Hi, my name is Jeff Redding. I'm a preaching elder here at Walton Community Church in Monroe, Georgia. Before we begin the sermon, our church would like to invite you to join us as we gather every Sunday morning for worship at 10 a.m. You can learn more about our church on our website at waltoncommunitychurch.org. Thanks for listening. All right, good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you on this Lord's Day. Eden, your baptism was such an encouragement to me personally, I know to our entire church. You know that the Lord loves you, but know that your church loves you as well, okay? As Marcus mentioned, today is Palm Sunday. Just the significance of that is a day where Christians literally all over the world celebrate Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem. We just read about that. Debbie and I had the opportunity of some travel the past couple of weeks, and we saw signs and posters everywhere we went that announced Easter was soon approaching. Easter is considered the holiest day of the year for Christians all over the world. This day, Palm Sunday, is the official start of Holy Week and leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning later this week. But Jesus arrival in Jerusalem on this Palm Sunday marked the beginning of the final events that would lead to his crucifixion, death and resurrection. Let's be thankful. Let's just be thankful today and praise God for sending his son to earth on our behalf and for all the events that have so many eternal consequences that we're gonna remember that took place this coming week. And even though today is Palm Sunday, I would just like to continue our study in the book of Galatians. This will be the 12th sermon in this series and Lord willing, we'll begin the last chapter of this book today, chapter six. We are almost at the finish line with this letter by the apostle Paul. So praise the Lord for that. God has taught us so many wonderful things going through this book of the Bible. I'm so thankful. When we got to Galatians 5, I said that we were in the penultimate chapter, meaning the second to the last chapter. Well, today we are in the penultimate sermon. Only one more sermon to go in this series, after today. So we're going verse by verse through this letter as I'm asked to fill in in the preaching rotation. And I'm so thankful to preach God's word whenever he provides me the opportunity. Galatians has been called the Christian's declaration of independence or the Magna Carta of Christian liberty. And as a quick review, We learn that the power of the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, he enables us as Christians to enjoy freedom from bondage to the law. In other words, freedom from legalism and freedom from the power of sin. That is, we have freedom from sin's ability to condemn us. And because of God's grace in us, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, sin can no longer have complete dominion over us. And now God has placed us in a position of liberty. Galatians is Paul's manifesto of justification by faith alone and the resulting liberty. Paul directs this so-called charter of Christian freedom to a people who are willing to give up the priceless liberty they possess in Christ. At this time, the oppressive theology of the Judaizers, these Jewish legalizers who found their way into the Galatian churches had been causing the believers in these churches to trade their freedom in Christ for bondage to the law. The Judaizers said the Gentile Christians had to follow all the Mosaic laws in order to be truly saved. So Paul writes this forceful epistle or letter to do away with the false gospel of works and demonstrate the superiority of justification by faith alone, being made right with God by faith and not by works. So please open your Bibles now to chapter six of Galatians and you can follow along with me either from your Bibles or from the screen as I read verses one through five. 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. 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 word. Let's pray before we go any further. Heavenly Father, I just praise you and thank you for the truths found in this book of your word. We have learned that we are saved by your grace alone and not by any works. We saw that we are not called children of God and Paul emphasized that there is spiritual freedom in you. Father, you have freely given us your son, Jesus, who has freely paid our debts, and Holy Spirit, you have freely changed our heart of stone to a heart of flesh. And the mighty triune God that you are, you have graced us with salvation. Meet us here in this place now. Give me the words to say, to proclaim your word rightly. Use this time for your glory today. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. So once again, Tim Keller's book, Galatians for You, has really helped me in my understanding of this book of the New Testament. So I wanna give credit where credit is due as we look at these verses together today. In these five short verses that I read, we see a lot of practical principles for relating to others in the church. So these verses are mainly applicable within the context of the church and can be summarized in just a few sentences. First, the gospel creates a whole new self-image in us that is not based on comparisons with others. Rather than comparing ourselves to others, we should look only to our own responsibility and to take what we have, what God has given us, and who we are, and offer it to God as a sacrifice of gratitude for what Christ has done for us. And second, we restore brothers and sisters caught in transgressions, yes, but we also keep watch on ourselves as well. So that's a quick summary of these five verses. Now let's break this down even further. Let's look at verse one together. 