In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: If you and I are going to bear someone else's burden and help them be restored, we have to be the kind of person who is spiritually minded. That doesn't mean you just go to church, read your Bible, and pray. Spiritually minded means the most important thing in our life is our walk with Christ.

Spiritually minded speaks in terms of being filled with the Holy Spirit and controlled by the Holy Spirit. That keeps our motives right, keeps our purpose right, and keeps our objective right.

Guest (Male): Have you ever felt the push to prioritize your needs first? While it's easy to think about ourselves, that often results in paying less attention to the people around us. Today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, addresses that me-first attitude with a challenge for believers to step outside of our own little world to help others. Here's part one of "Bearing Each Other's Burdens."

Dr. Charles Stanley: When you're going through some difficulty or hardship in your life and you really feel burdened down, do you feel the freedom to share that with someone else? Or do you feel that to share your burden, your heartache, your trouble, and your pain with someone else is a sign of weakness?

Do you think someone else would say, "Well, why don't you just talk to God about it? Don't you Christians believe that God lifts your burdens? Why do you want to tell anybody else?" Often, we carry things that God never intended for us to carry. We bear burdens that God never intended for us to bear alone.

Sometimes He wants us to come straight to Him and deal with them. Other times, God knows that you and I do not really and truly know exactly how to deal with some things. Sometimes we need someone else to help us. When that's true, if we don't go to someone else, we just bear it that much longer and suffer more painfully than necessary.

This is the second message in the series on how to bear our burdens, and today we're talking about how to bear each other's burdens. If you knew how many burdens I already have, you wouldn't be talking to me about bearing somebody else's because I've got all I can handle. Probably all of us have felt that way at some point in our life.

When you and I learn to bear someone else's burden, we learn how to deal with them and how to help them. Then, when something comes along that gives us a very painful time in our life, it's amazing how having told someone else how God's worked in our life helps us get our minds off ourselves. All of a sudden, we get our minds on the Lord and things change.

I've talked about the different kinds of burdens, such as the burden of the Lord that He placed upon the prophets in the Old Testament. Then, of course, there are those burdens in our day and time which we just deal with in life. Then there's the whole idea of a burden of sin in someone's life that they don't feel free to share for a lot of reasons: embarrassment, fear someone will tell, or fear someone will gossip about them.

In the body of Christ, which is the church and the family of God, we should be able to share that. Think about how many times the Apostle Paul used the phrase "one another." He said, for example, we're to love one another and uphold one another. Throughout the scriptures, he talks about all the things we should do with one another.

Sometimes we want to feel like we're sufficient within ourselves, and we isolate ourselves from each other when the truth is sharing our burdens would be the right thing to do. Turn to Galatians chapter six. I want us to look at this passage in the light of bearing the burden of someone else whose burden is sin.

It may be something in their life, an isolated situation, or it may be something that they've been going through for a long time. Paul says, "Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ."

"For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. For each one will bear his own load." When you first read that, it sounds like a contradiction. First, we're to bear each other's burdens, then it says to bear one's own load.

I'm going to explain the difference because there's no contradiction here. He talks about having a spirit of humility and then having the right to boast. All that sounds like a contradiction, but it's not. When you understand the true meaning of the words, there's no contradiction at all.

When we think in terms of bearing another person's burden, that is getting under the load with them so that they don't feel like they're alone. All of us have had to bear certain burdens in our life. It may be things we've brought upon ourselves, or it may be something that's someone else's fault, or it may be that God has placed the burden on your heart.

God knows how to place this heaviness and this weight upon our lives. A burden is a heaviness or a weight that weighs down our soul and our spirit. Oftentimes, it makes us weary and fragments our minds. It's hard for us to think clearly and focus, especially if that burden is some aspect of life that's happened to us.

If He's called you to do a certain thing and you don't do it, then you're going to feel the weight, and the weight's going to get heavier and heavier. The heaviest weight that a person can bear is the weight of guilt. The weight of guilt over something you've done in the past, something that's going on in your life right now, or something you're living with.

