Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.
Galatians 6:2–5 ESV
I preached on Galatians 6:1-5 many years ago. At the time, I gave most of my attention to verse 1 (“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”) I argued that the first verse implied that the “burdens” that Paul had in mind were the consequences of being sinned against or dealing with sin in the Church in terms of the work that it required, the risks that one had to face (temptation), or the stigma of shame in the community.
That still seems justified to me, but I don’t know if that is the whole story. While Paul was talking about dealing with sin in the church, he may have done so partially because he wanted to deliver a message about how Christians are supposed to help each other more generally. This thought occurred to me after preaching on Philippians 3:2-16, which ends with a paradoxical philosophy of the Christian life (vv. 12-16). You are mature when you realize you must always press on because you are never mature.
In Galatians, it seems that Paul wanted to teach them about the mindset needed for them to be willing to truly help one another. The Judaizers were essentially devising a rationale for boasting over others in the Church. Even in offering to “help” the Gentile Christians, they were boasting in their role as the ones who showed them the way to “complete” godliness (Galatians 6:13).
Paul says that, if you refuse to bear the burdens of other Christians, you do so because you are using them to boost yourself. When you compare yourself to others and imagine that you are better, you are boasting in a way that displeases God. Rather, your concern should be with your own progress and achievement without needing to compare yourself to others. Every believer must do this “to bear his his own load.”
Or, as Paul put it in another letter:
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Romans 14:10–12 ESV
So if you think your “above” bearing the burdens of others, you are really exploiting the weak to support your inflated view of yourself. Better to worry about all the ways you still fall short and could do better rather than boast in how you think others fall short and how you are better than them.