Relationships Among Brethren: Part 1
Galatians · Roger Henderson · Nov 7, 2010
Galatians (2010), No. 44
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926218532459

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

last week, as we go through these two verses. So, can I get, Bonnie, would you mind reading those? You can read them from here if you want to. You don't have to read them for your Bible. It's the same as your Bible. Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Well, some have labeled this verse and the ones that follow these verses, Operation Restoration.

Because it talks about brethren. It talks about coming alongside your brother in Christ and supporting him, helping him. So we're going to be looking at that kind of topic as we go through here. So the first word, obviously, is address brethren. Believers in Christ. And I kind of like to identify the subject and the verb in many of these clauses and things like that. It kind of helps. So basically, the idea here is it's a conditional clause. If anyone is caught, the subject is anyone. If you're interested, I can bring next week a paper that describes her.

In the Greek language, there are four conditional, when you have a conditional statement, an if-then or just an if, there are four possible ways to interpret it. And you have to kind of know Greek, but in many cases it's obvious from the way they write the verse what the condition is. In this case, I'm not sure, you probably would know from the context.

This is what's called a third class condition and it hasn't happened yet. But it probably will. And so actually, if you think about it, as we're going to see, this is a probable situation that may crop up in most believers' lives. So it hasn't happened yet in the way Paul's phrasing it, but it probably will.

And any one is amphiphos, which is the word in the Greek language that is for human beings, male or female. even though many times it refers to man, but actually it applies generally to human beings. So we're all included here. And the verb is is caught. And this is this word.

What's interesting is that this doesn't occur a whole lot of times. If you do a search in this word or look in your volumes or some concordance, it doesn't actually show up that many times. don't have a lot of verses to kind of compare it with, but the basic meaning I think in this context is that something has happened to you. You were surprised or overtaken or caught off guard in a fall or trespass. I take this to be like the situation where, I think I've alluded to this many times, I'm driving down the road minding my own business and someone just does something crazy in front of me. And my reaction is, many times, not what it should be. I'm caught off guard. I react in a way that doesn't glorify Christ.

And we all can identify with many situations. I like to use that one because it's probably what we've all encountered. I think Stan has mentioned his struggle with that one too. And there are a lot of ones that are going to be a lot more serious than that. I think we're going to see in the context that Paul's going to refer back to the previous verse about these situations.

So this says, if anyone is caught off guard or surprised. And the thing here is that this verb is in the passive voice. So what's happening here is the subject anyone, which is any believer in Christ, is acted upon by the verb, is caught off guard. So that kind of helps too. So let's go on. So in any trespass, and any trespass is a little phrase that modifies the verb. It could be anything. Let me just see what I can do with this here. And trespass is a false step, a blunder. In the context, if you look back, if you have the Bibles open, look back in Galatians. We have the works of the flesh, or the deeds of the flesh, back in 519, which we did several weeks ago. So it could be any of those trespasses. But I kind of thought that it seemed like it, because of the previous verse, and the last verse in chapter six is, actually I'm just going to show it here, is this verse.

Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. It seemed like that in the context, you know, that these chapter breaks are not inspired. So it seemed like that Paul might be making use of the previous, these three he mentioned here, boastful, challenging and envying one another. Might be referring to those as being caught off guard. I don't think any of us want to become boastful, but maybe we do, Tom. It's kind of like maybe they've got some Corinthians over there and they were kind of rubbing off on them.

Okay, all right. That's good. That's good. And the three that he mentions here, I think I can look at those and I can say, I probably have I know, I probably entered into all three of those. Not necessarily, haven't really, we're not premeditated. Go ahead, Tom. Isn't that pretty much the verification of the Adamic nature that lies in all of us? Absolutely, absolutely. Amen. That's why it keeps popping out and we have to keep popping it. Like the little jack-in-the-box, you hit it and bang it back in the thing. He's always there, we never think he would be, but he's there. No, he's there. Alright, Tom, go ahead.

One other thing, exactly exactly Roger yeah I think it also goes along with you know the speck in your eye and the log in your eye mm-hmm because you know talking about in a spirit of gentle gentleness right okay so if you become boastful or challenging or in being right that makes you think that you're better than anyone else exactly and you aren't him being but what's ironic is if you're both so challenging and envying one another that speck has just become a log in your own eye exactly in your desire to help somebody say well I never would have done that brother I mean I'm hey you know I'm I'm with the good guys and somehow, you know, and I would never do that.

