Satisfaction from Carrying One Anothers Burdens

Carrying one another’s burdens is not just a duty—it’s a deep joy that reflects the heart of Christ. In this message, Pastor Chris Teien teaches how serving others with patience, kindness, and humility builds authentic community, strengthens faith, and brings lasting spiritual satisfaction. Discover how small acts of support can produce eternal rewards and lead to a more fulfilling life of faith and service.

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/16335676

Key Points:

1. Pull Up – Gently restore those overtaken by sin, helping them find healing and strength without falling into judgment or temptation (Galatians 6:1; 1 Corinthians 10:12).
2. Hold Up – Carry one another’s burdens in love, offering practical and emotional support to strengthen those weighed down by hardship (Galatians 6:2; Exodus 23:5).
3. Measure Up – Serve humbly, examining yourself first and avoiding prideful comparisons with others (Galatians 6:3–4; Lamentations 3:40).
4. Load Up – Faithfully carry your own responsibilities while offering help to others as the Spirit leads (Galatians 6:5; Romans 12:12).

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:
 Pastor Chris shares relatable stories, including helping replace a dangerous sidewalk for a family in need, memories of humorous but illustrative teamwork during high school, and real-life ministry examples of restoring people caught in sin. He highlights how serving others tangibly and spiritually leads to true satisfaction and displays Christ's love to the world.

Notable Quotes:

• “Life change doesn’t start by living in a list—it starts by living in Jesus.”
• “You can lift amazingly heavy burdens when you work together in Christ.”
• “When you help carry someone else's burden, you become the hands and feet of Jesus.”

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Heart-level reflection: Ask God to show you someone around you who is burdened and how you can help gently restore or encourage them.
2. Daily-life application: Offer to help someone practically this week—whether through a project, an encouraging word, or prayer.
3. Spiritual step or challenge: Examine your own heart and life regularly, allowing God's Spirit to correct and guide you before correcting others.
4. Practical next step: Choose to bear burdens quietly and faithfully, building others up without expecting recognition or reward.

Scripture References:

• Galatians 6:1–5 – Restore gently, carry burdens, take responsibility
• 1 Corinthians 10:12–13 – Be careful lest you fall; God provides a way out
• Exodus 23:5 – Help even your enemy’s burdened animal
• Romans 12:12 – Be patient in affliction, faithful in prayer
• Psalm 37:7 – Wait patiently for the Lord
• Lamentations 3:40 – Examine and test your ways
• Luke 11:46 – Warning against burdening others unfairly

Keywords:
 Christian community, carrying burdens, helping others, Galatians 6, restoration, humility, serving others, practical faith, encouragement, spiritual growth

Closing Statement:
 True satisfaction comes not from living for ourselves but from living out Christ’s love by carrying each other’s burdens with patience, humility, and grace. Let your life reflect the love that lifts others up.

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I hope this message helps you understand and apply God’s Word. Find sermon transcripts at Well.faith, learn more at ChrisTeien.com, or come visit us at Rockwell Church in Virginia, Minnesota. If this message encouraged you, I’d love to hear from you at wellfaith24@gmail.com.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_05 0:21

Sherry and Alan have been in our journey group for about four years.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

We uh came over to visit Alan and Sherry one day and realized that their house was in really disarray.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

I used to get made of made fun of, like on the bus and stuff. They usually called me cockroach or just made fun of my house and maybe.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Um the structure of the house was just falling apart. So we decided as a journey group that we would get together and build them a house. Um but we had to do something in the meantime to make the house safe enough for them living. So the following community makeover, we set out to redo the beam, the core system underneath, the bathroom in the hallway, and redid the core system in there, and rerouted all the electrical lining in there and just made the house safe.

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Shortly after that, in September, the floods came and washed away um not only all the work we'd done, but just um the foundation of the house.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

It was rough on a song, you know, just to watch the house go down.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

I lost practically almost everything in my room except some of my clothes.

SPEAKER_06 1:33

So we got a few things now, and eventually um we had to move out of there.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

About the time that we had started getting material now here at the job site. Um people were stealing stuff, so I don't care it's not as if they were just gonna live here on the property and they live here in a ticket for two weeks, and someone donated like a seven days motorcycle.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Maybe risk because my work level, it's working, and it's just risky and doing it day by day. It's really living my real life day by day.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Um it's been pretty stressful because like not living with my parents. Like getting them to work with for school is very hard.

