As we are studying the book of Galatians, verse by verse, we come this morning to a passage that instructs us to bear one another's burdens. Early this morning as I was getting ready for the day, I was thinking back on ways that you, have borne the burdens of myself and my family. My mind was flooded with far more ways that you have borne our burdens than I could recount to you at this moment. Just to give you a sampling, I remembered how Boy Santos in December of 2005, my first year here, my third month here at Christian Fellowship Church, fresh out of seminary, how he came to me and asked me, how are you doing with the ministry load? And I was overwhelmed. At that point we had an evening service, and I was teaching so many times every week on top of all the other pastoral responsibilities. And Boyce was concerned about me, and I told him, I'm really struggling. And so Boyce took the idea to the elders and deacons to disband the evening service, that the load might be lifted from my shoulders. Thank you, brother, for that. I remember Ivers on a Thursday evening, multiple Thursday evenings, when we've had prayer in our small group as men. After I'd asked for the prayer request, when we were about to pray, Ivers would ask me, what can we pray for for you? Thank you for asking. I remember Kevin Labadesa sending me emails in which he typed out prayers that he had just prayed for me and my family. I remember times where a boy has prayed with tears in his eyes for us. I remember many ladies in our church watching our children when we would need to go to the hospital, like the birth of one of our children or something like that. I remember when When I was at St. Peter's Hospital with little Caleb, we had infant botulism, and I fell asleep there in his room, and I woke up, and there was Jim Stewart sitting there with me, waiting for me to wake up to encourage me. I remember Fred not too long ago. We were at Fellowship Deaconry. I got the call from Esther that her varicose vein burst. I remember Fred rushing me home so I could be with her. I remember Ed Keens coming over to our house. We had two juniper trees in the front yard. I was going to cut down one of them. I was going to dig out one of the stumps. Ed Keens joined me to dig out that stump. We were really working with the shovels. Then he said to me, let me show you how we city boys do this. And he tied a rope around the stump into his little sport car. I don't know if it was a Miata or what it was. And with that little sport car, he just ripped that stump out for me. I remember a good number of people bringing us meals after the birth of one of our children. I remember financial gifts being given to us at Christmas when we were tight financially. And on and on, I really could go, I could fill up this whole sermon with telling you ways that you, Christian fellows of church, have borne the burdens of me and my family. I want to thank you, and I want to praise the Lord for giving us a church family that loves us. I want to praise the Lord for bearing our burdens through you, the body of Christ. Our passage this morning on burden bearing in the body of Christ is part of the last third of Galatians. The first third of the book spoke of the reliability of the gospel. In chapters 1 and 2, Paul was defending his apostolic ministry. He was defending the gospel that he had preached because false teachers had come to Galatia who were undermining the gospel of Jesus Christ. So his first point in this book was the reliability of the gospel that he had preached, that the apostles preached, that Jesus preached. The second third of the book focused on the content of the gospel. That's where we saw that Jesus, when he went to the cross, he became a curse for us. that the curse that the law pronounced upon us for our sin, sin that is exposed by the law of God, that Jesus suffered that curse in our place. We saw there in that middle section that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, and that he has taken his spirit, and he has put it inside the hearts of his redeemed. And the spirit cries out within us to God, Abba, Father, letting us know that we have been adopted by God. And then we are now in the last third of the book, which is the fruit of the gospel. The gospel is this good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ to take sinners who deserve judgment and to make them right with God. That the one who believes in Jesus, not the one who works, but the one who believes in Jesus has been declared by God as the judge has been declared righteous. To be declared to be now forgiven, pardoned of all sin, and put into right relationship with God, the very righteousness of Christ imputed to us, credited to our account with the judge, so that when we as the believer have the eyes of God upon us, he sees in our account not our sin, but he sees the obedience of Jesus Christ. This is because Jesus paid that penalty. He redeemed us at the cross. On that basis, the believer is justified. Now, we are seeing in this last section that when you believe in Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit, He comes into your heart, and He begins to make changes. The believer has an old self that Paul calls the flesh. We used to be in bondage to sin. But now we have been freed from the bondage of sin to now truly live to God. And this freedom comes to us through the Holy Spirit, who has applied to us the