Well, how's it going? How you doing? Anybody ever come up and, and say that to you and, and you respond like this. Well, you know, you know, there's just a lot going on but hey, you got a lot going on too. So I mean, I don't want, I don't want to burden you ever say that. Um, I, I feel like if we don't say it, we think it sometimes and, and why do we think that, why do we say that? Well, I just, I don't want to burden you. Well, sometimes if we're honest, we say that and think that because we really do want to burden them, right? I mean, we're looking for a shoulder to crown, you know, we're thinking, well, if I say this in just the right tone, they're, they're going to feel sorry for me and they're going to engage in the conversation. So sometimes we, we say it on purpose. Other times when, when we say that what we're thinking is I don't want to talk about this. I just don't, I don't want to say anything about this. It's too overwhelming. There's too many things happening in my life. I just don't want to talk about it. So when somebody says, how are you doing? We say, oh, I'm fine, I'm good. But most of the time underneath all the layers of things, when we say, oh, I don't wanna be a burden somewhere in our minds. We're thinking that that person we're talking to that they don't really wanna listen or they don't really understand or they don't really care. Not because they're evil, awful people. We're, we're normally not thinking that. But what we normally think is, well, gosh, everybody's got a lot going on. You know, I mean, everybody's got, got things they're dealing with and God, I mean, I, I don't wanna bother you. I, I don't want to burden you with my issues and then you bring in our culture and society and, and we are this, I am he, I am she very self centered, very narcissistic culture where we just think about number one, where we look out for number one. So then you bring that in to the society and the world that we live in and all of a sudden when it comes to our burdens, we ignore them, we push them away or worse, we try to absorb them. But is that best, is it best for us to try to ignore or absorb our burdens? And I would say likewise, is it best for us to constantly share our burdens 24 hours a day? Every little thing that's going on and just a reminder, some things are not burdens. Some tragedies are actually not tragedies. You know, we need to make sure that we use right terminology when we're thinking about burdens in life. But the reality is we find ourselves sometimes ignoring, pushing them away or trying to absorb them. And it's really not best. In fact, it's not how we were designed, but we weren't designed to never deal with burdens. We were designed completely different. We continue our series together for Good, where we're looking at at the values of a healthy local church and, and why are we doing that? Well, we're doing that because there's a lot of burdens in the world. There's a lot of burdens in our lives and some of those burdens are really, really bad burdens. So we want to be a church that together for good. We, we wanna be together doing life together for good. What kind of good? The kind of good? In fact, the only kind of good that can truly lift our burdens. What kind of good is that? Well, let's find out our message today is together for committed fellowship. We're going to be looking in the Bible at Galatians chapter six, verse two, Paul's letter to the church at Galatia. And in verse two, Paul says, this bear one another's burdens. What kind of burdens is Paul talking about? Well, specifically here he's talking about the burden of sin. He's, he's unpacking this way for Christians in the church to deal with sin. It kind of breaks down a little bit of set of instructions in Galatians. 61, the previous sentence he says this, if a person is caught in wrongdoing, well, what's wrong doing? Well, a similar word is trespassing. We, we know what trespassing is, right? It's when you're somewhere you ain't supposed to be. Now, a lot of the times we know we're trespassing, right? I mean, when we, you know, go up to the, the Valley Vista Park community pool and, and there's a sign that says the pool is closed, but we kind of squeeze through the gate and go on in there and swimming. We, we kind of know what we're doing, right. We, we understand the concept of trespassing sometimes though. We don't know we're trespassing. Sometimes there's, there's not a sign at the pool and, and there's not a lock on the gate, in fact, the gates open. So, so we just go anyway, but if the security guard comes up and says, hey, the pool is closed, it doesn't matter whether the sign was there or not, we're, we're still trespassing. So sometimes we know we're trespassing. Sometimes we don't throughout the Bible in many different places. It kind of points out that most of the time we know we're trespassing. We, we know we're doing the wrong thing. We know we're rebelling against God's ways but, but sometimes we don't, but it really doesn't