Rather than saying, you know, I could have done that. I could have been right where you have been. Identify with that person rather than being boastful. And like you were saying before about the, you know, somebody does something weird in front of you and you react. I had a pastor once say that, you know, you don't want to be walking across the street, look up and see a Mack truck coming at you. And then having that last word be your last word before you see OK, good, good, excellent.

All good comments. And the thing is, another aspect here, this trespass or fault is not, in the context, is not a premeditated thing. You didn't say, well, I'm going to go to church. I'm going to tell them why I'm really the greatest Christian that has walked into this place. And you guys really think a lot of me. This is something that was a surprise.

What's interesting is we're going to see in this In this verse, it's something that's a false step, a blunder. And it could be any sin. And actually, this word trespass is a word that is used of any sin. So this is not a light thing. This is a sin. This is you've missed the mark. The other word for sin is the word sin, which is translated harmonia, to miss the mark. So this is like a synonym. Some people have tried to make trespass and sin kind of different things, but I think they're They're both talking about sin, maybe in a little bit different shades. Sin is sin. This is talking about something you don't do intentionally, but it's still sin. Whereas Harmatia may be premeditated, you know, whatever. Isn't there a scripture that says that all things are... All things are... I can't quote... I'm used to knowing the scripture.

And Tom, you had another thing you wanted to say? Yeah. Excuse me. Thank you. I remember those King Soopers notifications when you had looked at the price in the shopper guide and got the paper and the mail. And you get there and you get to the store and you see this picture of this guy that's just lost his crown. And next to it is the words, oops, we goofed. And then the correct price is blah, blah, blah.

Okay, well I've had a good experience with Kingston. They actually give you the option, if it's the wrong price, they just give it to you for free. I've had that experience. I thought it was a pretty fair deal. If they put the price on wrong, they just give it to you. It was some kind of something from, it was an expensive thing, $10, I don't know.

Here, you can just have it. OK, that's pretty good. All right, so let's go on here. OK, so basically. Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, caught off guard, here's what. You who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. And what's interesting here is this U, and I didn't do a lot of research, but, and I looked at a few U's. It sounds kind of subtle, a few U's. The word U can be, if it's, well, I don't want myself out here in the English language. This is not my strongest suit, but if I do something wrong, Bonnie, help me out here.

Okay, second, okay, it could be, First-person plural is a second-person plural which can be translated you all and not like in the South you hear you all you know you all Y'all which is which is more than which is more than one person so I think in this context and I looked at other people and there can be a First-person plural which could be just a we what we okay?

Anyway, this is all believers. So what's kind of cool about this is is So this chapter is focused on restoration. Who's going to restore the brother or sister who has an issue? And somebody else says, well, I know it'll be the elders. It'll be the pastor. It'll be the youth. It'll be somebody. You pass the buck. You pass the buck. Well, this doesn't pass the buck. It says you all, all believers are qualified to restore a brother or sister.

Basically, you all, the spiritual ones. So the question comes up, what What is a spiritual one? So what's your thought? What characterizes a spiritual person? Ability to recognize that you made or could have made the same mistake, but by God's grace got you through it or will get you through it just in case. Excellent. I think that's the idea of not being boastful. Any other thoughts? What are some of the characteristics of a spiritual person?

Roger, that would be similar to what it said in Acts about Stephen and some of the other people it listed that they picked as deacons. And it would be similar to what they talked about in Timothy and Titus. It would be people who were filled with the Spirit and consequently were walking in the Spirit. Anyone who has a proper understanding of grace. So the word spiritual, as it stands, is the idea of pertain to or proceed from the Holy Spirit. That might be actually a little bit better definition now. I'm sure that's absolutely the very best one. But here's what's kind of neat.

If you have your Bibles, hopefully you do, look at the end of Chapter 5. I didn't recognize this. It's kind of cool when you start looking at this and you start listening to what people have said and have studied. But look at the end of Chapter 5. I think Randy was, maybe Randy kind of saw this too. But if you look into chapter 5, and actually I was at Mike's house on Wednesday, many times I don't understand why, but you can look at the verse in a kind of backward sense. So start with verse 26, 526 in Galatians, 526.

