worker here at Chapel Hill Bible Fellowship and you know I can't think of any person I've ever worked with, an administrator I've ever worked with who loved what they do as much as Karen loves what she does. And you love us so well because you love him so well. And we thank you so much for everything you do. So much she does behind the scenes. And you just don't know. You have no idea. Thank you so much, Karen. Appreciate you. I want to invite you now to go open your Bible. Galatians chapter 5. We're getting real close to the end of this little letter. And everything goes by so fast. It's hard to believe that we're already in May. And it's crawfish season, which is good. I get excited about crawfish season. I know some people, you know, you go, it's crawfish season. Oh, well, that's just news. That doesn't mean anything to me. But I love crawfish. And they're a lot of work, but they're worth it, I think. And we eat a lot of crawfish in our family. And whenever I eat crawfish, it brings back memories string and a piece of bacon and a little bucket and we'd go down to the creek and we'd sit down there and crawfish all day long and it would be several of us and we'd get into one little bucket and the little bucket would get full pretty quick. You look in that little bucket and you'd think, okay, this is getting full, these crawfish are going to get out. They could reach the top, they could reach the rim, but none of them ever got out of the bucket. Paying attention, if you've ever been crawfishing, you know why they don't get out of the bucket. The reason is because as soon as one gets to the top, the others start pulling them back down in there. It's kind of an ugly thing, but it's a picture. Crawfish, they're mindless creatures. They don't know. That's just what they do, but that's a picture of how destructive selfishness can be. It's a picture of what life is like whenever we put ourselves ahead of everybody else. No one does any good from it. None of us ever escapes the bucket, whatever that's what's going on. And throughout the scriptures, we're taught that we need one another. I've submitted to mention a moment ago, before he read that passage, Romans chapter 15. This was not designed to be done alone. We need each other. And that's true of church. That's just true in life in general. I mean, outside of the church, I mean, you need people. Life was designed to be lived in community. That's how God designed this thing. We need each other. And rather than pull each other down, we're gonna encourage one another and strengthen one another and build each other up, help one another to do well, help one another to find success. That's the way it's supposed to be, but that's not always the way it is. Paul talks a little bit about that this morning in this passage of Galatians chapter 5. We're going to begin in Galatians 5 verse 26, and we're going to finish this morning in Galatians 6 verse 5. And it's funny because last week, you know, as we finished up things, someone mentioned to me, we forgot a verse. You didn't get the last verse. Well, yeah, the chapter break here is kind of unfortunate. And really, you know, chapter breaks are helpful in some ways, but they're not helpful in others, because whenever we see a chapter break, we tend to think, okay, that's the end of all of that, and now we're starting something entirely new. Not necessarily the case. When Paul wrote this, he didn't have a chapter break in mind. But anyways, this is what he writes, beginning in Galatians 5, verse 26. He says, let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. be tempted, bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another, for each one will bear his own load." So, you know, last week we looked at verses 15 and 25. Paul, you know, describes this conflict that's going on in the life of every believer. Actually, we spent a couple of weeks looking at those verses. And there's a conflict going on between the sinful nature, you know, and its desires, desires and passions on the one hand and you've got the Holy Spirit on the other and these things are a conflict in our lives and he's told us that we find victory in the midst of this conflict when we walk in the Spirit right remember that we walk in the Spirit and we keep the flesh crucified you know we whenever we put our faith in Christ we declared war on this nation and the way you keep the flesh crucified I do this, and I just do this in isolation. And it's just me and the Holy Spirit kind of moving through life here. And it's just the two of us or whatever. It's like there's this mystical thing going on between me and the Spirit. But that's not the way that Paul sees this. Paul says, you know what, when you're walking in the Spirit, it's going to impact everything around you. It's going to impact every relationship that you have. You don't just do this in a vacuum. You don't just do this in isolation. you know, and that's kind of a transitional statement, really, into this practical application here in verse 26. And he shows that walking in the Spirit will change your relationships. That's just the nature of it. He does the same thing in Ephesians. He talks about that in Ephesians chapter 5, in chapter 5, verse 18 of Ephesians. He says, look, be filled with the Spirit. And then he goes on to talk about how this changes personal relationships. beginning with the marriage relationship and talking about relationships with children and your relationships with workers and everything else, all these other relationships. It all begins with walking with the Holy Spirit. All the relationships in your household are impacted and all the relationships outside the household. Then you got Colossians chapter three, another parallel passage, parallel to Ephesians