Amen. All right. Well, before we begin, let me just adjust real quick and mention and drop my water. And, uh, mention a couple things. Uh, I sent out an email regarding our camp this year. Uh, I do have registration forms. I passed out a couple. I didn't get a chance to give one to everyone, but hopefully you have the details via email. Uh, but if you need a registration form, you can see me afterwards and I have several, so I can make those available. All right. out of the way so that I don't forget. And with that we'll go ahead and begin. I'll ask you to grab your Bibles and let's turn to the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians is where we're going to be. In the book of Galatians you can turn to chapter 6. Galatians is right before the book of Ephesians. It's a letter by the Apostle Paul. Some think it was his first letter. There's some debate about that. Galatians chapter 6. And we're going to read just one verse together, and I think we'll read it all together in unison. So Galatians chapter 6 and verse 2 we'll have a word of prayer and then we will begin. So let's read Galatians chapter 6 verse 2 together with me. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Let's pray. Father we love You. We thank You for the day. And Lord as we gather here tonight we are asking for Your blessing upon Your Word, and upon Your people here. Lord may You use this time together to strengthen, and encourage, and help us. Lord as we look at this passage today I do pray Lord that You would just help us to bear one another's burdens, Lord, here in our church family. And Father, I just pray that you would help us to learn from it tonight, and that you would help us to, Lord, that your spirit would work in our hearts this evening. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, as we begin, just gonna lay the groundwork for you. There's a couple parts to this sermon, and it's almost two outlines. It's kinda how it ended up playing out. The title of the message tonight is Bearing Burdens. Bearing Burdens is what we're going to speak on. And we're gonna split it up basically into two parts. The first portion of it is going to talk about the who. The who, in terms of bearing burdens, whose burdens should we be bearing? The second part of it is a little bit more practical and where we go into the how, how we are to bear burdens. So we'll walk right into it and by way of introduction, as you look at this passage, it is in the book of Galatians. We're going to bring our attention to the topic of burdens. And this book of Galatians, I want you to understand that this book was very much corrective. It wasn't like the book of Corinthians that is correcting conduct. If you read through Corinthians, you find there's a lot of issues and actions that the Apostle Paul is addressing and correcting and pointing the Corinthians in the right direction. But this is not so much that as much as it is correcting doctrine. So when you look at Galatians, the historians have characterized the Galatians as a very fickle people. There was a historical quote, some attribute to Caesar, that says that the Galatians were fickle in their resolves, fond of change, and not to be trusted. And we find that you somewhat see this a little bit illustrated in the book of Acts. When Paul travels into, Paul and Barnabas travel into Asia Minor, that area that's today modern day Turkey, that area there had several cities that were part of Galatia. So there was Iconium, if you remember reading about the city of Iconium, or Derbe. You see those cities in the book of Acts, and especially in chapter 14, you see some of this illustrated because if you recall, Paul and Barnabas enter into a city and they begin teaching and preaching and helping those people out. Initially, there's a little bit of hesitation from the people and then they so much as lifted them up and started worshiping them because if you recall, they were calling Barnabas Jupiter and they were calling Paul Mercurius or Mercury because he was the chief messenger and so there's this this wonderful upheaval of praise for Paul and Barnabas, and towards the end of the chapter, they're ready to stone him and run him out of the city. And so you see this occur in the book of Galatians, excuse me, in the book of Acts about the Galatians. The main issue in this book is that the Galatians had been influenced by what are called Judaizers. And Judaizers, when you see that term, what that means is that there were people that were trying to institute or burden Christians by making them stay in line with what the law of Moses said. That was in essence what a Judaizer was. And so, Paul is fighting back against this teaching that they had to follow the law of Moses. And it's in this book that we find the matter or a verse that talks about, as we know very much, that the just will live by faith. There's a verse in the book of Galatians, I believe it's in chapter 3, that alludes to that. So there's this false teaching that Paul is correcting and making sure that the Galatians are aware. And if you recall there is another passage in there where Paul is talking to the Galatians and he said, who tripped you up? Who is it that caused you to stumble? Who is confusing the doctrine that you've been