So basically, the thought process here is that the last few verses of chapter 5, 26 through 22, if you read them kind of backwards, A person who is spiritual will not be boastful, not challenging, not envying one another, that's in 26. 25, will live by the spirit and walk by the spirit, that's 25. 24, will have crucified the flesh with his passion and his desires, which basically refers back to Romans talking about that we have we're wrecking ourselves dead to sin but alive to God so that's kind of a and Randy kind of went back there using that verse and then then lastly 22 and 23 are the fruits of the spirit or display the fruits of the spirit so it appears the last 22 through 26 kind of kind of give the characteristics of a spiritual person and it's kind of cool he kind of gives those characteristics and then when you get to chapter 6 you look back and you say well wait a minute a spiritual person is one who exhibits these characteristics in the negative and the positive. So that was kind of neat, not my observation, but I thought it was really kind of helpful. Okay. And it's actually not just to this point. Mike was pointing out we were looking in Romans 10 or 11 and there was another situation where if you kind of look at the verses in reverse order, you could kind of see, you know, some additional observations. So could you say that if you're a believer that you should be a spiritual one? I definitely think so.

Now, of course, that's a normal That's a normal Christian life, right? Now, what happens is this believer that you're restoring has gone outside the norm and you're coming alongside to help them, to get them back on track. And so, that's Bud's favorite verse there. If that happens, what happens when a believer sins?

I was thinking about how we can greet the Spirit. The Spirit Himself is there, always there. And it wants to help us at all times. Absolutely. We do it that way. We greed the Spirit. Right. And that's an evidence of that. And it should remind us that that does happen. It does. It does. I was looking for your favorite verse.

Oh, John 1.9.

Yes, here you are. Intercessor up there standing at the right hand of God. And he says, if you confess your sins, I will faithfully and justly give you your sins. And on the other hand, he's There he's already paid the price, God is so good, it's all clear. Okay, good, right. And confess there is to agree with him? Yes. So you're agreeing that you're not acting as who you should be? Just to remind us to reduce sin. All right. So basically, I had this. And actually, somebody asked last week about this verse in Galatians.

And it is, in this case, this is what they call first class condition of an if statement. This is assuming we live by the Spirit. That would be a believer. The only person that can live by the Spirit is a believer. Let us also make your position and condition match. If we live by the Spirit, we should also walk by the Spirit. So that's kind of cool.

And there's a bunch of other verses that talk about spiritual thoughts and spiritual words. The word spiritual is used in a lot of places in scripture. And many times it's talking about characteristics of a believer. Spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. Spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Okay, so let's go on. The spiritual ones are living and walking by the spirit. So I kind of took that verse and kind of paraphrased it at the bottom there. So besides that little list I gave you, or the characteristics in the last part of chapter five, just taking that one verse and looking at it, that would describe the spiritual ones. They're living and walking by the, first of all they have to be a believer, and they're walking by the power of the spirit. Okay. Roger? Yeah. And then I would assume that the restore stands for fellowship, right?

We're going to get there. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. It's coming, it's coming. A couple charts here. Okay, so now, here we go. So basically, you, you all, all believers, and little dash, dash, dash, and you have to be a spiritual one, as the previous discussion, restore such a one.

So the only one that really has the qualifications to restore you is another believer. I mean, that's pretty, should be pretty obvious, but this just kind of confirms it here. So the verb is restore. Okay, so restore is to refit, repair, mend that which is broken. And this is kind of a cool word. It actually has the idea of a couple ideas. Let's look at the first idea. Let's look at Matthew. Matthew chapter 4. Matthew chapter 4. Can I get someone to read Matthew chapter 4 and verse 21? And going down from Lent he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee and John and brother of the ship of Zebedee, their father, mending their nets and calling.

Okay, so what word do you think there is our restore word? Mending their nets. Right, okay. Excellent, excellent. Okay, so the picture here is that something is amiss, amiss, I can't use that right, amiss. And this word is that you're putting it back together again. You're mending it. If the nets are broken, you're mending it. So a brother or sister has an issue, you're there to help them put it back together.

How long does it take to mend a neck, do you think? It could take minutes, hours, I don't know, a long time. Depends on how big the hole is. Exactly. All right. And then also another situation this ward talks about is actually mending a broken bone. So how long does it take a surgeon to mend a broken bone? I mean, like my son had a broken jaw, and by and I went to the hospital. And we were there, the doctor didn't start the operation until almost midnight, which is about, drove us nuts. But anyway, he starts it at midnight.

