Grace Changes Everything, January 18, 2026

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Well, good morning, fellowship. Man, so thankful to be here with you guys today, getting to talk about and speak to the grace of God as a church family. I am thankful for days like today where we get to reflect on God's heart for everyone made in his image, no matter what the color of our skin, like MLK Day tomorrow. Thankful for weekends like this where we get to pause and pray for the sanctity of life from the womb to the grave as we entrust our souls to the God who created us, who's numbered our days, and who has a plan for our lives. It's definitely good to be here. And for those of you who are totally new with us this morning, my name is Ben Parkinson. I'm one of four we call teaching pastors here, who has the privilege of coming alongside Mark and Justin and Brandon to teach and lead the church in the team-oriented way that we do. So if I hadn't had a chance to meet you yet and you have some time after the service, I'll be up by the Connections Center. I would love to say hi to you.

And I do wanna take a second this morning just to say how excited I am for Mark and Jenny going up today to watch their son, Hunter, play in the second kind of week playoff game with the Patriots. It's been such a fun thing to watch his career. And Hunter has been such a great teammate on both the teams he's been on the NFL. He's been, man, such an incredible person, just trusting God a number of different situations throughout his career. So it's so much fun to see him be on this team at this time, and just really excited that our brother and his wife get to go up and be a part of that today. We don't talk a lot about those kinds of things up here because this gathering is about Jesus, and what he is and what he's done. Not really a platform for our personal lives, but I just had to say that this morning, really, really cheering for him, really excited for them. And we are coming to the last few sermons here, preaching through the book of Galatians. If you wanna join me in Galatians 6 today, talking about how grace changes everything in our lives. The more we believe it, the more we trust in it, and the more we treat others with the same grace that we've received from God. And like we'll see today,

especially those who've been caught in any kind of transgression. That's what we're gonna look at with Paul this morning, if you wanna make your way to Galatians. And actually, we're gonna start one verse earlier in chapter five, verse 26. That's where we left off last week. We think chapter 5, 26 is connected more to today's passage. And so we're gonna start there, and then we'll go down through chapter six, verse five. Let's look at it together. He says, let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted, and bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone, and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. Very words of God, amen? So we've talked about how God knows, as he's freeing people from this legalism of the law that we've been talking about,

that we're gonna be tempted to take that new freedom and use it to sin as much as we want, right? Now that Christ has given us his righteousness as a gift. So that's the temptation we spoke to last week some, as we talked about crucifying the deeds of the flesh and making sure we're walking in the spirit, keeping in step with the spirit, as Paul said. But this week, God turns to a different temptation that we're gonna face, now that we're free from earning his love and acceptance for us through our obedience to the law. And that is that because our hearts are so bent on law-like living and thinking, instead of grace-like living and thinking, he knows we're also gonna be tempted to turn to how well we're walking in the spirit and compare that to other people in some kind of new way to earn God's favor, just with different language, right? And so what God shows us in our passage this week is in the same way that we don't need to use our newfound freedom in Christ from the law to sin as much as we want, that's what we looked at last week. last week, we also don't need to use it to become self-righteous in a different way all over again. We don't need to use it to become self-righteous in a different way all over again. Look at verse 26 again with me. He says, let us not become conceited,

provoking one another, envying one another. So right after Paul tells us to use our freedom from the law to crucify the deeds of the flesh, to keep in step with the spirit in verse 25, he immediately turns around and warns us about the dangers that while we're doing that, be careful that we don't become conceited. Conceited. And then he gives us two phrases that are participles in Greek, meaning they're modifying the verb that we just saw, pointing back to what he means when he says that we shouldn't become conceited. First he tells us not to grow conceited in how we think about ourselves when things are going well for us. What he calls here provoking one another. Not to provoke each other in our arrogance about how we're using our freedom in Christ to follow God. We're using our freedom in Christ to walk in the spirit. Yes, we have the freedom now to do whatever we want and we're doing it the right way and we're experiencing the blessing of God in that way. What does that look like in a conversation? It could look something like this. Oh, the kids? They're doing great, thanks so much for asking. Yeah, Billy's up in Fayetteville, they have two. Man, just adorable. Wanna eat up, just go and see them all the time.

