Bear One Another's Burdens (Galatians 6:2)

How not to treat one another: provoking and envying. Both spring from the same root — conceit. The word Paul uses in Galatians 5:26 describes someone who has an opinion of themselves that is false and empty: they think too much of themselves. This poisonous attitude works itself out in one of two opposite directions.

First, conceit can make us provoke one another. The word means to call someone out, to challenge them to a contest. Paul is thinking of someone who is convinced they are superior and constantly itches to show it — like a schoolyard bully who picks fights to prove he is the strongest. We might wish we grew out of this when we left the playground, but we do not. It shows up in churches too: intellectual superiority (“I know more than anyone here”), work ethic (“I’m more productive than you”), popularity, and even holy things like evangelism (“I’m a better witness than anyone else”). Whatever the issue, the conceited attitude says: “I’m better than you, and I’m going to show it.”

Second, conceit can lead us to envy one another. This time, instead of thinking we are better, we can see that others are better than us — cleverer, more successful, more popular. But instead of giving thanks to God for their gifts, we resent them, because in our inflated self-image we think: “I ought to have what they have.” It is still conceit, but leading to bitterness rather than boasting. If we took time to trace the roots of most relationship problems — in churches, marriages, families, and friendships — we would probably find them in this same soil of conceit, producing either feelings of superiority or inferiority.

How to treat one another: carry each other’s burdens. The positive command comes in 6:2, and Paul places the words “each other’s” in an extremely emphatic position — as if he has underlined them in red, circled them, highlighted them in yellow, and drawn arrows pointing to them. Stop thinking about yourself and focus on others. In doing so, Paul says, you fulfil the law of Christ — the new commandment Jesus gave in John 13:34: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

What burdens does Paul have in mind? First, financial burdens. The word “burden” is used by Paul half the time to refer to debt, and the verb “to carry” is sometimes used of paying off someone’s debt. Deacons in the church are responsible for compassionate ministry — looking after people’s material needs. Christians should not have to worry about poverty, because God provides through the generosity of other believers.

Second, the burden of sin and guilt. This is the specific example Paul gives in verse 1: “If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” The word “restore” means to fix, to mend — it is used of a doctor setting a fractured bone, or fishermen mending broken nets. We are to go to a struggling brother or sister lovingly and gently, showing them the seriousness of their sin and helping them back to spiritual health. If you are the one caught in a sin, the right thing to do is to talk to a Christian friend or an elder who can bear the weight with you.

Third, every other kind of burden: loneliness, anxiety, grief, depression, pain. If we went around the room even in a small gathering like ours, we would find many different burdens being carried. The command is simple: get alongside your brothers and sisters and help them shoulder what they are carrying.

The obstacles to burden-bearing. Two forms of pride stand in the way. Our own pride stops us from asking for help — we much prefer to give help than to receive it, and we say “I’m fine” when we are breaking under a terrible weight that nobody knows about. That may be brave, but it is not Christian; it is stoical. We are meant to share our burdens. The other obstacle is other people’s pride — the fear that if we reveal our struggles, others will look down on us. Paul addresses such people sharply in verses 3–5: “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” And the apparent contradiction between “carry each other’s burdens” (v. 2) and “each one should carry his own load” (v. 5) resolves when we see that verse 5 is a proverb: each person has enough faults of their own to deal with without criticising others.

God, the ultimate burden-bearer. The greatest motivation is that in carrying one another’s burdens we are being like God himself. “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22). At a pastors’ conference, one minister described how, weighed down by many burdens, he got down on all fours in prayer and imagined himself rolling all his concerns onto the Lord Jesus. We can never say any burden is beneath our dignity, because almighty God himself bore the heaviest burden imaginable — not a small package of sin, but an Everest of sin from every believer who would ever live, piled on him at the cross, where he was crushed for our iniquities.

Related sermons: We are members of one another (Rom 12:5) · Serve One Another (John 13:1–17)