Bear Your Burden

Diane and I, to date, have traveled to 41 different countries.

Perfect, guys, awesome, thank you.

41 different countries.

Now, most of those have been for media acquisition trips.

We're shooting video gathering audio interviews, maybe writing blogs, articles, that kind of stuff.

And so it takes a surprising amount of equipment and even in our digital age, as small as I've attempted to make my own personal collection, it's still pretty big as I stumble off, and I've got to show you just a little bit of what we travel with here.

Of course, there's a tripod for the camera.

The camera itself Got a little miniature light stand, and in this handy backpack we've got lenses.

You can't just have one lens, you've got to have several lenses.

Ooh, I guess here's three.

And additional pop filter for the wind noise, a tiny little light.

You've got to have extra memory cards.

They're here.

An extra recorder, lapel, mics, chargers.

Here's a microphone here, mic cable don't forget your headphones, I'm telling you.

And course, there's the digital audio recorder itself, another windscreen, another external mic power supply chargers.

Don't forget the snacks either.

I've got some snacks in here, my goodness, yeah.

So there's a lot of stuff, even as miniaturized as I've tried to make it, and it winds up being fairly heavy, think north of 30 pounds.

But here's what I've noticed after lugging that around for 10 or 15 days when I come home and I use my much lighter, much smaller regular backpack, it doesn't feel right.

It's just not as heavy.

I'm so accustomed to lifting and lugging that heavy burden.

It just doesn't feel right.

Apparently I've become that accustomed to bearing my burden.

But you don't need a passport or a plane ticket to some faraway country to know what it means to carry a burden.

In the grind of life we get so used to lugging burdens, heavy burdens, lots of burdens, that we don't feel normal without them.

Now, because you've lived a little life, you know that the heaviest of backpacks and physical burdens are nothing, nothing compared to the emotional and psychological burdens that most of us carry around.

We're anxious about our jobs, our savings, our debt.

We're saddened by the wars in Israel and over in Ukraine that Pastor Dennis prayed for.

We're exhausted by our rat race lifestyle.

We're unnerved by our latest doctor's visit.

We're worried about the moral trajectory of our nation.

We wonder if we should have done something differently with that prodigal son or daughter.

We're fearful of the growing hostility toward Christianity right here in America.

We've got burdens.

You've got burdens, I've got burdens, don't we?

And those burdens we have a way of stashing away in a personal backpack that gets heavier and heavier, never lighter, have you noticed?

But toting all of this around is a task for which we were not designed.

We were never built for that.

And if we don't change, if we don't offload those burdens, they're going to kill us.

They'll kill our peace, they'll kill our joy, they'll kill our sleep joy.

They'll kill our sleep, they'll kill our hope and, given enough time, they might just kill our bodies.

If only there was some relief.

Good news, there is.

I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 68.

Psalm 68.

And would you join me in reading a very brief passage of scripture there in chapter 68?

, if you're comfortable, would you stand out of honor for the Word of God?

Together we're going to read just two verses 19 and 20, from Psalm 68.

The passage on your screen.

Let's start at verse 19.

Praise be to the Lord, to God, our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

Our God is a God who saves From the sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

Thank you, and would you be seated?

This passage makes some amazing declarations about God's power and greatness, but really it's verse 19 that I want us to think about for the next three and a half hours that we have together today.

Why the laughter In verse 19, david testifies blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burdens, the God of our salvation.

Did you catch that?

The same God who saved you longs to bear your burdens, the very ones you maybe think that he doesn't care about.

You face burdens every day.

Give them to your everyday burden bearer.

You know, our firstborn grandkids share the same personality trait a drive for independence.

And as tots, we would often ask them would you like some help with that?

And invariably this is the response we heard I do it myself.

Right, I do it myself.

The L comes later.

But aren't we the same as adults?

We have this just unending desire to be independent and self-sustaining and on our own, even in the face of divorce or death.

We keep a stiff upper lip, try to shoulder that entire load by ourselves.

How silly it's.

A role we were never intended to fill.

Trying to play God is not only ineffective, it's exhausting.

On October 18, 2003, at a railway station in Malaysia, a guy decided to go for a publicity stunt.

He'd worked on this for a while he set a world record, he clenched a big old rope in his teeth and he pulled two short commuter trains with that rope in his mouth.

Those trains weighed a total of 574,964 pounds.

He pulled them a distance of 13 feet nine inches and then went off for a new set of dentures.

That part I added.

But can you imagine that?

How exhausting would that be 574,000 pounds pulling a train, all by yourself.

Consider what David is saying here, though.

Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation burden, the God who is our salvation.

You face burdens every day.

Give them to your everyday burden bearer.