We just burn up that 540 like it's nothing. Angie, man, she's doing a wonderful job, makes her travel a lot, jets out of that one. No kids yet, but praying and hoping it comes. Just dogs for now, but we'll get there, we'll get there. Samantha, oh, she's doing so, they live here. Man, the sweetest husband. Could not pray for a better one, amazing. Four grandbabies, we're just over there all the time. Feel like a nanny, oh my gosh, it's like all over again. But then sometimes, that's fine, we'll talk about that in a minute, that's totally fine. Then sometimes the comment that comes after is the problem, right? Isn't it just great when you raise them in the Lord and God just gives you the desires of your heart like that? See, it's that phrase that can cause us to provoke one another that Paul's talking about here. Sharing the things that we're excited about, but then turning it into something that God never intended it to be. After all, there's nothing wrong with sharing the good things that God's blessing you with in your life. Nothing wrong with that at all. That's a testimony to his grace to you because of what Jesus has done. And listen, you need to be with people, you need to have friends who are happy for the good things happening in your life. We'll talk about that here in just a second.

It's important that people celebrate with you the good things God's doing in your life. You should never feel guilty sharing those things with people around you. The challenge is is when we connect those blessings to our faithfulness, to our obedience, to the things that we've done better than other people when it comes to walking in the Spirit. That's the arrogance Paul is talking about. That takes credit and the glory away from God and his grace to us for how well our kids are doing or 100 other things, that's just one example. Takes it away from Jesus in what he did for us on the cross to pay for our sins so God could bless us in that way in spite of our sin, in spite of our disobedience and steals the glory for ourselves. While we're also implying to the person that we're talking to, even if we don't realize we're doing this, that somehow maybe people's kids who aren't married aren't blessed, which isn't true at all. God doesn't call everyone to be married. Or people who don't have grandbabies aren't blessed, which isn't true, not everyone's called to that as well, even if you're walking wonderfully with the Lord. Or if someone's kids are struggling a little more in their life or faith in some other way, it must be because that person didn't follow the Lord the way that maybe we did with our newfound freedom and so that's why they're not getting the things that we're getting.

You understand what it means. Provoking them to feel, what are we provoking them in? Provoking them to feel like maybe God doesn't love them as much as he loves us because they haven't been performing the way that we've been performing in this newfound freedom in the Spirit. Now I wanna be careful not to confuse us when we talk about this, okay? Because it can be confusing if we're not careful. There are some natural positive consequences that we reap when we follow God's will for our life. We'll actually talk about that next week. Paul immediately says, now listen, you're gonna reap what you sow when it comes to the things of this life in certain ways, right? God begs us to obey him because it's abundant life. When we follow his will, we experience positive things in our life, abundant life, that people who engage in the. that the flesh don't. So it's not that there's no sense of, man, following him is better for our life. It brings blessing into our life. That's absolutely true. But that's different. The abundant life we experience when we obey God is different than God using his sovereign power to bless you with something that's really out of your control because you're obeying him better than other people.

You get the difference? There's a difference between those two things. For instance, if we avoid sexual immorality, like he talked about in the deeds of the flesh, we'll avoid sexually transmitted diseases. That's a blessing. You'll have more abundant life if you live that way. But that's different than saying, man, God blessed me with this faithful, wonderful spouse because I abstain from sexual immorality. See the difference? That's something out of our control. We say he used his sovereign power to bless us with because he's happier with us because we did something right for him. It's different than just the natural consequences of obeying him, which is a good thing. But the same is true on the other side of the coin too, Paul says, because just as much as it's self-righteous to think that we've earned good things that God's blessing us with because of how well we're walking in the spirit now that we're free from the law, it's also self-righteous to get jealous of other people's lives as if we deserve everything they have because we feel like we've walked in the spirit just as well as they have, or maybe even better than they have. Not only can we be conceited in how we think about ourselves when we're doing well, we can also be conceited

in how we think about ourselves when we're struggling, can't we? It can go the other way. When we look at someone else's journey in life that's going the way we wish ours was, and we think, I'm just as patient as they are, maybe more. I'm just as kind and good and gentle as they are, maybe even more. I exude the fruit of the spirit every bit as much as they do. So why isn't God blessing me the way he's blessing them? Why did I just get demoted and they got promoted? I'm following him better than they are. Or with a spouse, or with kids who are walking like theirs, or with kids at all. Why am I having to walk with this diagnosis when I already am patient, I'm more patient than them. Why is God teaching me patience even more? Why do I have to go through that or some other hard thing in my life? See, we can still try to earn God's affection and blessing in our lives, even under this new law of love and walking with the spirit now that we're free from the law, can't we? We should apply it to how well we're doing using our new freedom to walk in the spirit. But the beauty of grace is that it lets me enjoy the good things in my life in a humble way that's wonderful to share with those around me when I ask. Because sharing the good things from the right heart