taught already? And he's pointing them into the way of the Scriptures and away from the Law of Moses. And And as you go on in the book of Galatians, especially as you look at Galatians 5, we find the marks of a carnal person, or the works of the flesh. You see that in chapter 5. And then you see the fruit of a true believer in what we know as the fruit of the Spirit. That is the end of Galatians chapter 5. And right after that, we move into chapter six, where it brings this right front and center for us, this discussion about fulfilling the law of Christ. So what Paul is in essence saying is, okay, you want a law, you're being confused about this law of Moses, people are burdening you with the law of Moses, and so if you want a law, here's your law, fulfill the law of Christ. people what they believe the Law of Christ is, is one that is familiar to us, it is in the book of Matthew. If you Galatians are going to follow the Law you are going to follow the Law of Christ, which as we know in Matthew 22 Jesus is communicating and there was a man that came to Him and He said this in 22-36, I'll read it for you. He says, Master, which is the great commandment in the Law? And Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So the law of Christ, many understand that to be love God and love your fellow man. And one of the ways that we fulfill that, we see here in verse two of chapter six in Galatians, how do we do that? How do we fulfill the law of Christ? By bearing burdens. By bearing ye one another's burdens. So I'll tell you that this thought was very much impressed upon me as I think about the many people in our church who are carrying burdens. There are significant burdens, There are different kinds of burdens that even we're gonna talk about some of the different ones that you see. But there's a lot of burdens. There's several things that people are carrying. And you know, it's one of those things that even in our testimony time, there's, you know, Miss Trudy has a burden for her sons. And Jacob has a burden for his mom. And we all have a burden for his mom. And those are just two that we've talked about a little bit tonight. But everyone has previously carried a burden, maybe in silence, but we all know what it's like to carry these burdens. And the Bible tells us here that we're supposed to bear ye one another's burdens. That word there, burden, signifies or illustrates a weight something that is heavy, something that is heavy to bear. And as I thought about this, I've thought about this recently quite a bit, understand and we've heard even in testimonies from this morning and even going back to Anniversary Sunday, as a church family, I do hope that we can help one another by carrying each other's burdens. So, the first part is who, who are we going to, whose burdens should we be carrying? We're going to find these first four. We need to bear burdens with the sinner. this burden, I want to see it from two perspectives. The first is the lost sinner. As a Christian, we see the problems that are in the world. We see people that are depressed. We see people that are harming themselves. We see people that are hurting. And those things have an effect on us. You would be pretty apathetic or, pretty dead inside if those things did not weigh on you or burden you with the things that people are dealing with around us. But understand that this we see the burden, and especially for the lost, we see the burden of sin that they are under, and I want you to understand that in this sense, we cannot rescue them from that burden. That is not a burden that you or I can carry. That is not a burden that we would be able to take from an individual. That lost person that has the burden of sin, we cannot remove it from them. but we can point them to the one who can. The pity that we feel towards the loss, and again, if you look around at these things, there should be a certain pity that we have towards people that are lost in their sin. That pity should drive us to be a witness. How can we bear that burden? How can we do that? It's by pointing them to Christ. But the main context of this specific passage is the backslidden sinner. When we bear burdens with the sinner, understanding that the scripture here, that first verse in chapter six says, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fall, ye which are spiritual, restore such in one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Our goal If we are to bear that burden with that backslidden sinner, our goal should be restoration. This is very much a problem in our culture today. Because if you mess up and you offend someone, there's no forgiveness. There's no room for repentance. There's no room for restoration. If you offend somebody and they're ready to come after you, there's no room. They don't want to hear anything about forgiving you or restoring you or in any way, shape or form, they're completely writing you off. And that's a problem. And we as Christians, especially as believers, should not adopt that mentality. We should not push people away to the point that we're saying, there's no hope for you. There's no place for you. Now, we can't tell people that there's no coming back from their sin. It's just not biblical. Now, this does not mean that we condone