chapter five. And in that passage, Paul says this in Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. Now that's the same thing as being filled with the Spirit. You let the Word of Christ which literally dwell within you. And what's the result? Well, the same thing. It impacts all your relationships. It changes your marriage. It changes your relationship with your kids. It changes relationships with everyone outside your household. And so you can't separate being filled with the Spirit from the reality that it's going to impact life and relationships. There's just no way to separate these things. thing going on, rather it's something that just profoundly changes everything. When we walk by the Spirit, it's going to be most clearly evidenced in the way that we show love for other people. And this makes sense, given that the greatest commandment is to love, and the first fruit of the Spirit is love, I mean that's a relational word. We don't have love, but nothing to receive it. So the first root of spirit being love is a relational term. It assumes that there's somebody there that we're showing love to. And so our fulfillment of verse 26 is the outflow of walking by the spirit and loving one another. And it says, let us not become boastful, challenging one another, impeding one another. The adjective there in that verse A literal translation of it would be empty glory, you know, empty glory. And the idea is boasting, bragging, that captures the idea. Pride, arrogance, conceited, kind of a conceitedness, that's the idea here. The word describes a person who's kind of puffed up on himself. Now he even uses that in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, he talks about the up with pride and he thinks more highly of himself than he ought to. That's how he describes it in Romans chapter 12 verse 3. He says you shouldn't do that. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. Well that's what he's addressing here in Galatians chapter 5 verse 26. It's the individual who thinks more highly of himself than he ought to. And this idea, this business of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to, look that's the bread and butter of the sinful nature. I mean, we're getting, you know, he's not just taking branches out of the tree of the sinful nature. He's chopping at the trunk of this thing. He's attacking the entire tree when he goes after pride, right? I mean, everything else is kind of the outflow of pride in that regard. It's, you know, this business of being puffed up and thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to. That's kind of a primary tendency of the flesh in so many ways. And so he says, let us not become boastful. All right, that's a, that's a, the word become, it suggests, you know, really it says, let us quit becoming boastful. In other words, this is something that's going on, we gotta stop doing this. And then he follows it with challenging one another, ending one another. But let's not become boastful, and then the outflow of that is challenging one another and ending one another. And the idea here is this, is that the way we treat other people is gonna be largely determined by how we view ourselves. The way we treat other people is largely determined by how we view ourselves. When we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to, overflowing with pride, seeking glory and praise, we're likely to poison the relationships we have with other people. That's just the nature of it. That's just what happens. When we're puffed up with pride, we're likely to challenge one another and envy one another. He says, the Greek word translated there is challenge is sometimes translated as provoke. Maybe that's the way it says it But the word literally means to challenge somebody, to challenge someone to a competition. When I was in high school, I had an old Firebird. And you know, there are other kids in school who had fast cars, and they would want to challenge me to a race. But I didn't race them. It wasn't because I was taking the high road. It's because my Firebird was a piece of junk. No, it was a great car. It just wasn't fast. You know, and I knew better. And so pride kept me from accepting the challenge. It wasn't like, oh, no, no, that's against the law. But you know, that's the kind of an idea though that Paul's talking about, challenging each other to a competition. And here's the deal, whenever one of the guys would come along and want to challenge me to a race, it's because he knew his car was faster than mine. And I didn't accept the challenge because I didn't have that confidence in my car. And so that's what Paul is talking about here when we're challenging one another. We believe ourselves to be superior to someone in some way, and so we provoke them. In other words, we invite them to challenge us in some way so we have the opportunity to prove our superiority. It's just a confidence there that's just very unbecoming. And this, as Paul says, this ought not be going on. And so pride causes us to challenge one another, but it also causes us to envy one another. And, you know, envy is when desirable possession or some desirable achievement that we don't have. Alright, whenever they've got that, they've got that certain good something going on, you know, wow, what is that? It makes me feel a little inferior, right? It makes me a little envious. thing. Even if I don't get that good thing that they have, my envy is such, and it's so ugly, that you know what, even if I don't have it, I'd be glad if they lost it. I'd be content if they lost it. Because now the love, the playing field's leveled a little bit more, and they're not, you know, they're not superior to me in that way anymore. I'm no longer inferior to them. It's, everything's kind