means I'm giving glory to God for his grace to me in those things, instead of attributing them to my obedience. If I'm being humble in how I share things with others, they may still get jealous, I can't control that, that's between them and the Lord, but it's not because I'm provoking them in my self-righteousness. And on the other side of the coin, grace also lets me celebrate the good things happening to others without envying their life somehow or being jealous. Because I see the good things happening to other people as God's grace to them on the journey he has them on. And their journey isn't easier than my journey, it's just different. And that's fine, he's bringing us all to the same mountaintop, he's taking me this way, he's taking them this way, so it looks different. But it's not because he loves them more. In fact, if he gave me everything that I'm jealous of in their life, here's the thing, because he loves me perfectly, and because Jesus has already secured the ability for him to do that if he wanted to, that means it would be worse for me, not better. Because he loves me. And he's blessing me all the time, because Jesus has already paid for that on the cross. That's what looking at our life

through the lens of grace looks like. That's how it changes, these kinds of real practical things in our life. The God who's in control could make anything he wants happen if he wanted to, because he loves me, he's pleased with me, he's not cursing me, he's blessing me right where he has me, so I can have joy in all circumstances like the scripture talks about, because I know whatever I'm walking through, even if it's hard, it's his perfect love to me. Grace changes everything, everything. And then Paul turns his attention to really one of the best litmus tests for all of us as to whether we're becoming conceited with our new freedom from the law or truly embracing God's way of grace for us. And that is how we come alongside someone who's caught in sin, who's caught in sin, in a trespass, as he calls it, or a transgression in our passage. There's few better temperature gauges, God says, for how we're doing with our pride when it comes to grace than how we treat people who have obviously done something wrong that everyone would agree with is wrong if they knew about it. It's not like, oh, I don't know, is that that bad or not? It's like when someone's caught in something that you're like, oh yeah, if everyone knew that, they would look sideways at that person big time. They're caught, there's no getting out of it,

and everyone would agree with you, right? And it doesn't really matter if that person's been caught in their sin in a public way, that lots of people know about, or just by you in a more private way. The truth here that Paul's gonna show us is the same in any of those circumstances. And what God does here is pretty amazing. When you talk about an economy of words, in just five short verses, he's gonna give us six ways to know if we're understanding grace or not. And I wanna say as we walk through this this morning that the passage is speaking to the person who has not been caught, okay? Even though all of us sin, all of us could be caught tomorrow. But Paul here is specifically speaking to the person who has not been caught, but finds himself in a relationship with someone who has. Why is that important? Because a lot of us who have been sinned against in a way that's hurtful, or who have tried to walk with someone like we're gonna talk about today through it, everything I'm gonna say today, you're gonna say, yeah, but what about if they're not like this, but what about if they're doing this, but what if they're, I agree. That's not who Paul talks to, okay?

We can go to other passages to try and talk about the person who's been caught in this sin, like 2 Samuel 11 and 12, where Nathan confronts King David when he's caught in his sin with Bathsheba, or Psalm 51, where David's crying out to the Lord in repentance, true repentance for all that he's done. There's a lot of places we could go to talk about the person who's been caught. And there's a sermon for another day for that person, trust me, because walking through that well is every bit as challenging as what we're gonna talk about today. I've walked through these moments with people who are truly repentant. I've walked through these moments with people who are repentant, but they keep falling back into it in weakness, but they are repentant. I've walked through this with people who are just remorseful, but not repentant. And remorse is different than repenting, right? Repenting is God's showing me my sin and I'm broken over it and it's wrong and I never wanna do it again because I know I've sinned against him and these people and it's hurting me and them and it's not good for anybody, that's repentance. Remorse is, man, I'm really scared and sad and frustrated and upset because I got caught.