SPEAKER_04 2:36

Um had a fish lab here on the property, sold tickets for that to raise money for donations, the women in the journey group had a bake sale on the same day. I went up and um asked a lot of different companies that have gonna work with over the years to uh make donations. We've had all the help to build this help.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

We just kind of hit the 30 or 40 people at the moment, you know, um intermediate and relationship with the L relationship with the other.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Umstead of a bad thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

It's just been really nice.

SPEAKER_05 3:43

People helping you know everything that you see is just a blessing that God has you know provided for this family, and we were just you know fortunate enough to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_06 3:55

But for me, the biggest thing has been the emotional support, knowing that somebody cares enough to come and work like that. That makes all the difference in the world.

Chris T 4:08

All right, so today we're talking about the satisfaction that we can have in carrying one another's burdens. We just watched that video about a church group that actually helped make a uh someone's house better, uh, use their skills. It's interesting that you know some people had skills to make things happen, some people had connections, at least one guy had connections to get materials and things like that. And we have opportunities like that. Uh, some of the women realized that, or some of the other people realized that uh all these people were gonna be coming in and volunteering, so they needed to make food and lunch and make all these things come together. So they used all their different skills, and I have a feeling they're a larger church than we are, and I don't know if we could pull off anything like that, and 14 months is a long time to be committed to a project like that, but there are things that we can do to help each other out. There are things that we can do, we see a need, we see an opportunity, and we come together and we make things happen. Years ago, when we first started the church, or a few years into it, I was in Jordan visiting with a family, and they had moved into a house that they had purchased and then realized that there was no way for them to get homeowners insurance, so they said, because the sidewalk was such a mess. So basically the concrete was all busted up and it was a safety hazard and everything. And so they said, you know, that's that's a big problem for us. So I talked to a couple of you actually were part of it, but so I talked to some of the guys in the church, and it was amazing on a Saturday morning, all the stuff that we were able to come up with. Even we even came up with a dump truck that had uh some class five in it to put down where the sidewalk was, and some dirt to put down where the sidewalk was, and also uh to take the pieces that we took out and get them out of there. So we started in the morning, and by afternoon the sidewalk was out, the dirt was in place, and so their need was taken care of by some volunteers in our church, and it was just cool to see how it all worked out, how it was a project that could be done in a day, how lots of different people brought different uh resources to the project, and it was a great thing. Actually, if you go help at the House of Hope down in Chile, it's kind of the same thing. Volunteers show up and do stuff like you saw in the video. But now transfer that, or you know, think about your house and somebody's need to some other need they have: spiritual need, relational need, uh different things. And so God might put on your heart that so-and-so has this need, and he's gonna like show you what you can do to help. And one of the things that are really helpful is when you see the need, if the person you want to help is willing to get help, wanting help, then it's a great thing. But so the Bible talks about how we are supposed to carry each other's, carry one another's burdens. So in uh Galatians chapter six, I'm gonna read verses one through five from the Christian Standard Bible. Uh, brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you won't be tempted. Carry one another's burdens. In this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if any one considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone and not compare himself with someone else, for each one will have to carry his own load. So we see there's a responsibility there for us to carry our burdens, to carry our load, to do what we're supposed to do, to do our work. But sometimes it's too much, sometimes it's overwhelming, and we need someone to come along and help. We need someone to come and help, but we need to watch our attitude, and we also need to make sure that if we're trying to help somebody that's been entangled, caught, or overcome by a sin, that when we're helping, that we don't get tempted and fall into the same kind of sin, that we don't fall into the same thing. Now, how many of you have ever picked up a Volkswagen before? Can you, anybody here, can you pick up a Volkswagen bug? Any hands? Ever picked up a Volkswagen before? I did, but not by myself. I'm not even really proud of this, but hey, you know, last week I shared all sorts of stuff that people walked out of here going, at least I never set a farm gas tank on fire. And I thought about that, and I'm like, wow, I wonder if I should leave that on the audio. So I didn't really release the audio until Thursday because I had to listen to it and see what did I say? My wife's like, you were funny. I'm like, was that good? So anyway, so here's the deal is that I'm not