salvation that Christ purchased at the cross. And the Holy Spirit is actually living inside of us, leading us in new ways. completely new ways, ways that are foreign to our old way of life. And not only is he leading us in the new ways that are pleasing to God, but he's actually empowering us to walk in the new ways. And we saw that list of the works of the flesh that we still battle with as Christians. And we saw the list of the fruit of the Spirit, that the Spirit is progressively growing in our lives in the midst of this battle between the flesh and the spirit. And now in six, he gets even more practical and is showing us what it looks like to follow the spirit in the body of Christ. The gospel does more than bring us personally into right relationship with God. The gospel creates a family. The gospel creates the family of God that the Bible calls the church. By making us sons of God, the gospel makes us, as believers, brothers. Which is the term that you see in chapter 6, verse 1. Paul addresses the Christians in Galatia as brothers. We are a family. We are brothers in Christ. The Church is not a charitable organization like the Red Cross. It's not a civic club such as Rotary or Kiwanis. The Church is a family of adopted sons supernaturally knit together by the Holy Spirit in a mutual love for one another. Chapter 6 teaches us how to walk by the Spirit as brothers in Christ. how to walk by the Spirit as the family of God. And we would do well to give close attention to this passage this morning. Look at your Bible at Galatians chapter six. We're gonna start at verse two. Please stand in honor of the word of God. Verse two. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work. And then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load." This is God's holy word. Please be seated. In these verses, we are given two fundamental instructions for walking by the Spirit in the body of Christ. The first instruction pertains to your brotherly responsibility. The instruction is, bear one another's burdens. Notice that in verse two, bear one another's burdens. It is a paradox that the Christian is free, yet instructed to bear burdens. You would think if we're free, there are no burdens anymore. Chapter 5, verse 1 said, for freedom Christ has set us free. That was talking about how we have been freed from the burden of the law. Yet now we are instructed to bear the burdens of our brothers. But how very different these two burdens are. Our former burden that we've been set free from. That burden when we were under the law and its condemnation. That burden was a burden that was associated with fear of punishment. Romans 8.15 says, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father." We were under the burden of God's condemnation of His law and its demands that we could not fulfill, its requirements that we suffer the penalty for our sins. We were under that burden that was associated with fear, fear of God's punishment. But these new burdens that we have bearing the burdens of one another. This has nothing to do with fear. These new burdens are associated with love. Love was that virtue that headed up the list of the fruit of the Spirit. We don't bear one another's burdens in the family of God out of fear of punishment. No, we bear each other's burdens out of a spirit-produced love for one another. Oh, how very different these burdens are. Every Christian carries various burdens throughout the Christian life. The burden of sin was mentioned in verse 1. We studied this last time. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. We have burdens of sin. Just because we have the Spirit and we've been set free by the redeeming work of Christ, it does not mean that we don't struggle with sin. We have our struggles with sin. We're deceived by temptation. We yield to temptation. we have this kind of a burden. This certainly is included in the sorts of burdens that we are to bear. But the burdens that are spoken of here that we are to bear, that every Christian has to some degree and has in some set of different shades of color, these burdens include much more than the burden of sin. Think of the burden that Kasia is bearing, and Xiao is bearing, of struggling with cancer. Think of Carol Chin, grieving the loss of her father, 95 years old, dear to her, and then now continuing to care for her mother. as her mother continues to live in her apartment. Think about Ron McGarry, struggling with his business, now on his back. Think about Glenn, many times, while he desires to be here on Sunday mornings, so many times, because of his work, unable to be here, missing being with us. Think about Bing, Yang, going to school full-time, on top of working full-time, because he understands that the industry he's in right now is not something the Lord would have him to do. Think about Kevin Labadessa, unable to return to work until September, as his hip heals. Think about incurable conditions. Ivers with his eyes. George with a traumatic brain injury. Things that doctors will never heal, that these brothers suffer with for the rest of their life. Think about those who are persecuted by family members because they stand for Jesus Christ. They're ridiculed, they're mocked. because they will not join with them in their sinful behavior. Think about all that Bernard is going through. Think about those who struggle with depression. Think about those who are married to an