Bearing One Another’s Burdens

Bearing One Another’s Burdens

“Bearing One Another’s Burdens”
(Galatians 6:1-5)
Series: Set Free To Be Free (Galatians)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

Take your Bibles and join me in Galatians, chapter 6.

While you’re finding that let me say that I am looking forward to our evening worship service. We are opening with a baptism tonight and then we move into our deacon ordination service. We’re ordaining three men as deacons tonight and this we’ll be a great service. Doing it a little differently this evening we hope will be more meaningful to the entire church body. Ordination services can sometimes go long and lose some of the joy of congregational worship. So we hope tonight’s service, while briefer, and more in line with our usual time allotted to worship, will be more meaningful, too.

We’re in Galatians 6 and rounding third base as we make our way home in this final chapter of Paul’s letter on freedom. And more recently we have been studying what it looks like to “walk in the Spirit.” We left off at the last verse of chapter 5 where Paul writes in verse 26, “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” And if that is a description of how Christians are not supposed to live, then the following passage is a description of how Christians are supposed to live.

Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

1 Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
3 For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
4 But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
5 For each one shall bear his own load.

Pray: Father, You are good and we thank you for Your good Word. Teach us Holy Spirit as we study so that we learn and live Your Word. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

We have often noted that Christianity is a “one another” kind of faith. It is a life to be lived not at the exclusion of others, but at the inclusion of others, in the presence of others, with the encouragement of others, with an aim to help others, bless others, warn others, in a word: to love others.

You are familiar with our First Steps Devotional, a 21-day study of basic Christian beliefs and church membership here at Henderson’s First Baptist. In the opening pages is an overview of church membership and the statement about our being called to a “one another” kind of faith. There are Scriptures that follow where we read in the Bible how we are to “Love one another, be devoted to one another, admonish one another, serve one another,” and even—as our passage this morning instructs: “bear one another’s burdens.” Christianity is to be lived-out with one another. So as we read in verse 2 about bearing one another’s burdens, we understand that the larger context is about living out all the “one anothers” of our faith. In fact, I have arranged the five verses of our study this morning under the heading: “One-Another Living,” what this kind of living involves. Four words form a simple outline this morning. First word:

**One-Another Living Involves:

I. Restoring (1)

Restoring. You’ll see this word “restore” in verse 1. Restoring someone who has fallen into sin. One another living involves one another restoring. In fact, verse 1 is an illustration of “bearing one another’s burdens.” Paul gives the illustration first. Restoring.

1 Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

Restoring a brother or sister in a spirit of gentleness is a superior example of bearing another’s burdens, coming near to someone to help them out. We’ll address that phrase “bear one another’s burdens” in the next verse. First, let’s consider this matter of restoration in verse 1. Again: Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”

Now, this is not a call for our going around and addressing every single person’s every single sin. Imagine the chaos of that! No, verse 1 is about addressing those who are “overtaken” in a sin. The verb may be translated “caught” or “overcome.” It suggests not an habitual, unrepentant lifestyle, but a particular fall, one particular failing on the part of one Christian of which other Christians become aware.

And among those other Christians will be those who are willing to help the brother out, willing to get near the person who has fallen and lovingly help them back on their feet and back on the path. Restoration. Words of encouragement, prayer, counsel, other offers of help as the wounded brother or sister finds their way back on the path of running for Jesus.

Now, who are these Christians who are to be involved in the work of restoration? Is it just anyone in the congregation? Paul says: “You who are spiritual.” That’s who. You who are spiritual.

Practically speaking then, Paul gives one evidence of our being led by the Spirit, or walking in the Spirit, and it’s not merely sitting in a corner somewhere, isolated from others, speaking in tongues and having visions. Being “spiritual” is more than that. Paul teaches that the “spiritual” person’s life is characterized by “walking in the Spirit,” which means bearing the fruit of the Spirit: showing love, practical love, to another believer, namely by helping that believer get through a difficult time, a struggle with sin, or a similar challenge.

Similarly, the phrase “You who are spiritual” also suggests the existence of those who are not spiritual, or at least less spiritual than others. Being “spiritual” does not mean being perfect, but again, being recognized as bearing the fruit of the Spirit (5:22-23). Those who are “spiritual” are those whose lives are characterized by the fruit of love, joy, patience, kindness, and so on.

