The Whole Body, Part 9: The Shoulders

Well, this morning we continue our way through this rather short series on the whole body.

A topical series. We often do that when we complete a rather longer stretch, expositing a certain book or chunk within a book of Scripture.

And we've been making our way down the body. Our goal, of course, is

Ephesians 4 to comprehend the whole body. We see what we just read in verses 14 through 16 as the mature, the complete body, the fullness of the body.

We want to grow up in all things into Him who is the head, from whom that whole body, our whole corporate body, joined and knit together by what every joint, every member supplies, according to the effect of working by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

And so we consider the head, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth.

Over the past two weeks we've seen the importance of having the tender heart as well as the strong spine.

And this morning we come to the shoulders. We don't have many body parts left,

I will say. We're well beyond the halfway point. But we're still in the upper part of the body.

And the shoulders, I think, have a lot to say about bearing weight. That may be related to the strong spine, but we use the spine as a way of talking about conviction, about courage, having that strength that accords with speaking the truth of God in love.

That's combining the strong spine with the tender heart. 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13.

That love that we have, a fervent and pure love that we have. But it's also borne out with a courage of conviction.

So the heart, the spine, and this morning we're looking at shoulders bearing weight.

And I want to look at that bearing in three different ways. First, a bearing off.

Something that gets borne away. A weight that gets taken off, a bearing off.

And then secondly, a bearing with. And then thirdly, a bearing through.

I think this is a helpful way for us to think about our shoulders, our corporate shoulders.

A bearing off, a bearing with, and a bearing through. So beginning with bearing off.

By the way, I'll just say, I believe there's an order, there's a flow to this. And I hope that will become clear as we make our way through the points.

And it all begins here. In other words, bearing with and bearing through does not happen without this first point, without bearing off.

Jeremiah Burroughs, who wrote a wonderful little treatise based on Matthew 11, called

Christ Inviting Sinners to Come to Him for Rest. And of course you understand in the passage, it's the heavy burdens.

In Acts 15, the burdens that neither we nor our fathers could bear. And Jesus is pointing to that burden, and He's saying, that's not my burden.

If you're heavy laden, if you're weary from that burden, come to Me. I will give you rest.

And Jeremiah Burroughs spends some time in this exposition talking about the burden. He says, I'll just give you a few examples, sin is that which makes all other burdens burdensome.

There's burden enough in life. Sin makes that burden even more burdensome. Sin makes that weight nearly impossible to bear.

The burden of sin is so great to the godly, it makes them weary of life itself. Their corruption seems to them more grievous than death.

It's easier for a man to bear a burden on his shoulders than to bear a burden in his conscience. You see what

Burroughs is getting at? There's something about the burden of guilt, something about the burden of sin, something about the burden that makes the difficulties of life the miseries of life, the toil of life, almost the plight, the very condition of death.

Who will deliver us from this body of death? These are the burdens that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 11.

He doesn't say that there'll be no burden. He doesn't say that you'll be yoke free. He says, my burden is easy, my yoke is light.

So there is a yoke, there is a burden, but it's not a burden impossible to bear. It's not the sinful burden that Burroughs is describing.

The sinful burden that Burroughs is describing is what John Bunyan depicts in Pilgrim's Progress. Remember, when

Christian first understands the gospel, as he's dwelling in and living like this city of destruction, and this gospel message, this invitation to travel through that narrow and difficult way to glory, to the celestial city, and he begins to cry out this great hope of mercy, and he flees from the city of destruction.

But for quite some time, Bunyan has him laboring under this burden. He has this large backpack of all of his guilt, of all of his toil, of all of his struggle.

This is the burden that Burroughs is describing. He struggles with it for quite some time, even after he's fled from the city of destruction.

He still needs evangelists to come and point him to the way. It's not until he comes through the wicked gate and beholds the cross that that burden finally falls off of his back.

It was the Puritan William Williams who said, sin will always be burdensome to those who find the

Savior precious. And so Christian had already heard the invitation.

He was already on this narrow path to life, but he found his sin, his guilt, to be a burden that was hard to bear.

It was because this invitation, this call was so precious that he began to feel the weight of this burden.

He perhaps had never felt that burden before. Maybe he, as Paul says in Romans 1, suppressed the truth of that burden and unrighteousness.

It wasn't a guilt that he felt. It was a guilt that he could evade. He could camouflage. He could try to atone for by his actions or his ambitions or his endeavors.

Look how good I am. Look how hard I try. I'm really not only as good as the rest, I'm better than the rest.

But once that invitation entered his ears, once his heart began to soften, he felt the weight of his guilt in a way he never had before.

He ran headlong for some time under this burden of guilt. It was a burden because the

Savior had become precious to him. It was a burden that the Savior had to take away. And it was taken away when he was brought to behold the cross.

I think Bunyan was a very wise preacher, and he understood some are answering their call while they are bearing that burden of guilt.

They just don't fully understand or fully have rest in the gospel. They're not in the city of destruction, but they have not fully understood and found the refuge and the joy of the gospel.

And of course, without that, the burden never falls away, and a Christian can't make it to glory, can't make it to the celestial city.

So the heavy burden that a sinner bears is something that the

Spirit reveals. The full weight of that burden, the full demand of that burden, the recognition that this burden is not no worse and perhaps not much different than anyone else.

This burden deserves hell. This guilt deserves God's wrath. That's something that the

Spirit illuminates, that the Spirit reveals. And the Spirit leads us then to the cross where that guilt, that burden is borne away.

The beginning of the shoulders is this bearing off. The beginning of bearing through and bearing with one another is the bearing off that takes place as a result of the gospel.

Jesus in Matthew 23 warned against the Pharisees and the scribes, do not do according to their works, because they say but they don't do.

In other words, Jesus is saying don't be like the hypocrites, don't be like the Pharisees and the scribes. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move one of their fingers.

Everything they do is to be seen. They make their phylacteries, their little scripture containers very broad.

