Bear One Another’s Burdens
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25) — and to keep in the step with the Holy Spirit means we submit to the Holy Spirit; it means we yield to his guidance and his fruit; and we, by his power, understand that the cross of Jesus Christ is the very center of our lives. To live the Spirit-filled life is to live the cross-centered life. And if that’s the case for us it will have a good effect on our church.
Keeping in step with the Spirit will result in a healthy church — and Galatians Chapter 6, verses 1–10 shows us what that looks like. We learn at least three things in this passage.
If we’re keeping in step with the Spirit, resulting in a healthy church, it means:
We move toward the wayward.
We love one another truly.
We endure in love as central to our witness.
We’re gonna spend some time on each of these, but first let’s pray again for God’s help:
Father in heaven, by the power of your Holy Spirit, please speak to us today. Speak to our church, and bless us, in Jesus’s name, amen.
1. We move toward the wayward (verse 1)
So walking in the Spirit effects good in the church, and part of that good means, right away, that the church tries to keep one another from ruining their lives. Verse 1:
Brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
There three pieces here I want us to see:
There is the person caught in transgression;
There is the spiritual person who seeks to restore that person caught in transgression; and
There is the manner of how the action to restore is carried out.
In verse 1 Paul is talking about corrective church discipline. So let me explain a little more about what that is. There’s two kinds of discipline in the local church:
there’s formative discipline (which means we’re learning and being trained together in the Word), and
there’s corrective discipline (which means we together correct sin in the hopes of redirecting fellow church members to Jesus). …
And this corrective discipline is very much a part of discipleship. At its most basic level, corrective discipline happens anytime we are challenged by the word of God and/or we recognize the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And, brothers and sisters, I hope that happens a lot.
Because if we read the Bible and we’re never challenged by it, it either means that we’re perfect or we’re doing wrong (and we’re not perfect).
We want this to be part of our life together as a church. It’s why every Sunday in our worship we have a time of Confession, that follows an exhortation. We are invited to confess our sins, and to repent, and to receive the forgiveness of Jesus. At its most basic level, corrective discipline is a normal aspect of the Christian life when we live honestly and whole.
And then there are some times when corrective discipline becomes a more formal practice.
Jesus taught us about this in Matthew 18:15ff. Paul mentions this several times in his letters, especially in 1 Corinthians. But formal corrective discipline happens when a church member gets “caught in transgression.” This means the church member is doing some outward, serious sin and they don’t stop. They are unrepentant.
In that case, a spiritual person should seek to restore them. And by spiritual person here, Paul simply means a person who has the Holy Spirit. Paul is talking about a fellow church member who lives by the Spirit — which could be any of us! That person, any person, walking in the Spirit, should go to the person who is caught in sin and exhort them to stop. It’s meant to be a way out.
And the main purpose of corrective church discipline that Paul mentions here is restoration. We exhort the member to stop their pursuit of sin because we sincerely do not want our brother or sister to ruin their life, which is what unrepentant sin will do. So we move toward them to restore them.
And we do that in a spirit of gentleness — which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit — and it’s something that’s not hard for us to do when our real purpose is restoration. We’re not trying to punish the person caught in sin! We’re trying to help them! We’re not trying to hurt them; we’re trying to keep them from the hurt and wreckage that sin will cause. So we move toward them to restore them, and we do it gently … and we do it according to the way Jesus commands us in Matthew 18. And at the end of the day, this really all comes down to simple obedience to Jesus.
Look, I understand that corrective church discipline is not easy; it’s uncomfortable; and sometimes our goal for restoration fails.
But the question of whether a church practices corrective church discipline is a question of whether that church follows Jesus and does what the Bible says. If we are a church keeping in step with Holy Spirit, if we’re a healthy church, Galatians 6, verse 1 will be true of us. We will move toward the wayward.
2. We will love one another truly (verses 2–5)
The central command for this entire passage is verse 2.
Verse 2 is the main idea that Paul elaborates in everything else he says through verse 10 — but for now I want us to focus on verses 2–5, because these few verses are kind of packaged together. Notice three parts:
First, there’s the main idea, and then there are two clarifications.