matter right. A trespass is a trespass. A sin is a sin. Wrong doing is wrong doing. And in the life of the church, we, we have to deal with wrongdoing. We have to deal with sin. We have to deal with trespasses. Why? Well, we have to deal with those things for the good of the gospel. See that we're, we're a gospel church. We are about the good news of Jesus Christ. So we have to deal with sin for the sake of the gospel. What does that mean? Years ago at a missions conference? Someone put it this way. We cannot preach good news and be bad news. We can't preach good news and, and be bad news. We can't say one thing here in this room and then be completely different when we're outside of this room. When it comes to sin in the life of the church, we usually deal with it in three different ways. We, we kind of ignore it. You know, we act like it's not happening. You know, everybody in town knows that business man in our church is ripping people off, but we just act like, well as long as he's and you know, we, we just, we ignore it, you know, or we talk about sin, right? I mean, we'll text and we'll email and we'll get on the phone and we'll sit at the breakfast joint man. We'll, we'll talk about all that sin. We'll gossip about the sin. We'll slander people but we won't really do anything about sin. The third thing we often do is we condemn it. Uh, we'll, we'll have an information meeting and boy, we'll just condemn everything that's going on. But we don't actually do anything about the sin. Paul's writing here trying to help us. See that there's a different way that we should deal. See, not dealing with sin is like when your kid, you know, reads five monkeys jumping on the bed at school that day and then comes home and decides to try it out themselves, you know, and they, and they jump off the bed and they break their arm and instead of taking them to the er, you go, oh, I can't believe you did that. That is the, that, that is so fool I can, that's what you get, that's what you get for jumping off your bed, you can just sit there and suffer. You know, that's what it's like for us to say. Uh, we, we're just not going to deal with sin. It's, it's, it's really irrational and it's the opposite of what God has called us to do. God's called us to engage, he's called us not to ignore sin, but he's called us to engage with sin. And again, Paul gives some simple instructions when there's been wrongdoing, when there's been trespassing when there's been sin. And he says this in the next part of Galatians 61. You who are spiritual, are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. So people who are burdened with sin need to be restored with God. Things need to be right between them and God and who's supposed to help them get there. Well, the spiritual people in the church. So who, who are the spiritual people in the church? That sounds kind of lofty. Right. Oh, maybe I'm a spiritual person in the church. You know, who are the spiritual people? Do? Do they volunteer or are they voted on at a, at a church conference and elected to be the spiritual people of the church? Well, often times some of the, the spiritual people of the church, Paul's Men men is probably going to be some of the leadership, someone involved in leadership, but not always, not always. Sometimes the, the spiritual people are, are just people in the church. They, they don't have titles or positions. They're, they're not on staff. They're, they're just people that have three motivations and those three motivations are this the glory of God, the good of the church and the good of the person who's been wrongdoing a spiritual person that says, I, I, I want to engage in this scenario because I love the glory of God. I love the church and I love this person. That's, that's what a spiritual person is. That's, that's the people who can do the restoring. They're the ones who can do the work. And how should they do that? Well, Paul says they should do it with gentleness now because of him using that word and because of him using wrongdoing and trespassing. I don't think Paul is really talking about serial murderers here. Ok. Um, uh, not that this truth couldn't still apply, but the language here seems to be the sin that we're all in all the time. The, the normal sins of life, sometimes the, the sin, normal sins of life, they get ramped up a little bit. But, but the types of things that create conflict in our homes that create conflict at school at work that create conflict. Even in the life of the church, the kind of sin that's, that's more foolish, disobedience and rebellion instead of violent immorality. So the language here kind of speaks to the fact that Paul is saying, look, a spiritual person needs to help the wrong doing person and they need to do it with gentleness because wrath and screaming and brow beating are going to do nothing to help that person get right with God. And a spiritual person doesn't do that. A spiritual person doesn't brown beat a, a brown beta, a spiritual person