We'll tell you, this is poor Ryan's. He made it through thank you Lord, but it takes it takes time So I thought it's kind of cool kind of immersed in this word. Is it it's this is not a quick fix. You know, it's like, okay Read this read this book this book. I'll solve all your problems. Here you go. Got a problem read this book It's on your problem read it and you'll you'll be all good.

I No, I don't think it's not that way at all really. Any true restoration just takes lots and lots of time. I mean many times because the problems many times are not, you know, they're not quick fixes. I'm just being probably just depends on how severe it is. I mean, maybe it could be maybe simple. Right. I don't know. Or it could take a long, long time. Right. Right. I mean, it'd be tough. I'd hate to like, I was trying to take some of the good example. Well, a splinter may hurt like Hades, but it's relatively easy to fix.

Roger, I was given a book and it has to do with traumas in a person's life and the problems that those traumas can create. So that could basically fall similar into this as well. I mean your previous life and things that have happened to you up until this point can create habits, they can create you know, all kinds of things within your body that, you know, it's not easy to correct those things. Some of those things may not ever be corrected until you really see what the cause is and start working toward that. Extremely time-consuming. So we are a summation of everything that's happened before.

I think the cool thing here is that, you know, The believer in the Lord Jesus is going to use scripture as his method or starting point for help. He's not going to say, well, I'm going to find Joe Blow over here who thinks umpty, whatever it is. We're going to use scripture, or we should use scripture, as our starting point. We're going to say that, well, God's word says that this is who you are. This is the person that you are. Maybe you have low esteem. I don't know.

It was interesting. We were in England for five years. We lived there for five years. I became a believer in England, which is really, for me it has a special, you know. But it's interesting. We found that people kind of accept their lot in life if you aren't, say, well-educated or whatever. It's almost like the class structure is still in place.

You wouldn't think that all these years. we had a babysitter and her, she was 11, 9, I don't know how old she was, but her goal in life was, I mean, for Americans it almost seems like you've got a fake big, fake mountaintop, you know, and she's thinking, well, the best I can do is What did she say she wanted to do? I don't know. Well, it's just that she said, well, I just go to this high school and, you know, I'm just, I'm not going to go to college or anything. This is just, that's where I go and that's how my life is going to be.

Yeah. She already, as a teenager, she already had her life, you know, and for Americans, it's almost like, well, you can't think that way. You got to think you could be CEO. You could be, you could be a president, you know? And so it's just so different. And it, It was really interesting. It was really interesting. That was kind of an interesting thing we kind of learned. Just that people, you know, different cultures, people have... But in the Lord Jesus, He's telling us who we are. This is the person that you are in the Lord Jesus. But along with that, Roger, I know what you're saying.

Yeah. But the Bible also doesn't tell you how to fix a broken bone. But you can go to a Christian doctor. Right, right. And the Christian doctor is working under the authority and in the power of the name of Jesus, and in the process of doing that, he's using things that we have learned through the course of time on how to fix a broken boat. That may not be, you know, in a book of the Bible saying this is how you fix a broken boat. See what I'm saying? Yeah, I understand. And I'm not saying, okay, I kind of see what you're saying. Obviously there are skills, you know, the Lord has given man the ability to understand the human body. I mean, he's given him the mind.

So there are many people that are not believers that do, they can fix anything, cars, they can fix bones. I guess I'm looking more that this is a spiritual issue because previous to that, he went through the deeds of the flesh and the fruits of the spirit. And so It seems to me that he's talking about restoring, this is a spiritual issue. You go to a doctor for a physical issue with a broken bone. This is a spiritual issue. You've done something, you've, you know, one of those deeds of the flesh or like the boastfulness or whatever. So that's a spiritual issue. So scripture is very germane to that is what I guess I'm focusing on. I agree with you. You go to the best doctor, the best mechanic you can find.

I mean, I have, And I think an example could be Paul, and obviously one of his issues was covetousness, because he mentioned it so many different times, and I think in one place he even said that that was one of his problems, and it was probably because he was formerly a Pharisee, and he studied under Gamaliel, and a lot of these things were within his personality, and he didn't just recover from that all at once.

But right before he died he said, you know, to live is Christ, to die is gain. So he had finally come, he had brought himself to the power of the Spirit. to have a perfect relationship with Christ and was willing to either evangelize or die and be with the Lord. And it was a process that he had to go through and work on. And I'm sure there was a lot of people who helped him and were with him, like Barnabas and Mark and a lot of these other people.