Main Idea: Bear One Another’s Burdens
Now the main idea is verse 2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
So this is a command — “Bear one another’s burdens” — and Paul has embedded into the command its effect. The grammar is actually future tense. Paul says “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way — by bearing one another’s burdens — you will fulfill the law of Christ” — and so what is the law of Christ?
Well, it’s to love others. That’s the command Jesus gave us in John 13, on the night he was betrayed (which is coming up this Thursday, Maundy Thursday). On that night, Jesus said to his disciples, John 13:34:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
And of course Paul knew this command. Paul was thinking about this command in Chapter 5.
In Chapter 5, verse 6 Paul says: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”
In Chapter 5, verse 13, Paul says: “… but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Then in Chapter 5, verse 22, love is the first fruit of the Spirit.
So by the time we get to Chapter 6, we know that:
Faith is expressed through loving others;
Love is expressed through serving others;
And love expressed through serving others is so deep and important that it actually fulfills the Old Testament law.
Well, Paul is repeating those same ideas in Chapter 6, verse 2. So try to track with me here:
Jesus’s new commandment for his people is love one another — that’s the law of Christ. And we fulfill that law — we actually will love one another the way Jesus said — when we bear one another’s burdens.
Loving one another truly means bearing one another’s burdens. That’s the main idea here. But now notice Clarification #1 in verse 3.
Clarification #1: This Applies to Everyone
Clarification #1 is that Paul’s command here applies to everyone.
When Paul says verse 2 he’s speaking to the whole church about how we live together, and he has in a mind a holy reciprocity; he’s saying: Hey, all of y’all, bear one another’s burdens. Y’all do this together.
But Paul suspects that there will be some individuals who hear that command and think it does not apply to them. They’ll hear Paul say: “Bear one another’s burdens” and they’ll say: Yeah, I’m good. I don’t actually need help. I can handle my stuff on my own.
Well, Paul anticipates that thinking and says, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
In other words, if you think you’re something as in: You think you don’t need help; you think you can handle life without burden-bearing support from others; if you think that, you deceive yourself. You’re actually buying a lie. It’s not true. You do need help. We all need help.
We know that, right? Every single one of us needs help. How’s that landing on you right now? How does it land on you to know that you have needs that God intends for others to meet?
Several years ago I read this little book called Side by Side, written by a Christian psychologist named Ed Welch. I was reminded about the book this past week, and I went back, found it, and read my notes — and it’s such a helpful book.
It’s actually divided into two parts: the first part is about having burdens that others help you bear; and second part is about how you help others bear their burdens. And the real genius of the book, to me, is how it starts. Right away, first page, Ed Welch says that to be human means two things — you know what they are?
He says to be human means we need help and we give help.
And that’s true of humans because God made us that way, on purpose. God made us to need others and for others to need us, and if that’s true of humans in general, then how much more so for us in the church? All of us as brothers and sisters, in our life together as a church, we each need help and give help. And if we don’t understand it’s both — if we ever think it’s one and not the other — that will actually distort the church community. Here’s what I mean:
If you think you help others bear burdens, but you don’t need any help with your own, it will eventually lead to pride, and that pride will alter the source of your help for others from being God and his word, to being yourself. The only real and lasting way you help others is to know, like Luther once said, that even on our best days we are all just beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. Givers of help are also needers of help.
The other side is also true.
If you think you only need help from others, but you don’t give help (or you think you can’t give help), it will also lead to pride — but not the pride of arrogance, it leads to the pride of self-pity — to the thinking that you’re poor and pitiful and the whole world should be bending over backwards to make things easier for you. That’s not good.
Both kinds of pride harm the church’s life together. It warps the church community.
So we need to get this, brothers and sisters: Givers of help are also needers of help; and needers of help are also givers of help. That’s what Paul means (and clarifies) when he says “Bear one another’s burdens” — and understand this applies to everyone. You are deceived if you think this doesn’t apply to you.
And the way to not be deceived — the way to realize that you have burdens and you also need help — is to just take an honest look at your life. Just examine yourself. That’s verse 4.
And verse 4 gets to the Clarification #2.
Clarification # 2: Everyone Takes Personal Responsibility
Clarification #2 is that each person must take responsibility for themselves.