doesn't, doesn't, you know, give a guilt trip and doesn't, doesn't hammer them all the time. A spiritual person doesn't come into the conversation complaining about something. Well, this should be done. Well, you should do this. Well, this should have already been done. That's, that's not how a spiritual person approaches things and, and why, well, the reason a spiritual person doesn't approach things that way is because a spiritual person knows that their sin not in part, but the whole has been nailed to the cross and they bear it no more and they never get over that, that they never get over it. So when someone's in, in wrongdoing, it's easy for them to go in gentleness and try to restore them with the Lord. Because in their mind, they are constantly aware. I once was far off from God. I wasn't just a good kid who grew up in the church. I was far off from God, but Jesus saved me. My life has been changed forever. He was gentle with me so I can be gentle with others. A spiritual person understands that they understand that they understand that the burden, the, the eternal penalty of their sin, that burden has been removed. And because that burden has been removed, it is somewhat easy for them to go and gently and lovingly and graciously deal with people who are in wrong doing, which is exactly why Paul says bear one another's burdens but bear them. What does that even mean? It doesn't mean to bear someone's burdens. Well, it means to, to carry the load. It's, it's the language here to carry the load and not just like one time, you know, not just like, well, you know, I'm going to send a check once a year to the church. You know, hey, if you wanna do that rock on, I mean, you know, we'll take it. Um, but, but it, but it's not that, you know, it's, it is a, an ongoing thing. It's, it's the habit of your life. It's the practice of your life to, to bear burdens is to help people carry loads all the time. That is, is kind of who you are. And and really as, as Christians, as who we're supposed to be individually, as Christians, not just the pastor, not just the staff, not just the deacons, but but as Christians individually, we're supposed to be the kind of people that bear burdens. And what's the greatest burden in your life? What is the greatest burden in your life? The greatest burden in your life is the same, greatest burden in my life. And that's sin. Sin is the greatest burden, no matter what burdens you have in life. Sin is a bigger burden than whatever it is. The greatest burden that we have in life is sin. And that's why Paul begins by saying, hey, I want you to bear one another's burdens, but he puts that in the neighborhood of verses that says the biggest of those burdens is sin, but is sin. The only burden is that the only burden that we have in life. No, I mean we know that right? I mean, there's tragedy, there's, there's death, there's divorce there's sickness, there's terrorism, there's, there's all kinds of burdens in life, all, all kinds of things that, that weigh us down and, and it's not wrong by no means it's not wrong for us to take casseroles to people. It's, it's a beautiful thing, by all means, take some casseroles, you know, and, and it's not wrong to, um, to donate money. It's not, it's not wrong to someone, a car, send someone a card. No, those are, those are wonderful things and they can be helpful things. But, but the language that Paul is giving us and really the language of the whole of New Testament is when it comes to fear, when it comes to anxiety, when it comes to guilt, when it comes to deep sorrow, a casserole can't penetrate it. It just can't, it can't, it can't get through that kind of burden. So Paul said, we, we need to engage a little more. And again, this is for all of us as believers is, it's not just for the pastor, it's not just for the staff, it's not just for the deacons. There's, there's entirely too many burdens, just, just in our church. There are so many different burdens just right now. And so Paul calls us as a church to be committed to bearing one another's burdens to, to carrying that load. Now someone may say, yeah, I can't, I mean, I, I can't help anyone else with their burdens because you, you just don't know what kind of burdens I have in my life. I'm going to tell you something I feel you alright I I feel you let me just give you my week. Ok. So most of y'all know my my dad has been admitted to the hospital with severe sepsis. Um the infection is just really not going away. He he he had a really bad week but but the Lord was was gracious and and um a Friday, Saturday and, and hopefully this morning, um he, he's doing much better than he has all week long. But so, so dad's, you know, been in the hospital with severe sepsis and, and the other night my mom, she's just so sad, you know, just so longing to be with my dad that she came up with a plan. She thought she'd just fall at the house. Yeah. And uh by the time Karen called me, she said, hey, um I was literally getting in the car