When we were together last time, we considered truths about the war that rages inside the hearts of all who follow Christ. All believers face an ongoing struggle between what Paul describes in Galatians 5, 19 through 21 as the works of the flesh, and what he then goes right on to describe in verses 22 and 23 as the fruit of the Spirit. And there is such a dramatic contrast between the list that Paul provides of things that dampen and degrade our spirits, such as sexual immorality, and impurity, and sensuality, and idolatry, and sorcery, and enmity, and strife, and jealousy, and fits of anger, and rivalries, and dissensions, and divisions, and drunkenness, and orgies, to just name a few. And there's such a contrast between that and the beautifully appealing qualities that God produces in our lives when we follow Christ faithfully by partnering with the Holy Spirit to participate in his purifying and his sanctifying work in us. Those who walk with the Spirit, those who are led by the Spirit, find that God puts some of His very own attributes on display in their lives. Beautiful things, savory things like love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But you know, simply giving us a list of character qualities like the fruit of the Spirit, it's not enough to propel us forward and to guide us into the Christian life. All of these wonderful virtues, as fantastic as they are, they are not an end in themselves. Paul writes on to show us what a fruit-filled, Spirit-led life looks like in action. So please open your Bibles to Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6, you'll find it on page 975 if you want to use one of the Bibles in the seat rack in front of you. Galatians 6, as it opens, offers us very practical, down-to-earth examples of what genuinely spiritual lives look like in the context of daily living. So please stand, if you are able, for the reading of God's Word, beginning in Galatians 6. If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches." And this is God's living word for us here today. Please have a seat. Now since Paul points this passage at a specific group of people and labels them as you who are spiritual, we need to come to terms with who Paul means by that. Most of you are undoubtedly aware that spirituality is a hot topic in our day. Bookstores are full of books about angels, spirit guides, near-death experiences, and ancient pagan religions. The internet provides a seemingly unending source of information about New Age practices and cults of every shape, size, and brand. It is indeed a rare New England town that does not have a psychic reading shop similar to the one you can find along Kennedy Drive in Putnam. But one of the key things that characterizes most of those who are captivated by spirituality and the spiritual life is that they are looking for something that is private and something that is spontaneous inside of them. Just this morning as I was mixing my oatmeal together and had the radio on, I heard an interview with a popular musician who was talking about music and spirituality, and his comment about spirituality is, It's an inward journey on which one goes to discover himself. And that was the sum and substance of his understanding of spirituality. The kind of spirituality most common, most popular, most prevalent today is the kind that people can make into whatever they want it to be. Given the context of Paul's statement within his letter to the Galatian churches, and given the context of that letter within the whole canon of Scripture, we can quickly conclude that Paul is getting at a far more specific group when he writes to those whom he says, you who are spiritual. So, what is true spirituality? How do we know if we are living an authentic spiritual life? What does the fruit of the Spirit look like when it is put on display through the life of a believer? Now, throughout church history, many have adopted varying conclusions and varying practices when it comes to this very question. Some have concluded that they needed to withdraw from the world altogether, secluding themselves in monasteries in the desert or pursuing the spiritual life, as one particular individual did, named Simeon Stylides. who live for decades on top of a 60-foot, 3-foot-wide pole. Now, some who follow Christ today define the quality of their spiritual life on the basis of their personal devotions. Having a good, lengthy, quiet time fasting and prayer become the barometer and the measure to the degree with which the Holy Spirit is working in them. Others point to church attendance and participation in church activities as the indicator that they are spiritual and that the Holy Spirit is working in them. Participation in public worship, holding on to specific forms of liturgy, lighting candles, waving incense, playing the right kind of music on the right kind of instruments, or in some cases, no instruments at all. For them, this is what it means to be spiritual. Still, others regard having certain spiritual experiences as the measure of their spirituality, having ecstatic power encounters with the Holy Spirit, performing miraculous hearings, speaking in tongues, or exercising certain other sign gifts of the Spirit. But in the words from Galatians 6 that we read a moment ago, the Apostle Paul provides a strikingly different way to look at true spirituality. Spiritual life is not something we produce inside of ourselves through some sort of ritual or formula. Spiritual life is not something that we need to go out and try to define for ourselves. In Galatians 6, God gives us a very hands-on, practical illustration of what it means to be spiritual by showing us that a genuinely spiritual life is one in which the Holy Spirit is producing His fruit. Things like love, joy, peace, and so forth. But The fruit of the Spirit is not something that the Holy