Make sure I have the proper buttons pushed on this thing. It's a pleasure to be here and to be back. We had a wonderful time yesterday with the IBCD conference and people were so receptive and we were talking about a subject that is a One that crosses all kinds of lines in terms of problems in churches around the world and around our country and has to do with purifying the heart of sexual idolatry. And so it was a joy to be able to do that and I'm excited to be here on the Lord's Day. And your pastor and his wife have been wonderful host and hostess to us. Not only just my wife and I being able to come down from Santa Clarita, but there's a probability that my son-in-law and my daughter will be moving here into your area. So they're with us as well. So I'm very happy to have Jess and Melissa off. And when I go out and speak, I don't get to bring such an entourage with me. So that's kind of a unique thing Well, please take your copies of the Word of God and take it. Let's go over to Galatians chapter 6 Galatians chapter 6 and verse 1 We've entitled our message today biblical restoration biblical restoration And some of you are very familiar with this particular passage. Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. One of the prevalent attitudes of a lot of Christians today is similar to that of Keynes. When God confronted Cain about where his brother was, his response was, am I my brother's keeper? It was a way for Cain to avoid responsibility for his very selfish and sinful actions, and especially he realized he knew in his own conscience of the murder that he had committed. There's a story that's told about the first man to climb Mount Everest who proved to be a very dangerous adventure. a man by the name of Sir Edmund Hillary and after scaling the mountain Hillary lost his footing on the way down but his Serpa guide, a guy by the name of Tenzing Norgay held the line taut and kept Hillary from falling to a very tragic death there on the ice. Tenzing later refused any kind of special recognition when asked about it and in fact he responded to the the media by saying, listen, that's what mountain climbers do, they always help each other. During the American Civil War, the soldier's first article of faith was summed up nowhere more eloquently than I think in the 1865 letter of William Sherman to U.S. Grant when he said, I know wherever I was that you thought of me and if I got into a tight place you would come if alive. Now, I believe that one of the critical issues that faces the Church of Jesus Christ today, and maybe even your church, is the willingness to help other Christians who have become disabled, in this particular case, by sin. Why? Why should we be willing to do that? Well, to camp on Tenzing Norgay's words, because that's what Christians do. They help one another. That's what they do. Now, restoration of other believers is a responsibility that you and I share. Galatians 6.1 was not just given to the elders of the church, or to those who function as pastor-teachers, or to deacons of the church. It was given to all believers. It was given to you. It was given to I. And this brings us to three critical questions. One is, what is your responsibility to the people that you rub shoulders with every day? It's clear in Galatians 6.1 that God defines you as having a responsibility to help other believers. What does that mean? How do you help a fellow Christian without becoming an intrusive busybody, right? The Apostle Paul warns about Christians who are busybodies. He talks about that in 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 11 and 1 Timothy 5, 13. We're not supposed to be intrusive busybodies, but then how in the world do I help somebody? How do I get into their life and help them with a sin that they're struggling with? How do I do that? That's a critical question. What do you do when you realize that your friend is struggling with a sin? What do you do? This is an important question. Phil Johnson recently in a message that he spoke, he made the observation taken from the book of Galatians. He said, it's important to make a distinction between rank heretics and errant Christians. Why? Because rank heretics need strong doctrinal rebuke and removal and errant Christians need restoration. That's the reason. Now, what do you do when you encounter a Christian hobbled by sin? Some people choose to ignore it. Others will arrogantly attack and criticize that person and say, how dare, how could you be involved in this? Others will falsely accuse them. Well, what are the parameters that God places around this very vital admonition? so that it has functional control over your relationship with other believers without falling into sin yourself. Which brings us to another question. What are the dangers that you must avoid when you seek to help other Christians? What are the dangers? I think this is a critical question because your basic motivation of helping another person is good, but it can become an occasion for sin even in your life. Now the world will basically tell you, and many Christians will say this as well, that as long as a person has a good motivation, it doesn't matter what they do. We're going to overlook the wrongs that they commit, but God says that both the motivation and the method is important because how you choose the course that you take will determine whether or not you fall into sin as well. Now before we unpack Galatians 6.1, I think it would help us to understand the broader context of Paul's