When I meet one of my sons at the bus stop after school, one of the first things he says to me is if I can carry his backpack for him. Now, the walk from the bus stop to our house isn't very long, but that backpack, let me tell you, is heavy. In fact, I'm surprised when he has it on he doesn't topple backwards, because that's how heavy it is. And so, of course, I'm happy to carry his backpack for him as we walk back to our house. I'm happy to bear his burden. And that's exactly what we are to do for one another. Paul says in verse two, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Now, burden refers to anything that makes life difficult. Specifically, it is anything that makes living for Christ difficult. It could be a sin. And in fact, this will be the example Paul gives in verse 1. But a burden could also be an illness that makes life hard, or family trouble, or anything that makes living for Christ difficult. Anything that weighs us down as we run the race set before us is a burden that we have to bear. Now the fact that Paul says here, one another, implies of course that we're all going to be afflicted with burdens. No one will be immune. No Christian is going to sail through this life with no sin problems, no trials, no tribulations. And even though Christ has promised us a future when he will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, the fact still remains that in the present we will shed tears We will experience pain and we will die. We will all sin and be sinned against. We will have our own demons to fight, our own obstacles to overcome, our own problems to solve. Now, to be sure, our burdens won't all be the same. And for some of us, our burdens are gonna be heavier than those of others. But the fact is that we will all be weighed down from time to time as we run our race to glory. And so what Jesus wants us to do is to help one another, to bear one another's burdens. The story is told of a horse that refused to help the donkey who carried all of the burdens. Eventually, the donkey, because of the weight he had to bear, drops dead. And then the horse had to carry the full load himself. You see, we don't want to be that horse or that donkey. If we have no one to help, then the burden might be too great to bear, and we may not make it. And if we refuse to help, then a day might come when we have to bear our own load, and nobody will be there to help us. You see, that's not how it's to be among the people of God, in the house of God. We are to love one another as we love ourselves. In fact, we are to love one another as Jesus has loved us. And that means we're going to help one another and bear one another's burdens. Now, how might we do that? Practically speaking, what does that even look like? Well, of course, the answer will depend upon the kind of burden the person is experiencing. But help might include something like prayer, or financial help, a word of encouragement, a word of instruction, the use of our talents, our skills, and time. It might be a visit, a letter, an email, phone call, a hug, things of that nature. The practical example, though, that Paul gives is that of helping somebody, a brother or sister, who has fallen into sin. So verse one, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. So in this verse, Paul pictures or paints sin as a predator that chases and catches us. So think of a line that's pursuing you. Maybe you don't even know what's coming after you, but all of a sudden it catches up to you and pounces on you. And now you are in the clutches of sin. Now we're captured, we're entangled and ensnared in our sin. Sin is getting the better of us. Perhaps it's destroying our own life, our family's life, our job, our relationships, what have you. So, for an example, think of somebody who has slowly but surely stopped going to church and following the Lord Jesus. Think of somebody who's gambling all their money away, or somebody who's drinking their life away. Think of someone who's living in sexual sin. Think of a marriage that's falling apart at the seams. Sin has entangled them, and they have this burden that they are bearing. See, these are real and tangible burdens that Christians sometimes have to bear, and they weigh them down. They make following Jesus difficult. So what are we to do when we see that happening to a brother or sister in the church? What are we to do? Who is to help? And how are they to help? Well, Paul says in terms of what we are to do, he says we are to restore the brother who has been caught in a transgression. Now, that word restore was used to refer to mending fishnets, or to rebuild walls, or to reset broken bones. It's to fix what is broken so it's like it's new again. And so to restore a sinning Christian will involve talking to that person about their sin, encouraging and helping him to forsake it, to repent of it, and then encouraging and helping him to walk again in obedience to the Lord. So if we're going to restore then, that means we're gonna have to get involved in each other's personal lives. To get involved in each other's business, if you will. Now, we mustn't go around looking for sin or go around telling people how to live or micromanage their lives or sticking our nose where it does not belong. But if we do see a brother, And do note we're talking about brothers here, Christian brothers and sisters, not unbelievers, but fellow church members, fellow Christ followers. If we see a brother caught, ensnared in a sin, weighed down by it, living in it, then we need to go and help the brother out. Now we might find that awkward and uncomfortable. We might think that if we get involved, they're going to get mad at us for interfering and getting up all in their business. We might think, well, that's their problem, not mine. They need to deal with it. We might think that, well, we don't want to be judgmental. We