Spirit produces inside of us for our own personal pleasure or enjoyment. True spirituality is not an individualistic exercise or a quest for some sort of personal fulfillment. One does not need to isolate him or herself or climb onto a tall pole to discover true spirituality. No, the life of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, flourishes in believers for the sake of others. The fruit of the Spirit is not meant to be exercised in private. It is meant to be exercised in public. Philip Ryken writes, The fruit of the Spirit does not grow in isolation, but within the community of faith. The spiritual life God creates within us is meant to be shared. Generally speaking, the Christian life does not grow in a secret garden. No, indeed, the Christian life grows in a public park. Spirituality shows itself to be authentic to the way that we live with and interact with one another in the body of Christ. According to Galatians 6, those who are spiritual do four things. First of all, they restore one another from sin. Secondly, they bear one another's burdens. Thirdly, they consider others more important than themselves. And then finally, they share with one another. Let's look at each one of these in turn this morning and see how they intertwine with and intersect with our lives to bring glory to God. So first up on Paul's radar is his call for you who are spiritual to restore those who are going off track with a spirit of gentleness. Read verse one again. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Although the subject matter here is very serious, it's sober, it is critically important, Paul's tone in discussing this is so warm. It's so friendly. Look, he uses the word brothers at the beginning of the verse. It's a reminder of the family relationship that are shared among all those whom God adopts into his family through faith in Jesus Christ. Brothers. We are all in this together. Brothers, we are engaged in the same battle. Brothers, we all fight the same temptation. Brothers, being adopted into the family of God does not safeguard us from sin or prevent sin from seeping in. All people who fight the war within, the war between flesh and spirit, know that there are times when our sinful nature knocks every one of us off stride. There are times when our weaknesses cause each one of us to get caught up in sin. temptation has a way of sneaking up on us. Temptation loves to catch us off guard. And rather than referring to a pattern of habitual, deliberate sin in which one repeatedly engages, the wording that Paul uses here, which is translated for us into English as caught in any transgression, it refers specifically to the sort of unexpected sneak attack of Satan that blindsides someone, catches them off guard, and causes them to stumble. Now, it may well be any of the blatant, egregious sins that Paul lists near the end of chapter five that describe the works of the flesh that Paul's chief concern is here, not about the specific sin, but about the fact that the person who sins is to be ministered to gently and restored to full fellowship with God and with his people as quickly as possible. It's interesting that the word Paul uses for restore is a medical term that describes the setting of a broken bone or a dislocated joint. A fellow believer who has gone off track needs to be put back in place just like a broken bone. Now, as someone who enjoys watching medical dramas on TV, I easily bring to mind the empathetic pain I feel in those scenes that are representative of those who are having dislocated bones pulled back into place. In most cases, it goes something like this. The doctor tells the patient, okay, we'll count to three. And the doctor begins, one, yank, excruciating cry of pain, three. Now, restoring a brother or sister may involve a high degree of pain, but it is a necessary pain, and such restoration is the only way to move forward and return to full health and full usefulness in the body of Christ. Imagine with me for a moment, can you imagine a group of doctors and nurses standing around a patient saying things like, Will you look at that broken bone? Can you believe the way that thing is sticking out through the skin? Boy, I wonder how he did that. Boy, I'm sure glad that's never happened to me, or I've never had anything like that happen, and I hope I never do. Meanwhile, the patient just sits there in pain and in agony. Now, of course, you cannot imagine that in the hospital, but sadly, it happens in the church, doesn't it? That's what the Bible calls gossip. The Christian army is the only army that shoots its wounded. And sadly, Christians can and do condemn one another, they blame one another, and sometimes they punish one another for sin when they should be rushing in and getting the spiritual emergency room ready for service. Philip Reichen writes, they treat them like outcasts, harshly scolding them for being spiritually out of joint and apparently forgetting that they themselves are sinners in need of grace. When Christians are caught in sin, they do not need isolation or amputation. They need restoration. We must help each other to confess sin, to find forgiveness in Christ, to be restored to complete fellowship with the family of God. This is what spiritual people do for one another. This is what those who walk with the Spirit and who are led by the Spirit and produce the fruit of the Spirit are called to do for one another in a spirit of gentleness. Now, since gentleness is one aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, it is apparent that only a truly spiritual person who is able to restore someone gently without judgment and without condemnation should be getting into this line of work. As we've seen before in Paul's letter to the Galatians, legalism and judgmentalism is a warning flag, a red warning flag of spiritual immaturity. So