here to start driving to spend the night with my dad at the hospital. She goes, hey, your mom fell and I said, all right, put her on the phone, the ambulance hadn't come yet. And I said mom, I know you wanna be with dad. But come on, I mean, come on, uh my dad's on the, on the Ortho Hall. So I was like, all right, she's trying to get on the Ortho Hall. Ok. All right. When I, I called the home health. Um, folks that are helping with my mom at home. Um, the lady said, well, maybe they'll give your mom and dad the honeymoon suite up there. It's like that. That'd be great. That'd be great. So, there were a few hours, uh, the other night where, um, my sisters and I were floating between the ninth floor and the, er, you know, trying to, trying to help. And the funniest part about this too is unless something's happened this weekend, I don't think my dad has even noticed that my mom is wearing a sling. That's how sick he is. You know, he, he just had, I said, mom don't worry about it. I said if he ask you, tell him that me and you went to the doctor and the doctor said you're ok. And I said, which is true, you know, it's, it's fine. He, he'll be all right. So, so those kind of things are happening. Then my, my middle sister who's, who's been staying during the week while my other sisters are working during the week. She said, I'm really sorry, I'm sick. I gotta go home and I was like, ok. All right. That's good. Then I get home the other day and my parents have a closet in the garage and, um, that, that closet's been there for 58 years and suddenly the door and the lock on the door decided to break. So I had to run to los and, and put it in, put a new door knob. Um, you know, that's just some of the stuff down there. Oh, yeah. By the way, my oldest daughter graduated with her master's yesterday at eight o'clock and my youngest daughter graduated with her undergrad yesterday at 9 30. Now, that sounds wonderful. Except one of them was at eight o'clock in Columbia and the other one is at 9 30 in Charleston. So, of course, we couldn't be both places. But I have fantastic in laws. So my in laws and my sister in law came and, uh, my, my mother in law and father in law and my sons went over and manned the graduation here in town and my sister in law with Karen and I, and we went down to, to Charleston to do that. So, so we're in Charleston all day and then we had to move MEREDITH out of her dorm room at the end of the day yesterday. And, ok, everything's great. All right, we're rolling, we're rolling, we're rolling, we're rolling. And then this morning I wake up with, let's just say severe stomach issues. Right. Yeah, five o'clock in the morning, some of y'all saw me pull up as church was starting because that's about the time I got here, you know. Um, those are just highlights, you know, I, I, I, I'm sure I've left at least 10 or 15 things out, you know. So I get it when we say, hey, I can't help other people's burdens. You know, I, I got too much of my own. Listen, the other day, bless his heart. There's a guy who's, who's been broke down in the parking lot of the cookout that I go to and grab a burger on my way out and, and I have not noticed him. I had zero in my tank leaving the other day and I was like, Lord, you have to keep me awake on the way home and I get my burger pulled through the drive through my windows are down, sir, sir, sir, I look up, he goes, could you help me? Uh uh brother, I if you want these burgers, I'll give them to you. But I mean, I, I got nothing for you, you know, but but I say that jokingly to say this, the Lord still gave me strength to, to help that guy out for a few minutes. So, so I get it, all of us have been. That's my story. I know you have your story. Ok? I know you have your story of what's going on, but here's the thing. It doesn't change the truth of God's word. It doesn't change what God's called us to do. I saw a great illustration of, of how we engage with this bearing of burdens. Imagine that you have a backpack and all of your burdens are in your backpack. Ok? All the big burdens are there and with those big burdens. You, you start taking some of them out and handing them to other Christians instead of saying, oh, I don't want to burden you. You start sharing some of your burdens. Here's what happens. Your big huge boulder of a burden when it comes out of your backpack, it doesn't go into that person's life as a big huge boulder of a burden for them. Your huge boulder is like a pebble in their hand or like a, a stone in their pocket. It's, it's not the same. You know what if I were to put that very practically in my situation. See, in my situation, I'm, I'm so overwhelmed with so many different things, but some of you have been praying for me and your prayers are a huge deal. Here's why because when you pray for me, you don't take on the boulder of my burden. You don't. But God in his sovereign grace through prayer, he lifts the weight of that boulder off of me just a little bit. See, when, when you pray for