They enlarge the borders of their garments. They want to be seen. This is the very thing Jesus was condemning in Matthew 6.

But in Matthew 11 He says, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,

I will give you rest. He reveals the burden even as He seeks to take it away from us.

That burden that we could not bear. That burden that we try to bear. That burden that will be all ruined.

That burden of guilt demanding justice. That burden that we try to suppress in unrighteousness.

Jesus says, no, take My yoke. Learn from Me. I'm gentle.

I'm lowly in heart. You will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. My burden is light.

So the first thing we have to understand is, what do we do with the weight that we bear? Of course, the heavy burden a sinner bears is borne away by faith in Christ.

The Gospel is not something that just begins the Christian life. It is the Christian life.

That means I'm always seeking to understand the weight, the guilt, the accusation, the condemnation that lingers in my conscience, and I bring that to the cross because only there can that burden be relieved.

Which means I have to exercise faith in the Gospel. That's my life, repenting and trusting in the saving work of Christ.

That's the Christian life. That's the Christian shoulder. That's how we bear the weight.

The weight of our sin. The weight of our failure. The weight, the burden that so easily entangles us.

It discourages us. It causes us to stumble and lose heart and turn aback. Burroughs was writing a book to the backsliding

Christian. It's an invitation. You've forgotten who it is that's called you. He invites you to take that guilt you're feeling, that burden you're bearing, and come to Him so that you might have rest.

He seeks to bear away that guilt. So it's

His own faithfulness that you put your faith in. He's faithful to you in ways you're not faithful to Him.

He's been faithful to the Lord, and that faithfulness will be given to you as your righteousness. It's the ground of our justification.

Christ's faithfulness. Our faith, the faith that we put in Christ, is the instrument.

It's the hand that lays hold of the ground. Do you see? It's very important we understand this.

Because if we fail to understand this, we actually add to our burden. And in trying to believe in the

Gospel, the Gospel becomes glossable, becomes more law. And it becomes a burden, again, that we cannot bear.

Somehow we've lost the cross. We've closed our hand to that free offer of God's mercy.

We've tried to muster it up within ourselves. This time I'll try a little bit harder. This time I'll be a little bit purer.

Look at what Paul says. Not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.

This is how Christian shoulders operate. Paul has no boast or confidence in his flesh.

His confidence, his boast, is in Christ. He might have thought himself blameless in his obedience to the law, but all of that now just seems like leaves.

It's rubbish to him. He recognized he was trying to do what Israel did when they stumbled at the stumbling stone, trying to make a righteousness of their own.

That only adds to the burden. It only adds to the weight. That will crush you if you're trying to make your way to glory, if you're trying to absolve or cleanse your conscience.

It's only that which Christ has done, our laying hold of that, our putting our trust in that, an empty hand grasping the reality of that.

That's what relieves all of the weight, all of the burden from the shoulders. That becomes an easy yoke, a light burden.

It's not my own righteousness that brings me into the very presence and hope of God, into the surety of His promise.

It's Christ's righteousness. And you have to preach that to yourself over and over and over.

Do you want mercy to renew every morning? You better preach that gospel to yourself every morning, because that is mercy.

It's amazing the first time the Lord opens your ears, opens your eyes, gives you a new heart to believe these things.

You know what? It's amazing the thousandth time too. I choke up singing, we were just saying this morning, in my place condemned

He stood, sealed my pardon in His blood. Sometimes we're just not even in the right mental space.

We sing unworthily these hymns that are beholding this reality. No wonder then we carry on the rest of our day and the rest of our week with burdens we were never meant to bear, with guilt and accusations that the evil one uses to great effect.

He trips us, causes us to stumble, causes us to grumble and wallow in self -pity.

No wonder there's no joy, there's no strength, there's no vigor. We're bearing a weight we were never meant to bear, a weight that's been born for us by Christ.

Christ's faithfulness is the ground of all of our hope, of all of our stay as Christians.

It's our faith that lays hold of that. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not of works. No man can boast. And so again, as we say, it's the empty hand.

Faith is not the one thing that merits God's grace. No, the one thing that merits

God's grace is the atoning blood of a perfect Son. That's the only thing that merits the grace of God to unworthy sinners.

Faith is the empty hand that lays hold of that. It's the instrument of our salvation, the hand which receives.

The Puritans are so helpful on this point. William Gernel, With one hand, faith pulls off its own righteousness.

We can put it this way. With one hand, faith, as it were, exposes itself, exposes its guilt, exposes its shame.

With the other hand, it puts on the righteousness of Christ. Again, this is commonplace for Christians.

And the struggle then is that you never allow it to be so common that you lose the depth and the richness and the wonder of the

Gospel. This is music to the Christian's ear. I remember years ago as a young man going to see a film in the theater, and it was a story about William Wilberforce and the slave trade, the

Atlantic slave trade, and sort of his long toils in the English Parliament to overcome chattel slavery.

And in that, there were several little moments of interaction with John Newton, of course, this famous preacher and theologian who had formerly been a captain,

I believe, of a slave ship doing that Atlantic passage and had a tremendous conversion and was a tremendous preacher of the

Gospel. And there were just a few vignettes throughout this film, and the whole theater was packed. And there was one moment where John Newton, who was there sort of mopping the floor in the church, and he commented to Wilberforce, two things

I know. I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior. And half the theater went, mm, amen.

No one else had spoken the entire film. There was no, you know, little moments or, you know, oohing or ahhing or, you know, whispering.

Everyone was glued in, but they couldn't contain themselves. That's music to the Christian's ear. Those are the essential truths.

It has everything to do with my shoulders because I either am released from a burden or I'm carrying it day by day, slogging through the trenches of self -righteousness when

I should be having an easy burden and a light yoke that comes from Christ's righteousness clothing me.

Thomas Manton says, With one hand, faith stretches out for Christ. With the other, it pushes away anything that comes between Christ and the soul, any self -effort, any vain thought, any promised reformation or renovation.