Let's get down to the whole issue that Paul is speaking of here, and that is bearing the burden of another person when that burden in their life is some form of sin. That brings up lots of questions, but if you look at this passage of scripture, it's very clear that Paul has the answer to that.

Notice what the psalmist says in Psalm 38 about this whole idea of burdens and how they affect our lives. In the fourth verse, he says, "For my iniquities have gone over my head; as a heavy burden they weigh too much for me." He'd reached the stage in his life where he couldn't handle it anymore.

How many of us have said, "God, I can't handle it anymore. I can't take it any longer"? If it's something He places on your life, He shows you that you can. If it's something you've done in your life, it gets heavier and heavier. God lets the burden become heavy in your life in order to drive us to Himself so that He can enable us to get relief from that burden.

Suppose that burden is a burden of sin. Something you did, something you're doing, or something from the past that's still hanging on. Maybe you asked God to forgive you, but it's still there. You repented of it twenty times, but it's still there. You look back in your life and you're continually reminded of it.

How does God want us to deal with that? How does He want believers to help other believers bear that weight in their life? Paul says, "Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted."

The word "caught" here could mean caught in the very act, like the woman caught in adultery, or it could mean a person who is overcome. That means if a person finds themselves caught, it could not only mean that somebody identified them, but it also means something trapped them.

The word "trespass" here means an act of disobedience or sin where we've stepped across the line of what's right. It can also mean that a person is in a sin that they did not deliberately or willfully choose to be in. It's like a person slipping up on ice. They're walking on ice and they didn't mean to fall, but they did.

A person who flirts with some form of temptation thinks they know how to handle that and that they're strong enough, but they aren't. There is a sense of gentleness all the way through this passage because he's preparing us and showing us how to help someone else who's trapped.

Every single one of us who is a believer is also a messenger of redemption. God uses us that way, but there are certain things that have to be true in our life. Here's somebody in your life, or somebody you know, or somebody you work with, and there's something going on in their life that you know should not be there.

God keeps burdening your heart to help this person. How do you go about it? The first step is you've got to be willing to get involved in this person's life. You might say you don't want to get involved with somebody who's living in sin, but Jesus got involved in your life. All through the New Testament, He is involved in the lives of people living in sin.

The Great Commission is about bringing people to a saving relationship with Christ. You've got to get involved in that person's life. Someone might say they can't bear someone else's sin. That's not the issue. It is Jesus who bears our sin. To become involved in someone's life who is living in sin and wants out is our goal.

Maybe they don't want out, but God's burdened your heart to help them. You're not bearing their sin; only Jesus can bear sin. What we're doing when we become involved with them is getting in a position where we can help them know how to deal with their sin. If you and I are believers, we know how to deal with that.

The second step is that we have to have the right purpose in mind. If someone that you're dealing with has burdened your heart, it's just like God to bring you into an involvement with that person. You're going to have to have the right purpose. The right purpose is to restore that person, which means there's going to be a change.

Look at this first verse. Paul says, "restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness." The word "restore" was used for someone whose arm was broken and they set it right, or whose leg was broken and they set it right. Or they were mending their nets; they mended the broken part.

Restoration means to set right. God is using you as a vessel to help this person be set right, that is, to be restored. We can't justify the whole idea of rejecting someone or shutting them out because often those people feel like they can't go to church. If people knew what they knew about themselves, the church wouldn't want them.

Think about that kind of a burden. People have been through things in their life and other people know about it, so they bear this. God doesn't have any kind of signs on your forehead that you did this or you did that. That's what the world puts on you. That's not what God puts on you.

He wants us to help you understand that He will set you free. Those of us who are believers have that responsibility and that privilege of helping someone else get free. If you've been enslaved by something in your life and someone helped you get free, didn't you just rejoice in your heart and praise God?

Not many folks are going to go to a pure stranger and say they need help. They go to someone who is willing to get personally involved in their life. In order to help somebody be restored, you have to accept them. That's the right purpose: to accept that person.

