and it's my pleasure to share God's Word with you this morning. As always, when you study God's Word, it impacts you. And my prayer is that it would impact you in a similar way this morning. But before we dive into God's Word, I really just want you to know that God cares about you. I know that sounds very trite, but God does care and love about you. I love so many things about you. And maybe you're struggling right now. I don't know. Maybe you're hurting. I don't know, but God does. And what you do need to know is that if you are struggling, if you are hurting, or if you see someone struggling or hurting, you're not alone in this journey. God is right there with you. And you have a body of believers that can come alongside with you and pray for you and help you. But one thing you do need to know is that your brothers and sisters in Christ aren't mind readers. They might not even know. You might be so good at hiding how you're hurting. And so I'd ask if even this morning after the service, you'd reach out and tell people, hey, I need you to pray for me. I'm going through something. It's okay, it's not something that we are to be ashamed of, but to be thankful that we have brothers and sisters in Christ. And I think this passage this morning really kind of exemplifies how we as Christians are to live. So please take that leap of faith and share that burden you're going through. We believe in community here at Hope, and we want to cultivate that here. So one way we can do that is both sharing our sufferings and our joys. All right, this passage this morning is coming from Galatians chapter six, verses one through 10. I do wanna let you know that Nathan gave me a choice to read this passage or another one, and I chose this one, so he can't be held accountable for anything that I say in that, so that's his disclaimer here. And my goal is to give you a couple minutes back that he took from you guys last week, so. Just because I love you guys. It's not that I talk a little less when it comes to sermons. Let's pray. Heavenly Father God, we come to worship you this morning. Lord, help me to clearly and effectively share your word. I pray that I would only communicate that what is beneficial to our people. And God, may your word continue to pierce my heart and all those who hear it this morning. May we share the good news with all, but especially with those who don't know you. We ask all this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so let's go ahead and read, starting in verse one of chapter six of Galatians, and we'll go all the way through 10. This is the word of God. Brothers, 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 of you 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's taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. but the one who sows in the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are in the household of faith, amen? So as I was reading the passage this morning and doing some studying, I came upon a story of Simeon the Stylite, I'm gonna say it wrong, but he was one of the kind of first desert fathers who felt as a Christian, he wanted to be more spiritual. And he thought one of the ways he could do that was to kind of go off in the desert, kind of build a platform and worship God alone. As you can see, that probably drew a lot of attention. Some people kind of looking at this guy, kind of what is he doing? Some people maybe asking for words of wisdom, but his idea was that in doing this, he could get closer to God. In fact, he even built a platform. I think it started out like 10 feet up and would just stay on this platform. But his idea was to kind of isolate himself so he could be closer to God and commune and become more spiritual. And so I don't know what you think it means to be spiritual, what you think it means to be in relationship. And we'll come back to the story later on, but I really want you to ask yourself this question, which is kind of the title of my sermon, is what role do I play? What role do you play? What role do we play in our Christian relationships? And I think it's a very fair question to ask. And as I was thinking about relationships, friendships came to mind the most. And I feel like everyone has these category of friends in their lives, whether they're, when they were younger or they're older, they all have these kind of different friends. And I kind of generalize these. So one of the friend groups that I had is this one person was kind of like the judge. And what I meant by this is this person was all about law and order, truth. They would listen and of course make a judgment call kind of instantaneously. They're kind of the judge of that group. We have the mechanic who kind of likes to fix things, kind of diagnose the issue, willing to fix the problem, know it's not gonna be easy, puts in the hard work, the sweat labor, kind of that kind of friend who's that. We have the butler or the maid. That's the person who likes to take care of everybody, usually with some kind of food or clothing or shelter, just trying to make people feel comfortable. And then we kind of have the friend that's more of the, what we call the warrior in the group. And this person is the one of action. Words are not required. And often swift and always necessary is action and they will stand up for anyone when no one else will. They will never back down even when the outlook is. looking grim. And so those aren't any kind of psychological terms that I get. These are just kind of observations and friends that I have seen in my own life and how they've kind of been there for me. And you may have many more groups of different types of friends. You might even have had some of what we call like the friends that are kind of negative in your group. who, instead of maybe being the warrior in the group, is kind of the