Get that rubbish out of here. It's Christ's righteousness alone. No human can boast.

So it's Christ's faithfulness. That's the ground of our release from this burden that we were not able to bear.

It had to be borne on our behalf. We live by mercy. We live by the cross. We live by the blood.

We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. That is the freeing power of the gospel.

Again, you are not just freed from the burden of guilt at the entrance to the Christian life, at the beginning of your conversion.

This is meant to be something that carries you through all the way. If we could, in our own experience, depict what

Bunyan's getting at, it's not just that the burden falls off as we pass through the wicked gate.

I think we try to put that burden back on at several other points throughout the rest of our lives. What I mean is,

Paul writes the letter to the Galatians for a reason. You want to put the burdens back on you?

Foolish Galatians, who bewitched you? You want to be burdened and weighed down again?

Have you thought so little of Christ and His salvation? Have you forgotten this gospel that I've preached to you?

There's nothing as freeing, as liberating, as joyous as being found in Christ and possessing simply by faith, simply by trusting in the truth and the reality of His salvation, to experience by faith all the salvation that He has accomplished.

So dealing with the burden rightly is the key then to not only bearing out the

Christian life, bearing out the mercies and grace of God in our walks, but it's key to how we bear with one another in light of that.

It's key to how we bear through, in other words, how we endure temptation and trial.

When we're discouraged, when we're downfallen, when we're set back, when we're slinking away, there is a weight, there is a burden, there is a pressure, there is a shame, there is a guilt, do you see?

This is what has to be dealt with first. You can't endure, you can't deal with anything unless you're dealing with it in light of the

Gospel. When you're prone to wander, as the hymn says,

Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, prone to forsake, prone to deny, prone to coldness, prone to unbelief.

You're brought to the place where it seems the accuser himself is mounting up against you. And he gets you into this little game.

He causes you to look so inward and to try to produce this meager little list of fruits and virtues in your life and say, show me how you're righteous.

Show me how you'll be righteous. Yeah, what can you do? What can you improve to make you righteous? Rather than playing that little game, you go to Romans 8, 1 and you say, there's no condemnation if I'm in Christ.

You're barking up the wrong tree. I have no hope in myself. I have no confidence in my flesh.

In me dwells no good thing. All of my hope, all of my confidence is in my

Savior who is faithful, who died for me. In my place condemned He stood. What I could not do in that I was weak in the flesh.

It was too heavy. I'm too weak. I can't bear it. The burden's intolerable. God did by sending

His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. You see, we have to deal with the shoulders rightly.

If we don't bear off, we'll never bear with. We'll never bear through. There's that beautiful hymn,

Caroline Noel wrote it, and Ralph Vaughn Williams composed the music to it,

At the Name of Jesus, one of my top three, maybe top. And the second stanza is talking about this

Savior, this promised one who's come, and His name has been exalted above every name. But of course, the second stanza,

He was humbled for a season to receive that name. Humbled for a season to receive a name from the lips of sinners amongst whom

He came. Faithfully, He bore it. Do you remember what

Paul says to the Galatians? Jesus was born under the law. He was born under that crushing weight that James says in Acts 15.

We couldn't bear it. Our fathers couldn't bear it. He bore it, the perfect law in all of the holiness that it requires.

He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, dwelling among sinners. Faithfully, He bore all of that weight on His shoulders.

Spotless to the last. You see, the bearing off is something that actually brings us to the sin bearer.

And that's why we bear with, and that's how we bear through. The bearing off is simply the

Gospel. He did what we could never do. He bore what we could never bear.

What shall we say to these things? If He's for us, He's against us. If God wouldn't spare

His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will He not also freely with Him give us all things?

Who would bring a charge against God's elect? The only thing that could be charged against God's elect is if God's elect are trying to justify something by themselves or within themselves.

There's no charge to be made if we're justified by faith in Christ. And that's the point.

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. How does He justify? By sending

His own Son in the likeness of flesh to bear a weight we could never bear. To bear the burden of our sin, our shame, our guilt.

So that rather than being crushed under that everlasting pressure, we could be freed from it and given a yoke, given a burden in following Him that is easy to bear.

Do you see? The bearing off is the key to bearing with.

So let's move to bearing with now. We're going to come back to bearing off at the very end.

I just wanted to establish that point at the outset. If we don't understand the removal of that great burden, then we can never shoulder the burdens of one another.

If you have a pack that is bringing your collarbones down to the soil, you're going to be of very little help of bearing anyone else's burden in the congregation.

But if you've been released, if you've been freed, if you've been liberated from the accusations and the guilt of the evil one, if you've been saved by grace through faith, you are in the best position to shoulder up along a brother or sister and bear with them their struggles in this walk.

Because you have the best thing to give to them. The Gospel. The hope of release and rest and freedom in Christ.

And that's how we bear with one another. We have nothing with which to bear with one another if it's not the

Gospel. I can only add to your weight if it's not the Gospel that I bring. So that means

I have to understand what weight am I bearing on my shoulders before I can seek to be of any help of bearing with someone else's shoulders, someone else's weight.

Paul says in Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long -suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the

Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of us all who is above all and through all and in you all.

So for Paul, it's the Gospel call that actually corresponds to bearing with one another in love.

Because we've been called, because we've been saved by God, through grace, by faith, now we can bear with one another.

Now with lowliness of mind and higher esteem for the other, in gentleness we can bear with one another.

In love we can walk in a long -suffering way with one another. We can now endeavor to keep the bond of the

Spirit in peace. Maybe this is more familiar if we remember last year.

Maybe it didn't mean as much to us last year. Maybe we ticked the box a little too early.

Been there, done that, green light, we're good. And then the

Lord in His providence spends the next half of the year showing how far we are from the reality of it. Colossians 3.

As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long -suffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another.

If anyone has complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

We spent so much time memorizing that for the retreat. How much time did we spend practicing that after the retreat?