me, we don't, you know, change places, right? When you pray for me, you aren't suddenly in my hospital room, you know, taking care of my dad and I'm not suddenly on an island eating bacon wrap, lobster. You know that, that's not how that plays out. But my boulder is a pebble to you, but that's great because you know what your pebble prayers make a huge difference. With my bolder burdens, makes a huge difference, your prayers, your text messages. And not only that the, the beauty of how God is working through all of y'all, especially our, our staff, our, our youth committee. I mean, just so many of you in the church, y'all are picking up things for me that, that I can't get to right now and it's gigantic. So what you do, how you serve becomes a, a bolder lifter in my life. And, and that's, that's what it looks like. Yes, there are times that we need to make big sacrifices for one another. You know, it may be financial, it may be time. I need to let somebody borrow something or whatever else. I mean, hey, I had, I had nine people sleep at my house last night, you know, I, I may have slept in his car for all. I know. I don't know. You know, I mean, so, so I mean, sometimes you open your home and everybody comes in, you know, and you open your home and everybody comes in when there's a lot going on. So, yeah, there's sacrificing times, but a lot of the times all we need to do is is just pay attention, just, just show a little bit of mercy. And, and that's why Paul says bear one another's birds, just, just bear them, just give it a test drive this week, make a, make a genuine effort at just trying to, to bear the burdens of other people. One of the reasons today's message is called committed fellowship is because I think sometimes when we hear the word fellowship, we kind of think pot luck dinner, you know, and that's ok. That's fine. But, but that's not the, the deepest meaning of fellowship in the Bible. The, the, the, the concept is, is a word called queen. And it's this, this thing of, we're just engaged in one another's lives and we're just engaged. I've always joked with people over the years that when I pastored out in the country, they, people would say, I mean, I can't believe out in the country. Everybody is in everybody's business. And I was like, you know, you're right and everybody's in everybody's business. And I said, but, you know, the great thing is everybody's in everybody's business. You know, it, it goes both ways, you know, sometimes, you know, in the city we're, we're not in anybody's business, right? We go home and, and close the garage and we don't engage with, with anybody. So there's a time that it's ok for us to be in each other's business, you know. So it's a time for, there's this, this coin, this, this fellowship. It's, it's more than just hanging out and having a meal in the fellowship hall. Committed fellowship is when there is a disagreement in a church business meeting. You, you're still, you still bear one another's burdens, you know, you don't lose your mind. You know, you don't start throwing spears across the sanctuary. Ok? You, you're still committed to one another. You're still, you're still bearing the burdens, bearing burdens and, and committed fellowship means that, yeah, we, we have a good time at a holiday event at the church, but we also engage with one another when we're grieving over a tragic death, bearing one another's burdens and committed fellowship is, it's a practice. It's, it's who we are. It's, it's what we do now, doesn't mean we always have to give the shirt off our back to anybody that's coming along. You know, sometimes committed fellowship is you just read that text and you respond or you send that text or you call you, you make some effort. Sometimes bearing one another's burdens is just listening to another person and, and look, listening in such a way that you're not waiting for a break. So you can tell them your burden, you know, bearing one of other's burdens is not right here. I got one too. I got one too. You know, it's, it's just listening. It's just, it's just paying attention. It's actually training our minds before we greet someone. How do you greet people on Sunday morning when you get to church? You say, how's it going? How you doing? Good morning. Hey, nice shoes. Aloha. I mean, I don't know whatever you say. How, how do you greet people? What if we started greeting people in such a way that we were actually anticipating with, with expectation, with a, with a determination. We approach campus on Sunday mornings going, how could I today maybe bear someone's burdens just with my. Hello. Now, I'll tell you for us men. It means we're going to have to get rid of some of the sarcasm, you know. Sometimes sarcasm is great. I'm great at it, you know, I'm pretty good at it, you know. But, but sometimes we need to drop it, you know, and we really do just, we need to find a way to be kind, you know, and, and ladies, sometimes it needs, it needs to be more than, oh, I love your dress, you