Lord, we thank You for the opportunity to be together this morning. Lord, we pray that as we study Your Word that You would teach this to us in such a way that we would learn, Lord, that we would learn more who You are and what You've done through Christ in us. We thank you for this letter to the Galatians. Lord, we pray that its message would come home strong to us. Because the blessings that you've given us in Christ that are revealed here, Lord, are far beyond anything that we could ever have imagined. Lord, if you had just told us, here are some rules, obey them. God, we might have understood that, though we would have been unable to do it. But you did far more than that. You forgave us of our sins and gave us new life. And through the Spirit, Lord, you live through us in order to glorify yourself. These are mysteries that are too deep for us, and yet we thank you for them. And we pray that you would be glorified through our study this morning. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. If you would turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5, and we're going to begin with the very last verse. actually probably the one before it. Galatians 5 25 If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Six one. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in the 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." We may get further than that, but I doubt it. We'll see. Last week, going back to the end of Chapter 5, we talked about living by the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit. And we said that it wasn't about following a bunch of rules. We had studied the fruit of the Spirit beforehand. But it was about walking with Christ in relationship. And as we participated in that as we leaned into that that the spirit itself through our knowledge of the word. and in prayer and in self-sacrifice that we would actually be able to do the will of God because we would be right there with him as he guided us in their spirit. Now we need to remember that the book of Galatians was written to a group of people who had had false teaching come in and the false teaching was look yes you can believe in Jesus if you want to but what you need to understand is is that that doesn't make a really good Christian what makes a really good Christian is is here are some rules Here are some things that you have to do and you must follow them. You must do these things. You must be circumcised. You must keep the festivals. You have to do all the Jewish rites, the ceremonial things, all of those things, and then you get to be a real Christian. Paul's protest to that is, no, that's not it at all. But we now live by the gospel, and we studied the fruit of the Spirit. And as we now come into the latter part of chapter 5 and verse 6, it's going to get very practical in terms of what those fruits look like. And as we look at practically what it comes out like, we first of all need to see that we are talking about relationships with other people, and particularly those relationships within local bodies of believers. It's not that these things don't apply outside of that, but they will apply here first. If they don't happen here first, they're not going to happen outside of here. And if they did, how convoluted and lopsided would that be, right? And I've met people like that who, oh yes, I'm a great witness for the Lord, I talk to everybody about the Lord, but I have no good kind of good relationship with the local body of believers. At that point, my question is, then what exactly are you pointing those people toward? Right? Well, they would say, well, I'm pointing them toward Jesus. Well, this is the local part of his church in La Luz that he died for. This is the group of people that he chooses to get glory out of. So he's all about the church. The apostles were all about the church. This letter is to Galatians churches, a group of local churches. All of Paul's letters were to these local churches. That's not on accident. That's on purpose. And with some people's attitude about the local church, it strikes me that they would have missed, if they had lived during that time, they would have missed the letter. They wouldn't have gotten it because of the way the local church is viewed. So these verses are about the fruit of the Spirit coming out in our relationships, one with another. In verse 26, we begin to see the opposite of what living in step with the Spirit looks like. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. And when you think of conceited, what do you think of? When someone is conceited, what does that look like? I'll never met and conceded people. It's all about me that's right. Somebody who's head is too big to get through the door. That whole thing. A very proud person who is really proud of their accomplishments and is always bragging or boasting all of the time. Someone who is constantly drawing attention to themselves, perhaps. Those are all good definitions, and they're part of it, but they fall a little bit short. So let me try to help with this. Conceit, though it looks like in the people that you deal with, they think very well of themselves. Some of them do. Some of them actually don't think very well of themselves. The idea being this. They don't feel like they measure up. They don't feel either as they look at themselves as they compare themselves to other people or when they are comparing themselves to other people and feeling that they're doing pretty good in comparison to those other people or not as good. But it's all about a comparison thing is how well am I doing in this thing that we call Christianity and what it becomes is a game. And the issue is whether we're winning the game or losing the game. And both of those are conceit. And both of those feed right into our study of Galatians where we're not able to look at other people around us. And we're not able to look at the list of rules and determine that we're doing a bang up job being a Christian or not so. swell of a job being a Christian, based on how well we follow the rules, because we know that we are saved by faith. Right? It's grace. That's the issue. And we