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. The gospel does a lot of amazing things, but here at the very start of verse one, Paul's words confirm that the gospel makes us brothers and sisters in Christ. When you see the word brothers here today in these verses, you can automatically add sisters as well. And brothers and sisters in Christ are able to encourage one another in their lives. We need to continue to be big time encouragers of one another here at WCC. If one of our brothers or sisters is caught in sin, caught in a transgression, a normal human reaction would probably be to maybe look down on them, possibly be harsh with them because we might be mad at them. Because it makes us feel just a little bit more righteous when we see someone else's problems, doesn't it? There's almost a conceited, superiority in the sin remaining in us when we see another brother or sister caught in a sin. Pointing out someone else's sin in our human reaction would probably be just to show how good we look by comparison. But the gospel totally undermines that thought process. The gospel enables us to live as brothers. And so what is a Christian brother or sister who knows they are an adopted son of God to do in this type of situation? Well, Paul says here in verse one that we're not to just ignore a situation like that when we see a brother caught in a sin. But this doesn't mean we are to confront anyone we see sinning in any way that we want either. First Peter 4.8 says this, love covers a multitude of sins. If you remember in my last sermon, it's been a while now, but true gospel Christianity is a dynamic of love. We are not to be quick to criticize and tell people about their faults, but we must not overlook someone caught in sin or overtaken by sin. Only the Lord knows if this could indicate that the sinful behavior is a pattern and a particular sin has in a sense gotten the upper hand with this person. It could be a habit of sinful behavior that the person might not be able to overcome without help and without outside intervention. Christians need to be neither quick to criticize nor afraid to confront. It's a delicate but important balance. We also need to accept our responsibility as spirit filled brothers and sisters to help. Paul is speaking here to, he says, you who are spiritual, that is to those who live by the spirit. And that is genuine, ordinary Christians. He's not referring to some super elite, spiritual group, he's saying to ordinary Christians, if you follow the desires of the Holy Spirit, you will do this. This responsibility belongs to anyone who's trying to live a Christian life at all. And what is our aim in confronting a brother or sister caught in sin? What does the finish line look like? To restore him gently. Tim Keller points out that the Greek word for restore here was a term used for setting a dislocated bone back into place. A dislocated bone is extremely painful because it isn't in its designed natural relationship to the other parts of the body. To put a bone back in place will inevitably inflict pain, but is a healing pain. It means we are to confront even when that confrontation will be painful, but our confronting must be to prompt a change of life and a change of heart. And that's what repentance is, isn't it? True repentance begins with a change of mind and an inner acknowledgement from the heart that one has gone astray, and is fulfilled in outward obedience as we seek, however imperfectly, to live according to God's word. And that should be our ultimate goal for our brother or sister, repentance and restoration. Praise the Lord if that can happen. But a true brother will confront gently Gentleness is one of the fruit of the spirit that we talked about last time. And as we are being sanctified, we should see fruit growing in our spiritual walk, however slowly. The definition of gentleness was this, showing a great deal of humility towards others, not being self-absorbed. And there's an aspect of kindness as well. Paul says this gentleness will only come if you watch yourself or you may be tempted. This is difficult but practical advice. We won't be able to confront someone properly if we think we are not capable of similar or equal sin. The fact is we are all dealing with sin until we die or Christ returns, whichever comes first. But if we do feel we are better than the person who's struggling, they will probably see right through our air of superiority and we will probably destroy and not restore. The idea of restoring a brother or sister with gentleness means that our goal should be to encourage our brother or sister to repent and to allow for the restoration of any broken fellowship, especially within the body of Christ that may have occurred. You know, just the idea of talking about these verses and acknowledging sin in a believer's life is something that many churches have gotten away from. I'm so thankful that even from the pulpit, we not only acknowledge sin and the harm it can do, But we're also studying how we can fight against sin during our discussion times in our small groups this season. I hope everyone will get a chance to read the book, Mortification of Sin by John Owen sometime during the small group season. That is amazing to me that we are doing a study like this church wide, and I'm so thankful that we take sin seriously and are not afraid to speak of it. All right, let's move on to verse two. Bear one another's burdens. There's a lot in just those four words. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Confronting someone caught in a sin is just one way to bear one another's burden. And there are many other ways to bear one another's burden. But here in verse two, Paul is trying to get across the idea of just being other-centered rather than self-centered. And that is only made possible with the Holy Spirit changing us and sanctifying us. So brothers and sisters in Christ will bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. The law of Christ mentioned here with some Great insight that I read from Tim Keller is referring to what Paul said in chapter five, verse 14 of this book. Turn back one chapter. Let's look at this verse again. Chapter five, verse 14. For the whole law, the whole law of Christ is fulfilled with one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that's actually seven words, but we know what Paul means. The whole law is fulfilled with this one overarching thought. The law of Christ can be summed up as love your neighbor. It's called the law of Christ because Christ is the ultimate example of this kind of love. We are to love others as Christ love us, as it says in John 13, 34. It is in Christ's life and death that becomes the ultimate embodiment of what this love should be. When we look at his life and his attitude and all of his dealings, we have a breathtaking model of the kind of life we should live. Christ loved us so much that he bore our sins on the cross. He bore the penalty meant for us, turned aside God's judgment, God's wrath from us, and he canceled sin. He restores the brokenness of our lives. He rebuilds shattered relationships. The new life that we find in Christ is granted to us out of the sheer grace of God. It is received by faith, not by works, as we repent of our sins and turn to Jesus. We confess him as Lord and bow to him joyfully. The gospel is truly good news, church, the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. Thank you, Eden, for giving us a visual of that today. You know, we say here at WCC that we read scripture, we preach scripture, we pray scripture, we sing scripture, and we see scripture during our worship services. Well, through Eden's baptism, we saw scripture. Through both baptism and the Lord's Supper, which we'll take here later on today, we see visible words of scripture on display. Visible words that we not only see, but words that we also smell, touch, and taste. One day God will make all things new. The good news culminates in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, where neither sin nor any of its effects can survive, and where we enjoy the presence of God forever. And we announce this good news to people everywhere, telling them to be reconciled to God by repenting of your sins, asking God for his mercy, and just trusting in Jesus Christ. That's how much God loves us. He gave us his only son so that we can be saved. May this be the day of salvation for someone here today. If God has been speaking to you recently or is speaking to you today and you need to talk with someone after the service, please come see me or any of the other elders or deacons before you leave today. But God giving us his son is what we will remember during this coming week's Good Friday service. I hope you plan to be here on Friday evening at 7.15 p.m. for our very special Tenebrae service. Again, Tenebrae is Latin for darkness. And if you've never attended a Tenebrae service here at WCC before, it will add a whole new dimension to your Easter weekend. It's a solemn remembrance of the sufferings and death of Christ. So if we put, and you see the slide here, if we put verses 6-2 and 5-14 alongside each other, 6-2 says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. 5-14 says, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. It shows us in fulfilling the law of Christ, that to love your neighbor means to bear one another's burdens. This makes this idea or concept of love applicable to us. And as we're told not to let people carry their burdens alone. These burdens that Paul mentions here in verse two can be a big responsibility that's really weighing on us, like possibly raising a child or having to sell a home. But most of the time, these burdens can be a real difficulty or a big trial in a person's life, like a financial stress or depression and anxiety or marriage problems, or health problems, or the death of a loved one. By characterizing these real hard difficulties of life as burdens, Paul very vividly and practically teaches how a Christian should relate to other Christians. We can't help with a burden unless we come very close to the burdened person. It should be like virtually standing in their shoes and putting our own strength under the burden so its weight is distributed on both of us, lightening the load of the other. So to make that happen, a Christian must listen carefully to a brother or a sister and try to understand them. They must be physically, emotionally, and spiritually that they need to take up some of the burden with the other person. In saying we should bear one another's burdens, Paul is probably trying to take one more swipe at the