Revival Faith Center
Study: Burdens
Erlinda Miller
8/17/07
Burdens why do we want to carry them—this is not God’s way
I believe that all of us want a comfortable and trouble free life Amen?
But maybe what we should be asking is this; do I want what the flesh wants, which is ease, comfort and pleasure, or do I want to become the godly person God wants you to be?
At the same time, while hardship’s are to be expected, we should recognize God never intended that Christian life itself be difficult.
Look at what it says in:
John 16:33
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.''
He wants us to know that, no matter what the burden is, when we come to Him, He will lift the weight of it, if we allow him to do so.
Are you tonight letting him lift the weight off that burden you carry, so you can walk on to tomorrow?
He will not take the burden off but will take the weight of that burden off you so you can go on.
Whenever you are dealing with a heavy burden, turn to:
Matthew 11:28-30
28. "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29. "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.
30. "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."
Here it shows us 4 steps we need to take.
Step 1
HUMBLE (not proud, not pretentious, meek) YOURSELF
We know it is humbling to admit you are struggling with a problem you cannot handle.
Some people will not let down their pretense of being in control; they insist they can and will handle the situation, no matter what.
Ask yourself; where is God in this?
But there are burdens in life that no person in his or her own strength can bear successfully.
Why do you think drugs are so widespread and bars are so full? Think about this for a moment.
There is nothing happy about “happy hour,” this happy hour caters to people trying to run from the burdens that they can’t really leave behind, but they will try.
The world’s answer is to often seek help by means of substances or drugs, or maybe a new relationship—you know if this one is not working out maybe a new one will…..
Can you imagine for a moment a person trying so hard to run away from a burden in his life using whatever he think will help him. You and I know this will never work.
What burden are you trying to run away from; how are you trying to accomplish this?
Can anyone here tonight understand what the Lord is trying to tell us? There is a better way.
God solution, on the other hand, is simply “Come” Christ is the one stop place for burdens.
He and He alone is able to deal with your affliction, but first you must admit you have the problem.
I think that, that is the reason that altars in church are so important. It is a place where you will knee-down surrender yourself to the Lord and admit you need help and that there is no one that can help you but him. Yes, Pastor can help you pray but it is the lord who will respond to your plead with a yes or no.
One thing you must know tonight, and that is that true humility, involves more than opening up to the Lord;
He may at times want you to share your burdens with someone.
Why would he do this? I believe because first of all because He has send to you help to carry the burden. But many time the barrier to God’s help is that we are too proud.
Is God talking to someone tonight?
2 step
SUBMIT—yield, surrender
After talking about our being heavy-laden, Jesus says,
“Take my yoke upon you,” can you imagine what the people that were listening to him thought: “Wait a minute!
Listen he is talking to a people who feel burden under weight of life’s care’s and now he is saying to take a yoke upon us?”
The “yoke” this piece of equipment described here was a wood log shaped to harness two oxen and keep them together so that they shared the load being carried.
In the scripture, a yoke also implied slavery or an obligation.
But Jesus is not speaking of adding to our burden. Instead, He is telling us to submit (yield or surrender) to His will; then, when we get in the yoke with Him, we can walk together and pull together. In fact, when we submit to Christ, our load will lighten because our Omnipotent (the one that has unlimited authority) Lord will bear the weight of it.
We cannot do it by ourselves; we will know when you taken the burden to carry by yourselves, you will feel the sickness more and that in itself will make you feel weak, and not in a very good mood-I believe that is when the devil can do a work in your life.
How will I know when I have taken the load on all by myself?
Are you tired, worried, weak, not happy, discouraged, depress, even angry, feeling helpless, feeling loss, you know your own feeling.
What has happen is that you are trying to carry the burden all by yourself and you don’t have too.
God is there to help you and all you have to do is “Come.”
However, we cannot simply cast our cares upon the Lord and walk away, free of the burden, that is not how it works. We must also SUBMIT- (yield, surrender) to His will.
After all what are problems?
They are not problems that can be surgically eliminated from our life; rather, they are the way we think and the feelings that weigh us down.
The only way the Lord will lift your burdens is by getting under the load with you-Awesome!
Then, when you SUBMIT (yield, surrender) yourself to him, He will begin to CONTROL you!
The weight of your problem will eventually disappear because you will start responding to your situation in a totally different way.
If you want Him to take your burdens, He must have all of you, not simply the problem you want remove.
As you allow Christ to CONTROL you, He will, in fact, be dealing with your burden.
3 Step
Learn of Him
Jesus tells us that He wants us to walk in together with Him under His yoke of love.
We can move in step with the Lord only as we learn about who He is, this has to come first before we will be able to obey Him.
It would be a terrible contradiction to think that we could unload our heartaches and problems on God and then proceed to live any sinful way we want.
The reason we keep living under the weight of burdens is that we are not submissive to Him.
If a Christian sins against the Lord, the Holy Spirit will convict that person of wrongdoing.
All of a sudden that person will have no peace, no joy, and no fellowship with the Heavenly Father.
It becomes painfully obvious that something is wrong as the child of God feels a burden of conviction.
In order to be released from the weight of that load, the believer may need to make a specific decision to end a behavior that he or she would prefer to continue.
Step 4
TRUST
While God does not say he will remove the burden and this is very important for you to know because many times when the Lord doesn’t remove the problem we tend to get discourage and that lead us into a very dangerous path.
Matthew 11:29
"Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.
The last part of this verse promises that He will give us rest for our souls.
Many of us here tonight are lugging around a load to heavy for us to carry.
It like going hiking on a mountain with 100 lbs on your back.
What will happen is that you will become fatigued and discouraged and we can easily start to despair.
Or caring father offers relief so that we will no longer be worn and weary.
As you trust God and begin to act on His most generous offer, you place yourself in a position to receive His promised blessings.
Trusting God with our burdens does not mean we will never give another thought to the situation.
Rather, we will start thinking about it in a new light, the light of the person of Jesus Christ, who is the one who will satisfy our needs; he is the light of the promise of God, who has pledged not to let the righteous be shaken.
Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.
The light of His power, which allows you to tackle the challenge and keep going.
Trusting God lessons our load.
Jesus Christ is offering you another way.
Remember that His yoke is light.
It will not bend you, nor break you, or destroy you.
On the contrary, submission to the Lord will actually lift you up.
Let the Lord take the weight of the burden you were never meant to carry yourself.
In exchange, he will give you to the Holy Spirit’s power to enable you to face any of life’s challenges.
Let’s really see a change in our lives from now on.
I have given you some tools for you to work with, now let’s do it in Jesus Name
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