David reminds us that, with God, burden bearing is not merely a publicity stunt, a Guinness Book of World Records thing, like that guy in Malaysia, it's a passion.

It's something he delights to do.

He never gets tired.

He never gets tired of us and he never gets tired of lifting our burdens.

When Bruce Semrau completely gutted our kitchen and transformed it into what it is today which is quite lovely, in our judgment he did quite a job.

But he took down a load-bearing wall and in its place he installed a large wooden beam.

Since the day he installed it, I've noticed that beam has faithfully carried the load of our roof, never complained, it's just done it.

Likewise, god will not fail to lift your burdens.

1 Peter 5, 7 invites us.

Cast all your care on him because he cares for you.

Isaiah 30, 18 offers this astounding assurance.

Therefore, the Lord longs to be gracious to you and therefore he waits on high to have compassion on you.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

How blessed are all who long for him.

Did you catch that?

He longs to be gracious for you.

It's like he sits up at night and thinks about it.

Not likes to be gracious to you, not tolerates being compassionate toward you.

He longs to be gracious and compassionate toward you.

I don't know about your life, but it seems for me hardly a day goes by without some new burden dumping on me.

I guarantee you show up for work tomorrow or just get out of bed.

Won't be long.

There'll be some new burden, right, dennis?

Amen.

But this verse says he daily bears our burdens.

You and I face burdens every day.

Give them to your everyday burden bearer.

I like Romans 8.26.

In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.

Is it possible?

The groaning referred to here is the Holy Spirit bearing up our burdens, lifting our heavy loads before the Father.

Is that possible?

This collection of verses is just amazing to me.

Almighty God, our everyday burden bearer.

Think about this now.

He pulls for you, prays for you, groans for you, looks for you, looks for you, longs for you, lifts for you, and all he asks is that we let go, let go of our burdens and let him do the lifting.

Oh, that sounds easy, but you know it's not, by the way, what is the ultimate burden?

I can spell it in three letters Sin, sin falling short of God's standard of perfection.

It's knowing you're separated from God, but not knowing how to come back.

Jesus came to take that burden too.

1 Peter 2.24,.

He Himself bore our sins, carried them in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.

Have you asked Christ to be your Savior to take that sin burden?

Today's the day to do that.

A hitchhiker with a very heavy backpack stood with his thumb out looking for a ride.

His backpack weighed a ton.

It was worse than mine.

Well, finally, a pickup truck stopped.

The driver invited the hitchhiker to toss his backpack in the truck bed, climb inside his warm cab.

Amazingly, the hitchhiker climbed into the cab still wearing his backpack, sitting bolt upright, lifting the weight Mile after mile, his shoulders sagging when he could have let the truck do the lifting.

Do we do the same?

I think we do.

Let me suggest, then, three steps toward lightening your load by giving your burdens to God.

Step one we ask for his help.

Your burdens to God.

Step one we ask for his help.

Now, I know this sounds Sunday school, simple, doesn't it?

But are we doing it Really?

Asking for his help?

In John 6, 35, jesus declares I'm the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will.

Hebrews 4.16,.

Let us, then, approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We ask for his help.

Psalm 34.4 says we ask for his help, believing he wants to give it.

Step two we meditate on his word.

Isaiah 26.3,.

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you.

I have a way of fixing my thoughts on the wrong things.

What about you?

Psalm 119.

165 promises those who love your law have great peace and nothing causes them to stumble.

Psalm 34, 7,.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and rescues them.

So we meditate, that is, ponder, consider, linger with God's promises.

We speak God's word to every fear every time it comes.

We speak his word to every burden every time it tugs at us.

Step three we wait in faith.

We wait in faith.

Boy, this is a tough one.

I had my patience tested once.

It's negative.

You've heard of the great American prayer Lord, give me patience, and I want it right now.

Listen to this testimony in Micah 7.7.

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord.

I will wait for the God of my salvation, with the assurance that my God will hear me.

I will wait.

Psalm 27, 14 urges wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage.

Yes, wait for the Lord.

You know there's no wasted words in Scripture.

Why does he have to say wait twice?

Because we need that reminder twice.

No room here for backseat drivers.

God doesn't hand us his outlook calendar and say when would you like it.

He does ask us to wait in faith.

Now this again sounds so obvious.

So Sunday school, simple right, maybe the most obvious sermon you've ever heard.

But if you tried this, tried to live this way consistently, you know it isn't easy.

When middle age ambushed me about a year ago, hey, careful.

Now Diana suggested I needed to buy a snowblower.

At first I resisted hey, I'm man enough to shovel that snow.

I've been doing it all these years.

I do it myself.

But I finally caved in and bought that snowblower.

Kind of glad I did.