sin, or ignore sin, or pretend as if it didn't happen. But the biblical approach is to restore. In this sense, when we're bearing burdens with the sinner, this is what spiritual people do to restore in the spirit of meekness. And we do that by pointing them to the path of restoration. There may be someone that perhaps is backslidden. And in our interactions with those people, we ought to be helping and pointing them and directing them into the way, into the path of restoration, into the path where they're seeking God's forgiveness, where they're making right the wrongs that they've done. And that is how we bear burdens with the sinner. But we also need to bear burdens with the sick. Each of these next three are gonna have an example where we see Christ fulfill this bearing of burdens illustrated by these people. The first one we see by Jesus when there was a woman with the issue of blood. And if you remember the story, there was a man whose daughter, his name was Jairus, and his daughter was very sick to the point of death. And so they had made their way to Jesus to get his attention, to get him to come see Jairus' daughter. And as they were making their way to his daughter, there was just a multitude of people that were going along the way. And if you recall, Jesus was there, and there was people all around him. All his disciples were around. And there was this woman with an issue of blood who had seen all the doctors. She'd spent all she had. She had had this for many years. And in her thought, in her mind, she thought, if I just but touch the hem of his garment, I would be healed. And she made her way through the throng of people to reach out and to touch this person that she had heard so much about and this person that she believed could heal her. And she reached out and touched. And in this throng, Jesus said, who touched me? and his disciples are looking at him and saying, Jesus, there's people all over. I mean, we're running into each other. There's this multitude of people. How are you going to say who touched me? And so there's this time that Jesus took to bear this burden with this sick lady. We bear burdens with those who are sick. He took time for them. At times, especially now when many times we're in good health, we don't think of the people that are sick. We take health for granted. And in days gone by, our life expectancy is so much more than it was even 100 years ago. But there's burdens that people who are sick carry. And it's heavy. And it's difficult. And to put so much that we don't know what's going on, the majority of us don't have all that much medical expertise. And we maybe have some thoughts about what might be healthy and not. But we're not doctors, except for Dr. K. Dr. K is a doctor. But the majority of us don't have that expertise. But we put that trust in a doctor, and that can be a heavy burden. And there's sometimes where even the experts were in one of the best areas for medical care in the world. And sometimes even the doctors don't know. And these are burdens. And we need to bear these burdens with the sick. We'll get to a little bit. and the second part of this as to how, but the next person that we're gonna, that we bear burdens with are the struggling. In the book of Mark, Jesus goes and speaks to a man who was struggling. Many, if you look in your Bible, would call him the maniac of Gadara. He was a man that would make his way into the tombs and lived among, in the cemetery. He was troubled. He was struggling spiritually. And Jesus went to him and helped him. And there are people with needs spiritual needs, financial needs, emotional needs. We have this idea of the people that are struggling. That word just gives us the idea that there's a wrestling and a toil and a challenge, a difficulty. There's people around us who are in the thick of it, in a fight, struggling in many different ways. And it's our responsibility to bear burdens with them. The last person that we're gonna see is, that we're to bear burdens with is the suffering. You see this in the book of John, John chapter 11, where Jesus came to two sisters who just lost their brother. Their brother had died and they were suffering. to the point where their emotions have gotten the best of them, where they were, in a way, blaming Jesus. Jesus, if you would have been here. And they were suffering. And we are to bear burdens with these people who are suffering. We see these examples. We see the people, and each of these categories, We can probably think of names of people that we know, names of people in our church that are dealing with these burdens. And it's our responsibility to bear these burdens together with them. Now, I believe this is one of our responsibilities as a church family. So how are we to bear these burdens? I think a lot of times we feel that bearing a burden is taking it away from somebody. And I think that's a misunderstanding. As I was preparing for this, I was reading different things and different commentaries on these matters, and it's tough. It's really hard to understand and to think of a way, how can I bear these burdens with my brethren, with my sister, with my brother in Christ? How can I bear these burdens? And I think the best way that I could capture it in a way that maybe would