argument in Galatians. That will help us a little bit. It will help you and hopefully provide some insight into this verse. I teach a hermeneutics class in our graduate program in biblical counseling, and one of the things I have everybody in the class memorize is this little idiom. It goes like this, a text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. All right? Now, that's a good little idiom in order to remember. A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. I messed it up. And that's true. In fact, when I was growing up, I remember we had My father was a pastor, and my father and mother really loved the Lord, but we always had on our morning breakfast table one of these little teeny plastic loaves of bread, and inside that loaf of bread were these little cardboard verses. Some of you remember that, all right? And so we'd come down to breakfast, and everyone would pull out one of those little cardboard verses, and we'd read it. It's kind of like your spiritual vitamin for the day. You've heard of the daily bread, a devotional thing? Well, this is the daily crouton. so we pull our little daily crouton out and we'd read this particular verse and we'd read whatever meaning that we thought into that particular verse and even though I admire the fact that their desire was to get the family into the Bible early in the morning during breakfast that was a good desire the method was horrible because we basically viewed the Bible then as a textbook of magical incantations and sayings, where I read this little verse, I read into it whatever I want it to mean, and all of a sudden, oh, I feel so spiritual now. Now I can go out into the world. When in reality, the meaning that I read into that verse may be totally adverse to what the Bible was saying in that area, or in that section. So I think it's vitally important that we take a little bit time and we look at the broader context. Let me make a couple of observations. One is this, that the book of Galatians was written to believers who were being exhorted to believe a false gospel. It was a gospel that was built upon the human works of the Mosaic law. They were being persuaded to replace faith with certain practices of the law. They were told that God desired observable certain traits and aspects commanded by the Mosaic law in order for them to be considered righteous before God. And of course the emphasis of that false gospel was upon personal deeds of righteousness in order to please God. Furthermore, human works that were especially being emphasized was circumcision, laws of cleanliness, observance of certain ceremonial days and months and seasons and years. That was what was being fostered upon this infant Christian church. Now, take your Bible for a moment. Let's go back and just dip into a couple of these passages. Let's go back to Galatians 2, verses 3 and 4. But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. But it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage." Notice that. In other words, they were throwing all these rules and regulations on the Christians in order to put them back into bondage. Skip down to verse 12. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat. This is speaking of Peter, or Cephas, as Paul refers to him here. He used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party that circumcision. And then go over to chapter 4 and verse 10. Paul comes back to it and he says, you observe days and months and seasons and years, all a part of the Judaistic canon, or calendar, I should say, and important feasts and so on. But the issue was not their observance, the issue of what they thought about that observance and how supposedly that observance added some kind of spiritual merit before God in order to please Him. That was the issue. So all the human efforts to please God for personal salvation negated salvation by grace alone through faith alone and introduced into Christianity a performance-based gospel. It was a gospel that emphasized outward behavioral function. And in this false gospel, stress was laid upon personal achievement, individual accomplishment, self-reliant performance. They sound like Americans. That was this gospel. Christianity was beginning to morph from a religion of humble, forgiven sinners to self-sufficient achievers. It was changing the attitude of the church. Now, that not only affected how a person understood becoming a Christian, but it had a huge effect on how, listen to this, how Christians functioned in the church and how they treated one another. Now, let's go to Galatians 5, which brings us into more of our immediate context. Not only had the Judaizers who had come into the Galatian church discredited the Apostle Paul, but they had introduced a destructive gospel of behavioral performance. The antidote, for Paul understood this, was a clear defense of his apostleship as ordained by God, and accepted by other apostles, and a careful explanation of the unmerited grace of Jesus Christ in salvation. Now, this has, listen to this, huge implications, not only on how you become a Christian, but how you live with other Christians within the body of Christ. Let's look at what Paul says about pleasing the spirit and pleasing the flesh, because he talks about that just before he gets to Galatians 6.1. Now, one of the things I like is Jerry Bridges makes a statement in one of his books. He says, Christians should preach the gospel of grace to themselves every day. Christians. That's a great statement. That kind of