Now look, verses 4–5 can be a little puzzling — so we gotta follow Paul’s train of thought. Paul says, verse 3: Hey, don’t think you’re something and deceive yourself, but, verse 4:
… let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.
So to test your own work and actions means to examine yourself, but don’t examine yourself in comparison to your neighbor. If there’s something about yourself that you think is great, don’t make that assessment based upon how you size up with others, because verse 5:
For each will have to bear his own load.
The word for “load” in verse 5 is different from the word for “burden” in verse 2. When Paul says “burden” in verse 2 he’s taking about something really heavy and concerning and overwhelming. But the word for “load” is not like that. It’s simply a load. That’s a good translation. The idea is a “load of responsibility.”
Paul is saying that each individual member is responsible for themselves. We all have burdens we need others to help us bear, just like we help others bear their burdens — and at the same time we are responsible for our own stuff.
So I’ve got an issue I need you to help me with, but it’s not your issue, it’s mine — and ultimately I’m going to be held accountable not for how you did or did not help me, but I’m going to be held accountable for what I did.
You see how this goes?
It’s interesting that verse 5 is future tense: “each will have to bear his own load.” Many commentators think Paul is referring to the future Day when we each will stand before the judgment seat of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 5:10). One day we all are gonna stand before Jesus as individuals, and when we do, in that moment every comparison we make today between ourselves and others, it will be silly then. Every complaint and grumble we might have today about so-and-so, it will be empty then.
Look, whatever you have going on in your life right now, one day we all will stand before Jesus responsible for ourselves.
That’s a helpful clarification, right? Thank you, brother Paul.
Okay, so now, let’s just put verses 2–5 altogether. Here’s my paraphrase of what Paul is saying. He’s saying:
Bear one another’s burdens, and by doing so you will fulfill the law of Christ to love one another. And don’t think that you don’t need help — if you think that you’re deceiving yourself. Just examine your own life and you’ll see, but don’t examine your life in comparison with others. Don’t focus on how you measure up with so-and-so, because in the end we all will be held accountable for ourselves.
That’s Galatians 6, verses 2–5.
And if we keep in step with the Spirit, resulting in a healthy church, this will be a reality in our church.
It will mean that we love others truly — which means that we live interdependent lives of mutual burden-bearing — we need help and we give help — and we’re responsible for ourselves.
God, let it be.
And this brings us to #3.
If we keep in step with the Sprit, resulting in a healthy church, it will mean:
3. We endure in love as central to our witness (verses 6–10)
Okay, there are three parts to need to see here. There’s the Principle, the Encouragement, and the Focus.
The Principle
For the Principle, skip down to verse 7.
In verse 7 Paul reinforces what’s he’s been saying with the principle of sowing and reaping, which is basically the principle of causality. This is about the way God has ordered the world. If you sow apple seeds, you get apple trees and then apples.
See, this means we are able to do certain things now that we trust will have a certain effect in the future. And this is really important for human life — in fact, without this, everything in the world, from our perspective, would be random and absurd.
Because we’d plant apple seeds and say: I don’t know, we’ll see?!?
We would have no clue what our actions effect. And that type of randomness and unpredictability would make our actions pointless; everything would be a crapshoot; and eventually we would self-destruct. And so that’s not how God made the world, and that’s not how it goes for the life of the church.
If you sow in the flesh, you’re gonna reap the corruption of the flesh. If you’re walking in the works of flesh described in Chapter 5, verses 19–21, you will not get a healthy, united church — you’ll get a corrupt, divided church that will destroy itself, like Paul says in Chapter 5, verse 15.
But if you walk in the Spirit, if you sow in the Spirit, you will reap eternal life — which, of course, refers to our life with God in the future new creation, but it doesn’t only mean that.
The eternal life that Paul says here is not just life in the future, but it’s the joy of life with God that we can begin to experience now, together, as the church. Eternal life is a blessing that doesn’t just start after we die, but it’s a blessing that we can begin to experience now and then it just only gets better.
But the problem with the churches in Galatia, is that there were at least some who thought that they could live in the flesh, boast in the flesh, sow in the flesh, but still reap that eternal life blessing — and to think this way is to defy the way God ordered reality. To think this way is to mock God.