make sense is it's not that we need to take that burden from someone else. It's not that we need to carry it. Especially as a man, that's kind of the image and the thought that we get. We think if I'm gonna bear this burden, I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna carry it. I'm gonna grab this and I'm gonna take it. But bearing the burden is not necessarily that because there's just some burdens that we cannot take. But how can we bear burdens? I believe the best way is to lighten the load. And if we look at that, and if we consider that, and ask ourselves that, how can I, with my brethren, how can I, with these different people that we see, how can I lighten the load with that burden? That's really what it's gonna come down to. So, by way of illustration, I need a volunteer. Anderson, you want to volunteer? Come on, man. I don't normally do these illustrations, but Anderson, here's your burden. All right? And Anderson has a burden, and he can probably carry it okay. And is it heavy? No? All right. Not yet. He's good. All right. And we hear that a lot. All right. How are you doing? I'm good. And many times we're carrying a burden. But Anderson's got pretty good control of this burden. All right. He's doing OK. But you know what? The burden gets heavy. And let's say he... he has a physical problem that he's dealing with. And then, that physical problem makes him have a financial problem. And with all those finances, he has to go to work extra, and he doesn't have time to pray or read his Bible, so he starts to have spiritual problems, and the burden gets heavy. And it gets heavy. And he's still saying, I can carry it. Can you carry it like this? Probably not. But can we carry it like this? Why don't you get that side? All right. Make sure they don't fall. That's OK. Oh, there you go. Is that better? Yeah. Is that lighter? Yeah. Is it lighter to lighter load? Yeah, we can rip it, too. We can rip it. Yeah. We just lost the burden. Amen. And so, thank you, Anderson. Of course. We lighten the load. And those burdens get heavy. But how can we lighten the load? I'll give you these four things. The first way we can lighten the load is by paying attention. All right. Lucas, come here. Lucas, have a burden. And turn and face everyone, if you would, please, son. And when we have these burdens, we can add to them. And his burdens are piling on. And he can probably handle it for some time. But the problem is, this is me. And I'm doing this. And I'm doing this. And I'm doing this. And I don't see his burden. And many times, we're doing this. and we don't see their burdens. And if we would just pay attention to the burdens around us, we don't know what people are carrying because we're not paying attention. Thank you, son. The first thing that we need to do to lighten the load is to pay attention. Pay attention to your brethren. What are the burdens that they're carrying? And sometimes we see people and we look at them and we look them face to face and they can smile and they can look at us and say, you know what? Yes, things are, I'm good. Things are all right. I've had a great week. But there's people that are carrying burdens. And there's a lot of people that are carrying burdens and we don't see it. The next way we're to bear burdens is by praying. There's two parts to this. We do a good job of praying for those that are burdened. I would encourage you, if you're paying attention, and if you see someone bearing a burden, pray with them. And the problem is that we don't, and I'm the same way, and I've been trying to think about this as well, I don't like sharing my burdens with people. Mainly because I don't feel they're that heavy. There's a lot of people that are dealing with other things, and there's so many blessings that I have, and I can praise the Lord for these things. Praise the Lord, even, you know, if I were to die tomorrow, I've had a wonderful life. But the problem is that we don't share, we have a hard time sharing these burdens with people. And so I encourage you, church family, as you see a person that's burdened, pray with them. Yes, at home you're praying for all the people in the church and the different things that they're dealing with, but pray with them. Take some time, even on a phone call. There's some times where I'm visiting with someone, where I'm talking with someone, and they're just sharing their heart. And sometimes I just put it aside because I feel like I'm in a hurry. And there are other times where I feel the Holy Spirit impress, this person's burdened. You should pray with them. And so we take time and we stop. And I say, hey, can I pray with you? And to this day, no one's ever said no. Pray with them. We bear burdens by praying. The next one, we bear burdens by presence. Take time with the burdened. Sometimes it's just necessary to be available. All you need to do is just spend some time with them or reach out, just be present. Just give someone opportunity to talk. Bear that burden with them just by being present, just by being there. And lastly, bear burdens by partnering. We see this where, by the man born of four, that these men took it upon themselves, took responsibility to bring their incapable friend, to Jesus. And they didn't just give up because they