Bearing one another’s burdens

(2/12/17 Galatians Series: Galatians 6:1-10)

ATTN: In Puyallup, we had 9 inches of snow this week. On Monday evening I spent an hour shoveling snow in our driveway. Why did it take so long? First because I have no son to help me – the only time I wish I had a son – and second, because I only had a little shovel and not the regular snow shovel. It was back-breaking work. Now, my car is 4 wheel drive and does fine on snow. But Janet’s car is a mini-van and does not do well on snow. So, I was shoveling snow really for my wife. I know I make it sound like I’m a perfect husband. I’m far from it and Janet will tell you. But from time to time, I will show my love to my wife by serving her because she made it abundantly clear that that is her love language – acts of service.

Now, let’s say for whatever reason, my friends from college didn’t really believe that Janet was my wife. Many of them did think I would be single for the rest of my life… What would be the best way to prove that she is my wife? Marriage certificate, you say. But that could be faked, or even if it’s real, I could be married to somebody else now. So, the best proof would be if they can observe me and Janet for days and weeks, following us around. See if we act like husband and wife.

So then, what would be the best evidence that you are a child of God? Or to use Christianese, how do you know you are saved? Here’s what many of us have been taught and I think it’s wrong: “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord?” And if the answer is “yes,” then the follow-up question. When and how? And the answer usually goes like this: “When I was 9, I went forward in a church service, I got baptized and was a member of church for many years.” So, 1) salvation experience, 2) some religious ritual to confirm it. But that would be like trying to prove that you are married by showing me your marriage license. It could be fake or it could be no longer valid. I’ve seen plenty of people who “accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord” who are living no different than someone who never did or even worse. But more important than my analogy is what the bible says.

   The Bible says that the best evidence that we belong to God is not an experience we had many years ago, but how we are loving God now. Just like the best evidence for my marriage to Janet is not the marriage certificate but how we are acting like husband and wife now, the best evidence that we belong to God is how we are acting like His child. Well, how does His child act? He loves his brothers and sisters.

1 John 3:10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

– So the greatest and best evidence that we are truly saved, that we belong to God and thus have eternal life is that we love one another. Truly saved persons, those who belong to God are those who understand that they are loved by God though unworthy, and broken by it, they proceed to love others especially those who are difficult to love according to the world’s standard. That is the best and perhaps the only evidence.

This is why I’m so concerned about those “Christians” who do not regularly participate in worship and fellowship with other believers. They listen to sermons on podcast and they read Christian books and they say they love God but they are not involved in the life of a church. How do you show you love them when you never spend time with them? Now, to be fair, just because a person is entrenched in the life of church does not mean that he is saved. But a truly saved person will get involved in the church life because he has learned to love others – warts and all. 1 John 4:20. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen

TRANS: So, today, we want to go back to Galatians series and talk about what just about every letter of Paul speaks about – and that is how we are to take care of each other. After explaining the gospel, Paul then explains what the gospel working itself out in love look like. There are at least 4 ways Paul mentions in Galatians 6, but I will mention only 2 today: 1) They strengthen sinners. 2) They bear one another’s burdens.  

1. (They) Strengthen sinners.
2. 1, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression (sin), you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”

Christians are declared saints and not perfected saints. What that means is that Christians still sin. A lot! Why? Because we are “declared” righteous by God even though we are really not. Jesus substitute die for us and so we have Jesus’ righteousness covering us rather than our own righteousness. And when God sees us, He sees what His Son has done for us and thus we are righteous in His eyes although we still sin. ILL:  Let’s say I’m your calculus teacher and you are completely lost in that class and you are going to fail the final. But I took the test for you and put your name on the test paper and gave you a 100%. You did not deserve it. You did not earn it. You still suck at Calculus but you got an A! That is what Christ has done for us. So, we are declared saints, but not yet perfected. Romans 4:25, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” But we WILL be perfected one day, in heaven, but in the meantime, we all are a work in progress. That’s what a church is. A church is where a bunch of sinners gather. Forgiven sinners that is, that help one another overcome our sins. A church should never be a place where we go, “what? I can’t believe you did that! I didn’t think of you like that! That is so sick.” We are all sick. Actually worse. We were dead in our sins, the bible says. But God made us alive. But we still have the stench of sin in us and the church is there to help clean one another in non-judgemental and loving way.