even really sure why we thought this was a good idea, but I went to a larger high school and there was a girl that had a Volkswagen bug. So a bunch of us guys decided it'd be a really great thing to take her Volkswagen bug, lift it over the little poles that they had, they're like telephone posts that were cut into the motorcycle part of the parking lot. So you could get a motorcycle in, but not a car. But a group of guys decided it was a great idea, and that was part of it, to pick the Volkswagen up, take it over the post, and put it in the motorcycle parking lot and walk away. And eventually we took it back out for her again, and it was quite a sight, but as a team, you can lift amazing things. You can lift the Volkswagen bug. If you just have, I don't know, 15 guys, it wasn't really the big deal because everybody was carrying their part of the burden, part of the load. And I'm not suggesting that you do that. And if you do such a thing like that and you get in trouble, don't blame me. I didn't say it was a good idea, I'm just saying it happened. And uh it's amazing the things that people can do as a group, amazing the strength that you have, amazing the things that you can accomplish. There's also this mentality of mob mentality, maybe that if a couple of guys say it's a really good idea to harass a girl by picking up her Volkswagen and making it so she can't go anywhere, that the other guys go, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea, mob mentality. So no one wanted to go, oh, and what if she has to go somewhere? What if she's late for a doctor's appointment? What if no one thought about what if she's late for work? It was like everybody stay nearby so we can get this out of here after she sees it. But carrying one another's burdens. Number one, pull up. Pull up. All right, brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in a wrongdoing, so some of the older Bible translations say uh if you're caught, but to be overtaken means that you, the burden that the sin, that the thing has not only caught up with you, but it's overtaking you, it's overwhelming you. And the wrongdoing is destroying your life. And other people can see what it is, spiritual people can see what it is, and they want to come alongside and help you out to help you get control over that, to help you resist that temptation, to help you set things right, to help you get on the right track with God. Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual restore a person with a gentle spirit. So it's the spiritual people, it's the godly people, the people that are living right and doing right that are given the charge, given the opportunity and the obligation to come help, to help this person, to pull this person up, to do what they can to get this person, like in this picture here, out of the mud. So have you ever been stuck in the mud before? Like stuck in the mud where like you can't get your boot out of the kind of mud and you need someone to come alongside. Well, you don't want that person to get stuck too. And so what you need to do is to try to pull that person up. The word overtaken in the Greek carries the idea of someone running from sin, but the sin is faster, so it overtakes the person. So this person, this uh therefore, this is someone who is trying to live the Christian life, but lets his or her guard down and is overtaken by sin. And 1 Corinthians 10 12 says, if you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. All right, so we shouldn't be excited when somebody falls into sin. We shouldn't be excited when someone is overtaken by sin. Instead, we should be concerned, we should pray, we should do all that we can to help that person, to gently restore that person, to restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves. Gentle spirit means that you're not supposed to be like a Pharisee and say, You've broken the law, God's gonna judge you, and I can't wait to see it. You don't want to be like Jonah was when he was waiting for Nineveh to be destroyed. Instead, you want to be like Jesus and you want to be caring, like the woman that was caught in adultery, and after he says, He who is without sin cast the first stone and they all walked away. He told the woman, go and sin no more. Gentle spirit, loving, caring. I want you to get on the right path because I love you, I care for you. It's best for you, it's best for us, it's best for the church. God is honored. Change your ways, let me help in a gentle spirit. Not I'm better than you or I can't believe you did that. How can anybody do that? But I want to help you. I can see how people could get trapped in that. Um, I've been tempted that way before, uh, those types of things. So help the other person out in a loving, caring, godly way, to restore them, to humbly help them back on the right path, to help them to get back on the right track, to give them the resources, to show them Bible verses that would encourage them, to maybe check up on them and help to hold them accountable, especially when they agree to it, especially when they agree to, you know, I fell into sin, this was wrong, I don't want to do this anymore. Why don't you ask me every time I see you if I fell into this or if I'm struggling with that? And we'll talk about, or if I feel tempted, I will call you. If I feel tempted or if I'm in trouble, I will call you, and you can come get me. You would you do that? So I've actually had to come get some people before. And um, yeah, I'm willing to do that. Pull up, pull the person up out of the mud, pull the person out of the sin, help them to get back on the right track. So the Pharisees were really good at laying down rules and laws and making it so difficult. And Jesus was full of love and gentleness. He laid