Yeah, I'm down, I feel bad about it because of how mad people are at me or because of the consequences of it or because, man, it stinks I got caught. Like that's what I'm upset about, so I seem upset, but it's remorse, not repentance. And then of course, I've tried to walk through with people who aren't interested in it at all, right? So we can preach those passages, messages at a different time. This is talking about the person who has not been caught in sin, but who's being asked to walk through it with someone who has. Let's look at what he says to that person. Chapter six, verse one, he says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Restore him in a spirit of gentleness. That's the first thing we see when someone understands grace, that their first emotion and desire in this situation is to try and restore the person who's been caught in their sin, not punish them. Restore, not punish. And having that fundamental goal makes so many things different in how we walk with someone through being caught in sin. Think about it with regard to restoring something

in your physical house, right? When you see something wrong with your home and you decide you wanna restore it instead of just tear it down and build a new one, you wanna do as little damage as possible to that part of your house to put it back together, don't you? I mean, you wanna do as much as you have to do to do it right, to do it correctly, so it doesn't happen again, so it's safe and secure and beautiful and all that, but you're trying to do as little damage as possible in the process. Now, you may get in there, kind of rip open the wall a little bit, think, man, I think it's just this part here where the kind of stain on the wall is, and you may realize, no, actually, there's a lot more rotten wood behind there than I realized. And you may have to expand of that and expose a little bit more to really get to the edges of where the unhealth in your home is to be able to restore it fully. You wanna do it the right way, and sometimes that ends up being a bigger job than you realize at first with what you thought, so it is with people. But when you're restoring something,

your goal is to expose as little as possible, to repair as little as you have to, to tear out as little as you need to to get the job done right. And I do mean get the job done right, okay? You wanna do it right. You wanna do it fully, but you wanna minimize the damage as you do that. So it is with people. We understand all of us are sinners saved by grace and that any of our lives could be flayed open. in any minute in front of the world by God and dissected. When you have that kind of humility in thinking about your own sin, you see these situations a little bit differently. Now, I need to say this, okay? If someone's caught in a sin by you that needs to be reported to the authorities, they've done something illegal, don't hesitate. Do not hesitate. That's been something churches haven't always done well in the name of being gracious. Let's say if someone's done something illegal and now God's exposing after they've done something illegal, that means God is asking them to walk through a legal process to show them things about their sin to restore them in whatever way he's going to. You can be gracious to them, but he's asking you to be gracious to them

as you walk through the legal process with them, not to help them avoid it. Those are two different things, okay? It's not gracious to the victim or even to the person who committed the illegal sin to not report something that needs to be reported. Having a heart of restoration doesn't cover up sin from the people who actually need to know any more than it's good to just cover up your wall when you know there's rotten wood back there and not fix it, just hoping that it goes away. But someone who does have the true heart of restoration would only try to tell the people who absolutely need to know. That's part of what Paul's getting at. The same way you'd want to if it was you. In fact, Jesus reiterates this. Actually, he said it first. Paul's reiterating what Jesus said. In Matthew 18, look at it with me. He says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. Between you and him, and then look alone, right? He says, if you're the one that discovers it, you go and talk to them one-on-one. You go and talk to them alone. And look at what Jesus says. If he listens to you, you gained your brother. Great. You're gonna have to walk through it with them.

It's not just a single conversation. You need to make sure that you're exploring the depths of it with them and getting to the bottom of it and helping them heal from it and making sure that they're repenting, not just remorseful, making sure they're talking to people they need to talk to, to bring healing. Like, you're still in it with them, but he's like, if you go to them and they're like, you're right, I'm wrong, I'm so sorry, help me walk through this, that's the only people that need to know. He says, now, if they don't listen to you, then look what he says. He says, yeah, you may have to expand the circle if they're being hard-hearted and obstinate, but only as small as you have to to get the job done right. That every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Then he says, if he still refuses to listen to those two steps, then you need to go and talk to the church about it. And then he says, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then you need to go and talk to the church about it. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. What's fascinating about that phrase, so many times we get to that phrase,

we're like, yeah, listen, man, if you go to them and you take two or three and they go to the church and they're still repentant, man, then, then we get to shun them. Then we get to kick them out. Then we get to make them feel really bad about it. No, listen, at the end of the day, what we see in the scriptures about what we call church discipline is, yes, if someone is not walking with Jesus in an obvious, apparent public way, habitually, that is communicating to the community around us here in Central Arkansas, a lie about who Jesus is and what following him means, if they're out there not following his word, not willing to, don't care at all, no matter what you say to them, but they're saying, but I'm a believer and I go over here to fellowship and that's my church family, then yeah, we do need to make sure that we're saying, hey, listen, you're not gonna be able to call yourself a member of our community of people trying to follow Jesus as imperfectly as we are and just live a life lying to the world out there with no remorse. That's not good for the gospel, it's not good for the church, it's not good for you, it's not good for anyone. That's what the scripture is talking about.

