 Chapter 6, Galatians. I'll begin reading at verse 1, and I'll read to verse 5, and we'll get into our study. Galatians chapter 6, verses 1 through 5, Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Therefore, if anyone thinks himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then you will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another, for each one shall bear his own load. I heard a story. Two young men who had gone through basic training in the army had gone through advanced infantry training. It was during wartime, and they were sent out to the front. And under the heat of battle, one of the young men had been hit. And as he was laying there in the open, he began to cry out for his friend, who was also in the same unit. And as he cried out for his friend, and he said, I'm hit, I'm hit. Well, his friend who had become like a brother to him began to scramble to go get him when the lieutenant in charge said to the one who was about to climb out to get his friend, you need to remain here. If you go out there, you're going to get hit. You need to remain here. But the young man disregarded. He disregarded the order, and he crawled out under heavy fire, grabbed his friend by the collar, and dragged him back and pulled him to the safety of cover. And as this young man drew his friend to safety, and the lieutenant was there witnessing all of this, the young man who was hit died. And so the lieutenant looks at the one who had risked his life and said to him, he died. He died. And you're going out there trying to get him was useless. Are you happy that you did that? And the man who had tried to rescue his friend looked at the lieutenant and said to him, yes, I am. Because when I reached him, my friend said to me, I knew you would come for me. I knew you would come for me. Some of us have friends who have been hit. They've been caught in a trespass. What do we do? Do we leave them out there to die? Or do we go out under fire and try and retrieve them? What do we do? When we know somebody who at one time was walking with the Lord and doing well, what do we do when one of them stumbles? It seems to me that the Christian Church has a reputation of shooting the wounded, and I suspect that that may be true in many cases. We have friends and we have brothers, sisters who at one time walk to the house of God with us. Worship the Lord in worship services like we experienced tonight. Sat through Bible studies like we are tonight, who have been overtaken by a trespass, who have been stumbled. And we're going to look at this in some detail tonight. What do we do when we know somebody has blown it, when we know somebody is not doing well? Well, Paul gives to us insight into this, and this is what we'll be looking at tonight. Because as we're about to enter into chapter six, we need to remember that Paul has been encouraging the Church. You see, remember with me again, the context of Galatians is that some false teachers have crept in. They've been bringing in a legalistic approach to a walk with God. They've been saying that for somebody to really have a relationship with God, that they needed to go through certain rituals, certain rules, certain regulations. And they began to infiltrate and began to undermine the teachings that we find in the New Testament that relates to grace. God's unmerited favor. And they began to add legalism. They began to add these regulations. They were telling them you need to be practicing as a Jew in order to understand and know the grace of God. And Paul has been arguing vehemently against that. He calls it a false doctrine. He says that if anybody comes to you and brings a gospel other than the one you've received, let them be accursed because what this is going to bring into the body of Christ is going to be, well, a false gospel and it's going to steal the joy of salvation from those who've experienced it. And so Paul has been encouraging the Galatians to walk in the grace of God and the freedom that comes in knowing Jesus Christ. He's been saying that grace is going to encourage you and set you free to do things and to be something. It's going to encourage you to love. And it's going to encourage you to serve the Lord. And so instead of living just for yourself through the love of God, you're going to learn how to serve others. That's what he said in chapter 5 verse 13 when he said, You brethren have been called to liberty only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. And so he is speaking concerning the fact that God had called the body of Christ, the church, to love one another. Serving one another is the primary evidence that we know and love God. You see, believers don't take advantage of their brothers or sisters. They actually care for one another. Romans 13.10 says that like this, love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. And so he's encouraging the body of Christ. And by way of application, though he was speaking to the Galatians 2,000 years ago, he speaks to the church today. And he says, we need to serve one another in love and that's what grace does. It sets you free to serve. Now, how do I do