down principles for us to follow and he did so lovingly. So, first it's our relationship with Jesus, the Holy Spirit helps us to overcome those sins and want to do the right thing. So life change doesn't start by living a list, it starts with living in Jesus, and then living in Jesus leads us to want to do the things that are right and want to say no to temptation and to do the things that are correct. First Corinthians 10 13, you know, you know it says there's no temptation that's uh taken overtaken us except what's common to man and God is faithful that he will help provide a way out. So all of us are tempted in different ways. I mean, you might be tempted by different things than I am. Some people are tempted to overeat, some people are tempted to overspend, some people are tempted to overbrag. Um, there's just all sorts of different temptations that one person might be into and another person's not. So Satan knows what those temptations are, and he often pushes those buttons. The life application Bible commentary says the word translated restore has a number of meetings and meanings, including setting a broken bone. We should be helping to reduce pain and promote healing and rehabilitation, mending a fishnet, we should repair torn relationships in order that they might be returned to useful service, or refitting a ship after a difficult voyage, we should fix the damage, restock the supplies, and prepare the vessel for its next voyage. So restoration doesn't happen by itself. Often somebody needs to get involved to help. So look around, see the people around you, and ask yourself what can I do to help pull up those people that have fallen, those people that are stuck in the mud? What can I do? Can I do it gently? Can I do it lovingly? Can I do it with Christ's love in me? Number two, hold up, carry one another's burdens, and this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. People have all sorts of different burdens. It can be anxiety, stress at work, uh troubles with school, um fear, depression, physical burdens, um, all sorts of overwhelming problems. And so here, this isn't saying that you shouldn't do anything and let someone else do everything for you. What it's saying is that you should let people come alongside of you and help you to carry the heavy load if it's too heavy to carry on your own, especially the people that are injured, the people that are hurt. Here's a picture of a soldier carrying another soldier. And so soldiers are supposed to carry their own packs, their own stuff. But if one is injured, uh then if he could, he would carry the other person to safety to hold up, to carry. We need to hold up the people around us that can't carry their own load. Exodus 23, 5 says, if you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has collapsed under its load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and help. So hold them up, help them keep their head above water. Do what you can to encourage them, to be compassionate, to share the promises of God, to pray with them. Maybe you need to forgive them, to do so in a warm and tender way. Uh sympathize, empathize, encourage. You know, if we were all going hiking up a mountain and you realized with the thin air and the heavy load that it was just too much for you, uh, then someone else that was stronger, or some other people could say, Well, let me take this, or let me take this out of your bag, or let me take this heavy thing. I'll carry this part, they'll carry that part, and together we'll all get up to the top, and your stuff will come with because we're gonna help each other out. Now, as I say these things, think about ways that you can apply that to your life. Think about people that you can help. Um, sometimes the people that need the help are the ones that actually want to help others the most, and think about what you can do to help someone else, and then pray that God would provide someone to help you with your need, whatever it is. Uh, sometimes it's tough when you have a need and there doesn't seem to be a way to actually take care of it. Trust that with the Lord and think as a Christian, what can I do to help someone? What can I do to help somebody else with whatever burden they might have? Maybe God's given you a skill or an experience or some resource that you could use to help other people and to help carry one another's burdens. What a great way to live. When you're helping somebody, it makes you feel good about yourself, helps you to feel satisfied in life. Not that you're better than them, but that God is using you. So many of us want to be used by God to do things, and yet we face all the struggles of, well, I'm so busy, I'm so tired, I've got all these other things to do. But sometimes when you get involved helping someone else, you really are the hands and feet of Jesus, and it really brings joy to your life. So bear one another's burdens. Do what you can to help. And what is the law of Christ? If you were to flip back to Galatians 5, verse 13, it says, For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command love your neighbor as yourself. So think about what would you want other people to do for you? How would you want them to treat you? If you were caught in a sin, how would you want to be treated? I wasn't really caught in a sin, but I thought to myself, wow, you know, YouTube, you can like make playlists in YouTube, and they can be public or private or or whatever. So I made this list and it was called Show Julie. And I thought, you know, if I see something online and it's probably some of the stuff, you know, wasn't even moral or churchy or good or whatever, but it was funny. Or maybe it was for research on the rest of the way the world lives, you know. Oh, look