unbeliever who want more than anything else to see their spouse saved and knowing that they can't change the heart of their spouse. Think about those whose marriage has fallen apart Think about single parents who have the responsibility that normally two parents share together, raising children in the Lord's ways. And on and on we could go with the sorts of burdens that we know are present here in our little congregation. And on top of these publicly known burdens, We as Christians all have our lesser known burdens. The struggles of our soul that oftentimes we will not feel the freedom to share with others, at least not with very many. Struggles with sin, struggles with temptation that may be hidden from others. struggles with the consequences of sin. We regret our sin. We know that we are going to face consequences for the rest of our life. We wish we could go back and change, but we can't. The burdens of sorrows, of loneliness, of angers, of fears, of cares, of concerns, of doubts. And we as the body of Christ, the family of God, have a responsibility, a brotherly responsibility given to us right here, bear one another's burdens. Not bear with them, but bear the burdens of one another's, of help one another in carrying these loads that are pressing our brothers down. help them to carry these loads. Now, at this point when Paul writes, legalism was infecting the church at Galatia. Legalism adds burdens to people. Think about how Jesus described the legalism of the Pharisees, how they burdened people with adding all these things to the law of God. But we are to do the very opposite. We're not to be like the legalists adding burdens. We are to bear, to lift, to carry the burdens of one another. The Spirit leads us to bear each other's burdens because this is something that God himself does. Everything the Spirit leads us as Christians to do reflects something that God Himself does. The Spirit is producing within us the character of God. And we are to bear each other's burdens because God bears our burdens. We've been singing of that in our hymns this morning, about bringing our anxieties to the mercy seat, knowing that He bears our burdens. Psalm 55 verse 22 instructs, cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. That's probably in Peter's mind when he writes in 1 Peter 5, 6 and 7. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you. God carries the burdens of his people, especially when we cast them upon him, when we bring them to him in prayer. He bears our burdens. Now, some Christians use this as an excuse for not bearing each other's burdens. saying, well, you're supposed to cast your burden on the Lord. He's the one who will carry your burden. He can do it far better than I can. But I want you to understand, brothers and sisters, that the way that Christ bears our burdens is often through His body. Turn over to 2 Corinthians, chapter 7. 2 Corinthians 7, where we see this truth that often the way Christ bears our burdens is through his body. 2 Corinthians 7, I'll start at verse 5. For even when we came into Macedonia, Our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within. That may be surprising to you. You may have thought the Apostle Paul was above fear. No, he wasn't above it. He had outward affliction that he suffered, and he had inner fear. Verse six, but God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more." So he says here, God comforts the downcast. And he tells us how God comforted him. It was through the body of Christ. It was through Titus. Titus, a brother of Paul, coming to Paul. And not only Titus' presence with Paul, his visit to Paul, but then the report of the affection of the Corinthians for Paul after they had repented of the sin that he had rebuked in them. This was how God comforted Paul through the body of Christ. What Titus did for Paul is something that we long to see as a church grow in. Titus showed up face to face at Paul's doorstep. I heard this week of someone upon reading the email about Xiao's cancer going over to the house and praying in person with Xiao and with Kevin. That's what we're talking about here. Titus showed up. This brother showed up. This is one of the ways that we bear each other's burdens, not simply sending an email, not simply making a phone call. there is oftentimes no substitute for a face-to-face conversation. How can we bear one another's burdens the way the Corinthians did, by expressing your heart? If you have any love within you for your brothers, you have something that you can express verbally to them when they are under the weight verbally to them your concern. You can bear other's burdens by listening to them. How are you gonna get to know their burden if you don't listen to them? And oftentimes, just being able to share a burden with a brother takes a weight off of their back. We can bear burdens by listening to one another. We can bear burdens by weeping with those who weep. We can bear burdens by giving a hug or other physical touches appropriate. Think about Jesus. Many times when he healed a person, he touched them. There's a reason for that. Jesus was full of compassion. And a touch, well, it signified multiple things. It included signifying, communicating compassion to the individual. Certainly we can pray for each other. It's a wonderful way to bear the burdens of others is to take their burden before the Lord in prayer. We can bear the burdens of