that? Well, we looked at verse 16 in chapter 5. We walk in the spirit. If we walk in the spirit, we don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. We don't give into the cravings of the flesh when we're filled with the spirit of God. Instead of the works of the flesh, we produce the fruit of the spirit and the fruit of the spirit, once again, is love. And if we are serving, if we are loving, well then, even as we saw last time, as it said in verse 26 of chapter 5, we're not going to be conceited. We're not going to provoke one another and we're not going to envy one another. Conceited speaks of eagerness for empty glory that comes from man. Provoking one another means to challenge someone to combat or contest. It speaks about irritating each other. And the word envy speaks of the feeling of resentment aroused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of somebody else. If we are walking in the spirit and we're walking in love and we're serving God and we're serving the body of Christ, then we're going to be evidencing the reality of a God who saves and changes lives. And that's what we've been seeing through chapters 1 up to chapter 5. Now, though we desire to walk in the spirit, obviously we're still capable of failure. None of us is perfect in this room outside of me. None of us is perfect. All of us fail. All of us sin and fall short of the glory of God. All of us are capable of being overtaken by a trespass. Obviously, we're not perfect here on earth. Ecclesiastes 7.20 says, there's not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. So what happens? What happens when someone fails? What happens when someone sins? Well, that's what Paul is dealing with here in this chapter. And in chapter 6 here in Galatians 1, he begins by saying, brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. So as we begin, I'll look at a couple of the words and develop it so we get the flow of what he's saying. When he says, if a man is overtaken, that word overtaken means to be surprised by. It speaks of stumbling. It's a result of letting down your guard. It's not something that you are wanting to do. It's something that basically takes you by surprise, and you're surprised that you entered into that. The word trespass is a slip. It's a lapse. It's not a willful sin. It's not like you planned on doing it. You were overtaken. You see, when a believer stumbles and lapses, Paul says there needs to be something that is done. And what should be done is they should be helped. Sometimes they stumble and fall because they think themselves to be stronger than they actually are. Sometimes people don't, you know, willfully. It's not like they're saying, I'll get drunk today. It's a good day to get bombed. It's not like they wake up and say, let's see, I've been walking with the Lord for a while, but I think I'm going to blow it. I think I'm going to go beat somebody up today. It's just a good day to hit somebody in the head. It's not like that. You didn't wake up saying, I want to do this. I want to violate the law of God. I want to do these things that you are caught by surprise. Sometimes, again, it's because we think we're stronger than we actually are. It's possible that I was trying to live a spirit-filled life with the energy of my own flesh. Whatever the case may be, this is somebody who has fallen. It's like that commercial that I hate so much, how I've fallen and I can't get up. It's that thing. I have fallen. Somebody has to help me take it up. Before that person even really completely fathoms or realized the full extent of the trespass, he's already done it. That can happen. I mean, you may be seated here tonight saying, I don't know how that's possible. All you need to do is remember what happened in the life of the Apostle Peter. The Apostle Peter was even warned by Jesus, Peter, you're going to deny me three times. And the Apostle Peter, with great emotion, great passion, great vehement, said, never. If I have to die with you, I'll die. There's absolutely no way I'm going to, anyway, shape or form deny you I am 100% on your side. And yet all we need to do is read the scriptures. And we see that he did indeed deny the Lord three times. Did he desire to do that? And did he plan on doing that? Was he not even warned that he would do that? Well, the fact is, you can enter into sin and you can stumble right into it without even realizing it. And that does happen. Well, the question has to be, when that happens, how is it handled? And that's what Paul is speaking about here. When he says, if a man is overtaken, if a man has stumbled, if a man has let his guard down in any trespass, which is, again, something that he didn't plan on doing, well, there's an answer for this. You, who are spiritual, restore such a one. And so his instruction is that spiritual people ought to get involved in their life. The spiritually mature are involved in restoring the weaker brother or the weaker sister. When he speaks of you who are spiritual, this is the ones who are spirit led. This is the one who is what could be referred to as a spiritual expert in mending of souls. This speaks of