Judaizers, these false teachers who are trying to get the Galatians to come under the law of Moses as a means of salvation. These requirements had been described as a yoke A yoke is a wooden collar placed around an animal so the owner can control it while doing work. But Paul is telling the Galatians that rather than placing themselves under the burden, under the yoke of law fulfillment, they should be lifting burdens off others. And that ultimately is the way to love your neighbor and fulfill the law. The law of Christ means modeling our whole life on the example of Christ, motivated by grateful joy. It is a life centered on a person, the person of Christ, rather than a bunch of laws. We have a different kind of obligation on us than we did before we were saved. Now we bear others' burdens because Christ bore ours. Verse two could be summed up as this. bear others' burdens, and by doing this, follow in the footsteps of Christ who bore yours. We have many opportunities here at WCC that we try to provide for us as a church family to help bear one another's burdens. I hope you take advantage of these as we learn more about each other and we learn more about each other's needs and burdens. This happens during Sunday school prayer times, or during our fellowship time after each Sunday morning service as we interact with each other, or during small groups, or women's Bible studies, or men's prayer times, or in delivering meals through our meal ministry, or probably the most effective opportunity is just spending time with people in our church by inviting them over for a meal and speaking one-on-one with them and just hanging out together. I've seen firsthand that type of grassroots fellowship make a huge difference in someone's life and is a very effective way to bear one another's burdens. So please take advantage of as many of those opportunities that you can. All right, let's move on to verse three. If anyone thinks he is something, When he is nothing, he deceives himself. We will not be able to bear each other's burdens, though, unless we have a proper gospel-based self-view. These next three verses, verses 3, 4, and 5, are an interesting discussion on humility and pride. If we make the mistake mentioned here in verse 3, we won't be able to do the burden bearing that we talked about in verse two. So if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, they will be too self-important to have a servant's heart. They will be too self-important to look around and even notice the burdens of others, let alone help them with those burdens. And this is a fairly stern warning, and we should not trivialize Paul's statement that we are nothing. Of course, a Christian is filled with hope and confidence, but it's not because of us. It's because of Christ. That is where our great hope and confidence come from, through Christ. We need to rely on that hope and confidence daily. But as Jesus himself said in John 15, 5, Apart from me, you can do nothing. It takes Christ-centered humility to bear the burdens of others. All right, let's go on to verse four. But let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. Paul seems to be saying that there is a legitimate pride in oneself. that a Christian can have. Now this is a totally different pride than a conceited feeling of superiority. The words pride and boasting have such a negative connotation in our culture. But if a person truly and rightfully examines themselves, or as Paul says here, tests his own work, and they find evidence in their life that they are a child of God, then they can, with the right heart attitude, boast in themselves. And as some Bible translations say, they will have cause for rejoicing. That translation of the word for boasting seems easier for us to grasp in our culture. If after testing ourselves, we find evidence that we are a child of God, praise the Lord, we do have cause for rejoicing. we can find many different scenarios where we can test ourselves. Some are good, some are not so good. On one hand, we may not be a truly loving person, but if we surround ourselves with selfish people and then test ourselves, well, we'll have a great pride in ourselves if we compare ourselves to those around us in that situation and not seek to grow more in love. And on the other hand, we may be fooling living up to our God-given capacities, but if we surround ourselves with very gifted people and then test ourselves, we'll be greatly discouraged and not appreciate how God has made us and what he has given us. Instead, Paul says we should just test our own actions. This means we are to assess our own opportunities and gifts that God has given us and to what our responses are to those gifts. We should measure ourselves in a sense against ourselves and not others. Comparing ourselves to others can really be detrimental to us. Here's a quote I came across on making comparisons to others from a Christian author. It says here, we were created with intention. The flaws we see in our bodies, in our personalities, in our abilities, they are not flaws to God. If we continually compare ourselves to the people around us, we miss the opportunity to build others up and bring glory to God in what we can do. Therefore, comparison is at its core selfish and prideful because it takes the focus of God and others and keeps it on ourselves." But testing or examining ourselves against ourselves is probably a good thing to do. In fact, we should examine ourselves just before we come to the