole context of Ephesians,
the rest of Ephesians, is the first part of Ephesians, which
Christ has done it all. It's been given to us. It's already
been laid to our account. Everything has been done to us.
And we also learn that because Christ is in us and because we
desire those things that are righteous, listen, that the Holy
Spirit is going to restrain us, constrain us. It's going to do
those things and it's going to work in us to willing to do His
good pleasure. The Spirit's going to do those
things. But it isn't my job to tell you how much and what you
need to do. The Holy Spirit is going to be, so we don't have
to hound each other. I think there's a little bit
of going from too far in one direction and too far in the
other direction. But here it says, serve now the Lord your
God and His people. whenever the burden has been
lifted, whenever we have been given to see that our sin, or
that our works will never hit the mark, and we see our sin,
that burden becomes real, and the gospel comes in, and God
teaches us what Christ has done on our behalf, that burden is
now lifted, we no longer have to look at that law glaring down
upon us in that ark, and now we see outside, the ark is, The
commandments are contained within where we can't see, and what's
on the top? What do we see on the outside
of that ark? We see the blood spilled on the
mercy seat. We see mercy. We see grace. We see glory. We see satisfaction. We see perfection. We see that
God has accepted everything that that thing represents, and that
represents Christ, our substitution. See, that ark was made out of
wood, and then it was covered with gold. But that mercy seat
was pure gold. There was no wood in it, no nothing
else. It was pure gold. And that shows the work of Christ. Christ, while being the wood
representing His flesh, His manhood, and the gold representing His
deity, was all together as one. But whenever it come to The mercy
seat, there is nothing that the flesh can profit. It has to be
pure gold. It has to be pure Christ. That
pure gold was Christ and everything that Christ was on behalf of
us as he stood in our place, that covers the law. That encapsulates
everything that God requires and it's given to us. And the Bible says, back in our
passage in Galatians, it says, bear ye one another's burdens. Remind each other, comfort each
other in your burdens with what has been given to you as rest. It says, bear ye one another's
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. But let every man
prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself.
We're going to hit that next week. We've been here now a little
bit longer than I intended, but we'll stop right there. Does
anybody have any questions or comments? All right. We'll hope
to pick up there next week, Lord willing. All right, let's stand
for prayer. Father, we are gracious. We are
grateful for what you have done. In your grace and in your mercy
for us today, Lord, we are thankful for the word of God. We are thankful
for Christ himself, who is our righteousness, who is our satisfaction,
who is our sanctification, who is our wisdom, who is everything
that we need. And as we have been blessed by
all things, it's always in him. And Father, we thank you for
this opportunity we've had to come and to to be around your
word and to be with your people, Lord. I pray that you just might
have edified them today through the message of God's word. And
Father Lord, I pray that you'll just be with us as we leave this
place today, that you'll keep us safe. Lord, we just pray for
our brethren that are not here. We pray for Kevin and Jacqueline,
and Alessandro was there off to New York this week. And Lord,
we just ask that you'd be with them, give them safety for Brother
Ed, We ask for what you do with him. Bless him this week, Lord,
as well. We thank you also, Father, for the opportunities that you
give us to be together with your brethren. May you continue to
speak and minister and to grow us in the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And may your spirit be there
to guide us and direct us to work out those works that you
foreordained that we should walk in. Father, Lord, we just thank
you again for all that Christ has done on our behalf, the salvation
that's given to us. I pray, Lord, for those that
are here and those that are around, Lord, that may be listening and
watching that have yet to be converted. Lord, I pray that
you, by your Spirit, might give them eyes to see and ears to
hear, that you might give them the ability to repent, to give
them repentance truly in the heart, to turn from their own
self-righteousness turned to Christ alone for their salvation. Not to be saved, but because
they have been saved and that they acknowledge that and they
have been given to know that. What a precious gift it is to
be given that, Lord. And so we thank you. And it's
in Christ's name that we pray these things.