assassin, willing to take out anyone, even their own friends, right? I don't know. We don't always have good friends in our lives, but they are important to have them, and it's also important to identify when you have healthy friendships and not-so-healthy friendships. But my first point this morning is the idea of my role in the relationship is to restore. And so we'll look at those first two verses, and I'll read them one more time. It says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore them. Restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, excuse me, keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burden and so fulfill the law of Christ. What's interesting is in these two verses, we see that our primary role is not to point out the other person's mistakes. Not to ridicule or blast them or let them know how much of a failure they are. God's word calls us to gently restore them. See, they are not the enemy, they are struggling with the enemy. And we are to gently restore them. So this can't be done by just anyone. Not just anyone can be a restorer. I don't know, most of you have a, I don't wanna say most of you, but some of you have a sibling kind of story in your life, or maybe you're the older one or you're the younger one, okay? And you go and do something that you shouldn't have done. And that said sibling finds out and does one of two things. And you tell me which one you think would be more helpful. Let's say you miss curfew or you lie about something and come in and your sibling says, how dare you? I would never have done that. You're a horrible human being. You're worthless. Like, we don't do that. Family's family, you don't say something like that to your family. Or, as the sibling comes to that person and says, hey, I think mom and dad are gonna figure this out. It's probably best just to come straight forward and tell them, hey, I made a mistake, I lied about it. They're still gonna get mad. There's still gonna probably be an issue here, but they'll respect you a whole lot more. Now here's the question, which way, which person will most likely respond to the other person better? In which scenario? Well, you would say probably the one that gently calls them out. That doesn't mean your sibling will listen to you, or your friend will listen to you, but, It's very important. Only a mature person can gently and lovingly restore someone who has transgressed against someone else or even them. See, an immature person can easily and quickly just call people out and make them feel horrible for how they've acted. And so, Philip Ryken is a commentator and theologian that I was reading, and he's an amazing biblical scholar. And one of the things that he said about this passage is this, he says, therefore, if sinners are to be restored gently, it will take a spiritual person to do it. Because only a spiritual person has a true spiritual gentleness. Only they are mature enough to come alongside that person and to help them restore their relationship with Christ or others. To help restore our brothers or sisters, we need to help lighten their load, not make it heavier. See, unfortunately, I think we see ourselves more like police officers questioning a suspect. Where have you been? How could you do this? We know you did it. Just questioning a suspect. and trying to make them feel the full weight of what they have done. Or another way we aren't helping our brothers and sisters in Christ is by rationalizing or minimizing their sinful behavior. I know I've found myself guilty of trying to minimize someone else's sin and even in ignoring their actions, but a mature Christian helps the transgressors see their sinful behavior, but also comes alongside them to help them through it. See, they walk with him so their relationship with God can be restored. Letting them know they aren't alone and they can change. They don't They do not have to be a slave to sin. Instead, they can turn from their transgression and restore their relationship with the Lord. See, our role is that of restorer. It's not of law and order, it's not of judge, it's not of warrior, it's that of restorer. And if we are being Christ-like in our relationships with others, we should always look to restore our brother or sister. Our second point here this morning is that our role is to reflect. When I say reflect, I'm not saying the compare game. I'll be honest, I don't really watch a lot of what I call soap opera TV or like reality TV, but one thing that I used to watch even as a kid that used to make me feel better about myself was the Jerry Springer Show. It's not healthy, those of you who are young children, but it made me feel better that I wasn't that bad. Does that make sense? I would compare myself, I was like, maybe I cheated on a test, but at least I didn't cheat with another person or something like that, or at least I didn't do that. See, God's not calling us to reflect in that way. He's not calling us to reflect on our brothers and sisters and say, look what they've done, I'm not like them. It's easy for us to do. We do this in reality. Many of you maybe would never watch The Jerry Springer Show, but yet you sit here in church or you walk around the community and we look at other people and judge them harshly for what we think they have done or what they shouldn't do. How we are better than them. It says, we are not commanded to look at others to see where they have failed or where we are better. See, Christ calls us to take a deep look at our own life and reflect on where we have fallen short, or where we maybe have glorified God. One of my favorite passages in the Bible comes from Matthew chapter seven. It's verses, I think, three, four, and five. And it says this, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your own eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. See, we