Bearing with one another flows out of what Christ has done for us.

We said it a few weeks ago. We will be to others as we believe Christ has been to us.

How can I forgive an offense, a complaint I may have against another? I can forgive it as I've been forgiven.

Even as Christ forgave, so I must forgive. Even as Christ has borne, so I must bear.

Even as Christ has been long -suffering, so I must suffer long. Even Christ's meekness must become my meekness.

Christ's humility, my dress. Christ's kindness, my spirit. Do you see? For Paul, it all flows out of the

Gospel of Christ. Maybe put even more dramatically or more to effect,

Galatians 6, 1 and following, Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

Consider yourself, lest you also be tempted. And what immediately comes with that?

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Where does this talk of bearing burdens come from?

Well, we already saw it in Colossians 3. We see it everywhere. It comes out of this

Gospel. It comes out of the saving work of Christ. Why should we, in a spirit of gentleness, seek to restore such a one?

That's how Christ was to us. And so we fulfill

His law. We fulfill His command. We fulfill His example, His desire, when we bear one another burdens in this way.

Now, he'll go on to say, and it's very important we understand this a few verses later, each man must bear his own burden.

In other words, there's limitations here about what shoulders do in a church body.

We are commanded at first glance, in light of Christ's own example and command, to bear with one another in meekness and long -suffering, with all humility, in love, to bear with one another.

That's a command. And we actually seek to, in deference to Christ, in love for His Gospel and the example that He's made alive in our lives, we're actually seeking to bear one another's burdens.

That's a little bit different. Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 says, put up with one another.

It's like, all right, I guess I will. Bear with one another. Yeah, all right, it's not easy, but I will.

Galatians 6 says, bear one another's burdens. There's a difference there.

What's required to bear someone else's burden? I have to know enough about their life to even know what that burden is.

Maybe over time to understand what might be going into that burden. I have to be close enough to care that that's a burden that's affecting their life.

I have to understand enough about God's desire, how God has moved in their life, the trajectory that they're on to understand, how can

I bear some of that? Where are they going? Where would God have them go? So what does bearing then look like?

I can't bear half the weight if we're going in two different directions. Bearing means

I'm seeing them in a certain light. I'm considering them. I'm seeking them in a certain way.

It comes back to a tender heart. It may require a strong spine. You're going in the wrong way. That weight will crush you unless you turn.

But verses later, Paul says, at the end of it all, each man bears his own burden. It must be this way.

In other words, everyone fully and finally is responsible for their own walk, for their own response to God's gracious call.

There's no one to hide behind, no one who, well, if they had only borne my weight a little better, I would have made it.

Paul says, nice try. Each man will bear his own burden. It must be this way.

Anything other is unjust. And God is a God of justice. God is a

God of holiness. But He's also a God of mercy, and that's why He commands this. Brothers, share each other's burdens.

It's hard enough to walk in this world, in this holy pattern that's been laid out for us.

It's hard enough to run this race as to win. Be like some of those Olympians that they slow down so that the limping sprained ankle can actually make it to the finish line.

So we're called to bear. We're called to see. We're called to desire this kind of shouldering of one another's difficulties, one another's sorrows, one another's weaknesses.

That's something that we have to bear with. That's something that we have to bear up. We're seeking to bear one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ.

Why? He became the sin bearer for our sake. A man of sorrows that in His own body bore all of our sorrows.

In His own flesh bore all of our grief, all of the experiences of misery and difficulty.

Not sin in His life, but the effects of sin all over His life. And He bore that all faithfully to the last.

And so it's the law of Christ, it's the example of Christ that calls us, bear in this way.

How would Christ bear your brother or sister's burden? If you think in that way, then you'll think, therefore, how should

I bear my brother or my sister's burden? How would Christ be meek and gracious and long -suffering with my brother or sister?

Therefore, how will I be meek and patient and long -suffering with my brother or my sister? It's our own pride, our own naivete, it's our own foolishness.

We're so self -absorbed that we just don't even have eyes. We don't have ears. We're only concerned about our own burden.

I don't have time for anyone else's burden. Why should I? Lord, you expect me to forgive seven times a day?

Seven times a day is a lot. How much grace can you get?

Jesus is like, have you understood enough? If you could see what I see, if you could know what I know, if you could bear what

I bear, you couldn't bear it. You couldn't bear it. When the congregation in numbers is moaning and grumbling, bread again,

Moses is leading us to our death, Egypt, we had it made. Why did Moses drag us away from Egypt?

We were so happy there. And Moses, they're weary, they're grumbling, they're finding it hard to bear the leadership of Moses.

Moses is finding it hard to bear, they're grumbling, they're complaining. When it comes to God, oh, God, you don't know how it is.

God's like, I don't know how it is? All day long I hold out my hands to a wearisome and disobedient people.

God essentially says to Moses, get in line. But remember, this is the

God who revealed himself to Moses as merciful, compassionate, abounding in mercy, long -suffering, good.

This is who he is. He cannot be other. These are his perfections. This is the law of Christ we're called to fulfill.

Christ had a perfect patience, a perfect ability to bear with. He had a perfect tenderness and a perfect zeal.

Enough spine to go into the temple, flip tables, a detail that often gets forgotten.

He took the time to fashion a whip. Can you imagine?

This wasn't like he accidentally tripped over a table. It wasn't a fit of rage.

It was a prophetic demonstration, if anything. It was a demonstration in the temple.

You have corrupted and perverted what was meant to be a house of prayer. You've made it a den of thieves.

I just always picture that as the disciples are watching the money changers' tables flying over and pigeons and coins are flying everywhere.

It's like, ah, do we go near him? He seems to be calm. What is he doing? He's making a whip.

Oh, no. If you think about it, he has this perfect zeal. Perfect zeal.

He says in that passage, quoting David, zeal for your house has consumed me. Then he climbs over the city prior to Golgotha, and he weeps over it.