of restored. And you know, it just doesn't make any difference whether I get it or they lose it, as long So there you go. The way we treat other people is determined by how we view ourselves. And when we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to, we're going to either look for ways to prove our superiority, or we're going to have resentful, envious feelings towards those we think we're inferior to. Pride doesn't tolerate any rivals. It says, this town is not big enough tolerate pride. You know, and when you're walking in the Spirit, He's going to deal with that. Holy Spirit will deal with pride in our lives. He'll always guide us away from it. He'll always guide us away from pride, always guide us away from its rivalries, always guide us away from the grudges and the resentments, and He'll always guide us away from those things into selfless, humble, loving service to one another. He'll always guide us view others as being more important than ourselves, just as Paul talks about in Philippians chapter two. And that's the direction Paul takes this argument here in Galatians as we cross over into chapter six. In verse one he says, brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. And so a person that's filled with pride might find a little joy in seeing a brother stumble and fall, get into some sort of a sinful situation, or bad things happen to them. Have you ever known somebody who seemed to kind of be that way? They are always a little bit glad about somebody else's misfortune, talk about the bad thing that happened, such and such, trying to keep the grin off their face while they talk. That's unfortunate that people are that way, but there are a lot of folks who are that way, and some of us are that way too. And you know, again, that's one less person that you got to worry about. You're one less person to be inferior to. And this goes hand in hand with the legalism that the Galatians had gotten themselves into. And we spent a long time talking about legalism, right? Paul spent the first several chapters, even into chapter five, addressing this business of legalism. Oh, you're so focused on the rules. That's what happens when you take your eye off Jesus Christ. you working real hard, and that gives pride the room to kind of come in and develop. And you know, it's just, this all goes hand in hand with that legalism. The, you know, he talks about correcting one another, you know, caught in a trespass and doing it with a spirit of gentleness. The Galatians were probably correcting each other, but not in the way that Paul's describing here. probably doing in a very ugly way. They had no interest in restoring anybody. They were probably beating each other down, making each other feel guilty about their sins and their failures. And Paul says, look, you catch something when someone's caught in a trespass, you restore them. And he talks about being caught in a trespass. He's not talking about caught in the sense of, OK, you know, he's been doing And that kind of gives the idea that, you know, if we read that word caught like that, oh, you know, then we kind of get the notion, we might come away from this with the idea that what he's telling us to do is be watching each other. I'm watching, I'm watching you real close. We're all watching each other and we're looking for the opportunity to call somebody out on something. Oh, I saw you do that, I heard what you said. And just, you know, kind of policing each other's lives. and we're looking around to try to catch each other. When he talks about being caught in a trespass, he's talking about someone getting caught up in a sinful situation. In other words, they're not looking for sin. Sin came and found them, and now here they are. They're caught up in it. That's not absolving them of their responsibility and their sin. It's just to say that we get caught up in situations, and we get caught up in patterns that we weren't looking to get caught up in. It can happen to anybody. It can happen to any one of us. That's the idea here. It could be anybody and it could be any type of a sinful pattern. This fits well with the Greek noun translator's trespass. It literally does mean to fall. You just kind of stumble into this. The idea of sin uses the word fall literally. to stumble. And this works well with the metaphor that he introduced in the last chapter when he was talking about walking in the Spirit, right? He's just kind of keeping up that idea. You're walking in the Holy Spirit, but then you fall into sin, right? That happens to anybody. Man, everything's going great, running all eight cylinders it feels like. You know, God's just kind of there. He's real. He's apparent. He's obvious in our lives. His power is a sinful situation, you're not looking for it, but there you are. And this could happen to anybody. And when it does, he says, you who are spiritual are to restore the one who has fallen. You who are spiritual are to restore the person who's fallen. And what does he mean by spiritual? He says, you who are spiritual, you know, I've known a lot of people through life who claim to be spiritual. What do they mean by that? I mean, you know, I don't know. You gotta ask people to clarify that one. I mean, they can mean all kinds of crazy stuff. Oh, I'm a very spiritual person. Well, how do you mean? What do you mean exactly? Well, I sit by the lake and I pray. Okay, I don't know how that, anyways, but that's what people kind of come away with sometimes, this idea of being spiritual. But what does Paul mean? Well, in the context of everything we've been looking at the last couple of weeks, The fruit of the Holy Spirit is finding manifestation in their lives and in their relationships with other people. Those are the ones who are spiritual. And