But when Jesus says treat them as a tax collector or a Gentile, let me ask you this, how did Jesus treat tax collectors? He ate with them. He spent time with them. He talked to them. He tried to tell them about the kingdom of God, tried to tell them about grace. He continued in relationship, so much so the religious leaders got mad at him for saying, who are you hanging out with? And he says, I came to heal the sick, not the healthy. If you think you don't need me, then I don't need to spend time with you. It's the people that know they need me that I need to spend time with. There's a difference between communicating to someone, hey, we don't think it's healthy for you to continue to call yourself a member of our church by the way you're walking. There's a difference between that and between saying, I never wanna look at you or speak to you again because you're so bad you wouldn't even listen to us. Those are two different things. So the goal isn't to expose the person as much as possible so they never do it again out of embarrassment or shame. Sometimes we think that's our job. Or to punish them so they never do it again out of fear.

Sometimes we think that's our job. The goal is to do what Jesus is saying grace does with us. Think about all the sinful things Jesus knows about you right now that he could expose if he wanted to. He could show the world if he wanted to. And yet he's patient, he's long-suffering, he's trying to show it to you before it gets to that point. He only exposes what he knows he absolutely has to to get you to change, because he knows you won't without it. The goal is restoration. But notice the second thing he says about it in verse one. He says that we should also do it with gentleness and not harshness. He says restore with gentleness, right? Back to our house analogy. He's basically saying don't use a bulldozer when a small hammer will do, right? Even if you could. He's saying don't put a hole through the wall just because no one will question you for it, because they agree what that person did was so terrible, when it may just need to be sanded down a little bit and repainted. For some of us, when someone gets caught in a sin, we get way too excited about helping. For some of us, maybe we're high justice people, or maybe we're carrying a little self-righteousness in our hearts, or a little frustration, or whatever it is. And man, now that we have a legitimate reason to treat someone in kind of a harsh, self-righteous way,

we're all in on it. Oh yeah, I'll help him. I'll walk alongside him. And sometimes in our hearts, what we mean by that is, because I got a lot of anger and frustration that wants to come out, and now I have a legitimate, godly reason to do it. I'm gonna pour it on them. They messed up big time, and they need to know how much they messed up. And everyone who I tell would agree that they messed up that bad. And no one's gonna question how harsh I'm gonna be with them, because they deserve it. Oh yeah, I'm trying to help them, but the gloves are off in how I help them, because they really messed up. Now again, when you're walking through this with someone, you may have to say some hard things to them, no doubt about it, right? Just like Nathan had to say some hard things to King David when he sinned against Bathsheba. But grace says them in a way that is humble. Humble enough to understand that God may be sending one to me next week to talk to me about my sin. I'm not walking with this person through this because I enjoy being the sin police, or because I think I'm better than them. I'm walking through this with a person

that I think I'm better than them. I'm walking through this with them because I love them and I understand that either I've already walked this path before and know what they're going through, or one day I'm gonna walk this path and I would want them to treat me the same way. Now, someone who understands grace doesn't punish with harshness, they restore with gentleness. But we also need to guard our own heart so we don't fall into sin with them. We need to guard our own heart so we don't fall into sin with them. Look at what he says in the second half of verse one. He says, keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Tempted to do what? Well, this can be a lot of things, okay? I'm gonna talk about two. There's way more things you can be tempted in that Paul's saying. He's saying, in general, watch your heart. In all kinds of ways, you can be tempted. But I'm gonna talk about two. First, tempted to gossip about it behind their back to people that have no business knowing. People that it doesn't affect directly, people that aren't involved in helping you restore them, people that don't already know and don't need to know.