And that's all spiritual things. I mean, working with other people, and that's why it's saying with gentleness. And I think it's a process that you have to, along with the power of the Spirit, and with Scripture, and compassion, all these different things is part of the process of working with someone, right?

That's what a pastor does. Right. And that's what we as believers, you know, we have the same, you know, we have the same scriptures and the same, we may not know them as well conceivably, but we have the same spirit that, that, you know, any elder or pastor or whatever have, you know, So I think that's where the you all, I think, is really kind of key in here. You don't want to say that's someone else's. If the Lord has put somebody in front of you and you can help them and guide them, wonderful. So let's kind of move on here. OK, good. Good thoughts. OK. Such a one, let's see. You who are spiritual, restore such a one So such a one is a person that's been overcome by this, caught in a trespass, in a spirit of gentleness.

And this is this word that kind of talks about, actually in some translations it's called meekness. And there's a little phrase, meekness is not weakness. You've probably heard that. So gentleness is a condition It says, it's condition of the mind and heart which demonstrates gentleness, not in weakness, but in power. It's a balance born in strength of character. That's what Zodiaci says.

So let's look at a couple of verses here. Let's look at 2 Corinthians. Oh, and one thing before we start, if you have your Bibles open to Galatians here, you'll remember that gentleness is one of the fruits of the Spirit. So that's kind of key. It's in the list of the fruits of the Spirit. So, if you're displaying gentleness in restoring this brother or sister, you're displaying a fruit of the Spirit which comes from the Spirit of God.

So in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 1, By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you. I, Paul, who am timid, went face to face with you, but gold went away. Yeah, so I thought that was interesting. So Paul basically, he's urging by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. He kind of says, well, I'm kind of a meek, or actually lowly is another translation. So here's where meek might be. Actually, I didn't look at this verse. This actually would be a cool verse to dig into a little bit more. But gentleness is a fruit of the spirit that is able to help people without overpowering, without offending them, if you will. And there are other verses, and James talks about gentleness of wisdom. And Peter talks about gentleness also. So, what's next? Hey, Roger? Sure, go ahead. I was just going to say, too, you say not offend. I can specifically, not to talk anecdotal, but people have dealt with me on a sin, but it's been offensive initially.

But because they love me, and that love of the Spirit comes through, over time you're able to go back and realize things through the Scripture, like you say, where you've erred. That's a real good point. It's not an easy transition. Initially, you might be offended because it hurts when somebody says, well, you know, whatever it might be. But that's an excellent point. That's really, really good. Because you obviously feel justified, otherwise you wouldn't have done it in the first place, right? Exactly, exactly. That's really good.

It's also similar to dealing with your teenage children. If you never wanted to offend them, how would you ever correct them? You have to be careful. You don't want to offend them with a sin, for example, you being boastful. If you say, well, I'm above your problem. But you do want to speak the truth in love, right? You tell them, this is a problem. Here's a problem. And you use scripture to do it. And then you let scripture speak for you.

All good points. Well, Roger, if you're, like in the context of last chapter, you're either walking in the spirit or you're walking in the flesh. Exactly. If someone has overtaken a transgression, they're walking in the flesh. Absolutely. More than likely, they're going to have a fleshly response to when you're coming towards them. So you, who are spiritual, you who are walking in the spirit, and acting out of that, you know, Christ working into you, so yeah, there probably is going to be an offense. Because until that person is walking in the Spirit, they're going to have a fleshly response. There's pride and all these other things are going to come up. So, yeah, I think what you're saying is right. It's not boastful.

Too often it's... I grew up going to revival meetings where the idea of restoration is somebody being convicted and they come forward right with God, you've got to get right with God, you've got to live like I am, and there's this... Really, it's a non-spiritual... It's a non-spiritual restoration.

Exactly. And so, I think in that sense, you're not offending, but the whole context here is, you've got to lock him in the spirit, reach out to this person who isn't, which is the only reason why they're taken with the transgression, and there's patience you know, one of the fruit of the Spirit is patience. The person may not respond right away. It's relationship. It's having that intimacy with the person that is going to bring them back to that place where they're walking in the Spirit.