know, your hair looks great. That's fine. Do that, you know. But, but sometimes we need to go more this, this sense of anticipation and expectation, a determination that when I get to church this morning just in the way I say hello. I, I might be used by God to help someone with their burden. It's, it's a big deal and it's not even a hard thing. It's kind of a, a small thing. And what do you think would happen in the life of our church? What would happen in the life of the church if we became a family of people that we knew, we didn't have to say when someone says, hey, how's it going? How you doing? We don't always have to say I'm good. You know, I'm, I'm fine. What if we knew there was enough trust and, and love here that, that we became the, the type of group of people that we knew we could share burdens with one another that, that we knew that, that there were going to be some pebble prayers for our boulder burdens. What do you, what do you think would happen in the life of the church? What do you think would happen in life outside of our church? Do you think there would be a, an impact if, if we started just thinking, hey, how can I bear the burdens of the people that are sitting around me? Just, just a little more because again, it doesn't mean that your burdens are just going to magically disappear. But you know what? Give it a try, give it a test drive. Just see if some of your burdens don't lift, see if some of your burdens might not even disappear. And what are we doing when we're bearing? One of those burdens? Listen to what Paul goes on to say verse two and thereby fulfill the law of Christ when we bear one another's burdens, we are actually fulfilling the law of Christ. That sounds pretty big. So, what's the law of Christ? Well, and in one way you could say all of the Bible would be the law of Christ. But, but if you were to get a little more specific Jesus kind of gave us a way to think about his law. John chapter 13 verse 34 Jesus turns to his friends and says, I'm giving you a new commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. The law of Christ is, is love and not, you know, not rom com movie love. Ok? But the actual love of Christ to fulfill the law of Christ means to love humans just, just as humans. We were designed for interdependence. We, we were not designed to be alone. We were designed for dependence on God and, and interdependence to, to depend on God. But also we were created designed to be interdependent with one another to, to lean on one another. We were actually created to bear one another's burdens. That means as Christians, we really shouldn't be the kind of people that say on a regular basis. I don't want to burden you. See, we, we were made to be different Christine Gordon and Hope Blanton are wives and moms and authors and teachers. And, and they wrote an article last year. This is the title of the article God wants you to be a burden. I love that God. God wants you to be a burden. This is what I said. Sometimes we struggle to know exactly what obedience means in complicated nuanced situations. We don't always know what love looks like in practice. But this command is clear when we bear one another's burdens. We're obeying Jesus's command to love one another. We, we're fulfilling the law of Christ when we bear one another's burdens. So, in a sense, God wants us to be a burden because he's designed us to be dependent on him and on one another, this is how we're designed. We are not designed to be alone. We are not designed to be on an island. And if we aren't careful, we'll go on an island, we'll stay there because we'll say, well, I don't want to burden anybody and, and all of us can't take on everyone's burdens. Right? I mean, I can't take on all of your burdens, but all of us together, we, we can have some pebble prayers. We can, we, we can do that. It's not an impossible thing for us to do. In essence what we're saying is this is committed fellowship. It, it's not just being a member of a church. It's committed fellowship. It's, it's sane. I'm, I'm, I'm going to be engaged with your life in some way, shape or form. And let me say this, I'm not just going to be engaged with my friends' lives. You know, sometimes we get into our friend cliques at church and we're like, well, I'm just going to hang here. Can I just tell you if you are over the age of 70? I cannot begin to tell you the impact you can have on the life of a 17 year old or a seven year old, your time is not up. You haven't done your time at church, you are extremely valuable to the church. And if you're a 17 year old, don't ever underestimate the power that you have in the life of someone over the age of 70. All of us, regardless of, of who we are and where we are and what's happening, we all have the ability in the life of the church to be committed to one another. And here's what happens when that happens. We begin to fulfill the law of Christ. We, we begin to love in the way that Jesus loved. And guess what? All of a