stuck with me. Christians should preach the gospel of grace to themselves every day. A person who lives by grace is a person that seeks to please the spirit. A person who lives on the basis of Judaistic expectations is a person that seeks to please the flesh. Now, look at Galatians 5 and verse 17. He says, for the flesh sets its desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. Now, there are three principles here that we could derive from this text. If we had more time, we'd get into it in detail. But, pleasing the Spirit, number one, means this. It means that you are a person, as a Christian, who lives by faith. You're not just saved by faith, you live by faith. Notice what verse six earlier has said in Galatians 5. He says, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but, notice this, faith working through love. Wow. That's quite a statement. Faith working through love. So when you live by faith, you're doing two things. First, you live a life full of trust in the work of Jesus Christ who has made payment sufficient for all your sins. It's a worry-free life of grace. That's an exciting life to be a part of. You're also freed from your personal efforts to gain or maintain your salvation to practice love. That's what verse six has told us. It is this type of faith that naturally expresses itself in love, he says. All right? And notice at the end of verse six it says, but faith working through love. You see that? It almost jumps off the page in the midst of his argument. So, if you're going to please the Spirit, one of the things you have to do is you're not only saved by faith, but you live by faith. Secondly, if you're going to please the Spirit, then let's go down to verse 13. He says, For you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. Through love, serve one another. So if you're going to please the Spirit, not only do you live by faith, but secondly, you love by serving. You love by serving. The new freedom in Christian living presents some dangers. And Christian liberty opens the door sometimes and lust walks through, right? That's when our passions take over. Where your liberty can easily become a license to sin or an opportunity for the flesh. Now, the way to keep from that is the practice of selfless love with others. That's such a critical point in the book of Galatians. In fact, if I were to do a survey of a lot of Christians and ask them, what's the love chapter in the Bible, I think most Christians would immediately respond and say, oh, that's 1 Corinthians 13. I want to suggest to you that the greatest love chapter in the Bible is Galatians 5. There's more mention of love on a repeated basis in Galatians 5 than in 1 Corinthians 13. It's that we're so caught up in the Judaistic performance orientation that Paul has had to attack in the first four chapters that we miss it when we read it through. No. You see, the point is this, that when you're living by faith, there is a danger here that you could indulge desire because in a sense you have thrown off all those Judaistic expectations. But Paul says, no, if you're really living by true faith, then you're going to love by serving. And then, third thing here, if you're going to please the Spirit, You're led by the Spirit. Verse 18. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And the word led does not have anything to do with personal guidance by means of the Holy Spirit. When you are led by the Spirit here, it means to be motivated by the Spirit, and not by self-exalting efforts. Then you're not going to fulfill the desires of the flesh when you're motivated by the Spirit, because the flesh, with its laws, seeks to benefit itself, while the Spirit seeks to benefit others. So, look at this again. Verse 6 he says, but it's faith working through love. Then verse 13 he says, through love serve one another. Then look at verse 14, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then if you skip down a little bit further, then he says in verse 22, But the fruit of the Spirit is love. And he gives us a whole list of things. And it's interesting that he doesn't talk about this as in fruits plural. It's fruit singular. And if you know anything about the ancient Semitic mind, usually if they had a list of things that they wanted to give, they took that which is the broadest thing and they put it at the top of the list and everything underneath it then describes what is at the top of that list. We can see this in 1 Timothy 3, the description of elders. The first thing on the list is they're above reproach. How do we know what above reproach means? Well, that's a very vague principle. Well, you begin to understand it as you go through all those other qualifications. You can see that also in 2 Timothy chapter 3, when he talks about in the last days there will be terrible times. And he has a whole list of what that's going to be like. And at the very top of that list that everything else describes is men will be self-lovers. Now, I was taught when I was going through college, at a Christian college, that that was a virtue. But Paul considers that a vice. That's what's going to make the last days terrible. Terrible time, horrible time. Men will love self. They'll be boastful because they love self. They'll be ungrateful because they love self. They'll be disobedient to parents because they love self, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Same thing's going on in the fruit of the Spirit. What's the first thing at the top of the fruit of the Spirit? What is it? Love. That's exactly right. You're catching on. That's right. It's love. Love is the first thing. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Then, notice all the descriptions. Joy is love in jubilation. Peace is love in repose. Long-suffering is love on trial. Gentleness is love in interpersonal kindness. Goodness is love in action. Faith is love in endurance. Meekness is love at school. Temperance is love in discipline. Now, look at Galatians 5 and verse 15. Right after he says, where the whole law in verse 14 is fulfilled in this one statement, you shall love your neighbors yourself. Verse 15 says, but if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. That is what a performance-based Christianity does. A performance-based Christianity causes people to compare themselves with one another, bite and devour one another, say, oh, look at me, I'm more spiritual than you. That's what a performance-based Christianity does. Go down to verse 26. Just before Galatians 6-1, he says, Now, those three things are an adequate description of what was going on in the Galatian church, and they are an adequate description of what pleasing the flesh means. Nothing erodes the unity of Christian fellowship more than people who are seeking their own passions and their own desires. Liberty that you enjoy through the grace of Jesus Christ can quickly be replaced with a sense of self-sufficiency. And in Galatians 5, Paul now deals with the extremes that he observes in the Christians in Galatia. On the one hand, there was this very self-focused legalism that was imported into the church by the Judaizers, which fed their pride, made them performance-oriented Christians, comparing themselves with one another, and always trying to compete with one another. And on the other hand, there was the license that some of the Galatians tended to move towards in rejecting the legalism by indulging the flesh. Now, so what does pleasing the flesh mean? Well, one of the things that happens, especially if on the legalistic or Judaistic side it occurs, number one, you end up living a life of boasting. It's a very prideful life. Performance-oriented Christians, you can see this in verse 26, breeds a miserable spirit of individualism. Look at me, look what I've done. Not look at Christ, and look what Christ has done. Like a rubber duck factory, legalism produces arrogant Christians who all quack the same way. with the same self-centered view of Christianity. They believe that they're self-important and they're smug about their abilities and their accomplishments in life, especially their religious life. In fact, they're so self-confident they brag about themselves without any good reason. Now, I've got to make it clear that modern Christians' assumptions about legalism are mostly false. Anyone who defends doctrine is often defined as a legalist. If that's true, then Paul is guilty of legalism in Galatians 2. Or, there are many Christians who think that anyone who lives by a law is legalistic, or expects others to live by some kind of biblical commands is legalistic. Not true. Not even close. Those understandings reveal a serious ignorance of the gospel. Galatians clearly demonstrates that genuine legalism is adding, now follow me, performance standards to simple faith and trust in Christ alone. You and I cannot add anything to what Christ has already done in order to be a genuine believer. But once a Christian, there are non-Mosaic, new covenant standards, if you will, that speak to some of the spirit of the Mosaic law that need to be followed. This is the law of Christ. So we live, if we don't live that way, we end up living a boastful life that's very, very self-centered. Secondly, we also, verse 26 tells us, we live to pridefully confront others. We challenge others, it says. Have you ever met Christians who love to criticize other Christians? Now, I know that never happens in this church, but there are some other churches where it does. Alright? They love to do that. They can be very creative and stinging in their criticism, and when you look at the sum total of their lives or their ministry, you realize they have nothing positive to add to the body of Christ. Their spiritual gift is slicing and dicing fellow believers. So, When a person has adopted that kind of attitude, they have a tendency to think that they're pretty hot stuff, and they feel free to challenge the masses of inferior Christians around them. The root idea of the participle that's used here in verse 26 means to call them forth. To call them forth in a challenging way. In the middle voice, as if it adds emphasis to provoke or irritate others. So in context, you're so proud of your self-efforts that you dare others to compare themselves to you. And then, when they do, and on occasion you discover to your horror that they are more righteous and fastidious than you are, then your heart swells with jealousy. That's the third part of verse 26. All of this is being led by the flesh. People who profess to be Christians and attempt to influence other people to follow their legalism are driven by ecclesiastical pride. And this results in envy. When you're this way, you can't stand to have anyone look better than you. And when they do, you become intensely jealous. So you see how self-centered, performance-oriented righteousness is. This is what the Judaizers introduced at Galatia. Instead, Paul says in verse 14, we are called to love others as ourselves. That doesn't mean that we need to love