Yeah, that's excellent. That's really good. Also, Roger, another thing would be not to have condescending attitude when you're dealing with someone like that. Let them know you've been through certain problems like that yourself. Well, that's always helpful if you can say, I mean, we've been through counseling. When they say, I've been through what you've been through, it's incredible how that is so helpful. They've been through that, well, they understand. And Donna, you had something you wanted to say?

Well, I was just wondering then with the reverse, Could you restore someone if you weren't walking in the Spirit? I don't think you can. I mean, I think that's the whole point. You who are spiritual, right? You all who are spiritual. I mean, he kind of makes a point of that. And back to what was just said.

If you aren't walking with the Spirit, then... And actually, think of this collectively in this body of believers here. You know, we can only be helpful to one another as a body if we're spiritual, if we're walking where we should be. Now obviously, probably in any given moment of time, we probably all have issues. I'm sorry to keep going on. You can empathize with someone in the flesh.

Exactly. I think he's calling you here to a higher He is. Standard, right? He is, right. And I think based upon what he'd gone over in the previous chapter, he's kind of set the stage for a spiritual person. Not boastful. He's, you know, reckoning himself dead. He has the fruits of the spirit. So he's kind of set the, here's the benchmark of the spiritual believer, and then here's the operation, this is called Operation Restore or Rescue, as some have said, this little couple passages here.

Well, Roger, if you cut to the chase on this whole thing, the person who is not walking appropriately, obviously the flesh is in control of that person to a certain degree, but they are filled with the spirit, because they're Christian, they're a believer.

The person who's going to do the restoration, if that person is not walking in the flesh to a large degree, then the spirit is going to be predominant in that person's life. And I think it's the spirit, the agreement of the spirit between the two that actually causes the restoration. Like Don was saying earlier, you may get upset at first when somebody tells you that, but if you have the spirit and the person who's restoring you is not walking in the flesh, but is walking in the spirit, then there's going to be a unity of that spirit, and the person's going to say, oh, well I respect that person's advice. And that spirit is then going to speak to your spirit, and you're going to say, hmm, yeah, okay. This does make sense. It may take time, but I think it's the spirit's work that does this. That's why you can't do it in the flesh, particularly. It's the spirit that has to do it in both. There has to be an agreement, right?

That's a good point. I mean, and the tool that you're going to be, you know, your manual, your restoration manual is the word of God. I mean, it's not, you know, so that's, that's key. Okay. Roger, can I just add one other thing? This is great. I actually, I can't believe it. Well, the traditional Christian view is, this day, is we focus so much on the actual sin. Exactly. I didn't catch the beginning.

I assume a person that's caught in a transgression, it's not that, okay, they did this thing one time. Obviously, all of us fluctuate between walking in the spirit and walking in the flesh, and that's part of our Christian growth is becoming more dependent on Christ. So it's a consistent area, something where they're literally caught in it.

And we who are spiritual, sometimes we think of that as, okay, this person is doing all the right things. Well, you may have been walking in the flesh, but the point is, while you are walking in the Spirit, you restore it. That's kind of what's been said. It's the Spirit of God working in you. It doesn't have to be this great spiritual leader of the church that does everything right, but it's from a place of walking in the Spirit.

And the address, I don't know if... Yeah, sometimes you have to address a specific sin, but it's more the Spirit of God in you, drawing that person, because they have the relationship with Christ. And we like to make this much more difficult than it is. And you have to be able to say, well, I can't counsel that person because I did this thing wrong the other day, so I'm not a spiritual person.

Well, thankfully, from the biblical standpoint, memory is fairly short. Right now, you walk in the Spirit. And to an extent, from God's point, what has happened before that isn't I mean, it's important, but God looks at you right now, and he expects you right now, too. So, yeah, you may have had things wrong, but if you're now walking in the Spirit, you can reach out to this person, and you don't have to have everything in order, exactly. The important thing is to get the help process in the Spirit started.

You may only be the paramedic, or you may only be the guy that puts a band-aid and says, let's see the doctor, or something like that. It may be a process, that way too, so it's not always one on one, it does the trick every time. I've seen actually along that line where maybe you see an issue and then maybe you do ask somebody, an elder or somebody to help you, well I see an issue here. and maybe somebody will help you with some scriptures that you might share with that person. So there might be a connection, and it may take time.

Whereas you initially may recognize it as an issue and then you get somebody to support you to understand the scripture better to help that brother or sister. So I think that's really... This is actually the first step to Matthew 18. Right. Good point. Yeah?