others by exhorting each other and encouraging each other with God's word. That's one of the main things I seek to do. When I talk with someone in the church who is going through a trial, I seek to include in that conversation some scriptural truths, if not exact verses, seeking to give hope, seeking to show that God loves them, that God cares for them. He's not going to forsake them. To encourage my brother or my sister. We can lift the load. We can bear the burden by exhorting and encouraging with the word of God. Sometimes we can bear the burden of another by giving suggestions to them with sensitivity. However, we need to do so with sensitivity. Sometimes the last thing we want or need when we have a burden is another person giving us their suggestion. It can add to one's burden to have another suggestion given to us. But if done with sensitivity, giving suggestions can be a way of bearing the burden of another. For single parents who have a large responsibility. They are making a living in the daytime. They're caring for their children and all other hours. One of the ways that we can help bear their burden is by getting to know their children. Learning the names of their children. Interacting with their children when they're here on Sunday morning, when they're here on Thursday night. getting to know their children so that they are not the only one who is a Christian who is having an influence upon their children, but the whole body of Christ is having an influence upon their children, bearing that burden together. And on and on we could go, this helping in practical ways. You understand that your brother or your sister They have a lawn to mow, but they're sick in bed. They can't do it. You could say, well, they're going to get better. That lawn will wait. They can do it next week. But we're not called to be skimpy in bearing the burdens of others. Why don't we just take our lawn mower over there and be a blessing to them by mowing their lawn and lift their burden a little bit? providing a meal, providing financially, whatever, practical ways of helping. And on and on we could go of ways that we can bear one another's burdens. Now in bearing one another's burdens, I'm not talking about enabling irresponsible people to continue acting irresponsibly. That wouldn't be good for them. Nor am I talking about affirming sinful behavior or affirming unbiblical thinking. In such a case, we can help bear the burden by pointing one to the truth and encouraging them, exhorting them in being responsible. What I am talking about here is brotherly responsibility. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit would teach us how to bear the burdens of others. You may be praying for the burden, or for a burdened brother or sister, and you may have no clue how you can bear their burden in any way beyond prayer. But pray in your prayers and say, Lord, teach me how to bear this burden beyond praying for them. That's something the Holy Spirit delights to teach you. Understand there is no way that the pastor can do all the burden bearing in a church. There is no way that the elders can do all the burden bearing in a church. Even if our church had deacons, which we do pray for, there would be no way that the elders and the deacons could do all the burden bearing in the church. The instruction in our text is given to all the brothers in the church. Every member has this responsibility of bearing the burdens of their brothers and sisters. When we as Christians bear each other's burdens, we reflect a greater reality. We reflect the truth that Christ bore our much weightier burden of sin and guilt. Isaiah 53 foretold this. Verse 11, He shall bear their iniquities. The New Testament declares that Christ has done so. 1 Peter 2.24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree. Our sins were taken by Christ on His shoulders. Our guilt was taken by Him and He bore it on the cross. He suffered for it there. And so that then, we as the believer, are forgiven. The burden is canceled. It is removed from us because Christ bore it in our place. And so when we bear each other's burdens, we're giving a small picture of this incredible thing that God has done for us. My friend, has the Holy Spirit ever brought you to sense how terribly weighty is your burden of sin and guilt? The longer that you study the Word of God, the more you get to know our holy God The more you see of your sin, the more you see of how far you have fallen short of the glory of God, how rebellious you have been against God down to the core of your being. Rebellious not just in actions, but also in thoughts, in attitudes, in motives, in purposes. My friend, have you been brought under the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Sensing how great is your burden of sin and guilt. Understanding that there's nothing that you can do to atone for your sin. There's nothing you can do to remove your guilt. You can try to drown it, but it won't drown. It's still there in the morning when you wake up. Have you sensed this guilt, this burden, and the weight of it? If you this morning are feeling crushed by the burden of your sin, knowing the judgment that you deserve from a holy God for it, I lovingly implore you to come to Christ this morning, that he may remove from you the burden of your sin. He may cancel your guilt. He may forgive you. eternal life. Oh, come to Jesus this morning. Come to him for salvation. Come to him for forgiveness. Come to him for righteousness and he will forgive you. Jesus said in John 6 37, whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. If Christ has already removed your burden of sin and guilt, you now have the privilege, and it is a privilege, of reflecting what he has done for you in bearing the burdens of your brothers and sisters. And our text tells us something remarkable happens when we as Christians bear the burdens of our brothers. Look in our text, Galatians chapter six, verse two, to see what happens when we do this. bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Before being saved, our great problem was that we could not fulfill the law. Look back at chapter 3, verse 10. Chapter three, verse 10. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Look at verse 22. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. Our great problem we see there is that we could not fulfill the law. We were powerless to do so. Our sin within us made it absolutely impossible. We were in bondage to our own sin. But Jesus Christ has freed us. He's freed us from that burden. And now, as a new creation, with the Holy Spirit dwelling inside, when we follow the Holy Spirit and bearing one of His burdens, we're told that we fulfill the law of Christ. We're in bondage to the law. We could not do its demands. We could not be pleasing to God in any respect through the law because of our own sin. a rebellion, but now we're told, bear one another's burdens, literally in the Greek, and you will fulfill the law of Christ. How could that be? When we were law breakers, when we were in bondage to sin, how is it that now we fulfill the law of Christ? What is the law of Christ? The law of Christ is the law of God in the hands of Christ. Christ took the law and He applied it to the lives of His disciples. The law of Christ is Christ's demands of His disciples. Everyone who believes in Jesus is His disciple, is a learner, and He has demands for how we are to live in obedience to Him. His demands of us are summarized in John 13, 34. a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. And it's so important that he repeats it in John 15, 12, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. This is the summary of the law of Christ. Look at how Christ has loved you and giving himself up and sacrifice for you and love your brothers and sisters in Christ in the same way. Take that same sacrificial love by which you've been saved and love your brothers in the same way. That is the law of Christ summarized. And we're told here that when we bear one another's burdens, we will fulfill the law of Christ. When we receive Christ's love and do for others what Christ has done for us, we fulfill the law of Christ. How did he love us? He loved us by bearing the burden of our sin. And when Christ's love fills our hearts, and we in turn are moved by love to bear the burdens of our brothers, we fulfill the law of Christ. However, there is something that hinders us from our brotherly responsibility. Notice it in our text at verse 3. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. talks about thinking that we are something. He's talking about pride. He's talking about conceit. That was mentioned back in chapter 5, verse 26, when it said, let us not become conceited. He brings it up again. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. He's talking about thinking that you are somebody special. Understand, brothers and sisters, from our text that nothing hinders burden-bearing more than pride. The proud person lives as if he were above bearing the burdens of others. Pride makes one unable to sympathize with others. Pride makes one too self-centered to be self-giving. Pride keeps one from sharing his own burdens and from receiving help from his brothers. So it blocks burden bearing in two ways. First of all, pride keeps you from bearing the burdens of others. And second of all, it keeps you from sharing your brothers and letting your brothers help you carry your own burdens. There's no enemy to burden bearing like pride. It is the worst influence upon us that will keep us from doing what our text tells us to do. The truth is that we are nothing. The text says, if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, we are nothing. We are nothing when we compare ourselves to God, who is the only one that we really should be comparing ourselves to. We tend to compare ourselves to each other. When we do so, we think we're something. God is the one we are to compare ourselves to. And when we compare ourselves to Him, we see that we are nothing. The Apostle Paul saw himself as nothing. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 10, he writes, for the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. For I was not at all inferior to these super apostles, even though I am nothing. We would think Paul was something. I am nothing. He talks about going through insults, weaknesses, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for Christ's sake. He says he's not above these types of suffering. He probably suffered more than anyone we know. I'm not above these things. I'm nothing. Christ Jesus, the eternal son of God, made himself nothing. Turn over to Philippians chapter two, verse five. Philippians two, verse five. Christ made himself nothing in order to bear our sins. Philippians two, verse five. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Christ, the one that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6. He was holy, holy, holy, seated on the throne, high and exalted. This one humbled himself. He veiled his glory. He took on weak human flesh, perishable, corruptible human flesh. And He lived among us with His glory veiled. He became one of us. He became nothing. And He humbled Himself, becoming nothing, in order to bear our sins in His body on the cross. That was the only way. If He had stayed in heaven, He could not have borne our sins. He had to come down in order to bear our sins. He had to make Himself nothing to do so. And when the Son of God has made Himself nothing to bear our sins, what are we doing when we act like we are above bearing the burdens of our brothers? Galatians 6.2 says, we are deceiving ourselves. Look at it again. Galatians 6.3, for if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Understand that burden bearing often requires sacrifice. Burden bearing often requires putting down what we are holding onto. Now we have our thing that we're doing and the phone call rings and we don't want to let go of what we're doing. Bearing one another's burdens requires making sacrifices, giving of our time, rearranging our schedule, changing our plans, giving effort, giving thought. giving of yourself. What will free you to make the sacrifice in order to bear the burdens of your brothers and sisters? What will free you to do so is humbling yourself like Jesus Christ did. Humbling yourself will free you to count others more significant than yourselves. the only attitude in which you will bear the burdens of your brothers and sisters. What we have considered so far, bearing one another's burdens, is our brotherly responsibility. In the family of God, just as in other families, you also have a second type of responsibility, a personal responsibility. And that personal responsibility is given to us in a second instruction in our text. The instruction is test your own work. Test your own work. This is the second fundamental instruction in our text for walking by the Spirit in the body of Christ. Look in Galatians 6 at verse 4. But let each one test his own work. Now do you see how we have moved in the text from brotherly to personal responsibility in the family of God? Verse 2 was bear one another's burdens. Now verse 4, but let each one test his own work. My brotherly responsibility is bearing the burdens of my brothers. My personal responsibility is to test my own work. Now, in a family, every member has work that he or she is responsible to do. For example, in our family, Titus, who's a toddler, has responsibility for feeding himself. Not a toddler anymore, I'd probably say a pre-K. He has a responsibility of feeding himself. We don't feed him anymore. Liliane, his next oldest sibling, also has, on top of the responsibility of feeding herself, has the responsibility of dressing herself, of brushing her teeth, setting the table, cleaning the stove. Our older children have responsibilities that go further, including clearing the table after a meal, of rinsing, drying, and putting away dishes, doing their laundry, caring for their younger siblings to a certain extent. And then my wife Esther. who's home with Zoey right now because Zoey's sick. Esther's responsible for the rest of the laundry, preparing meals, educating our children, directing the cleaning of the house. And I'm responsible for making a living, for leading in family worship, for finances, for the upkeep of the yard, the upkeep of the home, the upkeep of the cars. And so it is in the family of God. Christ has given every member of His family responsibilities. In the family of God, we have a responsibility to bring God glory, to bring Christ, our Savior, glory. We have a responsibility to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. We have a responsibility to use the resources and spiritual gifts which he has entrusted to us in the service of Christ and the service of his kingdom. We all have responsibilities. There is no member of the family of God who does not have Christ-given responsibilities. And that responsibility is referred to, or the carrying out of that responsibility is referred to in verse four as one's own work. But let each one test his own work. The things that we do to fulfill the responsibilities that have been given to us personally by Jesus Christ and his word. And the text says, let each one test his own work in contrast to testing our neighbor's work. We are very good at testing our neighbor's work, aren't we? We test what our neighbor's doing and we complain. Maybe in our hearts, maybe out loud, he didn't love me. She isn't doing her church job right. His sermon was lacking. Or maybe it's the other way around. She's a super Christian. I could never witness as well as he does. We're so good at testing our neighbor's work, whether we see it as bad or good. But understand that your neighbor's work is not the work that you are to be testing. In a family, children tend to test their siblings' work. And what do we call that? Tattletaling. You know, one of your children comes to you, Well, my brother or my sister didn't do their job. Well, when you're coming to tell me that, you're not doing your job. It's very important to teach children that they are responsible to test their own work. If children don't learn that, and they're just always testing