ourselves more. That means we need to love others as passionately as we already love ourselves. The Bible assumes we already love ourselves an awful lot. We need to love others and love God as passionately as we already love ourselves. Now how? Well, this brings us to Galatians 6.1. That's my introduction. The Apostle Paul now sets up a hypothetical case here in Galatians 6.1. Instead of seeking to please the flesh with selfish pursuits of righteousness, you seek to please the Spirit with selfless pursuits of righteousness. How? by the active practice of restoration of other believers. That's how. The fundamental meaning of the word restore is to put a thing in appropriate condition, to establish it, set it up, equip it, arrange it, prepare it, mend it, if you will. In the secular Greek it was a word that was used for setting of bones, and in the New Testament for mending fishing nets. So there is a sense in which when we are truly living by faith as it expresses itself in the service of love to other believers, then we're going to be practicing on a regular basis with other believers restoration. Now there's four things here in this verse. Four aspects to restoration. There's a cause of it. There's a character of restoration, the condition, and the caution. Let's take a look at the cause. First of all, it says here, the cause is the person must be caught in a trespass. Now think about that for a moment. Caught does not mean that you're snooping around like Sherlock Holmes trying to find somebody in sin, right? Ha ha, caught ya, all right? Doesn't mean that. That's the spirit of legalism at work in you. This admonition is not establishing some new gang of spiritual bounty hunters among Christians. Alright? Not that. What does it mean? Well, it means this person has been overwhelmed. It means that they've been trying sometimes to get away from a sin, and you have observed that that particular sin has caught up to them, or it has captured them, They've been overtaken in it. It's a Greek term, pro lumbano, has a prefix on it, pro. It means they've been overtaken, they've been taken over with it. It was a word that was used sometimes in hunting where the prey was being elusive and all of a sudden the hunter was able to overtake the prey. In this particular case, there are Christians who have been overtaken with sin. Sin has caught up to them and captured them in that sense. Sometimes they may be unaware of its approach and sometimes it's something that they have been flirting way too close with and now it's overwhelmed them. This person is not living according to the truth as well because the word for trespass is derived of living according to what has been revealed. So it can be a false step, a sin, or transgression, but it's a word that is used in Matthew 6.15 and Ephesians 1.7 to refer to any serious offense against both God and man. Even though the verse says, any trespass, the context and the terms used here has the idea of any sin that has overwhelmed the person and they can't seem to get out of it, it doesn't just mean any sin that you observe in another person. Doesn't mean that. So any person, any sin that has overtaken that person, and they're struggling to get out, like struggling in the mire of quicksand, and they can't seem to get out of it, you're the person with the rope of God's hope, and you throw it in, and they're able to latch onto it. That's the cause. Number two, the character. It says, you who are spiritual. That is a prerequisite. Now, this does not mean that there's two classes of Christians who are going to heaven. One is the unspiritually, perpetually carnal Christian, and the other is the spiritually righteous Christian. No. Given the argument of Galatians 5, it is saying that this is the person who is walking by the Spirit, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit in love, bearing his or her own earthly burdens and resisting fleshly desires, whereas the argument earlier, in Galatians, says it's a person who's not living by a rigid legalistic standard. The opposite is a person who is presently following the desires and the deeds of the spirit, not the flesh. And we'll try to bring... the person who's trying to follow the flesh will try to bring Christians under a heavy bondage of performance standards. Their own made-up ones, oftentimes. So, you must not be living according to the flesh. If you know you have a sin problem that perpetually plagues you and you've not seen any change in your own personal life, then you're not the person to come alongside of another person to help restore them. God's going to use someone else. If you define your Christianity by man-made standards, then you're not spiritual. These are standards that have an appeal to the flesh, but they're worthless in achieving what God wants in Christ. Or, your life should be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. We could say it like that. Only when you have the other person's welfare first and foremost in your mind, and not your own desires, are now you ready to help them. This is why the fruit, singular, that we've talked about, begins with love. It's the law of Christ. Look at verse 2 of Galatians 6. He says, bear one another's burden and thereby fulfill what? The Law of Christ. Fulfill the Law of Christ. So the character is you who are spiritual within the context of the flow of that argument. Thirdly, the condition then is the spirit of gentleness. He picks up on an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. The