the spiritually mature individual who encourages those who are weak. The real spiritually mature person is the one who goes out of their way to try and help the one who stumbled. And not the Pharisees. You know, the Pharisees would look at Jesus and wonder, how could you have anything to do with people like that? The Pharisees would see the Lord Jesus Christ who was actually around sinners and tax, you know, publicans, tax collectors and all. And the Pharisees, the religious individuals of the day of Christ would say, look at your master, look at how he's there, look at what he's doing. He's there with these sinners that he's eating with them. And they couldn't understand that. Again, remember the word Pharisee, when we read up the Pharisees, remember the word Pharisee literally means the separated one. And that's what they did. They were individuals who believed themselves to be separated from the ordinary people. They didn't have anything to do with those people who were so casually rejected the things of God. But Jesus, well, Jesus, well, he spent time with the needy people. He spent time with the broken. That's what he did. He was a carpenter. He was used to fixing broken things. And whenever he put something together, let me guarantee you, it was put together perfectly. When Jesus worked, he works perfectly. And when he works in your life, he works perfectly. But he wants you and he wants me, if we're spiritually mature, he wants us to, if you will, be his hands to do the work. That's why Paul is saying here, you who are spiritual restore such a one. In Romans chapter 15, verse one, it says we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, not to please ourselves. In 1st Thessalonians, Paul writes in chapter five, verse 14, that spiritual believers are to warn the unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, and he says spiritual believers are patient with all. The spiritually mature have the responsibility of encouraging those who have fallen. The spiritually mature have a heart to restore those who have fallen and those who are hurting. The spiritually mature are the ones who notice that one of their friends isn't in church or one of their friends isn't doing well on the job or one of their friends has been going through it. And the spiritually mature are the ones who give them a call. The spiritually mature are the ones who walk up alongside of them and put their hand on their shoulder and say, listen, I've noticed that you've been going through some tough things and I just wanted you to know I'm here for you. And you don't have to tell me everything you're going through. You just need to know that I'm praying for you. And you just need to know I love you and I care about you and I miss you. A lot of people, especially in our day, don't get involved in anybody else's life. They're afraid to be meddlers. They're afraid to. But I have to tell you, I have had friends in the past who have cared enough about me, especially as a young believer to put an armor on me and to say to me, I'm here. I'm here for you. I'll be with you. I'll walk with you. I'll walk through this with you. And I have to tell you, I've always appreciated that, having friends like that. When I was going through training, military training, and I see many scriptures that refer to the body of Christ as being a military machine, by the way. But I remember we used to have to run in formation and if one of us could not finish the run and fell out, what would happen is the entire unit that was running would have to make a U-turn, come all the way back and then pick that straggler up and make sure they finished running with everybody. And so there were times that I had guys' arms around my shoulders holding me up because I just didn't want to finish the run. And there were times when I had my arm around somebody helping them so that we all would finish together. That's what the body of Christ is supposed to do. Instead of us just saying, now we'll see you later, we pick them up. We turn back for them. We hold them up. We pray for them. We restore such a one. The word restore is an interesting word. That word restore is found in Mark chapter four, rather Matthew chapter four, verse 21. It speaks of mending nets. The word is used for mending nets, fishing nets. It literally means to equip thoroughly. The word restore was used sometimes in speaking of mending a broken bone or putting a dislocated limb back in place. So restoring speaks about mending. It speaks about bringing somebody back to health. How do we mend a broken Christian? Well, this may not seem obvious at first, but one of the ways to help to heal somebody who is a broken Christian is to help them to see that they've entered into sin. And I'll tell you why, because unless they see what they're doing as sin, they're not gonna confess. They're not gonna repent. They're not gonna forsake it and they're not going to receive forgiveness. If they're believers and you're there ministering to them and you begin to share the word of God, it's the word of God that brings healing. And as they hear the word of God, they may not smile at you at