when the Holy Spirit is leading the way in this and producing the fruit that He alone produces, the response towards the person caught in sin is going to be above all other things. Above all other things it's going to be loving. And really all those other fruit, they're all byproducts of love, they're all expressions of love. And so those who are spiritual are to restore those who have stumbled. And you know, the idea of verse one, verse one suggests a couple of things. First off, it points out the reality that not all Christians are necessarily spiritual. But you know, the previous verses make it clear that all Christians should be spiritual. You know, this business of walking by the Holy Spirit and being led by the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit being produced in the lives of people, he's not, this isn't just for a certain class of believers, not just for people who've been Christians for a certain length of time, people who have, you know, a certain amount of Bible training or whatever, to every single believer and it's expected The fruit of the Spirit is something that is to be produced in the life of every single believer. This is what God wants for everybody. But the truth of the matter is that not every Christian, this is the reality. This isn't really what's going on in their life. But the expectation of the whole passage is, it ought to be. Right? It ought to be. And what are the spiritual ones supposed to do? Well, they're to restore the one who's caught in sin. And the word there that is translated as restore means to put in order. And this is a very picturesque word, this Greek word. Restore is what it says, that captures the essence of the word in a lot of ways. It literally means to put in order, put things back to the way they're supposed to be. This word is used in Mark chapter 1 verse 19. It's translated in that verse as mending. We're talking about how James and John were repairing their fishing nets. Now you've got the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And in the Greek translation of the book of Ezra, You know, talking about the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, Ezra chapter 4, verses 12 and 13, you've got that word. It appears in each of those verses, and it's translated as rebuilding. And that's a very beautiful picture of what those who are spiritual ought to be doing with those who have fallen. It's like rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. We're going to rebuild them. We're going to put them back together. We're going to lift them out of the rubble, I mean, we don't shame them and beat them down, tell them how bad they are, give them this verbal brow beating, make them feel bad. Rather, we rebuild them. We mend them. We pick them up and dust them off. We put the wheels back on the rail again. Look, the goal is restoration. The goal is redemption. There's gotta be a redemptive Goal in sight here, otherwise it's not a Holy Spirit deal. Because God's goal is always to restore the one who's fallen. And a spirit of gentleness is necessary for this. You do this with a spirit of gentleness, and that's a fruit of the Spirit also, a product of the Holy Spirit. It's an expression of love. Gentleness flowing out of love. And so this is how this is how this is supposed to happen. Whenever someone is fallen into some sort of a sinful pattern, whether it's just a horrible attitude for a few weeks or something, you know, it's someone is to lovingly, gently, redemptively come alongside for the purpose of helping them put things back together again. Paul says, look, when you do this, you've got to keep an eye You know, I've been a pastor for quite a long time. I had to do that some, and I don't like doing that. So they're just not in a frame of mind where they're willing to hear and receive it. That's just part of what it means to walk in the flesh. You're just not going to be receptive to correction always. People don't always respond well. In fact, in 25 years of ministry, I can't think of a single time that I had to talk to someone about their sin and they didn't get mad about it. You kind of got to be prepared for that. They're walking in the flesh. I mean, how else do you expect a person who's walking in the flesh to respond? And so, you know, you've got to be ready for that. You've got to watch yourself, Paul says, so that you will not, you know, you too will not become tempted. You know, they respond in anger. You've got to be careful that you don't, okay, well, you know, hey, forget about you, you know, and, you know, you respond in like, you know, the like way, you know, get angry and fleshy and hostile in return. I'll tell you what, you know, you go and you're trying to help somebody, you know, kind of right the ship, so to speak, and they turn around and, you know, it's like, you know, they kind of gore you for it. It is very tempting to go ahead and let them have it. It is very tempting to go ahead and just let it go. But like James says in James chapter one, verse 10, the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. And so Paul says, look, when you do this, you've got to really We could be out of the spirit and into the flesh very quickly. So out of a Holy Spirit-laden love for one another, expressing self and gentleness, we seek to restore those who have fallen into sin. We don't want to see each other fail. You know, if we want to see other people fail and we get kind of a kick out of the failure of others, that ought to be a red flag too. up to edify, not to tear each other down. We want to help each other grow in godliness and draw nearer and nearer to Christ. And again, that's the direction Paul goes. He continues to take this. He's going to go a little further with it. In verses 