And this is something we all should consider for a minute: Do you ever think like that? Do you think you can sow in the flesh but reap in the Spirit? Do we as a church ever think like that?
Last year the pastors did an exercise over the course of several weeks where we considered some diagnostic questions related to our church’s culture — we just tried to pop the hood and discuss some good, pointed questions, and one of the questions went like this:
Is there some place in our church’s life where obedience to Jesus is being withheld but we expect his blessing anyway?
That’s a good question. It’s a good question for a church, and it’s a good question for us all personally. It’s another way of asking: Is there any way we might be mocking God? Is there any way we might be sowing one thing and expecting to reap another?
Church, we want to sow in the Spirit — amen! And we want to sow in the Spirit in the confidence that sowing in the Spirit will mean reaping eternal life, and it’s actually that confidence that enables us to endure in love. That’s where Paul goes in verse 9. Look at verse 9.
The Encouragement
I think in verse 9 there’s an implied “therefore.” Because of this principle of sowing and reaping — because if we sow in the Spirit we will reap eternal life — therefore let us not grow weary in doing good. Why? Because in due season — or literally, in its “own time” — we will reap, if we don’t give up.
See how that’s connected? The principle of sowing and reaping is meant to encourage us. Paul is saying:
Hey, because sowing in the Spirit will mean reaping eternal life, keep on sowing in the Spirit; don’t grow weary, but keep on doing good, keep on loving one another. Don’t think that it’s pointless, it’s not pointless. Keep on because if you do you will experience the harvest. You will, church. There will be a harvest.
And that’s why, verse 10, whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially those in the “household of faith”, which is the local church.
And this makes sense, right? If sowing in the Spirit means we will indeed reap, then not only do we want to endure in sowing, but we want to sow as much as we can. Every opportunity. If we’re gonna reap from doing good, we want to do good more and more and more.
Which all comes back to love.
The Focus
I want to be sure that we catch this. In this whole passage, the word “love” is not explicitly used, but all of the verbs here about the church’s life together fall under the banner of love.
This is what loving one another looks like in the local church:
it means we move toward the wayward
it means we bear one another’s burdens.
It means the church supports their pastors (that’s verse 6).
It means we sow in the Spirit and keep on doing good.
And doing good means precisely that. It means we do good to others in the effort to seek their good. It means we love them.
All of this is about loving one another.
And as we seek the good of everyone, in every opportunity we can, we especially want to do that to the church. We especially want to love our brothers and sisters in the family of God.
In fact, I think it’s a prerequisite for any kind of good we do outside the church.
In terms of how we talk around here, our church as three essentials. First, we worship Jesus. Second, we love one another. And then third, we seek the good of the Cities.
And that order matters, because we can’t really “seek the good of the Twin Cities” if we don’t “love one another.”
Why? Because our love for another is central to our witness.
That’s what Jesus taught us. And we know from verse 2 that Paul is thinking about Jesus’s words in John 13. The “law of Christ” is the new commandment that Jesus gives us to love another. That’s John 13, verse 34. But do you know what Jesus says in verse 35?
In verse 34, Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Verse 35: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The reason we focus our love on the church — the reason we especially love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ — is because that love is precisely what shows the world the life-transforming love of Jesus.
Hey, church, we all just beggars who have found bread. That’s who we are on our best days. And as we love another, we just want each of us to have more bread; and as we’re having more bread together, we then go out and invite others. Is there anybody hungry out there? Are there any hungry people in these cities? Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Know that Jesus came to this world to save sinners. Jesus died on the cross in our place, taking upon himself the punishment that we deserved for our sins — Jesus was crucified for us, dead and buried for us, and then on the third day he raised for us — and right now, if you put your faith in Jesus, you will be saved. God will forgive all your sins and declare you to be righteous in Jesus, and you will know eternal life. Trust him.
That’s the invitation for all of us, and for you who do trust in Jesus, this is what brings us to the Table.
The Table
At the Table the bread represents the body of Jesus, and the cup represents his shed blood, and this is a meal for everyone who is united to Jesus by faith.
For those of us who have put our faith in Christ, when we eat and drink together, we remember the his death for us, we receive his grace afresh, and give him thanks. We worship him, which is our first essential.