Man, just holding that thing, it just makes you feel so manly.

Wow, I love it.

So you ask, there as you sit comfortably this morning, why didn't you get one earlier?

Thanks for asking.

I'll tell you why.

Why didn't you get one earlier?

Thanks for asking.

I'll tell you why.

Because I know the dirty little secret about small engines.

You know what it is.

They don't like to work.

That's what it is.

That's the story of small gasoline engines.

And winter does not help their work ethic either, I've noticed.

So unless you have the patience of Job, the luck of the Irish and the skills of a television mechanic, you're going to be frustrated most of the time.

In my experience, small engines talk to you yeah, you give that starter rope a pull.

You know what you hear I will not, will not, will not, will not, will not, will not, will not, I will not, will not, will not, will not, will not, will not, will not.

And they don't even apologize, in fact sometimes they insult you.

You grab that rope and it says sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker, sucker.

Yeah, that's why I got me a slow snowblower with an electric start.

Oh yeah, so at first, just for fun of it, I do give the rope a tug and it, without fail, says I will not, will not, will not, will not, will not.

But then I talk to that machine.

I say, looky, here I got me an electric start button and I can push that as long as you can say I will not.

And that's when I hear something different from my engine, as you can say I will not.

And that's when I hear something different from my engine, it says I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.

Don't miss this.

The Almighty is offering to be your daily burden bearer.

You don't have to beg him, but you do have to let him.

And that's the question of the morning.

Are you going to let him?

Will you say I will not, will not, will not?

Or will you say I will, I will, I will.

You know, one feature that I just love about this snowblower of mine is that it's self-propelled.

All I have to do is just follow behind, let it just plow into the snow.

It's awesome.

But here's the crazy thing.

I feel I need to contribute to do part of the work.

Also, it runs a little slow and I like to do everything fast.

So instinctively, I clench the handle tightly and I lean into that machine as if I'm going to push all 150 pounds of it.

I shove my body into that heavy frame as if it's me doing the pushing and the blowing, and none of it makes one whit of difference.

I just can't seem to let go and let the thing do its job.

Isn't that ridiculous?

Shake your heads if you think that's ridiculous.

Yeah, I do too.

But isn't that a snapshot of many of us when it comes to dealing with our problems?

We like the idea of crying out to God, but we're unwilling to loosen our grip, and I wonder sometimes if God doesn't just chuckle at us.

All he's asking us to do is follow along behind him while he does the work.

You face burdens every day.

Give them to your everyday burden bearer.

Recently I felt a heavy burden come over me, something as simple as a schedule clash.

You say, what's the big deal there?

Well, I discovered that I was going to be out of town doing some recording with my backpack and not available for an important evening meeting.

Now I'll spare you all the details, but just believe me when I tell you that my absence at the meeting would have really created some problems.

But for some reason, I just can't be in Cincinnati and Chicago at the same time.

So I was really stressing out, as I'm prone to do, and then this verse kind of grabbed me by the lapels Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burdens, the God who is our salvation.

It was nighttime.

Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burdens, the God who is our salvation.

It was nighttime, I paused and I prayed and I asked God specifically to bear this burden for me.

I went to sleep and, you know, the very next morning I woke up and checked my phone and I saw a text and I learned that, because of an unusual circumstance, I was going to be flown home on an earlier flight.

These guys never quit early, so I could make the Chicago meeting Coincidence Not on your life.

I chose in that one instance to let God bear my burden and he made a way out.

Praise his name.

And he wants to do the same for you.

He longs to do the same for you.

Will you let him do the same for you, or are you going to say I do it myself?

You face burdens every day.

Give them to your everyday burden bearer.

Listen, whether or not you and I choose him to be so, god is our daily burden bearer.

Why not let him do what he does best?

Why not follow his request and present your burdens to him?

I'm talking to myself here today.

Folks too, why not let him be your daily burden bearer?

Would you close your eyes with me for just a moment as I ask what are your three biggest burdens right now?

You say, john, I'd need an hour just to list a few of them.

Think of the top two or three.

Take a moment and list those three burdens.

There's space on your note page there the big three.

Be specific.

I'll pause to give you just a moment.

List those big three burdens.

Now that you've listed those burdens.

Invite God to bear them for you.

Just pray a simple prayer, handing him every burden you've listed.

Ask God to bear those burdens.

Take those burdens from you.

I'll give you space here to pray.

Lord, thank you for being our everyday burden bearer.

We come to you now, casting all our cares on you, because you do care for us.

Do the heavy lifting we ask.

Lighten our loads, lighten our souls and help us keep coming back to you every time those burdens reappear.

We pray it in the name of our everyday burden-bearer, jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us.

Amen.