Those who are not spiritual are those whose lives are characterized by lusts of the flesh, producing “works of the flesh” such as the things in chapter 5, verses 19 and following: sexual immorality, hatred, selfish ambitions, and so forth. We can imagine how disastrous it would be to have these kinds of persons involved in trying to restore a wounded brother: someone who is full of envy or outbursts of wrath.

Rather, those “who are spiritual” are those who are mature, like mature trees, bearing fruit. Look around any congregation and you will see there are certain Christians who stand out, not because they are popular by worldly standards nor even because they are hard workers, but because they bear fruit. The world does not have a hold on them, but Christ has a hold on them. They are rooted in Christ, so they are like mighty trees, bearing regular fruit of love, peace-making, forgiveness, etc.

Now, those who are not spiritual, however, are not somehow “off the hook” as if to say, “Well, I’m not spiritual, so someone else can go help Joe or Sue. Not my job.” To be so blatantly uncaring is to be driven by the flesh rather than the Spirit. That’s the spirt of Cain who killed Abel and then pridefully asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Yes. Yes, you are your brother’s keeper. Yes, Christian. You too are your brother’s keeper.

Restoration. It’s a good word. Incidentally, whenever we speak of church discipline we should aim also to use the word “restoration” in the same breath. The point of church discipline is restoration and reconciliation. Church discipline should never be thought of in some high and heavy handed way with maniacal zeal for kicking people out of the church. That’s not the fruit of the Spirit. If someone should be removed from the church fellowship for unrepentant, habitual sin, it should be done so with tears and compassion for the soul of the one being removed. Furthermore, prayers for repentance continue until this person repents and is then restored to the fellowship.

Verse 1 also indicates that to not proactively work to correct and restore a sinning brother is to fail to love our brother or sister. If someone sins and church members just look the other way, how can that behavior accurately be described as love? How is failing to help another brother or sister love? How is being silent and ignoring the sin of a brother or sister helping that person to holiness?

Restoration. In classical Greek the term “restore” was used in medical terminology to describe the setting of a fractured bone. It hurts to set a broken bone, but leaving it alone is worse.

The same term “restore” is also used by the Apostle Mark in his Gospel to describe James and John’s “mending” their nets after fishing (Mark 1:19). That’s an especially helpful picture to me: Cleaning a net, meticulously removing debris, carefully repairing tears, gently mending the net conscientiously with a view to its being used again. The restored net may not be used to the same degree of usefulness, but is still useful. Similarly, a restored brother may not be immediately ready to be used again, nor even in the same way, but is useful nonetheless.

This restoring, this “mending” is to be done by those in the congregation “who are spiritual” and they are to restore their brother or sister “in a spirit of gentleness,” and Paul adds, “considering yourself lest you also be tempted.” In other words, “Watch yourself.” You too could fall into the same sin. Restoring. Second word:

II. Loving (2)

2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

While bearing is the main verb here, I chose the word “loving” because of the second phase in verse 2, “and so fulfill the law of Christ.” That is, “and so,” or, “in this way,” you will be fulfilling the law of Christ. And what is the law of Christ? Love.

Recall Galatians 5:14, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Love. Bearing the burdens of others is one of the most practical ways of demonstrating love, real love, Christian love.

Paul says that when we are loving another brother or loving another sister by bearing their burdens, we are fulfilling “the law of Christ.” Here is a law to be fulfilled.

We have noted before that law-keeping was never intended to be the means of our salvation or the means by which we receive God’s acceptance or approval. That comes only by faith, by grace, through faith in Christ alone. Christians, however, will keep the moral law as the natural outworking, or living out of their salvation. Put another way: we don’t perform good works in order to get saved, but once we are saved, we live out good works as the byproduct of our being newly made, new creations.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-10: For by grace you have ben saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for (there it is; “for”), good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

And those good works are largely those things we do as a result of our “love” for others, which is why the entire law is summed up in the word “love.” Listen to Romans 13:8-10:

8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.
9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

So here is the practical expression of love. Love is others-focused, bearing the burden of another brother or sister. Love is not just a gushy emotion. It is an action verb. burden-bearing in this case. Tina Turner sings, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it? What’s love but a second-hand emotion?” Well, Tina isn’t speaking as a theologian, is she?! Clearly her understanding of love is not the teaching of the New Testament. Love is not a second-hand emotion and has everything to do with helping another brother or sister. Bearing their burdens.