couldn't get to him. They took matters into their own hands. They went up into the roof and they dug out the roof. All that because they wanted to come alongside. They wanted to help. They wanted to partner with that person in the burden. And there's many different ways that we can do that. But just grabbing that weight with them and saying, hey, I'm here for you. Let's carry this together. Now, here's the thing. In the illustration with the burden, again, if there's people that are very much like me, you'll keep it to yourself and you'll bear it and you'll hold it. And you know what? Maybe you'll get through it. A lot of times you will. But what happens when you exert so much of your energy carrying your own burden is that you lose strength. You get weak. And you may not find the opportunity or even have the opportunity or strength to help someone else with a burden. Just because I wanted to carry it myself. And so when we look at this idea that we're supposed to bear burdens with one another, there's so many, like I said, people that we can think of. And I just want to encourage you, church family, there's many times that we walk by each other, passing to and fro. And right now is the time where we just got a few things going on in different ministries. We're here, we have some time. Don't be afraid to lighten someone's load. And there's different ways that you're gonna find to do that. I can't, think of every single way. That's just not how I'm wired. It just comes up in the moment where young men, there's one of the ladies that are walking out carrying their bags and their instruments and a bunch of stuff in their hand. And if you're just sitting there goofing off, shame on you. Not even get the door. And that's just something that's visual that we can see. So much more than the burdens that people carry on the inside. And so I share that with you because, again, every one of us has a burden. And that we've either dealt with or are currently dealing with. And we've talked over the last few weeks about how amazing it is to have a church family and the love and the care that we have as a church family. And I'm not trying to point out anything where anyone is deficient or anything like that, but understand that when there's a need, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as a church family, we should step into that. We should step up. Lighten the load. And it's not just something that's, you know, this week, it's something that's a lifestyle, that think about helping people, think about helping your church family, because that is what we're responsible to do. When you think about Christ, Christ bore the burdens of all of our sin, and he took that for us. And in that same way, that is a way that you can be like Christ to your fellow brother or sister in Christ. Jesus took that burden, and you can be that burden bearer in the same way by ministering to your brother and sister in Christ. And so as we wrap up, I want to encourage you just how can we lighten the load? How can we lighten the load of someone that you know is carrying a burden? Why don't we stand together and we'll have a word of prayer. And I'm just going to ask you and invite you to Think about someone right now that you know is carrying a burden. And we could all be tempted right now to think about it and say, how this matters to me, and say, oh, yes, we should be bearing burdens. This is the burden that I want Pastor Gus to carry. That's not the approach that we need to take. Look at yourself, what burden can I help carry today? As you pray tonight, I want you to think about a person that maybe you know that God is burdening you about, that God has said this person is carrying a burden. And if anyone wants to, while the music plays, you can come up, you can pray for that person, pray for how God can use you to lighten that load. Let's pray. Father, we love you. We thank you for the day, Lord. We're going to have this time of invitation. And Lord, I just pray that our church family, that we would be a people that are bearing one another's burdens. And Lord, that we would do so together, that we would be able to point people to you and helping each other to stick to it in this challenging time. But Father, there's so many needs, Lord, and they're countless. people in our church family that we know are dealing with different things. Father, Lord, I just pray that you would help us, help us to rally around one another, to be a strength to one another, and Lord, to point people to you, and we'll thank you for it. Lord, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. As the pianist plays, you can have your eyes closed and your heads bowed, and if you would like to come pray for someone, please do so, please come. You're welcome to do that. We'll have some time as the piano plays. Yeah. Amen. If I could have your attention, please. Thank you so much. for coming. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your prayers and your support and for your church family. And we will, I think we've had prayer. So if there's nothing else, then you can be dismissed and don't forget. And we're going to have some time here. Ladies are going to be praying for pastor as he is unwell, but be in prayer for your church family. Thanks so much.