sudden, it's not just here. People outside of our church that interact with us are like, who are those people who, who are they? And the reason they would say that is because they begin to go in, I know that they are Christians because of their love. That's how I know that those folks at Holland Avenue are Christians. It's because of their love. We had a, a rough week Friday morning. Uh It was about probably 5 30 in the morning and, um, the regular nurse and the care nurse were in there, you know, doing some things with my dad, my dad and I, well, both of us had slept most of the night. Um, which, which was rare. Um, but we couldn't wake my dad up, we couldn't get him up. He's just you know, just kind of breathing heavy but wouldn't respond to us. We, we couldn't stir him everything we did. It just didn't work. Um, tried to put a, a straw in his mouth to get him to sip a little juice, you know, couldn't, wouldn't put his mouth. He was, he was coherent a little bit like he, he was grumbling a little bit, but we couldn't get him to do anything. We, we couldn't get him to wake up and take his medicine, we couldn't get him to do anything. And the nurses kind of looked at me with that look, you know, and I, I had the same look and I just looked at him and I said, it's ok and, and I started tearing up. I said, it's ok. I said, we have great hope, great, hope so. After a few minutes, they, they left and so I'm kind of sitting there and, you know, for me, it, it's that moment and I'm like, ok, Lord, you know, so I, I start, you know, reading scripture in dad's ear and, and singing some hymns to him and, and praying for him and just a lot of different things and, and I was jumping all over the place in scripture and I, I just jumped up Matthew five and I started reading through Matthew five and I just kind of kept clipping through Matthew and just kind of kept reading these passages and, and jumping over certain things and, and then all of a sudden I, I came to Matthew 11 and, and I came to this passage of Matthew 11, which is, is familiar Matthew 11 verse 28. Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. And I just kind of stopped for a moment because I thought I'm weary and burdened right now that, you know, the reason I share some of these stories about my experience with my dad right now is not because I'm the first person I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, somebody looking for a shoulder to cry on. I just want all of us to know the gospel matters when everything is falling apart. And I'm not convinced, we believe that I'm not, I'm not convinced as Christians when, when our comfort is disrupted, we seem to lose our minds and we don't have to. The gospel is true, Jesus is alive and nothing can change that. And in that moment, as I read and reread that, I said, Lord, I'm burdened right now. He's burdened. But you have already given us rest. Why? Because we've already yielded to Jesus in that moment. Although my dad's burden and my burden were very, very different. Our greatest burden was gone didn't exist because our sin not in part, but the whole has been nailed to the cross and we bear it no more. And of course, two hours later, my dad sits up, hey, what did the doctor say? And no universe is my dad, a prankster. But I'm sitting there going, Josie. What are you doing to me? What? Wait, what in the world? Come on. And, and he's had a pretty good weekend, you know. So, so we don't ever know how the road is going to twist and turn. But, but the truth of the gospel keeps reminding us that Jesus has given us rest. So why do we wanna be a committed fellowship? But why do we wanna be the kind of people that, that bear one another burden, bear one another's burdens. Well, the reason why we wanna do it is first and most because it fulfills the law of Christ. If we are going to be Christians, we must bear one another's burdens or we aren't Christians. So we bear one another's burdens because we fulfill the law of Christ. And when we fulfill the law of Christ in each other's lives, here's what happens when everything's falling apart, when the burdens are so big, when the boulders are gigantic. What we do is Emily and Stacey play beautiful music to help us. Remember that Jesus has given us rest, the choir and the kids, they, they sing these majestic songs to, to help us remember that Jesus has given us rest. You sit in your life groups on Sunday morning and, and Wednesday nights and, and those people are helping you remember, hey, Jesus has given us rest, you call and you text and you send notes and you drop off casseroles to, to help each other. Hey, Jesus has given us rest. Our heaviest burden, our greatest burden has been lifted. And what we do in a committed fellowship is we help each other. Remember that we bear each other's burdens as a way to remind each other, our greatest burden has been lifted and Jesus has given us rest and Jesus will give us rest. That is so good. So let's be together for that. Let's be together for good.