What are “burdens?” Anything that is hard to bear alone. This is why Martin Luther said, “Christians must have strong shoulders and mighty bones,” so we may help others “shoulder” a burden that is too difficult to carry alone.

You see an an elderly woman struggling with a heavy load, what do you do? You run alongside her and help her carry it. You can’t really help her unless you get near her, right? Think about that. You can’t really help another person bear a burden if you stay at a distance. Bearing the burdens of others requires our getting near others.

Burdens could be something as simple as painting a room in a house, to providing groceries for another brother, to helping raise a child, working to save a couples’ marriage, and—as we saw in verse 1—helping a hurting brother or sister to get back in the race, helping them get their eyes back on Jesus.

Bearing burdens requires our getting near others, helping others out.

So Christianity is not something we do alone. Let me say that again: Christianity is not something we do alone. Church membership is not simply, “What does your church offer me? What do you have for me? For my children?” and so on. Church membership is also, “Who can I help? How can I serve? In what ways can I use my gifts and talents in the church? To whom can I move near to show love, support, and real practical help in time of need?”

Bearing the burdens of others is real-life practical Christian loving. It is what we sing about when we speak of our surrendering our own lives to Jesus. We sing:

All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

We mean that we live our lives for Jesus and His church. We will surrender our self, our own needs, that we may be useful to our Lord. We give of our time, our treasure, our talents, we give to others. And we live, live out our Christian faith in real practical loving. Restoring. Loving. Third word:

III. Thinking (3)

And I should add, “Correct” thinking! Verse 3 is an example of incorrect thinking:

3 For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

I love that! You think yourself to be something when you are nothing, you’re thinking incorrectly. This is a call for humility in the Christian life. Remember that humility, in the words of CS Lewis, “humility is not thinking less of yourself: it is thinking of yourself less.” Thinking of others.

When Paul writes of this “thinking ourselves to be something,” he seems to have in mind our thinking too highly of ourselves as though bearing another’s burdens were somehow “beneath” us. We should step in there, and get near the brother or sister who needs our help.

A proper thinking about ourselves is important. We are not “above” others, nor are we “beneath” others. We often say that “the ground is level at the foot of the cross.” We are all equal, equally saved the same way, through Jesus Christ.

So the gospel helps us stay on level ground. The gospel helps us stay level headed in our thinking. A proper thinking about ourselves helps us understand the connection between verse 3 and the following verses. Here in verse 3 Paul it teaching that we must think rightly about ourselves.

Let’s remember that apart from Christ we can do nothing. In fact, apart from Christ we are lost, spiritually dead, unable to earn God’s approval or acceptance. But if we are in Christ, God approves of us and accepts us in His Son, Jesus. So our worth, purpose, meaning, value, and identity are bound up in Christ.

The gospel gives us real identity. The gospel assures us that we are okay no matter what anyone else has to say about it! The gospel assures us that we are as loved by our Good Father today as we ever will be and that He will never cast us away because of some failure on our part. If we remember this truth and rejoice in this truth, we will be healthy! Instead of feeling insecure, we will feel very secure because our security and sense of worth is found in Christ Jesus.

The problem is when we stop finding our approval in Christ and try to find it somewhere else. Rather than rejoicing that God sees us, knows us, will reward us based on our union with Christ, we start comparing ourselves to others, to their gifts, talents, and abilities. We envy other peoples’ parents, children, jobs, stuff, because we are wrongly locating our sense of worth in what others have rather than what we have—and who we are—in Christ.

Once on the path of comparing ourselves with others, we end up either feeling superior because we compare ourselves to others who do not seem to be as gifted, or inferior because we can never seem to measure up to others. But this is wrong! We should never compare ourselves to others!! So, verse 4:

4 But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.

This takes us to the fourth word. We have restoring, loving, thinking, and now:

IV. Rejoicing (4-5)

Some translations have “boasting” or “glorying,” but this is understood in a good way, a good sense of boasting or glorying. Something in which we take pride—good pride—and can rejoice.