condition is the spirit of gentleness. So, Let's say you consider yourself a spiritual person who is qualified to help restore another believer. Paul adds the qualification here, and it is one of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit that's critical to interpersonal restoration. Now, the question is, what does it mean? Well, it does not mean weakness. Gentleness never means that, because its basis is proactive love. It doesn't mean weakness. There are a lot of Christians who think that gentleness means weakness. The opposite is true. Gentleness is a characteristic that resists the temptation of being harsh and demanding when you know you could be. It enables you to correct another person without being arrogant. An opinionated, judgmental person will not be gentle. in their restoration. So this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, this aspect of being gentle with someone else, keeps a person from using the truth like a sledgehammer. Christians can do that. They can take the truth and they can beat another person to the ground and they say, well I told them the truth. I had a guy in counseling say that to me one day. Well I told my wife the truth. I gave her a piece of my mind and I felt like saying, in the flesh, well don't give her any more pieces because you don't have much left. But I didn't. I bit my tongue. The idea is that people can use the truth like a sledgehammer. No, you do this with gentleness. It means to be pleasant and kindly. In the secular Greek, the root of this word was used to speak of mild food, not spicy, tame animals, gentle or pleasant people. Paul uses this word to speak of meekness of Christ, not coming from weakness because its basis was love. In 2 Timothy 2.25, Paul says that correcting an opponent in gentleness may lead to that opponent's salvation. Likewise, when you help to restore another brother and sister in Christ, you must do so like an intensive care nurse, exercising extra special care with love. We have twin boys. They were born premature, so they were in the intensive care nursery for a few weeks before we were able to bring them home. And I got a lesson in gentle care of these two twin boys who you could put in your hands like this. And you could hold in your hands and how the nurses dealt with them in terms of gentle care. Now these guys are bigger than me. But this is the way the Christian life can be. You deal with the Christians with gentle care that are caught up in sin so that they'll grow mature in Christ So, it means to be kindly. You must help to restore another brother and sister in Christ, like this intensive care nurse exercising extra special care and love. The fourth thing, then, is the caution. Looking to yourselves so that you too will not be tempted. Now that's a vital caution. This is just the opposite of the spirit of performance-based Christianity. Because we're not looking, a person like that's not looking to themselves. They think they're already okay. All right, in my super righteousness, I'm gonna come and correct you in your sin. No, just the opposite. It realizes that you too are weak, that you have a sinful propensity in your heart, see? Now, notice this, just for a second. Grab your Bible, let's go back to Proverbs chapter 19. This kind of sits in the back of my conscience and works on me all the time. Proverbs 19 and verse 27. Cease listening, my son, to discipline, he says, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. You see that? A wise Christian understands this. A wise Christian understands that there is a wayward principle in every one of us. When we are not anchored regularly to God's Word, His truth, and Christ, the natural propensity of the human heart is to drift, like an anchorless boat, away from the truth. There's a wayward principle in every one of us. When we're exercising biblical restoration in a proper way. There is this wayward principle in us that if we're not careful and we don't give leeway for our own sinfulness that we too can be caught up in the sin. Now let's go back to Galatians 6.1. We can get caught up in. So this is a vital caution because your flesh is very clever and it's very deceptive. You're not immune from falling into sin. Paul knew that the sinful flesh was not eradicated when it was crucified. The crucifixion of the flesh meant the flesh had been finally judged by God. But the Christian would still have to deal with the leftover aspects of its reign in his heart. That's the reason why he says in Romans 6.12, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies. Paul When you go to deal with another person who is caught in a serious trespass, you must put a guard on your own desires, your own deeds. Do a self-check of your own motivations. In counseling, we stress this with our majors and our graduate students. As a counselee sits there and describes their sin, it's easy to begin to relate to their struggle in your own life. And before you know it, you find yourself weakening to its power. Why? Because you assume this sin really doesn't have any pull on you. That is a very self-righteous assumption. You quickly find out you're wrong. Now, why did you assume this? You see, a person who tends towards a performance-based Christianity, is totally focused on the wrongs of other people, assuming that their life is already okay. That's their assumption. But the truly spiritual person has one eye on his or her own life and its tendencies towards sin. Why? Well, because your pride can be your