The third thing I want you to notice is to have the right motive. In the thirteenth chapter of John, Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." Did Jesus love people who were only righteous? No, He loved people in every aspect of life.

When you look at the people He loved and look at the people who were caught in all kinds of things, what was the pattern? You remember the lady who came in and began to pour ointment on Jesus, and the rest of the people at the dinner that night said, "Look what he's tolerating."

He didn't say anything unkind to her at all. Often, when we come to passages like this, we think Jesus surely doesn't want us to get involved. But look in 1 Peter chapter four. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins.

Does that mean that your love for someone can cause them to be forgiven? No, it means simply that when you love somebody, it's the unconditional love of God that brought us to Him. When you and I love someone else, we don't see the ugliness in their life. We don't see the bad things in their life.

We look beyond that and deeper than that. We look beyond that to be able to see the good things that are in their life. Love covers a multitude of sins, and therefore our motive has to be right. That motive is to demonstrate to them that you love them and to show that love to them and to be able to look beyond.

Think about all of us who have our faults and our failures in life and all of us who have sinned. Somebody looked beyond all that. Certainly, Jesus did. He looked beyond the sinfulness of the woman caught in the very act of adultery. He didn't say, "Aha! Caught in the very act."

He just said, "Go and sin no more." The story of the Prodigal Son is a beautiful example of God's response. Love covered a multitude of sins. The father wasn't on the porch waiting for his son to come and thinking, "You dirty rascal, you spent all your inheritance." None of that.

He ran, threw his arms around him, and hugged him. While the son's trying to confess and repent of his sin, his father's telling him what's getting ready to happen, calling for the servants to have a big party and give him a robe. That's God's way of saying to us that He loves us in spite of that.

If God loved you and me in spite of all our failures and our faults and our sins, how does He want us to accept other people? Accept them just like they are. In order to be a burden bearer for someone else, you and I have to be willing to accept them as they are, not after they get straightened out.

Is that Jesus's way? No, it's not. It's the world's way oftentimes. Yet, on the other hand, the world sometimes is more accepting and more forgiving than we are. Love covers a multitude of sins. It helps me to be able to look right through what they're doing and where they are in life and see this heart and this life and the possibilities and the prospects and the potential of that person's life.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Self-centeredness has no place in a Christian's life. When you understand what Christ has done for you, your life can be an extension of His loving arms.

In Touch Plus is streaming on Local Now, featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley. Learn how to have strong convictions based on the word of God. In Touch Plus, your streaming network for quality Christian programming 24/7. In Touch Plus is streaming free on Local Now.

Dr. Charles Stanley: The peace of God is tranquility and quietness of the soul. It is the assurance that no matter what's going on around us, everything is secure. Peace is not determined by circumstances. Neither is it a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice.

Guest (Male): In a world filled with noise and uncertainty, you can discover peace that cannot be shaken. Get your new free booklet, "Peaceful and Still: A Guide to Experiencing God's Rest in an Anxious Age." Visit intouch.org/peaceful.

Dr. Charles Stanley: If you're not willing to take risks in your life, you're not going to grow in your Christian life. There's no way to grow in your Christian life if you're not willing to take risks, that is, suffer the possibility of loss, harm, or danger.

Sometimes things that God calls us to do are going to be dangerous. There's going to be the possibility of suffering and loss. We don't have to fret about what God does about this or that. God's absolutely God of unconditional love. He always does the right thing in every single circumstance of life, no matter what.

When God calls you and challenges you to take the risk to believe Him for something, move out of that job He's called you out of, move out of that relationship He's called you out of. He's got something better for you. He's got a higher place for you to walk, a different perspective, a different relationship in your life. There's no such thing as God calling you to nothing. He always calls you to something, to someone, or to some place.

Guest (Male): At intouch.org, you can learn more about dealing with fear and confidently following Christ. If today's program gave you renewed motivation to obey God, we'd love to hear from you.

Next week on In Touch, we'll find practical instruction for developing the kind of attitude we need to have to effectively reach out to others. Our series continues Monday on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.