Gossip's one of the things that makes true restoration in a church setting the hardest thing to do when you catch someone in sin. Because the more people that find out what happened and all the details of it, the more people that they need to be restored to now. And by the way, you're provoking the people that you're sharing it with, that you're gossiping to, where they're gonna struggle to not feel self-righteous toward that person when they see them walking through the plaza or walking down the street, because they don't see all the details like you do. They're not seeing the person's heart repenting like you are. They're not engaging like you are. So they're just gonna hear the salacious news and then think, whew, you're provoking them in that moment. And so the person who's been caught in this sin, they don't even know who all knows. They don't know who they need to be restored to. They just know they're being treated differently now by a whole lot of people who they may never be restored to. Now listen, once someone is caught in sin, the people who caught them obviously know. The people who they hurt need to know. Possibly the authorities like we talked about need to know. But apart from that, you're doing more damage than good with anyone else you talk to about it. You're doing more damage than good.

What other kinds of temptations are there? Well, I think God's also warning us here not to fall into the same kind of sin we've caught them in. This is crazy, but Satan does this. I've experienced this before in my own life as a pastor. You start helping someone walk through a certain sin struggle, and all of a sudden you start finding yourself thinking about that sin struggle in ways you never did before. Because you're talking about it all the time. You're thinking about it with them all the time. Start describing when they did it, how they did it, why they did it. And even though it's wrecking their life, there's a part of us, if we're not careful, that says in our hearts, well, I mean, yeah, it's wrecking their life because they got out of control with it, but I have more self-control than that. I wouldn't take it that far. I wouldn't do what they did. I could probably enjoy what they're talking about just a little bit, and it wouldn't be that big of a deal. That's how Satan comes to us. That's the arrogance that we can feel. We get caught up if we're not careful. No, God says, keep a watch on your own heart while you're helping restore someone else's. Fourth, he says, we should see it as a burden that we're helping them carry on their way

to becoming more like Christ. We should see it as a burden we're helping them bear. Verse two, he says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. What did we say the law of Christ was? Just a few verses before this a couple of weeks ago. We said to love others the way Jesus loves us. He says, when you bear someone else's burdens in this way, that's what I'm talking about. That's loving them the way Christ loved you. I love this phrase, because it speaks to what a grace-filled heart in a situation like this looks like. When you're walking with someone who's been caught in sin, man, through discovering the depths of it and getting down into how deep it really goes, through facing the consequences of it with them and walking through it with them, through multiple setbacks with it until they're truly restored as they struggle to really trust Christ in it, there's an aspect of that journey, it's a burden. It's a burden on you if you're being asked to walk through it with that person. It's a weight on you that you're taking on with them and helping them shoulder that's not easy for you, not fun for you. It takes time, it takes energy, it takes sacrifice on your part. At the same time, he says, when we understand grace,

then we see that burden in a different way, don't we? We see it as an opportunity God's giving us to reflect the love of God to them that he's shown us on the cross. After all, what heavier burden did anyone bear than Jesus Christ for your sin or my sin on the cross? And here's the thing about how Jesus did it. He didn't just bear some of it with us while we walked through and faced the consequences of it for a limited period of time. No, he took all of our sin, hidden and public, all of it. And not just for a little while while we walked through it with someone, he took all of our sin, past, present, and future, all of it. And here's the crazy thing about Jesus, he didn't just help us shoulder some of the consequences as we face most of it, walking through that. He took all the consequences on himself and gave it to us as righteousness, as a gift. People that understand grace are willing to walk with someone caught in sin in a way that isn't just barking at them from afar, telling them how they messed up, how they need to get better, and then saying, you better figure that out. That's not the gospel, that's not Christ. Someone who understands grace bears it with them because that's what Christ has done for us. Fifth, Paul says we should not compare our sins to theirs

as if our sins are in less need of grace somehow, just because we haven't gotten caught in ours yet the way that they have. That's what he says in verses three and four, look at it with me, it says, for if anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, right? Listen, one of the most ungracious things that we do to people who are caught in sin is act shocked that they could do something like that. Oh, can you believe it? Can you believe what they did? I know, I would never. Right, that's part of that arrogance that Paul's talking about, as if the sins that we commit are so much better in the eyes of God than whatever they've been caught in. If we truly believe that God sees all sin the same from a heavenly perspective, that Christ went to the cross for my sins just as much as he did for theirs, even though mine haven't been exposed and caught and theirs have, then acting like their sins is worse than mine or anyone else's for that matter, it shows I don't really understand grace in the way that God talks about it in the scriptures.