2 to 5, he says, bear one another's burdens. Bear one another's burdens. And we'll wrap it up right quick. We're almost done here. Picking up a brother who's fallen into sin, that's one of the ways that we do that. That's one of the ways that we bear one another's burdens. There are a lot of other ways that we do it. So he goes from a specific example just into a very general area here. Look, this is just what you ought to be doing. You ought to be bearing each other's burdens. You ought to be coming along and helping out. And the command, bear one another's burdens. Innocent we all have burdens. We've all got them. There's not anybody in this room who had got burdens. There's not anybody outside this room that hasn't got burdens. Every human, look, if you're alive, you got burdens. That's the nature of life. You've got burdens. You've always got burdens. And the Greek word translated there is burden is talking about something that's just too heavy to carry alone. We got these things that they're too heavy to be carried alone, and the scripture makes it clear, we're not expected to carry them alone. And you know, some people do. They don't want anyone else's help. They feel like, you know, I don't want this convenience you, and I can do this on my own, and they think it's some sort of a show of fortitude or strength or what have you, and you know, well, I've got the Lord, and that's all I need. I don't need anything else. I've got Jesus, so I don't need anything else. Have you ever heard, maybe you've said that. I mean, but we've all heard someone else say it. I've got the Lord, I don't need anything else. He helps me. Okay, well, how does he help you? Yeah, the Lord's there, and you don't need anything more than the Lord, and he certainly does help, but how does he help you? Where do you see his hands and feet in the bearing of your burdens? How does he minister to you and help you to bear this? you to bear it. Guess what you're doing? You're refusing ministry from Christ himself. Oh, I've got the Lord. Yeah, you've got the Lord and you don't need anything more. But now you're rejecting the help he sent to you. 2 Corinthians 7, you know, got Paul and his companions, and he's talking about these worries, these concerns, and among the worries that Paul had was his concern for the Corinthians. He was always concerned for that church. He was particularly concerned about them in 2 Corinthians because of a letter that he had written previously. He wrote several letters to them, we only have two, but he had written a previous letter that was rather harsh. And so he was worried about how they received that letter and what the reaction to it was. He comforted us. How did he do that? Well, he came out of heaven by himself and he came and he wrapped blankets around him. No, he comforted us by sending Titus. He sends another person to us. to bear their burden. You know, a lot of Christians wonder, well, where's my area of ministry? I don't understand my area of ministry, where that is. I don't understand God's will. Well, here's a good place to begin, to figure those things out. Walk by the Spirit and bear one another's burden. And a lot of stuff will just become all the more clear as you go along with that, as you're fulfilling this basic purpose. Paul says, look, when we do this, he says in chapter six, verse two, this is how we fulfill the law of Christ. This is how we fulfill the law of Christ. You know, he said in 524 that the whole law is fulfilled in one word, the statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, bearing one another's burdens. That's a practical way that love is expressed. That's just a practical nuts and bolts down to earth, feet-in-motion way that this is all fulfilled. This is Church 101 stuff right here. I mean, it's mundane. It's unspectacular. It's just very basic. But it's necessary. It's the starting point. And in a lot of places, it's totally absent. And again, the way things are worded there in verse 2 implies that we all have burdens. And in order for us to help each other bear these burdens, there's got to be a degree of honesty. There's got to be some grounding in reality. And there's got to be some humility and some openness and some willingness to let people in. You know, I remember a seminary, you know, talking about ministry and these classes and the professors, oh, you know, everybody keeps everyone at arm's length in the church. They do. Well, you know what the problem is? We just don't want to get into everybody's messes. That's the problem. You know, I've discovered 25 years hours. That's why we keep everyone at arm's length. But in order for this to happen, there's got to be honesty and openness about the reality of life and where we're at and what we're struggling with. We can't perform the basic function of the church if we're all walking around acting like we've got it together and there aren't any problems. And you know, I'll tell you, We're learning how to do this. We're learning how to get past the superficialities and open up and be real with one another. Is it easy? Oh, yeah, it's really no, it's not easy. It's hard. And it's harder than it ought to be. It's harder than it ought to be because we live in a culture that has conditioned us not to do that. We've got an American culture that says, you know what, you don't depend on anyone, you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you get it done. And we have a church culture that tells you that same message, but on steroids. Whatever you do, once you come up out of the water in that back of the tank, you find the pew you're gonna sit at, find your spot, and then pretend from now on you got it all together. Here's your mask, put it on, don't forget to wear it on Sunday. And that's