that moment and say, oh gee, thank you for letting me know what I've been doing. And as a matter of fact, the normal response is, who are you to judge me? What gave you the right, they get like that. It's kind of like, not identical to, but it's kind of like, you know how sometimes you ever owned a dog and you know how sometimes if the dog gets hurt, what does it do? The dogs, if they're hurt, they crawl into corners and then if you reach there to try and touch them, do they wag their tail and smile at you and say, oh great, I'm glad you're visiting me in the middle of my pain? No, they bite you. They snap at you. They snap at you because they're hurting. That's something that even human beings can do. I mean, if they're hurting, they may snap at you and here we are saying, we just wanna help you and that's one of the reasons why it requires a spiritual maturity on my part, on your part, because if you're thin-skinned and you're trying to retrieve somebody, they may snap at you and then you go home and you say, oh that's the last time I'll ever speak to that idiot, you know, stupid, they can stay in sin if they want. Who cares? The spiritually mature expect that. They understand that. They understand that attempting to help somebody doesn't necessarily mean that that person who's that you're trying to help is gonna appreciate it at first, but I tell you something, if you lovingly say, you know, I'm concerned for you and I've noticed this and this is what God's word says related to that, that's why you pray and that's why you spend time in the Word and that's why you go prepared. This is what the word of the Lord says and I just want you to know that God can do a work in you if you just receive and leave it alone. There are times that that person will just, that word that you gave to them will just, it'll just find a place in their heart and they'll begin to think it through and they'll pray and say, you know God, that's true, I have done this, forgive me. If a person who is bringing a word of healing to somebody is mature, then there's a good chance that the person who's receiving the word will accept it, but if the person who's coming to try and bring that person back is just as carnal as the one who's in sin, you're not gonna be received. They're gonna look at you and they're gonna say, why gives you the right to correct me? You're telling me it's wrong to sleep with my girlfriend when you're drunk on Friday night. Who are you to tell me how to live for Christ? That's why when you read Romans in chapter 15 verse 14, that's why when Paul said I'm confident concerning you, my brother, and that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. You have a goodness about you and you have a knowledge of the word of God which makes you capable of bringing that to somebody. So if you come to me and I know that you're walking with the Lord and you bring a word of correction, I am more prone to listen to you and that's why he had said those of you who are spiritual restore such a one. And so that simply means that you have a spiritual maturity. Now how do we do that? He says you do that in the spirit of meekness. You do that in the spirit of gentleness. The word gentleness speaks of a mildness. You do it with love and you do it with compassion. You don't do it with self-righteous condemnation. My grandson Josiah was playing a couple of years ago now and he was playing on an outdoor kind of like a jungle gym kind of thing. And he fell and he broke his arm. And little guy five years of age, broken arm. And when you have the arm set, when you've got somebody setting that broken bone, you had better hope that that person doing it is gentle. When you heal a broken bone, when you're there trying to set it properly, do you just kind of grab the arm and twist it around and shove it in there? Yeah, this ought to do. I don't think so. The way you handle a broken bone is with gentleness, isn't it? You do it gently. When I was 17, I busted my wrist. I went to the doctor. The doctor said it gently. He handled it tenderly. And he set the cast in such a way that I was comfortable. That's how you bring a word of correction to somebody. You do it with gentleness. And you do it considering yourself lest you also be tempted. You don't come in with a mentality of self-righteousness. You don't correct somebody with this attitude if I'm better than you, I can't imagine. How did you do that? How could you? You never, never do that. There are some who do. They have that attitude. How could you do that? Are you that stupid? Don't you go to Bible studies? Haven't you ever written it? And they come with that attitude. You do it with a gentleness of spirit. You consider yourself. We need to remember that we're made of the same stuff that they are. We need to remember that we can fail and we do fail also. Therefore that ought to produce within us a humility. In Matthew chapter seven verses three through five, Jesus said it like this. He said, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, let me take that speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye? And he goes on to say something