what their brothers and sisters are doing, that the family life breaks down. And so it is in the family of God. Burdens, what we saw in the first half of the text, we are to be more concerned with our brother's burdens than our own. But now here with our work, our responsibilities before Christ, we are to be more concerned with testing our own than testing the work of our brothers and sisters. What starts to happen when I become more concerned with my own burdens than my brother's burdens? I start to walk in the flesh. What starts to happen when I become more concerned with testing my brother's work than testing my own work? It's the same. I start to walk in the flesh. But those who walk in the spirit were told, bear one another's burdens while testing their own work. Now how do we do this? How do we test our own work? We're instructed to do it, so we need to know what that means. test our own work, we have to utilize a standard. Anytime something is tested, there's a standard that is being tested against, where the person is being compared against. So we, when we test our own work, we must utilize the correct standard, and the correct standard has just been mentioned in the previous It is the law of Christ. We are to test ourselves according to the law of Christ. Evaluate our living according to His law. This instruction to test our own work presupposes that we will be regularly renewing our mind with scripture, where we learn the mind of Christ, where we learn the law of Christ. and where we have the motivation laid out for us for walking in obedience to Jesus Christ. If we're going to test our work, we have to know the standard. To know the standard, we have to be renewing our mind with scripture on a regular basis. And this testing of our own work has to be done prayerfully, because we tend to deceive ourselves. Hebrews says sin is deceptive. We are to pray like David did in Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. I encourage you to do something that I find very beneficial. In the time that you've set aside to read the word on your own, Before opening the Word, pray and ask God to search you, to show you if there's anything recently that has shown up in your life that has not been pleasing to Him, that you might confess it to Him and receive His fatherly forgiveness. And let your mind course back over the events of the last day and see if the Spirit brings to your mind anything in that period that you need to confess to Him Testing our own work is something that is done regularly. Now, what will be the result of testing our own work? Look at verse four again. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. Now it's important to know that the second half of verse four and verse five are written in the future tense. Let's notice that. Verse four, but let each one test his own work, that's right now in the present, and then, that's future, then his reason to boast will be, future, will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will, that's in the future, each will have to bear his own load. When is it that each believer will bear his own load? It will be on that future day, when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ. The thought of verses four and five seems to be this. Boasting in your neighbor's work will do you no good at the judgment seat of Christ, for each will have to bear his own load. What will matter on that final day will be your own work, not the work of your brothers. So on this side of eternity, test your own work. If I'm interpreting these verses correctly, that's the gist of verses four and five. Now, without understanding the flow of thought in this text, verse 5 can sound contradictory to verse 2. Verse 5 says each will have to bear his own load. Verse 5, bear one another's burdens. But we have seen that two distinct ideas are in mind. And the words that are used are fitting. Verse 2, bear one another's burdens. That word burden in the original language refers to a heavy load, an oppressive weight. Bear one another's burdens. Verse 5, each will have to bear his own load. That word load comes from a common term in the original language for a man's pack, a soldier's knapsack, or a pilgrim's backpack. Our brotherly responsibility is to join our brothers in bearing these heavy, overwhelming burdens. And then, with our own personal responsibility, on the day that we stand before Christ, we're not gonna be evaluated according to what our brothers did. We're gonna have to bear our own pack, bear our own load. We will be responsible for what God has entrusted to us. So test your own work now, not your brother's. Now, if we test ourselves honestly, the personal responsibility of testing our own work will keep us on task. Think about it in the family. You have to ask your children sometimes, how are you doing at this job that I gave you to do? Oh, I forgot about it. Get back on task. Certainly, testing yourself like this serves to keep you on task, but it goes beyond that. Testing your own work leads to the humility that we saw earlier is necessary for bearing one another's burdens. In one of Jesus' parables, he gives an example of someone who tested his own work in the way that is described here. Think about in the parable that Jesus told about two men praying in the temple, the prayer of the tax collector. Luke 18.13, the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He didn't look at what the guy next to him was doing. He looked at God alone. And he saw that he fell short. He said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That is the humble attitude necessary for bearing one another's burdens. But when we are busy testing the work of others, we lose sight of our true standard, the standard that keeps us humble. When we are busy testing the work of others, we make our brothers into the standard for testing our own selves. Think about the second person in that parable, Luke 18, 11. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. What do we do? Unlike the Pharisee, we're just casting the work of others and comparing ourselves against them. We're making others the standard for ourselves. When we do that, we only look down on others. We will use this to exalt ourself and to put them down, and then we will consider their burdens to be beneath us, and we will not bear their burdens. Testing our own work does not mean we ignore sin in our brothers. Verse 1 in our chapter said, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Testing our own work does not mean we turn a blind eye to the sin of others. But testing our own work does mean living each moment with the awareness that on the final day when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, it is our own load for which we'll have to give an account. Paul spoke of that final day in Romans 14, 10-12. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand. He's talking about all believers. We will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Each and every Christian will be called to give an account to Jesus Christ on that final day. So we're to test our own work now. Well, having considered this morning in our text both our brotherly responsibility and our individual responsibility, we have a better idea of what it is to walk by the Spirit in the family of God. What we have read here is the Christian life in a nutshell. Now there is an unbalanced teaching out there in some churches that say the Christian must be radical in the sense of going as a missionary to unreached people groups, or moving into the ghetto, or taking the gospel to prostitutes and drug dealers. It is true that the Christian life is radical, but not necessarily in the sense that I just described. The Christian life is radical in that instead of living for ourselves, the Christian lives for the glory of God. That's our personal responsibility. And the Christian life is radical in that instead of living for ourselves as we used to, the Christian now lives for the good of his brothers, the brotherly responsibility that we studied today. That is radical. to be converted from living for self to living to God and living for the good of your brothers and sisters in Christ. That is radical. But at the same time, it is rather ordinary, isn't it? The Christian life is not so much about rejoicing at reaching a tribe of headhunters as it is about weeping with the brother who is sitting across the aisle from you over his grown child's unbelief. The Christian life is not so much about searching out gang members to witness to as getting to know the children sitting in the pew in front of you whose mother is praying that they will have godly father figures. The Christian life is not so much about visiting the orphans in an AIDS hospice on the other side of the world as it is visiting a brother in our congregation who was not able to make it to church today. Now I'm not seeking to minimize the goodness of the works that people see as radical. None of the works that I described am I seeking to deprecate or minimize. They're all good works. But what I want you to see is that our text tells us that the Spirit is leading us to a ministry that is right before our eyes. If you just look around this moment, you will see your ministry right here. You may wonder, what is God's will for your life? Maybe you think His will for you might be to scale the Himalayas with a backpack full of Bibles and give them out. That might be God's will for you, but I cannot tell you if that is His will for you or not. It's certainly a good thing. But there is one thing that I can tell you with absolute certainty is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. It's what our text tells every Christian to do, to bear the burdens of one another and to test your own work. Each week, Pastor Joe LoSardo and I will share comments with each other on the text that the other is planning to preach. On Sunday, this time they came to me by email, I found these words to get at the point of this passage so well. So I'm just gonna read to you what Joe LoSardo said about our text. I think this ought to be the mindset of the average Christian life. To live for Christ means that we should be seeking to bear the burdens of others. God puts weaker Christians who are burdened with hardship into his church in order to provoke all of us to love and share in that brother or sister's burden. If all were strong in the body, there would be no opportunity for displaying such compassion. This is where the church gets to shine. Burden-bearing ought not be the exception, but the rule in Christ's church. Let us pray. Oh, Lord, we thank you that you have borne the burden of our sin and guilt. We ask you now by your Spirit to empower us and teach us to live out this text in your family. For your glory we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.