Tender heart. Strong spine. These are the sin -bearing shoulders that command us to bear one another's burdens.

This is what we saw in Matthew. Go the extra mile. Matthew 5. Someone takes, give them double what they've taken.

This is the idea. You're actually seeking to be long -suffering, patient, winsome.

You recognize there's a purpose of God that accords with all of these burdens, all of these difficulties.

There's a purpose of God. And He actually intends to use you and allow His mercy to shine through you as you bear one another's burdens.

Romans 15 .1 says, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Just to bear it. That's really the challenge. I think I could get through Romans 15 .1

if it ended just that we who are strong ought to bear the scruples of the weak. I'm strong and I ought to do that.

We always assume we're the strong whenever we read passages like that. No one wakes up in the mirror and says, you are the weak brother.

You are the strong brother. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. But Paul says, when we're bearing one another's burdens, when we're bearing with one another, we ought to do it in a way that we're not trying to please ourselves.

Ooh, there's the rub. Because usually I'll only bear with people because it makes me feel better about myself.

Or I'll do it to the degree that it works for me or it pleases me. I'll do it for my own satisfaction, my own comfort.

I can actually bear with people out of my own selfishness, believe it or not. It might look to everyone else like I'm doing it selflessly, but the

Lord sees my heart is more selfish than anyone else's. Not to please myself, but to bear as Christ has borne.

How has Christ borne? How has Christ been long -suffering? Spurgeon has this wonderful sermon.

I have to mention him at least weekly. Spurgeon has this wonderful sermon on Galatians 6, 1 and 2.

In fact, if you're looking for something to read this afternoon, you could easily find it. I believe it's called

Bearing Burdens or Bearing One Another's Burdens. But it's a sermon from Galatians 6, 1 and 2.

And he says within there, he's talking about the way that we ought to show deference for one another, putting up with one another.

He says, when I'm suffering very greatly from gout, which was something he was prone to, and that is not a fun thing to experience.

When I'm suffering very greatly from gout, if anybody walks heavily and noisily across the room, it gives me great pain.

He's got this incredible, excruciating pain in his feet I think it's a condition of ureatic acid sort of building up and eating away at the muscle and exposing the nerves.

It's extremely painful. And this is Victorian England, so their cures are like, eat beef liver, go to the ocean.

They don't really have much in the way of relief. And he says, the vibrations, the noise, as people go about with great clamor,

I'm suffering, I'm struggling. Well then, what do you think happens? Why? They go across the room on tiptoe.

I see that this causes you pain. I see that this disturbs you. I see this is hard for you. So I go across the room on a tiptoe.

They don't say to one another, oh, it's not our fault that he's ill. It's not our fault that our little walking and noise gives him pain.

We're just walking as we've always walked. And by the way, we have a right to walk like that. He says, no, they don't even need to be asked to move about more quietly.

Once they see me grimace, they think, poor man, how much more gentle we should be around him.

And Spurgeon says, brothers and sisters, can you not have that kind of spirit toward each other? You're not all as healthy as you ought to be.

Can you not see the grimaces and the pained expressions in others' faces and say they must not be well spiritually and so deal very gently with them in order to fulfill the law of Christ?

We who are Christians are to live together in heaven forever, so let us not fall out by the way. Come, my brethren.

I have to bear a great deal from you, and you have to bear a great deal from me.

So let's just give and take all the way to glory and bear one another burdens. Not that I bear yours without you bearing mine, but I bear yours and you bear mine.

You put up with me, I put up with you. In that way, we'll both fulfill the law of Christ. Now, how do we bear with one another in this way?

I love Spurgeon's example there, but it does strike me a bit curmudgeonly, sort of like I'll put up with you if you'll put up with me.

All right. It's not exactly the unity and bond of peace I'm aiming for with this series, with this message.

I'd like a little more rapport than that, but I think it has to begin there. What actually do we need to be to each other to get there?

The first thing is we need to be of good comfort to each other. Have you been in a predicament, husbands, where you have something impossibly heavy that you have to move?

And you make a foolish vow that you'll move it and you don't need help? Because you're the man of the house, right?

If that cast iron object or massive AC unit or whatever needs to be mounted, that's 12 ,000

BTU. No, that's a me job. I can do that. And your wife's going, you're standing on a tackle box outside the window and this is looking like it's going to end up on the nightly news.

Well, I've been in that situation. And as I'm bearing up some object that really was a two -person job,

Alicia's not able to step in. She's not going to be able to shoulder that load. The best thing she can do is be of good comfort, which usually looks like her wringing her hands and going, are you okay?

It's almost there. I'll make you coffee. She's trying to be of good comfort.

She might not be able to bear the burden, but she's trying to give me comfort. That's a start. I might not be able to bear the burden that God has placed upon you, the trial that you're facing, but I can certainly be of good comfort to you.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, 11, brethren, finally, farewell. Be complete, be whole.

Be of good comfort. Comfort is a neglected call of Christian fellowship, but it's very important.

How important is it? I would reason in this way.

Christian fellowship, it begins by the operation of the

Spirit. The Spirit of adoption, by whom we call Abba, Father, is the

Spirit who adopts us together as brothers and sisters. It's one faith, one Lord, one baptism.

It's also one Spirit. And one Spirit has knit us together and made us one as the body of Christ.

It's by the Spirit we are one. How important is comfort? It's so important that the

Holy Spirit is called the Comforter. The Spirit dwells within us, first and foremost, as the

Comforter. How then should we be toward one another?

If the Spirit who yearns within us jealously is the Comforter, should I not be of good comfort to my brothers and sisters?

Is that not the chief aim of the Spirit? That's His identification in the

New Testament. The one who descends gently as a dove, not as some

Roman war hawk. The one who can be grieved, the one who prompts and illuminates and does it so gently.

He seems to ever yield in revealing and magnifying the Son to us. A gentle Spirit, a breath, a wind.