are always in the position of being those people who are helpless. We can't rescue ourselves, and we need a rescuer. We're always in that position. And we never get away from that. We're always needing a rescuer. And you can say, well, I was rescued at some point in time. Well, I hope that's true. I hope you were. But the reality is that you still need rescuing now, today. This is about gospel living. That's what this is about. And so when we say, don't be conceited, Paul is saying, don't provoke one another and don't envy one another. I had some help from a guy named John Stott on this. We look at provoking one another and envying one another, and we think, well, that's just starting fights and having envy, and that's certainly part of it, but it's more than that. Provoking one another, in this context, is this. It's a type of conceit that we are commanded against. And what it means is, I'm comparing myself with those around me, and I feel like I'm doing better than they are. I'm winning. That's the deal. And so therefore, I can look down my nose at someone else who I don't think is doing as well as I am in this Christianity game, and I can say, you're not doing as well as I am, I feel pretty good about myself, and let me look down on you. This is the type of conceit in which we provoke one another. Don't do that. That's what this is saying. Don't be conceited like this. And the other kind is the envying. The envying is the other side. I'm losing the game, right? All of those other people I feel like have gifts and have advantages that I don't have, and so therefore when I look at them, I'm filled with envy. And I begin to make excuses about why it is that I'm not like they are. And I envy them. And that's a type of conceit as well. Here's why. Like Ken said, It's all about focusing on me, how well I'm doing, with whatever preconceived set of rules or set of people that I want to compare myself to. That's the issue. That's always the issue. And it always brings conceit. And we cannot walk in the Spirit as long as there's conceit there. We're not going to be able to do the things in the following verses either. So, we're going to come back to this thought in some of the other verses, but let me put it another way. The type of conceit that's being talked about here is either a superiority complex, where I'm better, or at least at this time I'm better, or it's an inferiority complex, I'm not good enough. Now let's comment on the I'm not good enough thing, because I think that has more to do with where some of us can be sometimes. There is a real biblical sense in which it's right to say, I'm not good enough, right? But there is also a sick twisting of that that's self-focused. Because the issue has never been, nor will it ever be, in terms of what our salvation and what God does in us, the issue has never been what my performance is. Yes, God changes my life and there's evidence of that. But it's all of him and not of me. So when I am looking at folks and I'm having the superiority problem, I need to preach the gospel to myself. And when I'm preaching the gospel to myself, the issue there is it doesn't matter what you think of yourself. That doesn't have anything to do with anything. What matters is what the scriptures say about who Christ has made me. And we'll study that as we go along and we'll think about that. But the other side is the inferiority side. I'm not good enough. It can be a false humility. And I need to preach the gospel to myself in that context as well. But when I preach the gospel to myself in that context what I'm saying there is it doesn't matter what everybody else thinks about me. You understand, right? One of them is that I'm trying to puff myself up by what I think about me. The other is I want to puff myself up because of what others think about me, and I want to feel better about myself. C.S. Lewis said that humility is not thinking about yourself less. thinking less about yourself, however you want to put that. It's not thinking about yourself at all. That's the issue. And that is the only way that as we look at these fruits of the Spirit coming out on us and then these practical things that follow, this is the only way in which we're going to be able to walk in these things. because we're so prone to want to look around us. Now, we should also acknowledge this provoking and envying, this superiority and inferiority, there's another side to that. And we can be a mix sometimes, right? And usually, usually the mix works like this. It depends on whom around. Right? Depends on who I'm around. If I'm around the quote spiritual elite folks that are supposedly doing real well then I have an inferiority complex which produces envy if I'm not walking by the spirit and therefore I'm conceited in that way. But if, on the other hand, I'm dealing with folks that are struggling quite a bit and have a lot of outward sin in their lives and those kind of things, then I come into contact with my superiority at that point in time and I look down on those folks and I'm provoking them and telling them that they need to do better and there is this whole sense of competition that goes on in that. And that's dangerous. There is no competition, right? There is no competition amongst us. Now, I think that as we go through life and we might play a game or something like that, that there may be a sense in which there is a healthy form of competition where it's fun and those kinds of things. I think we have to be careful with that, but I think it's okay. But when we're talking about our position in the body of Christ, and our position in Christ, there cannot be competition. There cannot be that envying, because it leads to conceit all of the time. And if you don't think that these things are real, you're fooling yourself. It happens all the time, and particularly in churches. It happens all the time. Inferiority and superiority, and what happens is conceit, always. Well, when we have that down a little bit and we get into 6.1, what we have is, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in the spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. We're going to keep