I wonder sometimes how many people there are out there in society who won't go to church who don't go because they've been mishandled. Not with grace, not with gentleness, but more with horror. You're not fitting the mold. How dare you? You shouldn't be like you are.

I know. When we hear, I can think of some different, at least one brother I can think of that His family parent doesn't come because they have been. Now I don't, you could argue some, in some cases it's a person's fault. They, you know, they have a problem too. They, well, I was offended.

I'm never going to, you know, never going to come again. That seems kind of silly. You know, if you really care about knowing who Christ is, you say, okay, I'll, I'll accept some of that flack because I want to know who Christ is. You may, you know, I don't know.

I, I struggle with some of the people that say, well, I was offended and I'll never, I'll never darken the doors of a church again because you're all a bunch of hypocrites. Well, okay. We all have sin natures and you know, like it's, what's the saying? We like to talk all the time.

Oh, to live with the saints above, what glory that will be. For the saints below, that's a different story. I think actually, one of the heart, actually a body of believers, You expect the best from a body of believers. You expect the very best. And many times, you're disappointed. And that's one of the hardest things in Christian life. You expect the very best from believers. And sometimes they let you down. And sometimes you let them down.

Go ahead, Tom. Some people may expect a top-of-the-line, Escalade-type treatment It's like not going to the hospital because it's full of sick people. I know. Why do I want to be there? I could get sick in the hospital. You can't. You can get poor treatment in the hospital.

Anyway, okay, all right. Okay, so now we're going to look at So as you're each one looking to yourselves, so that you too will not be tempted. So in this process of restoring a brother or a sister, you may fall into sin as well. And this is the warning here. Watch what you're doing.

And actually that looking to, some translations have considering yourself, you're looking at yourself and you're saying, you know that problem that brother has, I have that same problem. And maybe you don't even want to counsel him. Let's say it's pornography, and maybe you have a problem with pornography. I would hope the brother or sister that tries to help a person would, if they have a problem with that, they find somebody else. They say, get somebody else. I just cannot, I have such a problem with that, I don't want to get close to that.

I think that's a wise, you're looking at yourself, you're evaluating yourself. so that you too will not be tempted. You don't want to make the situation worse by you falling as well into temptation. Could it be that in talking to them you get tempted?

That's kind of the thing. This word temptation and how over the years we've done some great work on this, two kinds of temptation. This is the one, a solicitation to sin. So it's sort of like the baits out here. So you're helping this brother and here's this bait going back and forth and you're saying, And all of a sudden, well, and the classic thing, not classic, one of the sad things is many times this is where counseling between men and women, you have to be very, very careful. An elder goes to counsel a woman and what happens, you know, you got a problem there or you know, whatever. You don't want to, you know, you're careful about those things. You don't fall into temptation in your desire to help somebody.

Roger, a good picture of that, the word caught, that means caught in a trap. And so what I see is a mouse trap. And so somebody has walked along and they saw the peanut butter in this trap and they got caught. And so now you're over there, you're going to help this person, right? Well, there's all kinds of traps sitting around there. And if you like peanut butter, there's a pretty good chance you're going to be in another trap. A couple of verses here. Let's look at the verse in James here. James chapter one. Let's read actually 13 and 14 in James chapter 1.

Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

14 and 15, Hal had a great chart over the years, this temptation process. I love that chart, it has a little stair step. It's almost like a gestation. You go from one step to the other. This temptation is a real temptation and it's a temptation to sin. You don't want to go down that stair step. You don't want to go down the path where it says, but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.

When lust has conceived, that's like a birth process. Because the birth is sin. When sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. And that's spiritual death. That's a separation. You're out of fellowship. And that's when you need restoration. So you don't want to wind up needing restoration to end this process. You went to help a brother or sister and you wind up falling and you need restoration.

That's kind of a Okay, cool. All right, so, verse two. This has been great. All right, now what's interesting here is that verse one, and actually there are not a lot of verses that show this, but let's just go ahead. Bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. So here's kind of another look at this process of restoration. So here's the idea here is that you're bearing, or the word you is not there in the original, but it's that you bear one another's burdens. And bear here is to bear on behalf of, and let's look at Romans chapter 15. Do I have it on there? Yeah, Romans chapter 15. It says, now we who are strong ought to bear the weakness of those without strength, not just to please ourselves. So basically, this is kind of referring back to the spiritual one, and once again, it says that it's only reasonable as the body of Christ, those who are spiritual in a sense, who should be bearing the burden with those who have a problem. But what's interesting here is this word, let's go on to the bear.