And so we should be of good comfort then. He is our Comforter and we seek to be of good comfort to one another.

This is the beginning of bearing each other's burdens. Can I comfort you? Has it been a lousy week?

Have you struggled? Did you have some spat? Did you have some horrible news that came? Maybe health -wise or career -wise.

You're really struggling with child rearing. Things are just getting worse and worse. My first responsibility as a brother or sister is to be of good comfort.

It is a burden. It is hard. It may be hard yet, but remember.

Remember what God has promised. Remember the bigger picture here. Remember that God's actually using this.

He's going to work through it. You have to look to Him in that way. Pray. Have you prayed much? Can I comfort you?

I'm going to be praying for you. The first thing that we are to be to each other is of good comfort.

That's part of bearing each other's burdens. Paul spelled this out at the beginning of 2 Corinthians in chapter 1.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort by which we ourselves have been comforted.

You see how Paul is pinballing around the importance of comfort here? I receive comfort by the

Spirit, who is the comforter, and God is seeking to comfort me as I follow Him through the difficulties of life.

Therefore, I should be of good comfort to brothers and sisters in this body so I can fulfill the law of Christ and help bear their burden.

This means also that a body is striving to have one mind. Paul spells this out in that passage, 2

Corinthians 13, 11 and following. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be whole. Remember, we're after being a whole body.

Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Again, if you're bearing weight in a path that is diametrically opposed to the path that I'm going on, we're just getting further and further.

I can't bear the weight. I can't even comfort you. We're too far apart, and we're getting farther apart week by week.

If the church is herding a bunch of stray cats, we'll never be of one mind.

We'll never be able to bear each other's burdens. We're not even aiming for the same thing. We're not going to the same place. The burdens that ought to be born in the body of Christ are the burdens of following this path of righteousness all the way to glory.

That's a burdensome call. That's a burdensome task. And so I should not be distracted by burdens or consequences of sin that are going in the opposite direction.

I want to bear burdens on the way of Christ. I want to bear burdens on the way to glory.

That should be the burden. That's where the burden should begin. I'm struggling to trust.

I'm struggling with patience. I'm struggling to find the fruit of the Spirit in my life. I'm noticing these potential idols.

I'm noticing there's a pull on me that I don't want it to have. Are you feeling that burden? That's why we are to help each other on this path of righteousness.

But if you don't have those burdens, I have nothing to bear. We're not in the same mind. We don't have the same heart.

This is why all the language of the whole body begins. This whole body, a one complete body, a perfect body, one mind.

You really can't be of comfort without that. We see the same emphasis in Romans 15.

Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like -minded toward one another. Where's patience and comfort going to come from if we're not like -minded, if we're not having the same call and the same desire and the same walk?

There might be variations. There might be third level issues. There might be stark differences in our personalities and in the personalities of our homes.

But we have the same gospel. We have the same call. We have the same hope. Those are the burdens that we bear with one another.

If we fail to do this, far from bearing with one another, we'll be dividing from one another. You see, those are the two paths here.

You either learn to bear each other's burdens or you learn to be divided from one another. Paul says to the church at Rome, be of the same mind toward one another.

Don't set your mind on high things. Associate with the humble and don't be wise in your own opinion. So the thing that's needed most to be of one mind is humility, meekness.

That's just what we saw in Colossians 3. One of the ways we bear with one another is being meek, humble, patient, long -suffering.

Do you see? If we're not those things, then we cannot bear with one mind the burdens that come with following Christ through the difficulties of life.

So again, you think of yourself soberly, properly. You stop saying in the bathroom vanity, I'm the strong brother.

You start saying, I'm the weak brother, helplessly weak. I need brothers to help bear up my weaknesses and God give me the strength to help bear up their weaknesses.

That's how we begin to humble ourselves and view one another as we should. Thirdly, remember the endeavor.

Remember what Paul spells out to us. Bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

You have to remember that's the endeavor. That's the whole point here is the spirit of comfort, that the spirit who makes us one is striving jealously in our body to make us complete, to bear fruit in our lives.

We need to have that endeavor, not just in my own life, but I need to endeavor in the lives of those around me.

It's not this selfish, I just want to have the fruit and then I get to be the strong brother and lord it over others. No, I want my brothers and sisters to be fruitful.

I want them to be comforted. I want them to be aided in this pursuit of God's glory. So you remember, that's the endeavor.

It's a vision where every professing believer who's put their faith in Christ is treated as a professing believer who's put their faith in Christ.

Every brother is truly a brother. Every sister is truly a sister. Everybody is mending and bending and sorting out their own walks so that they can help bear each other's walks.

Everybody's working to up -build their own walks, their own lives, so that they can up -build the church.

And what does that look like? Well, loving and desiring and endeavoring enough so the body gets built up in love.

It's bearing each other's burdens. When you see Ross shaking under the 12 ,000

BTU cube, you're able to come and shoulder some of that with me. Let's get that into the window ledge after all.

That's the idea. And this means you'll have to forgive. Colossians 3,

As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long -suffering, bearing with one another, forgiving one another.

It's the very next thing he says. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

So bearing with one another means we're of good comfort, first and foremost. Whatever your week has been like, when you leave church, you should leave comforted.

You should leave comforted. And if you're not leaving comforted, you should leave convicted, so that you can soon be comforted.

And this is again why bearing burdens always begins with bearing off. If you're only ever leaving the body of Christ and his worship with either discouragement or estrangement or conviction, and there's never any comfort, you're probably walking through the week with a burden you're not meant to bear.

Somehow you've disconnected the gospel that we're here for. It's all of our joy.

It's all of our hope. It's why we worship. It's the gospel. It's the good news. Christians shouldn't come to celebrate the good news and leave as if they've only heard bad news.

In other words, if you're leaving and all you have week after week is conviction and there's no comfort,

I would question if you're actually bearing weight that you were not meant to bear. You need to bear off.