if you're not equipped and you're not ready to restore someone in a spirit of gentleness, then it is best that you do not attempt doing it at all. Let someone else who has the maturity and the humility and the gentleness perform this delicate task. Those who are spiritual restore one another, and they also bear one another's burdens. Verse 2. Those who are spiritual have a responsibility to bear one another's burdens. I love what Luther says about this phrase. Luther says, this work requires strong shoulders and mighty bones. You got some strong shoulders and mighty bones? Unlike restoring, straying sinners, bearing one another's burdens is less like setting a broken bone and more like carrying someone on a stretcher. And there is an implied truth in this verse that we all ought to take to heart. Believers will have burdens. And sometimes burdens become way too heavy to carry for themselves or by ourselves. Certainly being caught in sin is one type of burden, but there are so many other burdens that you know all too well. Loss of loved ones, anxiety, doubt, fear, poverty, loneliness, divorce, disability, depression. Am I talking to you yet? When these weights descend upon you, you need help carrying them. Right, Judy? Yes. It's not a sign of weakness. It's not a sign of frailty. It's not a sign of infirmity to realize and to admit to others that you are incapable of handling things by yourself. Some burdens are so heavy that they must be shared if they're going to be carried at all. And think of it this way, as we look at the text, this is the way God has designed things to be. This is the way that God gains glory for himself as he puts the body of Christ on display in front of the world, showing them as those who bear one another's burdens. Now of course we are eternally grateful for the way that God Himself has shouldered our greatest burden, the burden of sin and guilt on Christ's cross at Calvary. And the Apostle Peter builds on that further and reminds us that we are to cast all of our burdens, all of our anxieties on the Lord because He cares for us. But when we do this, we should be mindful of the times and in the ways in which the Lord will respond to us. He will employ others to serve as his heart and his hands and his feet. I want you to just continue to be sure that you know that to do this with and for one another is to bring glory to God. God has not designed you to keep your troubles to yourself. Contrary to the rugged, proud, pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps New England mentality, I dishonor God. I short-circuit his work when I fail to let my brothers and sisters know how they can honor God by coming alongside me in my needs. So let me say it again. We are all in this together. Everyone has a part to play in sharing and carrying the load of others. Prayer, a warm hug, a kind word of comfort, a symphony, practical hands-on ways, giving meals, cleaning someone's house, offering rides, taking someone to an appointment, sharing an appropriate scripture or Christian book or other literature to provide comfort and guidance. Imagine, imagine this, whenever you have the opportunity to either give or receive in this area of bearing one another's burdens, read it at the end of verse 2, when you do this, you are fulfilling the law of Christ. You are keeping the law of love. You are serving one another through love. When you ask someone to shoulder a burden with you, you are fulfilling the law of Christ. When you come along someone to share their burden with them, you are fulfilling the law of Christ. Again, quoting Philip Reagan, he says, by caring for one another, you become a law-abiding Christian. The third thing that Paul notes that those who are spiritual do is to consider others more important than themselves. Verse 3, For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Now what you think about yourself will have a great influence on the way that you treat and react to other people. Those who have a high opinion of themselves are not usually likely or willing to come alongside someone else and to help them carry their baggage. Those who think highly of themselves are oftentimes self-centered. They're not prone towards self-giving. Interestingly, in the first century culture, to which Paul writes, it was considered demeaning and degrading to help someone else. Times have changed, thank the Lord, but still, we must remember that that is resident within the fleshly human heart, that attitude. Putting the needs and the concerns of others ahead of your own oftentimes requires making sacrifices that we're not willing to make if we consider ourselves to be more important than they are. Because meeting the needs of others cuts into our time. It changes our plans. It rearranges our schedules. Getting and keeping this straight in our heads demands that we cultivate the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ, the one who came to serve, not to be served. The one who thought it, although he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Paul does not beat around the bush when he tells us how to maintain a proper perspective on our lives. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing. Contrary to the world's constant messaging about self-worth and self-value and self-esteem and pride and whatever other hot-button phrases may be in vogue, the Bible counsels us to keep on reminding ourselves that we are nothing nothing apart from Christ. I have no inherent value except the value that God puts into me because of Christ and because I am created in the image of God. Everything I am, everything I have is a gift from God. My value comes solely from the fact that I have been created by and redeemed in Christ. It's kind of an old and a way out of date illustration, but perhaps there are some who have not heard the story about former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. On a flight on which Ali was a passenger on a plane, as the plane was preparing for takeoff, the stewardess came by and reminded him to put his seatbelt on. In a rather unpleasant and condescending tone, Ali replied, Superman don't need no seatbelt. to which the stewardess cleverly replied, Superman don't need no airplane. Sooner or later, people who think they are something when they are not, they wind up crashing back to earth. So keep God's perspective on yourself. Instead of comparing yourself to others, test yourself against God's standard, which is the only one that counts. As Paul writes in Romans 12, verse 3, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Now before finishing off with the fourth and final thing on Paul's list of actions that demonstrate true spirituality, we need to just spend a moment and share a quick word about verse five to eliminate any confusion that this verse might stir up within you. Look at verse five and you see that it says, for each will have to bear his own load. If we make a very quick, a casual surface reading of that sentence, it seems like that is directly contradicting what Paul just wrote in verse 2 about bearing one another's burdens. But in actuality, these two statements don't contradict each other, they complement one another. Paul uses two different Greek words to make his point. In verse 2, the word that we have translated as burdens refers to a weight that is impossibly heavy for one person to carry. And that's what we've already looked at in some detail this morning. So think of a massive slab of concrete for action. By way of contrast, the word that Paul uses in verse 5 that is translated for us as load, it refers to a traveler's bag, or in our day, a backpack. So God has given each one of us a backpack full of personal responsibilities to carry. And God uniquely and specifically equips each of us to carry our own backpack. So work. family duties, the ministry responsibilities you receive depending on whatever spiritual gifts God has entrusted to you. Those are the things for which God will hold you accountable on the basis of your calling and your gifts and your obedience. No one else can and no one else should be expected to carry these responsibilities for you. So do your own work. When it comes to your unique family circumstance, your ministry opportunity, your employment, whatever it is, don't try to push that responsibility off on someone else and expect them to do what God has uniquely designed for you to do. But also know that there are times when the slab of concrete kind of burdens come in, and that is what we need help for. Paul finishes his description of what the true spiritual life looks like as he says, let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Now, the primary emphasis Paul makes here revolves around the kind of sharing that takes place between a pastor and the congregation that he serves. Both the minister and the church have something to share with one another. And with these few words, Paul illuminates the preeminent role that the pastor must play within the flock as he serves to teach the word. The centerpiece of any true gospel ministry is always the exposition of Scripture. And as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9.14, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. I very much like the word Paul is inspired to choose in our text for this morning as he describes this relationship between pastor and people in the context of sharing. The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches. It's not a contractual arrangement. It's not an obligation. It's not some sort of a package deal. It is a voluntary, two-way sharing that takes place in the family of God. So to think along the lines that Paul is laying out for us here, that this is just another dimension of what it means to be a spiritual person. A spiritual person knows how to share, and a spiritual person enjoys sharing. Living an authentic spiritual life by manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, it's not some sort of abstract, wishy-washy, vaguely defined aspiration. No, there are very specific, concrete, nuts-and-bolts ways in which God calls us to manifest His fruit. And there are equally specific, concrete, nuts-and-bolts ways for us to measure how well we are doing with respect to all of this. So I urge you, my friends, my brothers, my sisters, today, let us take this to heart. Let us cry out together with one united voice, asking that Christ would grow His spirit of humility and love in an ever-deepening passion for Him and for each other among us. May the Holy Spirit implant in us the desire to be burdened for one another, to look out for one another, to carry one another's burdens, and to share all good things with one another. Let's pray together. Lord God, thank you that you don't leave us in the dark about what it is that you have both called us to and given us the Holy Spirit's power to enact in our lives. And we pray that we would be faithful to this word. We pray that we would respond to it, Lord, with eagerness, with excitement, with a boldness to put it into play in our lives. We pray that you'd continue to help us to help one another in each one of these special and unique ways. We pray that you would defeat any attempts that Satan makes to disrupt or to distract us from doing those things, the roadblocks that he will throw in our path, the little things that will come along that might cause us to think, well, maybe someone else will do that and I'll just sit back for now. No, Lord, let us not be that kind of people. Let us be a people who are passionate for you and passionate for one another as we continue to share the Lord and grow in grace. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll let stand as we.