Paul says in verse 4, “But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing,” or, “his reason to boast” will be “in himself alone, and not in another.”

Paul is talking about something to be happy about. He’s talking about our having joy in the Christian life based upon the way God has uniquely shaped us and uniquely equipped us for ministry.

You want to be happy? Stop comparing yourself to others! If you do, you’ll either get puffed-up because you’ll just seek out people who you feel are “beneath” you and you’ll be like, “Well, I’m a better Christian than that guy” or you’ll feel horrible about yourself because you’ll find others who just seem to be so talented and gifted and who just seem to be like superstar Christian servants and you’ll feel insecure and defeated.

I like the JB Phillips paraphrase here:

JB Phillips: “Let every man learn to assess properly the value of his own work and he can then be glad when he has done something worth doing without dependence on the approval of others.”

Consider how God has gifted you and rejoice in what you’re doing for the Lord. Don’t compare yourself with others. That’s verse 4.

God knows what He is doing. There is only one of you. How awesome is that! You cannot fail at being you. Make a note of that: You cannot fail at being you. You will always succeed in being you. So be you—the way God gifted you, empowered you, blessed you—and use your gifts, your unique personality and talents and abilities and use them for the glory of God. If you’ll do this, verse 4 says, you “will have rejoicing” in yourself. You’ll feel good about yourself! You want to feel good about yourself or do you want to keep comparing yourself to everyone else?

Then verse 5 continues this stream of thought, reminding us that we each are responsible for our own gifts, talents, and abilities.

5 For each one shall bear his own load.

Each one of us is responsible for our own work for the Lord. I’ve got to use my gifts and talents for the Lord. You use yours. Each one shall bear his own load.

Don’t let’s confuse this phrase in verse 5 with the phrase in verse 2. They are describing different things altogether. Verse 2 is about bearing the burdens of others. It’s a word that refers to a “weight” or something too heavy to carry by ourselves.

Verse 5 is describing something different. The phrase, “for each one shall bear his own load” is not describing burdens, but the things God has given us for ministry. The word translated “load” there in verse 5 is the word used for something like a “pack” or “backpack.” It’s like a military pack assigned for each soldier’s use. You are responsible for the “pack” the Lord has given you, full of the tools he has given you to serve Him. That’s the idea. You are responsible for your use of your own gifts, talents, and abilities.

We are responsible for our own use of our own gifts and talents. We are responsible before God for our own work and we’ll each give our own accounting for our work on the day of Judgment.

Bearing one another’s burdens is about being there for one another, one another living. And one another living is about: restoring, loving, thinking (correct thinking!), and rejoicing.

You know there is one burden I cannot carry and no one else can carry for me. It is far too heavy, far too weighty, far too onerous. And there is not another human being on the planet who can carry this burden. It is the burden of my sin that is carried by Christ, borne by Christ, laid upon Christ. He alone carries all my sin, taking the full weight upon Himself as He dies to take the full measure of its punishment, satisfying the full wrath of God, suffering in my place.

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away

Christ bore our load. He took upon Himself the weight of our sin. It was Christ, as Paul wrote in the opening words of this letter, Galatians 1:4, “who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age…”

It was Christ alone who carried what we ourselves cannot carry. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He lived for us. He died for us. He rose from the dead for us. In Him alone we have life. To Him alone we surrender all.

We’re moving into our time of response. God initiates and we respond. We’re going to respond in a moment through singing. While we sing, you respond. You respond by worshiping, confessing, and repenting.

While we sing, you may want to come forward for prayer. You may want to come forward because you need to be saved and you have questions. You may wish to come forward requesting baptism or church membership. I’d love to talk with you, pray with you, and give you a copy of our First Steps Devotional.

But was we sing in a moment, let’s continue worshiping, and you respond however you need to respond. Let’s pray first:

“Jesus, all to You, we surrender. All to You we freely give. Help us give our lives to You, our souls to You, our future, our hurts, our wants, our sins. And help us give our time, our treasure, and our talents, as we live out this “one another” Christian life. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Stand now, and you respond however you need to respond.

All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

I surrender all…all to Thee, my blessed Savior…

All to Jesus I surrender,
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel Thy Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender,
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power,
Let They blessing fall on me…

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