Now, here's another place I gotta be clear again, okay? I'm not saying there aren't different consequences on the earth for different sins. There absolutely are. You're not going to prison for envying somebody's life in your heart. There are different consequences to different sins on the earth. Different consequences relationally sometimes to different sins for what you commit on the earth compared to other things, right? But the point is when you're walking in grace with someone caught in sin, it means not only you know that you could. do something as bad as they've done, what really walking in grace means is you know the sins you commit, even if they have different consequences on the earth, are every bit as offensive to God as whatever they've done. Jesus had to go to the cross for yours every bit as much as whatever they've been caught in. You see that as equal, you see that as the same. And so you treat them that way, as a fellow struggler with you, not as someone you're helping because they need more help than you. That's why God says here for us to test our own work so that the only reason we would ever have to boast in how good we are, he says,

is how we're doing compared to Christ in our own sanctification journey, right? At the end of the day, not compared to our neighbor. Jesus says if we're testing our own hearts compared to what Christ is asking of us and not looking around and saying, well, at least I didn't do what they did, then we're not gonna have any reason to boast, are we? It's into what Paul says here. He says, oh yeah, you can boast in yourself, just don't compare yourself to your neighbor. But then what do we see him say in other places in the scriptures about boasting in ourselves? Look at Ephesians 2, eight and nine with me. He says, for by grace, you've been saved through faith. Right, he's talking about the difference between grace and law like we're talking about here in Galatians. He says, and this is not of your own doing, right? It's by grace. Because of that, it's the gift of God, not something you earned for yourself, not as a result of your works like we're talking about in Galatians. So what's his conclusion? So that no one may what? Boast. So here in Galatians, he says, hey, listen, you wanna brag,

don't brag compared to how much better you think your sins are than your neighbors. Look at your own life and just boast in yourself alone. The conclusion we should come when we actually do that in a humble way is, yeah, I got no reason to brag about anything. Compared to Jesus, I got infinite ways to go. I have a long journey in front of me and everything I'm receiving is by his grace anyway. It takes that away from us. We understand grace, we never boast in our own righteousness. We only point people to the righteousness Christ earned himself and gave us as a gift. Everything godly we do, we realize it's Christ in me, the Holy Spirit in me, like we've been talking about in Galatians 2.20, accomplishing his will through me. We don't boast in ourselves when it comes to being good and we don't compare ourselves to others when it comes to being sinful who we're trying to help. Well, what's the last perspective he gives us? We'll wrap up with this. To know if we understand grace in this kind of a situation. He says that we know that in the same way that Jesus is working out his grace in the person caught in sin, we know that Jesus will do the same thing in our lives, whatever he has to, to conform us to him as well. Someone who's walking through a transgression with someone

understands that, man, what Jesus is doing in their life, the reason they got caught is because he loves them and this is a part of him conforming them to his image. And guess what? He could do that to me any minute, any day he wants to, to conform me to his image. Look at what verse five says. It says, for each will have to bear his own load. That's a kind way of saying our day's coming. Not as a threat, not as some kind of evil thing. It's not God holding some threat over you saying, hey, you just wait, I'm gonna get you, like with the lightning bolt from heaven. What's he saying? He's saying, because I love you as much as I love them, in the same way that I didn't let their sin get any farther than it got before they got caught because I love them and I love the people they're hurting and I didn't want it to go on any longer. Guess what? I love you too much to let your sin go on for too long before someone catches you in it to conform you back to the image of Christ, to sting you with the pain of it so you see it for what it is and for who it hurts and how it hurts and you come running back to me because I love you and I'm gracious. In the same way I'm doing it to him while you're helping, I can do it to you. Each of us will have to bear our own load

when it comes to feeling that sting along the way of our life. It's sobering aspect what Philippians 1, 6 says when it says that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. I always saw that as this really sweet verse. Oh, he who began a good work in you, man, he's gonna complete it to Christ Jesus. He's just gonna keep loving you and loving you and loving you until you become more and more like him that you see him face to face. That's absolutely true. The challenge is sometimes his love stings because our hearts are hard. He loves us too much to let us keep hurting ourselves and others around us, right? And all of us are gonna face numerous days in our life where Christ lovingly rips our sin out of our grasp, whether in front of another person in a public way or hundreds or thousands, or whether just between us and him, we're all being confronted. to the image of Christ throughout our lives. He's promised to do it because he loves us. And that's where abundant life is found. The humble person walks with someone caught in sin in a way that knows down deep, if my day hasn't come for this yet, it probably is coming. So let me do unto others as I would have them do unto me, because my turn is around the corner