Burden is this word for, it's burdensome or it's like a heavy load on you, it's a pressure on you. And actually, if you look, go back to Galatians for a second. Let's just look at, there's kind of a contrast in Galatians between burden and load. If you look in chapter six, obviously, and our verse is, bear one another's burdens, thus fulfill the law of Christ. That word burden is either the heavy, it's a heavy load, it's something that is overwhelming. If you look down in verse five, it says, for each one of you shall bear his own load. And that own load is the idea of a normal load or a backpack, something that we all have burdens. you know, whatever it might be, you know, maybe we, you know, we have a bad job, you know, we all have life situations.

The one in five is a normal load. The one in two is a heavy load needing a brother or sister to come along and bear it with you. So that's kind of the distinction between these two, these two burdens. One in two is a heavy, you know, weighing down load. And actually, the one reference that really helped, it's more in terms of, the idea of this burden is weight. And if you look in, and I'll just go ahead and read here.

In 2 Corinthians 4.17, it talks about the weight, 2 Corinthians 4.17. 2 Corinthians 4.17 says, For the momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. So that eternal weight of glory is our word right here.

It's a big weight. It's a biggie. So this is a big burden. This is not the normal load that every person, believer or unbeliever, carries in this world because of just the world situation. This is an excessive one. So basically, what's going to happen here, you're going to bear one another's burdens, and what's going to happen?

Thereby fulfilling the law of Christ. So what's cool is here, and that's actually a command, that's actually an imperative, and there was an imperative also back in the previous verse, there are two imperatives, there's an imperative back in verse 1, And this is the second imperative. Bear one another's burdens. And what's cool is here, you're going to, by doing that, you're going to fulfill the law of Christ.

Filled up completely. So the question is, what is the law of Christ? Have we gone to law here in Galatians? Are we now going to talk about and get some law here finally? I'm being a little bit silly, but. So what are your thoughts? What's the law of Christ?

The new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I love you. Yeah. Thank you, Tom. Very good. Okay, so what's interesting is the law of Christ is grace. I mean, it just kind of blew my mind when I kind of, so if you look at, if you look at, you know, John, there's actually another, there's John 13, 34, also John 15, 12, that you love one another just as I have, that's my, that's his new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you.

He loves you first, which is grace, right? And as a result of that, you love one another. That's grace, right? The law says you've got to do something to get love. God says, no, I love you first, and then you'll love one another. So when you bear one another's burdens, you'll fulfill... It's grace. You'll fulfill the law of Christ, which is grace, which is flowing out of you because of His love for you.

So if you've ever seen that movie, pay it forward or something like that. I got an imperfect version of the title. God beat that idea to shreds way back in the beginning. Roger, doesn't that have a little bit to do with the word paraclete, which is what the Holy Spirit is?

And it talks about you come alongside and to lift up and to edify. And I think it also has to do with the passages about not being unequally yoked because you bear each other's burdens. So if you have two spiritual people who are married, you can bear the heavy burdens together because you are one accord. And you're yoked together under that circumstance. So you have to be careful who you're yoked to. You don't want to be a horse and a mule together because the poor horse is going to work his tail off. One will be horsing around too much, the other will make a mule out of you. It's not too good.

So I just have a little phrase. As you walk as a spiritual man or woman, bearing one another's burdens, you will fulfill the law of Christ, which is to love one another. That's kind of a cool thing. And that's great. I was just thinking of like Peggy and Gary, how they're just, it's an overwhelming burden. It is. And a lot of people in the church have been helping them. Exactly. Yeah, that's an example right there. I mean, it's just not your normal burden. No, no. It's just a really overwhelming. It is, actually.

And like Sam was saying, so we have an equal yoke there. And so Gary can be there. He's there 24-7. Every need he's taking, you know, that she has. And the key thing to keep remembering is this trying to be Mr. or Mrs. Hercules and do it in the flesh.

Exactly. No, and that's exactly what we're talking about. This is something you do because of who you are in Christ and you're displaying His love. You're loving one another and it's His love, not our love. Okay. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the marvelous grace that we have. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.