this one in context. I think it can be used in other ways, but we're going to keep it in this context of conceit. So we'll study this verse this way. First of all, we need to understand what sort of sin this is, so that we're not hyper-judgmental zealots who go around stabbing people who don't need to be stabbed. Brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, What that says is not that when I see someone doing something wrong in a moment, that it is necessary for me to jump on top of that and remove that thing from them. That's not primarily what's being talked about here. The idea of being caught in transgression gives us the idea of a pattern. So what we're seeing is that we have a brother or a sister who is caught in a pattern of sin of some kind. It's a pattern. And we see it recurring over and over and over again. And our job then is going to be to reach in and deal with it. Now, in the dealing with it, this verse is very applicable to what we talk about when we talk about church discipline. If you don't know about that, I'm not going to do a full teaching on it now. But what you need to understand is that we, as the members of a local body, watch out and care for one another. That's what we do. And so, as we do that, we're going to be accomplishing this, one with another. And this job is just not for leadership, but this job is for everybody. And the idea is not that we go around looking at tertiary issues that I think are wrong but are not necessarily clear, and so therefore I want you to be like me because I'm conceited again, so therefore I can come into that and say, look, you need to do this. That's not it. But if there is a scriptural pattern of a problem, and it continues and continues, then we've got to come into that, and we've got to deal with it. Now, one more thing before we go on with this verse, which is, you are not going to know whether or not something is a pattern in one of your brothers' and sisters' lives if you have no knowledge of their lives. That's just the issue, right? I mean, if you don't have any right to come into somebody's life and to see this thing from afar off, not even knowing how they're living, what the Lord's doing with them, their struggles, their triumphs, all of those kinds of things, you don't have a right to just dance in there and start mucking around. The underlying thing here is that we know each other well enough so that when there is this falling in to this pattern of sin, when someone is caught, a brother or sister is caught in this pattern, that we know them well enough that we can deal with that. So it says, you who are spiritual, talking about these people, you who are spiritual should restore him. You who are spiritual, what does that mean? Because none of us like, we shouldn't anyway, in one sense, like to describe ourselves as being spiritual. You know, that has the air of that superiority thing again. But we should use scriptural terms. And so therefore, think about your own life and think about the people that you know and the people that are walking with Christ, even in this local body. And think about the people who you would prefer to come to you if you were caught in a transgression and deal with that. and not the people that you would prefer based on their personality, but on their walk with Christ. And I think, as you think about those people, who you would think have the right to do that, both because of their walk with Christ, and their Christ exhibiting these fruit of the Spirit through them, and also their relationship with you, I think then you'll understand what this means. You who are spiritual. So those who are led by the Spirit, those who are keeping in step with the Spirit, are those who are qualified to engage in helping someone who has fallen into a pattern of sin. Some of you, because I know you, are going to right off the bat say, well that leaves me out. Don't have a false humility and don't think about yourself too much. Because that's conceited. We just talked about that. See, the thing is, we use conceit in the verse above to get out of this stuff that we're supposed to do. Right? That's a lot of what happens. And so the issue is that it's not talking about a perfect life. It's talking about a life that's leaning in a certain direction. leaning toward Christ, leaning toward the things of God, a person who is in the Word of God. Christ is obviously working. It's not a perfect life. But you who are spiritual, right? We don't want somebody off the street dealing with these things. We want somebody that we know. And we want somebody who is walking with the Lord. Someone who is abiding in Christ. Someone who is not conceited. Because a conceited person can't do this. Either the inferior or the superior one can't do this. they will mess it up. And let me just tell you, before we go on with this verse, churches and the religious community are level full of people who have been damaged by non-spiritual people, anti-spiritual people, mucking around in their lives to the point that they have made a great mess of them. And as someone who, at least for now, God has called to be a leader in a church, when you run across those people, they are the hardest in the world to deal with. Because these people who have done these things have used some of the same language that I'm going to use. But their heart and their attitude was wrong. And what they did instead was they hurt people. They didn't help them. There wasn't gentleness there. Now, as we go on, you who are spiritual, I think you understand that. You should restore him or her. You should restore. This Greek word talks about, it's interesting because we're going to get to gentleness in a moment, but this Greek word is the same one that would be used if someone broke a bone and it got out of got out of joint and that bone had to re-reset. Right? So sometimes we think that if I use gentleness, which we're going to get to, then I'm not causing pain. That's not accurate. Any time whether and you mark it down because you guys have had experience with this walking with the Lord any time that God uses a brother or sister uses his word comes in