very kind, 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. One thing interesting, the plank and the sawdust are made of the same thing. My sins never look so bad until they're practiced by somebody else. And so he says, listen, you're no better. You're no better than that person. Here you are trying to fix somebody and you've got this beam in your eye, you're smashing everything around when you move your head and they've got a speck, they've got a bit of sawdust there and because you don't have humility, he was saying, you don't have humility, you think yourself better than they and in reality you need to understand that you're no different than they are when you can enter in to a correction, when you can come in to a restoration, when you come in as a spiritually mature person with the attitude of I have failed too and I understand and I'm no better than you are but I do love you enough to tell you the truth and I wanna see God moving in your life and I have failed and I know what it's like to fall and I know what it's like to be restored and I want you to be restored so that you can once again have the joy of God's salvation and once again you can be used and blessed by God. When you have that attitude, the Lord moves. He says in verse two, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Bear one another's burdens. Lock arms, shoulder one another's burdens. Some things need to be carried together. Accountability I believe is of utmost necessity. The fellowship of believers is absolutely important. There are people who are lone ranger Christians, they're isolated, they don't have fellowship, therefore they have no accountability. One of the things that I've discovered in my own spiritual life that is extremely important is an accountability, is relationship with other believers. I really thrive with that. I need friends, I need people who know me and know my weaknesses and love me in spite of them and help me through them, I need that. It's one of the reasons why here in this church when we develop the four pillars that you're all familiar with, the word of God and the worship of God and we created a word, the withness. Well, withness to me is a very important thing. It speaks of fellowship. To me it's a very important thing because I have people that I'm accountable to. I have my board, I have my staff, I have my wife, I have my children, I have my grandchildren, I have my mom, my family, I have my church, I have accountability. I need to have that. I need that in my life. So do you. And when we don't have fellowship, when we don't have friends, when we don't have anybody who can ask us, really, tell me, how is it going with your soul today? Then we can put on that holy smile, we can put on that halo, we can put on that look like we're so solid when in reality we're not. We need to learn that we need each other. We bear one another's burdens. And that way we fulfill the law of Christ. He says in verse three, if anyone thinks himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. How can I be gentle with somebody else? You know how you do that. And this sounds theoretical and I'm sure there are some heroes say I don't get it and others may, this may resonate with you. How do you do that? Spend time with the Lord. Spend time in the word. Spend time in the gospels especially. And look at Jesus. And look at the way he acted. Look at how he was. Look at the things he did. Look at his patience. Look at his love. Look at his concern. Look at him. I learned and have learned my Christianity by seeing things about the Lord and then reading the things in Paul's writings and the rest. But man, I'll tell you, I look at Jesus and I say, the Jesus is, he was a man's man. I mean, this is a man's man. You know, so I've said this to you before but it really affected me, especially as a growing believer. I, you know, I had this mentality of Jesus that I really got out of middle age or medieval art. You know, where the Jesus that you would see and much of the art was like kind of a wimpy kind of guy. You know, he's got this kind of odd smile in his face and he's carrying a little lamb around and he's kind of all bony and wimpy and I would see these pictures of him and I didn't relate to those. I never really have. And then I started doing some just studying and then I say, well, wait a minute, he was a carpenter and a carpenter means that he wasn't just working with wood. I don't know if you know this or not but the word also is used for a stone mason. So that tells me something about Jesus right away. He didn't go to Bethlehem Lumber and pick up two by fours. He went in and cut down some trees. Or if he was doing some stone masonry, he had the chisel, he had the hammer. That tells me that Jesus would pick up heavy objects, that Jesus' hands were calloused. When you read about Jesus, it speaks concerning him walking from place to place. When they took one day's walk, it was 20 miles. So Jesus could walk in a day around 20 miles and then he'd stop and he'd minister and I started seeing this about him. I started seeing that this is a man who was a man's man. This is a man who had a