Today's teaching will be part two of a series I've titled Helping the Hurting.

Last week I shared the illustration comparing a police to a paramedic, both of whom arrive on the scene of an accident, but for two different reasons.

The police are there chiefly to determine who was in the wrong, who broke the law, as it were,

whereas the paramedic is there chiefly to minister to those who were injured there at the accident.

Now, the reason that this is important and germane to our understanding today is because of these Judaizers that the churches there in Galatia were riddled with.

These were the spiritual police, if you prefer, who were only concerned with who was in the wrong,

who had broken the law of Moses. They were the legalists of the day.

They were the spiritual police to enforce the law. They were all about the law.

But the problem is that in so doing they had really hurt these believers who were now in need of spiritual paramedics who could minister to them because they had been greatly injured by these Judaizers for whom Paul and with whom Paul was very harsh with and rightfully so.

Well, enter our text today and with it the Apostle Paul who's now going to turn a corner of sorts

and go from exposing these legalists, these Judaizers,

to now helping those who were hurt by these Judaizers, these legalists. We saw our first way to help

the hurting in verse one, and it's very simply that of being

gentle to others. Here, Paul says, if someone has been caught in a fault, sort of cornered,

those who are spiritual, those who are walking by the spirit, filled with the spirit,

those who are spiritually mature, perhaps would be a better way to see it and say it,

should gently, gently restore them back to spiritual health.

However, he cautions that we need to be very careful in doing so.

Why? Because we ourselves can be tempted to think that we're somehow better than they are, not realizing that this could have just as easily been us instead.

Now, Paul, thankfully, and true to form, and this is what I love about the Apostle Paul, he's going to expound on that as we just

read in our text today, this notion of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. Well, this

brings us to our second one in our text today, and it's that of being compassionate toward others, this brings us to our second one in our text today and it's that of being compassionate

...