ILL 2: So, a church ought to be like a public bath place. A what? I know most of you are not familiar, but if you go to Korea, you will see these public bath places – men and women in separate quarters – and after you soak in the hot tub for 30 minutes buck naked, and men help each other scrub dead skin cells off their bodies. That is a picture of a church. Jesus said to Peter, John 13:10, Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” So, we are really washing the feet of each other.

But make no mistake, a true church will call sin sin. We will not shy away from calling it what it is. There are plenty of churches in Tacoma that will never mention sin for fear that they might drive people away. We are not that church. Philip Yancey, a Christian writer said,  “God loves you as you are. But he loves you too much to leave you as you are.” That means God will deal with sin using His church. We cannot do it on our own, or Jesus didn’t need to die on the cross, but by dying in our place, He broke the power of sin. It no longer has the death grip on us. And by the Holy Spirit that works through the body of Christ, we defeat sin and satan.

So, can we be that kind of place for sinners, which are all of us?  Rather than judging, can we focus on restoring? Rather than being appalled and disgusted, can we be filled with compassion and love?

2. Bear one another’s burdens.
3. 2 “ Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Love will lead us to bear one another’s burdens. And here, when it says, “fulfill the law of Christ,” I believe it means the law of love. Jesus said in 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.” So, when we bear one another’s burdens, we are fulling the law of Christ which is love. So, one way we demonstrate that we belong to God is that we carry one another’s loads.

This could be financial, emotional, physical, and certainly spiritual. I don’t know if you have noticed, but life is not fair. Almost everyday I get out of my king size foam mattress in a nicely heated room temperature of 67 and I’m brewing Starbucks Coffee before I plop down on my leather couch to read my Bible and meditate before I make my children breakfast from a refrigerator full of food, I have to fight my guilt. “Why am I so blessed? There are millions of children starving to have what we throw away everyday, and yet I’m given so much that it’s not fair. I dare not waste my resources by using it all on myself. I would rightly deserve hell fire and worse if I did that… “

So, with that, I do what I can to lighten the load of others around me although I do so little and so poorly… It could be simply listening to them and praying with them. It could be a text message of encouraging words. It could be my buying someone lunch. Sometimes, all I can do is put my hand on that person’s shoulders who’s weeping.

It’s uncomfortable to listening to someone’s sob story. Its requires your time, energy, but that’s what love does. Love costs us something. Love that doesn’t cost you anything is not love. “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son.” God’s love was very very costly to Him. Our love for one another will be costly. Loving someone is messy. It’s heartbreaking. It’s a lot of work! We might even be asked to die for one another. But probably not. In the meantime, can we live a little for one another?

C.S. lewis on giving money, but it could also apply to giving our time: “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”

If we are spending all we earn on vacation, on our family, and children’s future, but not with fellow believers, that’s a pretty strong evidence that he’s not a Christian – which means he’s condemned. And you know the most important commodity we have? Not money. Time.

Now, can I share with you one of my burdens? My job as a pastor is not to do the work of the ministry but to equip you so that you will do the work of the ministry. My job is to make YOU the minister. Eph 4:13, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

There is a limit to how much you can grow in Christ by just eating the word of God. Our pastors take extraordinary measures to feed you the pure milk of God week in and week out. But you know what happens to our bodies if all we are doing is eating and laying down to do nothing. The body grows fat and limp. It’s when we exercise that our body grows stronger and as a result, we have greater energy and joy to keep following Christ.

If you are thinking right now, “I’m just not getting fed at this church,” it’s probably not that you are not getting fed, you are, but you are not working out and so you are not growing. And it feels like, spiritually, you are simply in a hamster wheel spinning round and round and getting nowhere.

Serve another person. Meet their needs with what God gave you – time!! Take someone else’s burden upon your shoulders. Please have a look at the AS ONE Ministry Team Table. Until God grants us a building, we will need many people giving their time generously to keep worshiping God. Have a look and see where you would like to get involved. On the very Sunday of this month, we will meet at the end of the service in our respective teams. It doesn’t have to be more than 10 minutes. It’s a time for you huddle and figure out how you are going to to serve the next month. Who’s in which rotation and such. I do not want anyone to burn out. But more importantly, I want more of you to get involved in serving so that you can exercise your spiritual muscles and grow. The plan is to have this Ministry Team meeting once every month so that new people who want to join can join at that time.

So, would you have a look at the sheet and pray and see which ministry you’d get involved in?