and I'm gonna want them to be gracious to me. It's just one of the hundreds and hundreds of ways grace changes everything, fellowship. Everything. And one of my deepest prayers for our church is that although I know we have a lot of people here who would walk with someone who's gotten caught in sin in a gracious, humble way, the way that Paul's talking about here. I know so many of you would do it just the way we've talked about today. I also know we still have people in our midst and at our church who would handle it in a self-righteous way. And it breaks my heart. And I long for grace to so ooze out of every part of our church body, every pore of our church body, that a complete stranger could walk into our midst and feel completely safe confessing whatever they needed to to whoever they needed to. Because they know they're not gonna get gossiped about around here. They know they're not gonna get shunned or looked down upon. They know they're not gonna get labeled in some way. They know they're gonna experience with the tax collector and the prostitute and the sinner experience when Jesus showed up. Someone who is shockingly gracious about it. Someone who is shockingly kind about it.

Not someone who ignores it. Not someone who just winks at it and acts like it's no big deal because Jesus paid for it, right? That's not bearing any kind of burden with them. Just saying, hey, don't worry, God doesn't care. That's not bearing a burden. That's not what the scripture is talking about. That's not restoring anything. Just acting like God doesn't care about sin means that you're letting people walk around unrestored with just dry rot in their bones and you're not doing anything to help them. That's not love. That's not what he's talking about. What's interesting is churches try to create a safe environment for sin in three different kinds of ways and two of them are unhealthy. The first way they try to create safety is by being the kind of church that's like, hey, we preach the truth here, but we're not gonna talk to you about any of your sin. We don't care. God loves you. He's gonna forgive you. It doesn't matter. You come here and just sin all you want. We're gonna tell you the truth and love on you, but we're not gonna even talk about that in your personal life.

That person feels super safe in a church like that. All of us would feel safe walking in a church like that because we know, great, I'm not getting judged for anything no matter what I do. That feels safe to the person. It's scary as all get out to the rest of the church because now you got people walking around with no accountability, no checks and balances, no one at all encouraging them to walk in Jesus. So now everyone in the church is at risk of getting hurt and wounded and sinned against just blatantly all the time. It's safe for the person, not for the church. Other churches go the other way. They're like, hey, listen, we're supposed to protect the flock of God. We're supposed to guard the flock. Man, this place is gonna be safe. If you're scared of your kids living out there in the world, bring them here, live among us, and it's gonna be safe. Anyone that even hints at sin, we're gonna squash it. We're gonna pummel them. We're gonna make sure they feel so uncomfortable even thinking about sin. You are safe here. But then the person that's struggling with sin doesn't feel safe, do they? Who am I gonna talk about that with? Who am I gonna confess that to? Now, what grace always does is gives us

this beautiful third way to come at things. It's not licentiousness and it's not legalism. And it's so beautiful, it's so healing. At the end of the day, it says, no, we're not gonna act like that the sin that you're caught in doesn't matter because of what Jesus has done because it absolutely does matter. But what grace does do is turn us into people who don't act like we're better than those people who are willing to walk with them, to be restored in gentleness and love. That is when we get grace as a church family, as a community. Jesus treated people that way. And here's the crazy thing. He actually was better than them. Isn't that nuts? We treat people with self-righteousness and we're no better than them. Jesus actually was holy and better than everybody. And he treated sinners with more grace than anyone had ever encountered before. Amazing. You pray with me. Heavenly Father, we come before you and we thank you and praise you so much for your goodness to us, for your grace to us. Jesus, thank you that you showed us in how you walked in your 33 years on the earth

and from the stories that we have captured in the scriptures of what it means to let grace transform our lives. Transform the way we think about ourselves, transform the way we think about others, transform our hearts from being conceited to being humble, experiencing abundant life because we trust that you love us and so we wanna obey you because it's better for us. It's abundant life. But not becoming arrogant or conceited. Comparing ourselves to others. God, your will is so good. It is so good. Help us to trust it. Help us to obey it. And Lord, help us to be so gracious to others when they're struggling to do that. We ask these things in your name. Amen. Amen. Thanks again for listening to the Word of God. We are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on. If you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus, reach out to us at fellowshipar.com contact. Have a great week.