conviction in the spirit about a pattern of sin that you are in any time that happens. There is pain there there must be. Right? Sometimes it's just a little prick and then we get on the right track. And sometimes it's a crushing to where there's just hardly anything left before I could get back where I need to be. There is pain there. So when we're talking about gentleness, we're not the kind of people who, again, are conceited and want people to love us so much that we won't tell them the truth. In the same way that we're not the kind of people who crush people because we think it's fun. Neither one of those things are true. Both are conceded. So when we restore them, we have to put that bone back in the joint. And the spirit that we have is gentleness. So a temptation for us to be is to find a brother or sister who would run across somebody who is caught in a transgression in a pattern. And we may even from the scripture know what the solution to that issue is. and our attitude is as well I'm going to go ahead and apply the scripture to this and I'm going to yank them back into shape and they're going to get what they deserve because of what they did. You don't have any business doing this if that's your attitude and if you catch yourself there I'm going to encourage you back out of whatever personal situation that you're in and repent, because you can do no help for anyone when you're there. You can do no help. We know it's going to help, but it's for their good, and more than that, it's for God's glory. And yes, it is going to hurt, but it's the spirit of gentleness, because we recognize that we have been in the same place countless times and will be again. And so if I'm going to engage in helping someone, I may need to be firm. But I don't need to be any more firm than is necessary. And this is why I have to keep in step with the Spirit, so that I know. Some people require a lot less firmness. Some people require gentleness and encouragement. And some people require, I need to get in your face and tell you, but the deal is, One of the measuring sticks for me is that most of the time when you're dealing with people, if this is working right, it feels a little counter to your flesh most of the time. In other words, there's a part of you that God has worked in and regenerated, and so what happens there is that part wants to do these things, but there's another part of you who, in dealing with these folks, would rather be somewhere else. dealing with something else, because it's counter-indicated. So if I get a sick pleasure out of making people miserable by telling them they're not good enough, this is not a job for me. On the other hand, if I am so loving, quote, unquote, and trying to be helpful that I won't tell someone what they need to hear, then I don't have any business doing this either. So we're going to restore someone in the spirit of gentleness. We're warned in the last part of this, keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. I've heard this taken in terms of, well, it depends on what the sin is, and it could be that as I'm trying to deal with someone that maybe I'll get caught in that sin too, and maybe there's some justification for that interpretation, but here's a better one. We've been talking about conceit, and I think that it is in the context of conceit that we're talking about this, and so the reality is When I'm dealing with someone we would like to tie everything up in a nice neat package and say we're going to do an intervention and the intervention is going to be successful and they're not going to have to mess with it anymore. Here's news for you. People don't work like that. It's rare that we don't have to get involved and we don't have to get dirty when we're dealing with our brothers and sisters. I don't know about you, but the first time somebody tells me something, I have this thing within me that says, Who are you? Tell me anything. And by God's grace, that doesn't come out. But when it does come out, whoever, who may have been walking in the Spirit, trying to deal with me, is going to get a little of that. And the reality then is, if they're walking in the Spirit, are they going to stay with that? Are they going to stay with it? Or are they going to leave it? They're going to leave me, because they don't want to deal with it. we can be tempted to look down on someone with the attitude that I would never do what you are doing. I would never do what you are doing. Let me just give you a hint. Never say that. Never think that. And if you do, get out of that person's life that minute. Go get in your prayer closet. Go get with somebody you can trust to get that dealt with, because you're not going to be any help to anybody. But the other side of that is, again, don't be tempted, lest you too fall into sin. The other side of it is, well, as I form a relationship with this person, I find that I care about them more and more. And that sounds really good. But then I find that I care about them so much that I actually don't want to say something that might hurt their feelings. One is just as bad as the other. And the problem is, in all of that, you are acting in a way that is all about you. And that person is still not helped. And if you're going to enter into this, it's about self-sacrifice. You are entering into this situation because you're trying to help somebody, not because of what you get out of it. Because you may get something out of it in the long run, but in the short run, what you may get is not on your emotional head. That happens sometimes. Well not, but it can, right? So don't be tempted either way. Now what goes along with this is verse 2. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Let's take the end. What is the law of Christ? Love your neighbor as yourself. Thank you. You love your neighbor as yourself. This is the law of Christ. So we are to bear one another's burdens. And so we will talk about that in three ways. We're going to separate them out, though they're all connected. But we'll separate them out this way. These are physical burdens. These are emotional burdens. And these are spiritual burdens. And they can be separated in that way, but each one affects the other, right? So they're not separate. Anytime that you're going to deal with someone, a lot of the times anyway, you're at least going to deal with the emotional and the spiritual. And a lot of times the physical too. Because that's all connected, right? The causal factor starts somewhere, always. Sometimes we think it starts in the physical, sometimes we think it starts in the emotional. I'll give you a hint. It always starts in the spiritual. That's where it always starts. And then we deal with the others based off of that. And the reason it starts in the spiritual is because first and foremost, We live by faith. We preach the gospel to ourselves all of the time. And every waking minute is always a matter of whether or not I'm going to believe it at this point or not. And so therefore, it's always a spiritual thing to start with. You say, well, physical things can kick that off. Yeah, but you and I both know that guys and gals who have experienced very, very difficult physical things often are the ones that are the giants in terms of spirituality. Right. So that can kind of go both ways. Now I want to teach you something, and I'm going to need some help. Bear one another's burdens, these physical, emotional burdens. So I have here a burden. Don't worry, the laundry's clean. I have here a burden, and it's heavy. Tim, come here, I need you. Tim, I want you to help me with this burden. How are you going to do that? It's too heavy for me. Alright, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. So he's got part of it. Alright, a couple of things. Take it. Alright, this is the one thing that you can't do. OK. Nowhere in the scripture does it say it says we are to bear one another's burdens. But who does the burden still belong to. In a real sense it's that person right. I can't take it. He can't take it away from me. He can help me with it but he can't take it away from me. OK. Now let me show you another thing here. You were going to lift it up, right? Okay, but what I need is this. You see this? Okay, reach your other arm around here and grab the bag. There you go. Alright. You see what this looks like? Alright, this is important. Thank you. You can sit down. What I want you to see from that illustration is this. How close was he to me? He's on top of me. It's almost like he's walking in my shoes. You can't help somebody if you're not willing to get that close. Right? And I took a shower this morning, so everything's good. But what if I hadn't? And I'm needing help. And I stink. And not only that, my attitude stinks. And I'm needing help. See? It was somewhat uncomfortable for him to have to come up here. I know him. So it was somewhat uncomfortable for him to have to come up here and do this illustration in front of you guys just because of the crowd and all that stuff. But let me tell you this. It gets uncomfortable with stinky, hard to get along with people to come alongside and do that stuff, right? And you have to get that close in order to be helpful. If you don't, you're not doing this. So bearing one another's burdens has to do with, first of all, getting close enough to know what they are. praying, being strong in the Word, Kiki meaning step with the Spirit, so that I can see what those burdens are and what the best thing I can do in order to be helpful. And sometimes I didn't call somebody else. Tim is helping me, but this looks like a one-on-one thing. The scripture doesn't indicate it's one-on-one. It can be. Maybe what I needed was, is I needed Garrett on the other side. Maybe this thing is staggering me and Tim, both of us. And Garrett comes on the other side and lets me put my arm around his shoulder and helps me with this thing. Right? That's what it looks like. Proximity is important. If you're going to love your neighbor as yourself, which is the law of Christ, in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you have to be close to him. So it is in the church. You have to be close to him. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't say that this is a swipe. This verse is a swipe that Paul is taking against those Judaizers who say, if you want to be saved, if you want to be a good Christian, follow these rules. look a certain way, do these things, and you will be a better Christian. Paul takes a swipe at that and says, y'all don't talk about law, let me tell you about law. This is the law of Christ. This is gospel living. This is what it looks like. And you Galatians are missing it. Don't miss it. Don't miss it. Okay. The other piece of it is too is that Sometimes, so I need to help some of you with this and then we'll work toward the end of this. Sometimes we can get the attitude, the conceited attitude that the reality is, well, nobody's doing that for me. I'm not going to do that for anybody else either. You kind of missed the point there, right? You have to enter into these relationships. But again, it's not what you can get out of it. If you're waiting for someone to come along and bear this bad burden that you think that you have and you're angry because someone doesn't, leave other people alone. And come and express that and we'll deal with it. But don't go there because that's not healthy for anybody. Alright, deceiving ourselves. If anyone thinks you're something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then the reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. Okay. This latter part of this can kind of make us a little nervous. I don't know about this boasting in myself thing. That seems like a problem. That seems like scripture would tell me that I'm not supposed to do that. Here's what we're saying. You need to measure yourself in terms of your relationship to Christ through the gospel. Okay, that's what it means. It's not talking about a conceited boastfulness. It's about a, I need to check on myself in terms of whether or not I am actually walking in step with the Spirit. Whether or not I actually am abiding in Christ. Because if anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. Foolish deceived people can't help anybody else right. They're