And part of that is that you can then bear with even others who are seeking to bear with you.

And that's the key to bearing through this third and last point. So bearing with one another means we're of good comfort.

I'm comforted. I've been reminded of the gospel again. Even where I've been convicted, at some point as I need to be convicted,

I apply the gospel promise, the gospel truth to that conviction and there I find all of my hope, all of my strength, all of my joy.

In my mind's eye, it should look like gray people slogging in through those baby blue doors and then sometime around 1 p .m.,

sunshine bursts out and bluebirds and Disney animations are all around us as we're reminded again of the glory of the gospel of grace.

Bearing with another means we're of good comfort with one mind, remembering our endeavor, forgiving as we've been forgiven.

So the reason we celebrate the gospel, the reason we pursue the truth of the gospel, get our minds and our affections and our wills wrapped around it, is because if we've failed to do that, if we've lost sight of how

Christ has forgiven us, then the people we're struggling to forgive eclipse

Him. They become much bigger than He is, much more powerful than He is. Somehow the offense outweighs the gospel of grace and you leave with that burden, you leave with that guilt, you leave with that weight and there's no comfort and there's no joy.

There's no bearing with because you're bearing against, bearing against, bearing against.

For Paul, bearing with is the fruit of forgiving as Christ forgives. That comes from Christians who celebrate the gospel of forgiveness.

Look how rich, look how vast, how free, how full is forgiveness.

As far from the east as the west is the way He's cleansed all of my sins from His sight. He retains nothing against me but His love.

I contribute nothing to this. As Jonathan Edwards said, I contribute nothing but the sin that made it necessary.

That's what I bring to the table. He absolves me fully. My pardon is sealed in that blood. And this is the key to bearing through.

How are you going to bear with? How are you going to bear through? Bear with trials and temptations in your own walk?

Bear with difficult relationships? Difficult turns? Unexpected curve balls? How do you bear through?

It always begins there with that burden of sin taken away. Every morning that's renewed in mercy, you rehearse the truth of that gospel.

You bear off guilt that Christ has borne for you. And then you remember that you're called to bear with one another.

Lord, am I harboring anything that as now I'm recalling and praising

You and putting all of my joy in Your free and full forgiveness, am I harboring anything that's not like that toward anyone else?

Oh God, help me. Help me. Show me. Help me to bear with. Lord, now that I've examined my own heart, my own mind, am

I harboring anything, Lord? Give me eyes to see if there's a burden. Maybe it's so heavy that they can't bear it to be seen.

Give me eyes. Help me to pray and help me to come alongside. And Lord, if You're doing that, may

I just be an extension of Your presence. You are the comforter. So Lord, use me to be of comfort.

Use me to help bear that weight. You know what, brother or sister, this is what bearing the cross looks like.

Strong spine, tender heart. You put off the burden of guilt, of sin, of shame.

You put on the righteousness of Christ. And then in walking in His bloody path that leads to glory, this narrow and difficult way that few find, you are putting on your shoulders no longer the burden that was unbearable that would drag you to hell, but rather the cross.

You're putting the cross on your shoulder and you're following Him. That's the burden.

It's not the burden that would have dragged you into wrath. It's not the burden you could never bear. It's a light burden.

It's an easy yoke, but it's a burden and it's a yoke. You'll be prodded and you'll go along this path.

It'll be a weight to you. You'll feel that weight through trials and temptations. You'll see how this weight drags you and slows you and causes you difficulty at so many turns in your life.

You'll see that some of carrying the burden of the cross means there's a sword that cuts through your family. You'll see that some of the burden of that cross is you're finding more and more the power of your flesh and how easily you could be like Judas and betray

Christ, or be like Esau and give away your birthright for some mess of pottage. But you bear the cross.

You recognize it's not all on my shoulders, but somehow by His Spirit, Christ is bearing this cross with me.

He bore it fully alone, but now mystically I'm in union with Him and He's bearing this cross with me.

That's why Paul says, it's not even I am living, it's Christ in me. In fact, when I see my weakness,

I recognize it's in my weakness that His strength is made perfect. It's not me who's carrying this cross.

It's just Christ in my life carrying this cross. Luke 9 .23,

Jesus puts this call, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.

Richard Sibbes says, the greater part of our trouble is that we pull upon ourselves not only the care of duty, but also our passions.

In other words, he says, it's not just that I'm carrying the cross of what

Christ has called me to, my Christian duty, but I'm adding to that a cross of all sorts of ambitions and affections and passions of the flesh.

It's Jesus simply saying, no man can serve two masters. You can't bear two different weights. The only weight that you can carry is

His cross if you're a Christian. You can't afford any other weight. You just won't make it. But you recognize in that weakness, you recognize in that cross bearing, this beautiful picture, that Christ has surrounded you with other disciples, other followers, who are going to help you bear your cross to glory.

We're asking the question, how does Christ help me to bear the cross? He says, if I don't bear the cross, I'm not worthy of Him.

That if I want to follow Him every day, I have to pick up that cross and follow Him. I have to put a burden on my shoulders.

I've been freed from the burden of sin and guilt, but now I have to have the burden of faith, this cross, and follow

Him and all that He's commanded. How am I going to do that? It's going to be His own strength. It's going to be by His Spirit.

Yes, okay, that's wonderful. I know that's true, but how? Well, it's by His grace and by His Spirit through brothers and sisters that are helping you bear that burden.

This is a mature, whole body. These are the shoulders of a congregation.

Do you ever wonder why

Simon the Cyrene was plucked out of the crowd and placed on the other side of the patibulum, the cross beam, to bear that up under the weakness of the

Lord? Is that not astounding to you? Do you see what

I'm getting at? In the state of his humiliation, Jesus Himself needed someone to bear the burden.

Now, we have to be careful how we parse this. He goes to Golgotha alone, but on the way, on the way,

He's too weak to bear the burden of the cross Himself. Now, that's just the scene.