don't want to be nosy, busybodies. Hey, I'm a sinner too, so what can I say? I mean, we can come up with a thousand excuses to do absolutely nothing and let that Christian brother or sister carry that burden by themselves. But you see, we are a family, and certainly family needs to get involved. Family intervenes when there's a major issue going on. Family helps even when it might be hard to do so, or even when we know that the help may not be appreciated. And so Paul says we are to restore. Notice he doesn't say we are to punish, upbraid, or throw the brother out. Now, obviously, if you commit a crime, then the state might come and punish you. But it's not our job to punish. Our job is to help and restore. If you gamble your life savings away, the world might look down upon you and call you every name in the book for destroying your family and their finances. But that is not what we are to do. Our job is to help and restore. If you go on a drug bender, or if you're caught abusing your spouse, you might be canceled by the world, and your spouse might biblically divorce you. But that's not what we are to do. Our job is to help and restore. But who exactly is to do that? Well, Paul says that those who are spiritual should restore a sinning brother. Now, spiritual refers to a person who has the spirit. And so it refers to every believer. Paul is not saying that only some Christians have the obligation to help, only the elders or the deacons, or only a specially trained and elite type of Christian. He says every Christian has the duty to restore because they were all spiritual. After all, every Christian has the Spirit dwelling in them. Every Christian has the Spirit producing the fruit of the Spirit in them. So there is a sense in which every Christian has the obligation to help restore a sinning brother. But having said that, by using the term spiritual, Paul may be making the point that only Christians who are walking in the spirit, keeping in step with the spirit, as he talked about earlier, are the ones who should restore. I say this because in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 Paul does distinguish between spiritual and carnal Christians. Now by making that statement he's not saying that there are two types of Christians, those who have the spirit and those who don't. No, there's only one type of spirit. He uses that phrase because The Corinthians were acting carnally by being sectarian and divisive. He's calling them carnal because he is rebuking them and even perhaps scolding them for the way they were acting. They were not being spiritual, in other words. They were not walking in the spirit through their sectarianism and divisiveness. And so if a Christian is living in sin or acting carnally, then he shouldn't be the one to restore. He himself needs to repent, and then he'll be in a position to help a brother out. And so pastors, elders, professional counselors are not the only ones God calls upon to help those who are caught in a transgression. Now, this is not to say, of course, that we can't call upon experts or refer one another to an expert. I mean, for some situations, we will definitely want to do that sort of thing. But we don't always have to do that. And even if we do do that, we can certainly continue to come alongside that person and pray with them and be with them, help them in any way that we can. And certainly, as spirit-filled Christians, we are more than competent to comfort and assist one another. Well, how are we to restore? Well, Paul says that we are to do so in a spirit of gentleness. Not harsh, not in anger, but with gentleness. At the end of chapter five, Paul warns us not to become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. If we are conceited, if we are puffed up full of ourselves, then we will end up despising other people, especially those who have fallen into sin. We will look down upon them in a spirit of superiority. We will be like the Pharisee who looks over at the tax collector and says, man, I thank God I'm not like that terrible sinner over there. And if that is our attitude, if we are proud, then we may not even extend a helping hand. But if we do, then we will be condescending and harsh, and instead of helping, we might end up hurting and making matters worse. We might discourage them, or we might even, as it were, push them further into their sin, provoking them, if you will. Also, if we are envy, envious of others and we look upon them and we wish we had their status or position or wealth or role or whatever the case might be, when we do see them fall into sin, we might even experience a perverse sense of joy. We'll be glad that they have fallen because it takes them down a notch or two and closer to where we are. And again, if that is our attitude, we may not even extend a helping hand because we want them to wallow a little longer in their sin and its consequences. And if we do actually try to address their situation when we're filled with envy, again, it's not going to be with gentleness. No, to restore well, we need to be humble, kind, meek, gentle. We need to be spiritual, bearing forth the fruit of the spirit. This is why Paul says at the end of verse one, keep watch on yourself, lest you be tempted. You know, if you try to help somebody who's drowning, you have to be very careful yourself, because if you just jump in and try to help them, they might latch onto you and bring you down, so you both drown. So you have to be very careful, you have to watch out for yourself so that you don't drown too. And in the same way, we need to be on our guard when we help our brother who is drowning in his sin. We might be tempted to join him in his sin, or to sin in some other way. I have heard several stories, and perhaps you've heard them too, of counselors who have ended up sinning with their counselees. But the temptation that Paul has primarily in mind here is probably that of pride and self-righteousness. To think that we are better than the other person. And haughtiness, arrogance, pride, whatever you call it, those are terrible sins. And whether you realize it or not, they will color what you say, how you say it, and how you come across and how you act. And we need to be on our guard against pride. And if you don't think that's the case, then remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Or what Proverbs 16 says in verse 18. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Now the very fact that Paul tells us that we need to be on our guard lest we be tempted reminds us, of course, that we ourselves are sinners and that the roles could be reversed here. And in fact, one day they probably will be. We will need help because we have stumbled or fallen. We all need grace and mercy. And of course, being reminded of that, knowing that, should instill in us the humility and the gentleness that we need to be able to help restore someone. But if we insist on thinking too highly of ourselves, Paul has some words for us in verse three, where he says, for if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. You'll consider again the Pharisee in Jesus's parable. I mean, he thought he was something. In fact, a lot of people thought he was something. He was a family man, went to church, a leader in the church. He was an outstanding, upstanding citizen. He didn't commit any major sins, certainly didn't commit any crimes. Now, without discounting, Any of the good that he had done, it was still true, of course, that a Pharisee was a sinner. And he wasn't nearly as good as he thought he was. In fact, Jesus had to rebuke them on many occasions for the way they treated people. Jesus directed, in fact, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to Pharisees because they trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Those two always seem to go together. If you're proud, soft, righteous, arrogant, you're gonna look down on people and treat them with contempt. And so there was the Pharisee who thought he was better than everybody else, as it were, breaking the second greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself. Instead of loving his neighbor, he was despising them and treating them with contempt. Now Paul, of course, was the Pharisee's Pharisee. When he looked into the mirror, he saw greatness. He saw someone better than all of his peers. He wasn't just better than the Pharisee and the sinner. That's too easy. Paul was better than all the other Pharisees. He surpassed them all. But he was self-deceived. He too despised other people. He hated his enemies and persecuted them. even had them killed. And he did it all in the name of God. And so he took God's name in vain, and he led others to blaspheme God by his wicked actions. Now, the reason we think too highly of ourselves, like the Pharisee, is because we end up judging ourselves by the wrong standard. As I think everybody knows, if you want to feel good about yourself, make yourself look good, the best way to do that is to compare yourself to other people, and especially compare yourself to people who have fallen into a public transgression. And if a brother is caught in a sin, and instead of looking at him in compassion, instead of knowing that we could have fallen too, what we see then is someone who is not us, someone who is less than us, and we stand, and we begin to stand up straight and stick our chest out. You see, we judge ourselves by comparing ourselves to other people. And if we compare ourselves to people who struggle with sins that we don't struggle with, well, that can really make us feel good and think that we are better than we really are. And when that happens, we need to remember what Paul says in verses four and five. But let each one test his own work, then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. You see, here we see it's actually good to examine yourself on occasion. But you see, when you examine yourself and you look at what you do, You need to look at yourself and your work as it really is, and not as it compares with certain other people. In other words, you need to judge yourself according to God's commandments, his word, and not according to how your neighbor acts or doesn't act. Because at the end of the day, indeed at the judgment, the work's not gonna be graded on a curve, but it's gonna be graded on its own terms. That's what Paul means, for each will have to bear his own load. God's not gonna look at you and say, well, you were better than this other person, so man, you've done great. He's going, everybody on the day of judgment will have to bear their own load. And of course, when we judge ourselves in light of God's word, then we won't be puffed up, but have a right understanding of ourselves. We will see where we have fallen, where we have done much better, done well. And of course, since God's law itself calls us to be gentle, to be meek, then when we are not, we will realize that we too, just like our brother, need mercy and grace. And that, again, should encourage us and instill in us the gentleness and meekness that we need and the humility that we need to be able to truly help one another. Well, Jesus came into the world to carry our burdens so that we might be saved from our sins. Not only from the guilt of our sins, but also from a life of sin. Which is to say that Christ came to bear our burdens so that we might bear one another's burdens. And when we do that, Paul says, we fulfill the law of Christ. We keep the law that Christ gave to Moses, which is summarized in this, love your neighbor as yourself. And it's in Christ that we are able to love one another as he has loved us, because we have the spirit of Christ working in us and enabling us to bear one another's burdens.