downfall again. Legalism naturally spawns pride. Pride's the reason. This is why verse 3 says what it says. Verse 3 goes on and says, For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Whoa, what a statement! What does that do to your self-esteem? When anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing. You know what nothing is? Nothing is a great big zero with both ends removed. That's nothing. What's left? Anyone who thinks he is something when he is nothing. I love what Martin Luther used to say about this verse. He said, God made the world out of nothing and as long as you're a nothing, he can do great things with you. Great statement. God made the world out of nothing. So it's vitally important that in the fourth thing, this caution, you're looking to yourself so that you too are not tempted. Now let me conclude with this. Do you care enough to help other Christians who are overwhelmed with sin, or are you busy with a judgmental attitude of some kind of legalistic standard or personal righteous pride? Let me share with you a story as I close. At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question, when not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son Shay, he said, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son? The audience was still by the query. The father continued, I believe that when a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human love presents itself and it comes in a way that other people treat that child. Then he told a story. He said Shay and his father had been walking past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, do you think they'll let me play? Shea's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shea on their team, but the father also understood that if his son was allowed to play, it would give him a much needed sense of belonging. So Shea's father approached one of the boys in the field and asked if Shea could play. And the boy looked around for guidance and getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, we're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he could be on our team. And we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning. In the bottom of the eighth, Shea's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth, Shea put on a glove and played in the outfield. And even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field. Grinning from ear to ear as his father waved at him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth, Shea's team Now with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base. Shea was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shea bat and give the game away? Or do they let someone else bat? Well, surprisingly, Shea was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because she didn't even know how to hold the bat properly much less connect with the ball However, she stepped up to the plate the pitcher moved in a few steps to lob the ball softly to Shay At least he'd be able to make contact first pitch came and she swung clumsily and missed the pitcher again took a few steps towards him and Very softly lofted the ball to Shay as the pitch came She swung at the ball hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher the pitcher picked up the ball and could have easily thrown the ball to first baseman. Shea would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and turned and threw the ball on a high arc to right field, far beyond the reach of the first baseman. Everyone started yelling, Shea, run to first, run to first. Never in his life has Shea ever run to first. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, run to second, run to second. By the time Shea rounded first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intention and intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head. Shea ran toward second bases. The runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. Shea reached second base. The opposing shortstop ran and turned him in the direction of third base. And shouted, run to third! As Shea rounded third, the boys from both teams were screaming, Shea, run home! Shea ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. That day, said the father. Softly, with tears rolling down his face, the boys of both teams helped bring a little bit of true love into this world. Now, I'm sure in a church like Grace Bible, There are shays out there that need help. And either we're going to practice love, like Galatians 5 has instructed us, and practice restoration, or they're going to go on without any help. If you're listening to this message and you realize you're one of those people who profess to be a Christian, but you really are not, and you say, I want to be a part of a community like that, a loving community, then It's important that you come to Christ, that you come to Him. Let's bow for prayer. Gracious Father, we thank you for your love toward us. And it's this exactly, the type of love, this is the type of love that we need to share with one another. I pray for everyone that's a part of this wonderful church, that you'll help them to see the importance of practicing Galatians 6.1 in their interpersonal endeavors as they see themselves living out the fruit of the Spirit, as they see themselves fulfilling the law of Christ, to love others with the same degree of passion and intensity as they already love themselves. and thereby restore brothers or sisters who are broken, caught in sin's demise. This we pray in Christ's name.