That's just what we see. We see Simon the Cyrene, probably named, as Richard Bach would argue, because named figures were known to the early generations of the church.

This was an eyewitness. In other words, this was a man who never forgot what he saw on the other side of that beam.

He saw a bloodied man, no quality in him that would be desired, a man of sorrows, a man with a mock robe and a crown of thorns pressed into his forehead, his back flayed open, agonizing step by step, laboring to breathe as he carried the weight of his own instrument of death.

And the Roman soldiers compelled Simon, go and help him get it to the place of execution. In his earthly state, in his state of humiliation, he needed help to shoulder the weight of the cross.

What does that say for you and me? But remember this, the weight that Simon felt on his shoulders was not the full weight that Jesus was bearing.

The weight that Jesus was bearing on His shoulders was not merely the weight of the wooden beam. The weight that Simon helped to carry was just the physical surface reality of what was on Jesus' human shoulders.

The spiritual reality was embedded within that beam was the weight of His people's sins entire.

And even when that beam was not on His shoulders any longer and He was stretched out across that beam, the fullness of that weight descended on Him until it crushed

Him into the tomb. And here's my whole point.

In crucifixion, Jesus was able to bear all of the sins of His people entire.

And in exaltation, He is able to bear all of our sorrows and needs.

He is a faithful high priest because the sin bearer didn't stay in that tomb.

Pulverized by that weight, He rose victorious and ascended to the right hand of God. He now lives ever to intercede.

There is no weight, no sorrow, no difficulty, no need you could ever bear in this life that He doesn't know the fullness of.

My challenge to you as a brother or a sister to be of good comfort to you is, why would you wallow?

Why would you vent? Why would you go try to work it out in some dark corner by yourself when you have this sin -bearing

Savior interceding for you? There's no tear you could cry that He doesn't have a bottle for.

It's not some random sentiment that we should go boldly to the throne of grace.

It's His desire. Run to Me. I bore the weight fully for you. There's no weight that will overthrow you now.

Come to Me. Turn to Me. Look to Me. Put your hope and your trust in Me. Walk in My way. It's hard, yes.

But I bore the weight you couldn't bear. I bore the weight no one could bear. I bore the weight that only the

God -man, the Son of God, the sin -bearer could bear. This is the whole foundation for cast your cares to the

Lord. Some of you are shouldering weight you were not meant to shoulder.

Some of you have not dealt with guilt in ways that you must. You need to understand what's being said about the atonement, about this free and full forgiveness of Christ.

You cast your burden on the Lord. He sustains you, Psalm 55 says. Don't ever permit the righteous to be moved.

If your knees are buckling and your fingers are failing under a weight, I question if you've understood the truth of that psalm,

Psalm 55, 22. Are you casting that weight on the Lord? Do you understand the truth of what

He's borne for you? Do you have the joy and the hope of the Gospel at work in your life? Humble yourself.

Cast all your care on Him. Peter says He cares for you. And do you have the joy that comes from that knowledge, from that experience of the release, a burden that He bore?

I won't have to bear it. I'll never have to bear it. He bore it all, fully, faithfully. I never have to bear the weight of my sin.

I may have to face the earthly consequences of my sin. I may have to face the fatherly chastisement for my sin, but I'll never have to bear the weight of my sin, the guilt of my sin.

That's the kind of freedom. That's the kind of release. It's like, let the consequences and chastisements come.

I hug them. I kiss them. My guilt's been removed. My faithful Savior loves me.

Every weight is to be cast upon Him. Do you have the joy of that? I see in my own life,

I don't often have the joy of that. I don't often fight for the joy of that. It means I'm not allowing the reality of the

Gospel to press into my life, to saturate into my mind. Some months ago,

I was with the kids, and we were picking up pizza down in Fitchburg, and as we were going around one of the rotaries, we ended up behind this ice cream truck.

It was a Hershey's ice cream truck. And the motto was painted on the back, You are following a truckload of happiness.

What a great motto. Until we got past the rotary, and he was going one lane, and I was going the other, and I looked at the driver, and he was just, like, miserable.

Like, so much for following a truckload of happiness. As brothers and sisters that have had the weight of sin removed from their shoulders, and confessing that, celebrating that, being lost in the wonder of that, that now we're looking and praying for and seeking to comfort each other and bear each other's burdens, it should look to anyone who comes into this fellowship like, here's a truckload of happiness to follow.

You come here, you're following this conveyor of happiness, of joy.

That's a strong church. The joy of the Lord is our strength. That's a mature church. That's a church that has understood the truth of the gospel and wrought it out in their lives.

That's a church that is casting the weights of the weeks and the seasons and the trials and the snares and the relational conflicts on the

Lord, knowing He cares for us. And so you bear off so that you can bear with.

And in bearing with, we actually bear through. We need each other to bear through.

We need each other to bear through. Come to Me, Jesus says, all you who labor and are heavy laden,

I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Learn from Me. I'm gentle and lowly in heart.

You will find rest for your soul. My yoke is easy. My burden is light.

Let's pray. Father, bless

Your Word to us today. Lord, give us that joy. Give us that joy of what's been taken off of our shoulders and put onto Yours.

Let us dwell there in the shadow of the cross and never forget what that cross has meant for us, what it means right now, and what it will mean forever.

Lord, may we not take for granted or slight this perfect sacrifice, this perfect love that You've poured out into our hearts by Your Spirit.

May we have a keen eye for the burdens that You have borne for us, even as we see our own guilt and shame still, to recognize that weight is not on our shoulders, but by faith we confess

You have borne it all away. By faith we partake of Your broken body, Your poured -out blood.

By faith we recognize our pardon is sealed. Lord, by faith, help us to bear each other's burdens.

Give us Your heart for us, Your patience in meekness and long -suffering. May this body mature to have strong, capable shoulders, bearing each other's weights, being of good comfort as we all seek to follow

You and carrying the cross that You put before us. Father, bless us and help us in this way.