at that. Anyway, so I'm like watching this video, I'm like, that's funny. Show Julie. And uh, you know, this comedian, what not a Christian comedian guy or whatever. Oh, that's good. Show Julie. Then I realized, I don't know, like a month later that my list was public. So uh I looked at the list and I'm like, well, that'd be interesting if somebody actually saw it. Wasn't anything immoral or bad, but just know that any of you could fall into temptation, or uh people could see what you're doing, or people might see what you're doing and misinterpret what you're doing and the reasons why. So uh yeah, be gentle because you might need to be restored or talked to uh next. And you want to be kind and loving. You don't want to be the kind of, you don't want to be the police officer or the Pharisee or the scribe that just hammers people with the rules. Instead, you want to show love and grace and treat other people the way you want to be treated to love your neighbor as yourself. Number three, measure up. Measure up. If anyone considers himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. So this really has to do with your attitude and how you think of yourself while you're helping other people and while you're serving God. If you think that you are God's gift to the world and you're so wonderful in every way, God might even set you straight and show you that you're not so perfect in every way. But instead, to not be super spiritual, not be snobbish or full of pride, but to do what you can do in a humble way to realize that you're not perfect and no one's perfect. It's interesting that in uh Luke 11 46, Jesus says, What sorrow awaits you, experts in religious law? He says the Pharisees, for you crush people with impossible religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease their burden. So, and in 1 Corinthians 13 2, it says, If I had the gift of prophecy and I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing. So, love. We need to show love. We need to realize that none of us are perfect, that we're all sinners saved by grace. And that God is working us all through in a different process, in a different way, that we're to examine ourselves. So Lamentations 3 40 says, Let us examine and probe our ways. This is actually a good way to examine yourself before communion that we're going to have in just a minute here. Lamentations. 1 Corinthians 4 3. The one who examines me is the Lord. Galatians 6 4. Must examine your own work. And then we'll have the reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another. So it's not about pride. Chuck Swindahl says, Oh, how horrible our sins look when they are committed by someone else. You ever think that? You know, it's like, oh, well, it's not so bad when I do it, but it looks terrible when they do it. Chuck Swindahl also said, Examine yourself before examining anyone else. Be much more thorough with your own self-examination. Show grace. Show love. Charles Spurgeon, and this is this one's kind of harsh, but if you are wanting to live the super Christian life and really want to be on fire for God and really think that you've arrived, think about this. Charles Spurgeon, um, great preacher, Baptist preacher of old, said, It is of no use for any of you to try to be soul winners. That's people who lead people to Christ so they can be saved. Soul winners if you're not bearing fruit in your own lives. How can you serve the Lord with your lips if you do not serve him with your lives? How can you preach his gospel with your tongues when you when when with hands, feet, and heart you are preaching the devil's gospel and setting up an Antichrist by your practical unholiness? Now, I think that the way that God works with us is that he brings Christians in our life to help us to see how to live the Christian life. And also he disciplines us, he loves us, and he guides and directs us. And here we see a picture of someone doing a high jump. And so if you see the picture, you'll notice that they are going over it backwards, not forwards. And so there's a skill, a technique there. So if you really wanted to be into pole vaulting or high jumping or whatever it is, if someone came alongside of you and said, you can do this level if you'd use this technique, if you do it this way. And so many times God sees your life and the way you live, and he puts the bar right here. And so then you're you're growing in Christ, the Holy Spirit's helping you, and so you're able to reach this level. I can jump that, that's okay. And then God slowly lifts the bar a little more and says, Here, you need to do these things differently and change these things. And then you go through the Christian life, God lifts the bar a little more, a little more, and you can do amazingly more. God never says, you know, here's the bar down here, and I want you up here. I mean, I suppose in practical holiness, he does, but he's gentle and he helps us to grow. We're all in a process to become more like Jesus as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. We need one another. AW Tozer said, Be hard on yourself and easy on others. Carry your own cross, but never lay one on the back of another. So load up. Number four, load up, for each person will have to carry his own load. We need to carry our own load. We need to, the Bible says if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. We need to do the stuff that we need to do for us. We need to carry what we need to carry, we need to do what we need to do. We need to carry our own load. We can't assume that someone else is going to be able or going to want to do everything for us. It's not that we're supposed to be served so that we can do nothing. Instead, we're supposed to come alongside others so that they