can learn two things from those verses. Immature Christians look around at others' issues, no matter how small, rather than looking at their own issues. And secondly, if we want to help others, we must first take the necessary steps to help ourselves. See, a long time ago in a small church in James Allen, I gave that, I talked about that passage, and I was specifically trying to figure out a way that I could connect with the younger, it was mostly an older church, but there were several younger kids there, and I wanted to try to make this passage come to life. And they had just done some kind of scene where they had some palm trees. and they were made of cardboard rolls, kind of like long tubes. And I grabbed that tube, as I talked about this, and I attached it. It's literally probably six foot long. It took two hands to hold it. And I walked around the thing. well, the thing, the stage, and then I got down among the crowd there, walked around as I was swinging it across their heads, right, swinging this back and forth, talking about how, hey, your shirt's unbuttoned, or, you know, you didn't look like you really wearing nice clothes today, or whatever little thing that I could point out that I didn't like as I was swinging this around. And I saw this one teenage boy smile come on his face. And after the service, he came and said, he goes, I get it, I get it. I needed that silly representation of me judging others, me pointing out other people's sin to see that I had the plank in my own eye. And see, that's what's key here is we like to say, oh, that other person's so judgmental, they're always doing this, but we very rarely reflect on our own hearts. And I think that is very important for us to do, to reflect on our own hearts. This is similar, this kind of story that I talked about with this huge log in my eyes, similar to the story that I never got as a young child. When you ride in an airplane and someone tells you during the instructions, what do they tell you to do with the oxygen mass if it comes down? Does anybody know? Put it on yourself first. I always thought that flight, you know, like, my mom doesn't love me. She was gonna take care of herself. And I realized that sometimes you have to take care of yourself, because it doesn't do any good with two passed out people in the airplane, right? So sometimes you have to take care of yourself, or look inwardly at yourself before you look at another. And I know I'm using a lot of analogies, but I think this idea of reflection here, is really key. And so that if we are to rightly reflect on our own selves, we can become mature and spiritual. See, unlike Simeon in the desert who thought being spiritual meant separating ourselves, kind of moving away from relationships and focusing on God, it really requires us to look inward to ourselves and to help our brothers and sisters. That's what true spiritual maturity requires. Let's take a closer look now at verse five here. It says, for each will have to bear his own load. What's interesting here is in verse two, it says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. And so as I looked at this passage, I said, all right, God, which one do you want me to follow? Some people who might not believe in God's word or want to challenge it say, hey, this is a clear contradiction. It says here, bear another one's burden, fulfill the law of Christ, but then down in verse five, It says, for each of you will have to bear his own load. And so I really didn't have an answer to that question. And so as I was studying for this, it was very important for me to understand and realize what Paul was talking about here. There are times in your life that the burden is too great. And you can't handle it. And God wants you to reach out to ask for help, and as brothers and sisters in Christ, when someone has that burden, we are to come and help lighten that burden. In the same respect, this doesn't mean that every challenge, every hangnail we get, every little issue we have, we need to have someone else take that burden on. No, we have to take responsibility too. There are everyday burdens that we are required to handle. And it's important for us to do this. And so the answer is both, yes. Bear alone while others require us to do our part. So we bear our burdens to others and other people bear our burdens. But also we need to be reminded that when life becomes too overwhelming, we have to reach out. Facing challenges we can handle, we need to kind of take the initiative. That is showing real maturity, real growth when we can do when we can do what God has called us to do depending on that situation. Some challenges require us to stand firm in our faith against the challenge we're facing, and some require us to be on our knees calling for help. Both can be true. Both can be accurate. My third point, we'll go through verses six through 10 here. is my role is to remember. So my role is to restore, gently, out of love, out of helping my brother and sister in Christ. My role is to reflect on my own life, to really see where my heart is, what I need to do. And finally, my role is to remember. So what should we remember? Or better yet, who should we remember? Well, interestingly enough, and why I put the caveat in when I wrote earlier, it says, verse six, let the one who is taught the word share all good things with those who teach us. The primary role of a pastor, of a teacher, is to teach us God's word. And if they do that, our response should be to share all good things with them. Like I said, Nathan didn't ask me to talk specifically about this topic, but I do feel that this verse was written for a reason, so I dug into it, and here's a couple of things that came away. Again, the primary function, the primary role of the pastor is not that of a businessman, not that of an