they're blinded to a lot of things because they think something differently about themselves than is actually true. This is why we are constantly in need of coming back to the scripture both in terms of our own reading and our own study and preaching and singing and all of those things. We can be encouraged but we can also be convicted and we constantly have to be brought back to that so that we don't think things about ourselves that aren't true. It's dangerous. And it comes back to being conceited. We're not going to be able to deal with anyone. We're not going to be able to glorify God. Thinking ourselves something when we are nothing. Test your own work for this reason. And then this reason you'll be able to boast in yourself alone and not in your neighbor. What it's saying is this. Look at what Christ has done in me based on the gospel, not how I compare up to my neighbor, whether I think I'm winning the game of Christianity or losing it, whether or not I am superior because I think that I'm doing well in this moment, or whether or not I'm feeling very inferior and envious because I think I'm not doing as well as someone else. We need to understand that it is necessary for us to, and it's hard, right? The thing that the Galatians were being warned against was, here's the external standard, meet it, and you're fine. Your flesh longs for an external standard. I wear the right clothes, I say the right words, I don't do this, I do do that. All those things can be God's work in your life, maybe. But there are clubs and organizations that do the same thing that don't have anything to do with the Church of Jesus Christ. So you better be careful with it. The life of Christ produces fruit, but it's still His fruit. We look for it as evidences of our own conversion, but at the same time, we recognize that it doesn't save us, and it doesn't make us acceptable to God. It's what He does within us. And yes, there are practical things in terms of suggestions that we can take or give, but we can't do it in a conceited way. And that brings us to the last verse that we're going to deal with, verse 5. For each one will have to bear his own load. That seems like it goes completely against verse two. Does it not? Verse two said, bear one another's burdens. And now Paul, three verses later, you're saying we have to bear our own load. How does that work? It works like this. First of all, it's a different word. Okay. Burden is something too big for me to carry. It's a yoke kind of a word. It's huge and I can't deal with it on my own. Load is the Greek word that would be used for someone carrying a backpack. Okay. So this I think is Paul's warning against those of us who would just like to gush all over everyone and think about how unfair our life is. And it's his warning to say no. The reality is that God has given you specific responsibilities. And you need to take care of those. Those responsibilities will entail things like your own scripture reading, your own duties in terms of that you need to work, that you need to take care of your families. And not that at times those things don't become burdens that need to be helped with, but what you need to understand is that there are some things that God has given you specifically as an individual responsibilities for, and you are responsible for taking care of those things. So what is being said here? Don't make the load that God has given you as an individual someone else's burden. You carry that. Right? Bear your own load. Everyone has to bear their own load. There is one place. Keep this in mind. Maybe this will help in the explanation of this. There is one place where no one will be able to bear your load or your burden. And that is at the end of all things when you stand before God. And at that point in time, Tim's not going to be able to stand there with me before God. Right? Jesus has borne that burden. But I shall stand there by myself. Understand that you have a responsibility and so in the same way that you're helping So this helps in terms of when you're helping someone with a burden, right? You don't take all of that responsibility and expect them to not do anything as though their spiritual life and their emotional life and their physical life that they had absolutely no responsibility for that because you're going to take it all and Uh-uh. God doesn't call us to do that. We're to be individuals in terms of Christ working in us, and then we come together in concert as a body to glorify Him. But still, we relate with God in the prayer closet by ourselves as individuals. Do we not? We should. Then we do it together. So, It helps us understand, first of all, how to deal with other people, because we're not taking too much on ourselves and communicating to them that none of this is your responsibility. The other side of it is that when we ourselves are carrying something that we feel is a terrible burden, we need to look at the Scripture and determine, are there specific commands that say, this is my responsibility? Not that I can't ask for help, not that I can't ask for advice, But being part of a church is not being an emotional leech, a spiritual leech. We're to be self-sacrificing. Evidence of self-sacrificing is I'm always giving, I'm not always taking. If I'm always taking, then I'm not doing very well here, because I'm not helping anybody. Because what happens? I'm conceited, and then what happens is that I get mad whenever I don't get what it is I think I ought to get. This is a dangerous part of it. Everyone should bury their own load. I think we'll stop there. I think we'll stop there. Let's pray. We'll ask God to be glorified in the service to come. Father, we come to you now and we thank you for your word. We pray that you would give us grace to think about it, to search it out through the week. And Lord, we ask that you would be glorified in the service to come. Lord, that you would help us to think well and to feel well, to worship you, Lord, to hear well, have open eyes and open ears, but ultimately all of that so that you would be glorified. And we ask that in the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.