Lord's table each and every Sunday. As 1 Corinthians 11 says, and we read these verses a lot, almost every Sunday before we take the Lord's supper here at WCC. 1 Corinthians 11 says this, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself. then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup for of anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. We need to examine ourselves and confess any sin before coming to the table. There's even a warning here in these verses about eating and drinking judgment on ourselves if we don't come to the table with the right heart attitude. But always remember that the table is not for perfect people by any means. The Lord's table is for repentant sinners. So just use the time before you get up for the Lord's supper each week, maybe during the prayer before we serve the meal, and just confess any sins that you might not have confessed during our corporate confession time, repent and make it right with God. And just a few other thoughts about the Lord's Supper since we're gonna be taking it together here in a few minutes. Scripture encourages us as we examine ourselves to look in a number of directions with eyes of faith as we share the Lord's Supper together. I just wanna mention four of them. First, we are to look back with gratitude to Jesus and his death on the cross. Second, we are to look around at the body of believers with whom we share the supper. It's something we do as we come together and discern the body of Christ as we eat. It's significant that we share this meal as a church community and don't do this individually in our homes. Sharing the bread together is an encouragement and is the sign of our fundamental unity in Christ. Third, we should look up to heaven where the risen and ascended Christ intercedes for us as our great high priest. Jesus is our great high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Remember Jeff's discussion over several sermons of Melchizedek in Hebrews. And finally, fourth, we should look forward to the day when Jesus will return. The celebration of the supper serves as a proclamation of Jesus' death, which anticipates his return. Jesus himself, when he instituted the supper, aided in anticipation of the future. God's salvation plan has long been associated with the promise of a great banquet. We see references to this banquet in Isaiah and in Revelation. Isaiah 25.6, Revelation 19.9 specifically. The Lord's Supper serves as a foretaste of that great banquet in heaven, the marriage supper of the Lamb, even as it reminds us of the only basis for our hope for participating in it, and that is our faith in Jesus Christ. We can come to the Lord's table properly only because of Jesus. So please prayerfully think about these things as you come to the Lord's table in a little while. Look back, look around, look up and look forward. All right, and we get to our final verse for today, verse five. For each will have to bear his own load. Well, back in verse two, Paul says, we are to bear one another's burdens. But here in verse five, he says, each will have to bear his own load. It seems like that's a contradiction, but it really isn't one at all. The reason being is because load is not the same as burdens. As Tim Keller points out, the Greek word translated as burdens means a heavy weight. But the different Greek word translated as load refers to a kind of lighter, Backpack. Verse five means that God has given each of us a different set of lighter daily difficulties and opportunities, a different set of daily weaknesses and gifts. They are our circumstances and just things you deal with being you. We are therefore not to compare ourselves with others. Instead, we must look at our particular tests and duties and respond to them obediently. If we see life in this way, we'll judge our life each day against who we have been and who we could have been. When we see progress, we could take a legitimate pride in it, not whether or not we are better or worse than someone else. We will not compare ourselves with someone who has done less than us and feel a conceited pride or compare ourselves to someone who has done more than us and feel a conceited despair or envy. Both of those comparisons are wrong. God has given everyone a different load, a different backpack to carry and to serve him with. Our task is to carry our individual load, not someone else's. in a way that pleases God. If we see life this way, we'll be slow to judge others. We'll be more nonjudgmental and generous. So we are not to compare ourselves to others, but we are to humbly, lovingly, and gently to help others with their tasks and problems and with all of their burdens. And quoting John Stott, to end the sermon today. I think these are good words for us to hear today about sharing burdens. And keep in mind, our translation of the word load is backpack. This is from John Stott. There is one burden that we cannot share. And that is our responsibility to God on the day of judgment. On that day, you cannot carry my backpack, and I cannot carry yours, amen. Let's pray. Father, help us to grow to love you more. Help us to grow in the fruit of the spirit, to change our hearts and minds to be more like Jesus. Help us to be a church here at WCC that stays true to your word. We are saved only by your grace. May this be the day of salvation for someone here. Meet us in a special way now as we come to your table. You are mighty and glorious and we praise you in Jesus' name, amen.