entertainer, not that of a comedian, not that of even just a spiritual guru, someone who knows a lot of theology, The primary function, and often the simplest definition of the pastor, is the one who teaches God's word. I know that we want sometimes somebody who's very business-savvy, or very entertaining to listen to, or funny, but that's not a role in which they must fulfill. It's not saying that they can't fulfill that, but it's not one that they can't. They may have some talents, but if they cannot or will not teach or preach God's word clearly and boldly, they are not fulfilling their calling. I'm thankful that I have attended in the past and do attend a church where I can say that this is done quite well. Another nugget of truth I found while studying Reichen's book is that those who sit under his teaching should willingly share the good things that God gives us. Yes, even financially. See, unfortunately for us as Christians, some people do something quite unhealthy. Oftentimes people will withhold their money when they don't agree with what the pastor is teaching on or speaking about. Or want something to change. Maybe they don't like the style of worship. Or possibly even worse, that the pastor should be poor. I don't know if you've ever heard this, that a pastor should be poor because godly ministers only need the very basics. Verse six really helps me to see, we should give generously so that our pastor can fulfill his call on teaching God's Word. So what else does the scripture tell us to remember? Verse eight, For the one who sows his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. These verses are encouraging to us because, well, it helps us to see and remember our sin and say, are they asking to us to remember our brother's sins? Our brother's mistakes, what we have done in the past? No, what these verses are talking about is that we are to remember that if we pursue our fleshly desires, we will reap corruption. But if we sow in the spirit, if we go after the godly things, we reap eternal life. See, in my opinion, we couldn't ask for a better promise or a better warning. Hey, don't pursue the fleshly desires. It only brings temporary satisfaction. These earthly joys will lead to corruption and death. But the promise of eternal life helps us to see from a totally different perspective. We need to realize that eternal life is better than any earthly pleasure that we could ask for. Because earthly pleasures last for just a moment. Makes me think of my old youth pastor. He said all the time, he said, are you living for the dot? Are you living for the line? You may have heard of that before, but it's the idea of you're living for the here and now. Are you living for eternity? What are you doing with your life? How are you living that? And see, finally, in this verse here, in verse nine and 10, it says, let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are in the household of faith. You see, our role is also to remember to never give up. That can be a hard thing to do. See, following God is not easy. Doing what is right is not easy. And we can be tempted to take the worldly path. We can even think as a Christian that, hey, I've done enough, that I've been spiritual enough, I've been good enough, and I don't need to continue to follow God. But we are encouraged in God's word here is that we should take every opportunity to do good and to never give up living a spiritual life. We must also remember to be good to those who belong to the Lord. Our Christian relationships, you my brothers and you my sisters, are vital. And we must do everything we can to protect, nurture, and fulfill what God has called us to do. Bearing one another's burdens, supporting those in need, and living for God rather than ourselves are key indicators that we are spiritually mature Christians who know our role. And so I, as we look back at, Simeon, the stylite, he wanted to become more spiritual. And he did so by, he thought, isolating himself. In fact, he went so far, he actually lived about 30 years on there. In his ministry, he built a bigger platform, taller, I think it eventually went up to 30 feet, put a rail around the edge in case he were to fall off. And that is how he lived out his life. And I have always thought this, it is way easier to live a spiritual life when you isolate yourself from everything else. But we are called to be in relationship. And I often wonder how he would have lived his life, how he could have impacted people for Christ had he come and shared one another's burdens, had he come and helped others, had he come and spoke the truth of the gospel to one another. So I challenge you this morning, to lighten your brother or sister's load. I challenge you to share God's word with others, to share the truth about Jesus, that not only did he live a perfect life, but that he died for us, for sinners. And because of that, we get to have a real relationship, an eternal one in heaven. And so, I hope this morning that God's word fanned into flames your desire to both restore your brothers and sisters, reflect on how you can change, and remember God always. Let's pray. Heavenly Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you allowed Paul to write a passage speaking to relationships and what our duty is in our Christian relationships. God, like I said earlier, I don't know who's hurting. I don't know who needs to be restored. I don't know who is struggling, but you do. So I pray that our brothers and sisters would gently and lovingly help those who are in conflict, those who are hurting, those who are in need, that they would also look at themselves and how they need to change and how they need to look more towards you. And remember to take every opportunity to do good works for your glory, God. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.