can carry more. I personally take great pride in maybe not pride, but um I like to, when I go to the grocery store or when my wife comes home from the grocery store, I really like to see how many of those plastic bags I can get on my arm. You know, if I've got like the whole trunk full on one arm, you know, and I'm carrying a watermelon too, and I still have my other hand empty to open the door, you know, what else you got? And I'm like, oh, don't say that because the grocery bill would be a lot higher. But and then when I'm at the grocery store and the guy's like, Would you like me to carry your groceries? I'd be like, I can carry all that on two fingers. But instead, I'm like, you know what? If you want to carry my groceries and that keeps you employed, that's great. So, and then uh I let him haul my groceries up. But we need to um carry each other's burdens. Now, sometimes we see people's burdens and we're like, oh, that's too much, that's crazy. Like we see this guy in a motorcycle that's got like tons of stuff, but actually that's his deal. That he does that all the time, and he's not concerned about that. So we can let him carry that. But on the other hand, sometimes if he's broke down, we can stop and help. So I'll ask you guys to come forward for communion, and I will share more of this next time we get together because time is short and words are many. So, all right, next Sunday, the incredible, incredible power through encouraging one another. And then that will be the end of the one another series. So it is time for communion. And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are welcome to take communion with us. Jesus instituted the communion celebration for all of his Christ followers, all of his believers around the world until he returns. And the Bible says that we're to remember Christ. I pass on to you what I received from the Lord Himself on the night when he was betrayed. The Lord Jesus took some bread and he gave thanks to God for it. And then he broke it in pieces and said, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This communion time is a great time to examine your life, see if you've fallen into any kind of sin, confess that to the Lord, and then ask him to help you to overcome that, recommit your life to Christ. Uh, you can do that while the music plays, and I'll come up in a minute and pray. Lord Jesus, we just thank you so much that you died on the cross for our sins and that you have paid the price so that we can have a right relationship with you, become children of God to be guaranteed uh eternity in your presence for your help. And your Holy Spirit, Jesus, we thank you for all these things. We take this and we eat. In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper saying, This cup is a new covenant between God and his people, an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this to remember it as often as you drink it. For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you're announcing the Lord's death until he comes again. And Jesus will be coming again sometime. He's waiting. He wants more people to get saved, more people to come into a right relationship with him. But someday everything's gonna change. And for those of us who are in Christ, what a great day that will be. So use this time to thank the Lord for what he's doing in your life, for answered prayer, for all the encouragement that he received, that you received through him. And um, I'll come back up in a minute and pray. Jesus, we thank you so much that you love us, that you give us this opportunity to know you, that you invite us to be your workers and give us, you empower us through the your Holy Spirit. You've given us works to do, Lord, that you prepared for us in advance. Lord, you are full of grace and love and quick to forgive the sins that we get entangled in. Lord, help us to follow after you and do your will. We look forward to your return. Let's take this and drink. All right, so now the worship team is going to be heading up here, and I'm just gonna read uh three paragraphs to you to uh really tie this uh message into a real life experience. After suffering a string of thefts at his organic farm, Melvin Burns made an unusual offer. He offered the thief a job if he would just return the tools that Burns needs to take care of his animals. Burns says burglars are targeting properties near his farms in Cooksbrook, Nova Scotia, which has been robbed twice in as many months. Most recently they sold $1,000 worth of tools, but prior to that they took $5,000 worth of animals, including six pigs and 40 chickens. He took to Facebook to offer two rewards. If anyone comes to him with a tip that leads to the recovery of his tools, he will give that person five pounds of my best Berkshire bacon. But the fact that the perpetrator took food led Burns to his second proposal. If the thief turns himself or herself in, Burns will give him or her a job on the farm and teach that person agricultural skills. Burns' personal training will make that person more employable and bring him, quote, respect, unquote. Burns wrote. He writes, please, if you need money and are close to our farm, offer your labor, offer your time constructively. It can earn you money, respect, and a future in the community as opposed to behind bars. I will offer you much for free and better things to do with your time, and that's no goal. So there's someone that sinned, someone that stole, that's being given an opportunity to get stuff right. Actually, to get an opportunity to learn a career, to uh learn a trade, a skill. So that's a I think a man who sees that there's needy people out there that will steal, and that the answer to providing their needs is for them to do work on their own.