broad back and this is a man who had powerful biceps, the strong legs, he was a man's man and yet there's this masculine Jesus, not some kind of wimpy guy with some wispy mustache but he probably looked like a Hell's Angel. I mean, when you look at Jesus, now watch somebody who'll write me, I'm just kidding. Not really, he was a man's man and then he had a friend named John. He was actually his cousin, John was Jesus' cousin and Jesus is there reclining at meal and John is putting his head on Jesus' chest. All right, guys, when's the last time you went to a meal and somebody was laying on some one of your buddies at his head on your chest? Are you kidding me? And I read that and it tells me that he was very comfortable with himself and that he was approachable to the degree that he was openly in a caring way for the men that he walked with and taught so that says to me, you can hug another guy and it's okay. Then I read that a friend of his dies, Lazarus, and instead of sucking it up and doing the man thing, he weeps openly and I say, so men can grieve openly and they stay a man or some people come and they bring a baby and hand the baby to Jesus and he actually holds it. See, I come from a culture where the men don't hold the babies, the women do that. We just kind of look at them and say they're ugly. They'll grow out of it, don't worry. But I see Jesus and he holds, I see Jesus telling men, I love you, that's revolutionary to me because guys don't do that, do they? What do we do to show love? We hit each other. You hit them hard, you really care for them. That's what men do. But I see Jesus different and you know what? And this is serious, this is true. It changed my whole life. It changed my life. I got away from my culture and I got into the Bible and I said, I'm gonna be a man. I'm gonna be a man. If I have emotion, I'll show it. I'll tell my kids every day I love them. I'll kiss my sons. I'll tell my daughters they're beautiful. I'll tell my wife every day I adore you. I'll love my family. I'll be a faithful friend. I'm gonna be a man. Not after what the world says a man is, but a man like a real man. I'm gonna be like Jesus. See, that's how that works. It takes time, but you develop that attitude. It takes time, but you begin to realize that without him you're nothing. You see, if anyone thinks himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. I can treat you kindly because God has shown me kindness. In 1 Corinthians chapter eight verse two, if any man think that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. In Romans 12 verse three, Paul wrote, I say through the grace given to me to everyone who's among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Think, think of yourself with sobriety. You're not the best thing on the face of the earth and you're not the worst thing. You're somewhere in between. So rather than puffing ourselves up and thinking that we're so great or rather than throwing ourselves down saying, oh, we're just such a worm and so, we just accept who we are. We don't build ourselves up and we don't knock ourselves down. We just are who we are. It's like what Paul said, I am by the grace of God who I am. I know what God has done in my life and I know what he's doing. So you think in an even fashion, he says in verse four, let each one examine his own work and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. So before you correct someone else, examine your own life. That'll put you in a position to be able to help somebody else and if you're really honest with yourself, if I'm really honest with myself, I'm gonna see a lack of fruit. I'm gonna see that there's a lot that God needs to do in me. It's like what we read in Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24, search me, oh God, know my heart, try me, know my thoughts, see if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting. So you examine yourself, you look at your own heart and then he says in verse five, each one shall bear his own load because ultimately the responsibility for our choices rest on us. According to 2 Corinthians 5-10, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due him for the things done well in the body, whether good or bad. Ultimately, I'm not gonna be able to blame anybody for my life. All of us are experts at that. I think that one of the legacies that we got from Sigmund Freud and others like him is the ability to point at our moms and dads and other things and say, see that formed me into what I am and we don't take personal responsibility for the things that we've done. When I got saved, when you got saved, the way you got saved was not by saying, you know, be merciful to me, I'm a sinner, but they made me do it. The way I got saved was I simply said, God be merciful to me, I'm a sinner. And I'm from a long line of sinners, all the way back to Adam and Eve. And so it's not my mom's fault and it's not my dad's fault. They did the best that they could. They did what they could with the equipment that they had. They gave me what they had, they did their best. Were they perfect? I get married, I have my children and my kids