what we do. We've got this legalistic culture that is so focused on performance. It's so ready to outcast anybody who just doesn't live up to the standard, make them feel less than, and then we stand around and wonder why we aren't making any impact in our community. Why no one wants anything to do with us. Because some people prefer the real world over what the church is doing. I'll tell you, I'm glad we don't have that culture here so strong like it is in some other places. I mean, we don't, you know, there are folks here where there's a realness, there are real relationships being developed, and that's how real relationships are forged, whenever you're actually dealing with life together. That's how relationships are forged, real, meaningful, true relationships, whenever we're going through life together, and we're not acting like we've got sin, You don't need anyone's help? You think you got this mastered? You're fooling yourself. You're deceiving yourself. You're out of touch with your own condition and your own need. Man, everybody's walking around pretending they all got together. Look, here's the deal. You're not convincing anyone that you got it all together. That's just the reality. You pretend like you got it all together, the only person you're really feeling is yourself. That's the only person you're feeling. Everyone else sees through that. We all know better. He says in verse 4, each one of you must examine his own work. In other words, quit comparing yourselves to others. That's the heartbeat of legalism. We gauge how well we're doing, how spiritual we are by looking at everybody else. As long as we're in the top ten or whatever the standard is, we pray a little more, we're at church more, we fuss less, we don't drink, we don't chew, we don't date girls who do. As long as we're maintaining that standard, we're better off. Paul says, look, you don't compare yourself to other people. In fact, the truth of the matter is, if you want to compare in Sermon on the Mount, we saw it. You know, don't compare yourselves to the Pharisees and try to aspire to that righteousness. Compare yourself to the standard of the holiness of God. There is your reality check. Don't compare yourself to others. That's how we determine who's superior and who's inferior and everything else, by comparing ourselves to others. It takes us right back to Galatians 5.26. Wait a minute, didn't he say us to bear each other's burdens back in verse 2? What's going on now? Now he's saying everyone's going to carry their own load? Which is it? Do we bear each other's burdens or do we carry our own load? What is it? Well, again, the Greek word translated in verse 2 is burden, speaks of something that's too heavy to manage on your own. That's not the same word that shows up in verse 5 as translated as load. The word translated there as load talks about, you know what that refers to? In other words, the idea here of bearing your own load is, look, you've got some personal responsibilities that are yours and yours alone, things that you don't give to somebody else. And that's the idea here, your personal responsibilities. Things that you don't give to somebody else. And in the context of everything he's said so far, I think the load care for one another. I've got a responsibility to help you bear your burden. And that's not a responsibility I can just dump off on everybody else. It's my personal responsibility to love you and care for you that way and to help you to bear your burden. And that's the attitude we're all to have towards one another. And again, Flickie's Jeopardy 2 is very instructive in that regard. Personal responsibility. I'm responsible for this. I have to do this. I can't just expect everyone else to do it. You know, I think of Genesis chapter 4, verse 9. You know, the story of Cain and Abel. And God asks Cain, where is Abel, your brother? And Cain's response was this. He goes, I do not know. And I'm my brother's keeper. The answer we find in Galatians chapter six to that question is an emphatic yes. You are, you've got a responsibility in the life of your brother. One another, one another, one another. That word appears again and again in this passage. It's a reciprocal word. It's a word of give and take. It's a word of relationship, of exchange going on back and forth between people. It's the common thread of the passage. Do not challenge one another. Do not envy one another. Bear one another's burden. And this one other thing is the bread and butter of the Christian life. And it would be interesting to take the time to just do a study of every time the word one another appears in the New Testament. It's an active expression of back there to meet you if you need anything. In the meantime, let me pray for you. Lord God, we are so thankful to you for your words, we always are, and it's time to gather your presence. And Lord, we study a passage like this Personally, Father, I just can't express gratitude enough to you or to this church for the ways that I've received ministry from you through them. And I think that there are a lot of folks in this church who could say the same thing, that there's a tremendous one another spirit that's here. And Father, as wonderful as that is, we recognize and a little more manifest in our midst and our lives together. There are ways that love can be expressed a little more wonderfully. We pray, God, that you continue to guide us and to help us into that. And Lord, it is a difficult thing sometimes to open up and allow others in to see the difficulty of our own lives. But Father, we pray that by your grace you'll help us to be able to set aside our pride a helping hand from a brother or sister who I received ministry from you. What a foolish thing to turn it out of ministry.