can say the same thing about their mom and their dad, did their best with what they had. But ultimately, my kids stand before God in their own strength, in their own walk. I stand before God alone. I can't point to a mom, I can't point to a dad, I can't point to a wife for children and say they made me, no, each one bears his own load. Each one has their own responsibility and each one of us will stand before God like that and that's why it's important for us to be spending so much time with the Lord and to be growing in those things. Continuing into verse six, let him who is taught the word, share in all good things with him who teaches, do not be deceived, God is not mocked, whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption but he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life and let us not grow weary while doing good for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. So continuing on, he begins to share some very practical things. He says, verse six, let him who was taught the word, share in all good things with him who teaches in order to learn how to love, in order to learn how to bear one another's burdens and all teaching obviously is necessary. We get into the word of God together and we look to see what God says. The ministry of teaching performed by the pastor and teacher and elders of the fellowship encourage us to growth. And as the people are taught, they reflect maturity, they grow in every area including their responsibility and their financial support. The support demonstrates a walk of the spirit and it demonstrates a fruit of love. If a person is receiving teaching and growing in the things of the Lord, the response is support. And that demonstrates spiritual maturity, reflects the fruit of love, it reveals a concern. So let him who was taught the word, share in all good things with him who teaches. Verse seven, do not be deceived. God is not mocked, whatever a man sows that he will also reap, he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption. He who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. Again, do not be deceived, God is not mocked. Bad doctrine will always result in corrupt lives, always. Always. Deception, again, brings bondage. Deception brings barrenness. By supporting false teachers, you become unfruitful. The fact is, they are actually using you. And you are ultimately receiving results from this. The fruit of false teachers and trusting false teachers is they make merchandise of you. And so, when you're sowing, you sow to the spirit, not to the flesh. Again, the result of bad doctrine is unfruitful lives, sowing to the flesh results in corruption and Christians can sow to the flesh, but they will reap the results here and lose rewards there. A pastor teacher, and I'll say this briefly, has a responsibility of rightly dividing the word of truth. That's my responsibility. I don't just walk out here unprepared, in other words. A pastor teacher spends time looking at the words, looking at the history, looking at the context, looking at everything, and then brings out the truth, presents it to the body of Christ. The body of Christ has a responsibility of receiving that. Now, if somebody is just seated in the church and expects the pastor teacher to do all the feeding for them, they're making a mistake, because we have the responsibility of feeding ourselves. We have the Holy Spirit within us. We can read the word of God and we can gain understanding in the things of God as we meditate and put into practice the word. But when you get to church and the teacher is teaching you a certain thing, you should know the things of the word well enough to know whether this is true or false. If you're a new Christian, you'll spend some time discovering those things if you've been mature and walk with the Lord for a while, you can begin to hear something and say, now, wait a minute, that doesn't ring true. There's something wrong there. One of the things I discovered as a new Christian is the Holy Spirit has a way of revealing false teaching. He does. I remember some people knocked on the door. I was a Christian maybe three weeks. Brand new Christian. I was a hippie, I was just at home. I'd been taught, read the Bible. I was in my parents' den when I heard somebody knock on the door and I opened the door up and there were these two ladies standing there and they wanted to talk to me about Jesus Christ. I'm a brand new Christian. I was a hippie, I was wild eyed. And so when they said, we wanna talk to you about Jesus, you know, I said, all right, far out, cool. I'm a Christian too. They looked at me like, are you kidding me? Are you from some other planet? Because I was a spacey looking kid. And so they go, yeah, I said, yeah, me too, man. I was born again. I was two, three weeks old in the Lord. And they start talking to me. They were Jehovah's Witnesses. And they're telling me stuff. And I'm a brand new Christian. What do I know? What do I know, really? I was lost, now I'm found. I was blind, now I see. I was deaf, now I hear. My heart was hard, now it's soft. That's all I know. I don't know anything. I'm just starting to go to Bible studies. But as I'm speaking to them, they're saying things that I can't get into. And I'm looking at them, and I'm smiling at them. And finally I say to them, you wanna know something? I don't agree with you. But that's cool. I didn't know they were a cult. I don't agree with you. That's cool. I said, but thanks for talking to me about Jesus and it closed the door. It was later that I discovered the things that they believe that are just so not biblical. But I didn't know it then. Holy Spirit will give you a sense of discernment. You'll say, this isn't ringing true. This isn't the Jesus that I'm hearing about. There's something different about that. And so, one of the things, if you sow to the flesh you reap corruption, if you're allowing false teachers to influence you, ultimately what that does is it undermines your walk with Jesus Christ. I have had people argue with me over the years. Well, as long as they love the same Jesus, they can be wrong in certain areas and they minimize the desire to be right in certain areas. And make excuses for false teaching. And you really, I don't make excuses for false teaching. I expose it. And you expose it through the truth. And so, I don't want to sow to the flesh. I don't want to reap corruption. I don't want to lose reward by receiving bad teaching. In Proverbs 22, verse eight, it says, he who sows iniquity shall reap vanity. And so I don't want that. I don't want an unfruitful life. And then finally, verse nine and then verse 10, this is a powerful verse. Let us not grow weary while doing good. For in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Hang in there. You may be serving the Lord some place. You may be sowing seeds in somebody's life and you're getting tired of it and you're getting to the point where you're saying, you know what, I don't really care anymore. You may be serving the Lord in some ministry and you look and you say, where are the people who are supposed to be helping me and you start growing weary and you just, I don't want to do this anymore. If nobody's gonna help me, I won't do it anymore. You need just to hang in there and be faithful to the Lord. Just hold on, hold on tight. We can grow weary as we serve the Lord. We can grow weary as we serve His people because ministry is labor. It's physically, it's emotionally, it's spiritually draining. But in second Thessalonians 3.13, Paul said, do not weary in doing that which is good. In Hebrews chapter six, verse 10, it says God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister from the Lord you receive your reward. So serve Him. So serve Him. You know, if you serve here, if you serve in one of the, we have so many ministries that are available to you, I'm one of the worst people in the world at saying thank you. I forgive me for that, it's the truth. It's the truth. But I will tell you, those of you who are serving right now, let me say this up front to you and then I'll move on and close with verse 10. Let me say this, your labor in the Lord is not forgotten. I know that it costs you time. I know that it costs you effort. I know that it's tiring. And I know sometimes it's like it's a thankless job. But you don't serve me. And you're not even serving this church. You're serving Jesus Christ. And He doesn't forget your works of service. And He is the one who's gonna say well done, my good and my faithful servant. It comes from Him. Listen, as a pastor, I don't serve to hear thank you, not from man. I serve to hear Jesus say well done. And that's a very important thing for me. So I'm not one of these pastors who say, please send me thank you notes. Please send me, I love yous. I appreciate them and I do get them. But that's cause I write myself cards. Dave, that was a great message. Love Dave. Do it again next week. Now I do it because I love the Lord. I do it because He's loved me. And I do it because I love you. That's why I do it. Our worship teams up here, all the guys up here tonight, all of them have other jobs somewhere. They're all volunteers. Not a single one of them's on paid staff. Those who are watching our kids tonight, are ushers, not one of them is a paid staff member. They're all volunteers. The guys who are out there helping you to park your car, and the ones who are helping you out there to find the rooms for your kids or whatever, they're all volunteers, all of them. They're the ones that make this church what it is. And I am grateful to God for them. But I'm not one who's gonna every week say thank you. Their thank you comes from Jesus Christ. And I think they understand that. And they serve Him. So He's making a very strong point here. He says, let us not grow weary while doing good. In due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart. And finally, therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Again, we'll close with this thought. A genuine love for people, and a love for your brothers and sisters, gives a tremendous opportunity for a wonderful testimony. When you have an opportunity, do good to all, but especially be sensitive to doing good to your brother or your sister in the Lord.