Leave Your Burdens At The Cross

Leave our Burdens at the Cross

How is everyone tonight? Kumusta? Pinagpala ba kayo? (Are you blessed) Sorry saanak makasao ti Ilokano (I don¡¯t speak Ilokano). Most Christians always respond the same way. For many Christians it is so easy to say yes, I am blessed. We come to church Sunday morning and we raise our hands and praise and worship our Lord and our hearts are so full of joy. And then as soon as they leave the church, we go back to our lives. When we arrive at church we leave at burdens at the door but when we leave, we pick them up again. We leave all the joy, all the happiness at church. Why is that? We are Christians, we are saved, we have Salvation, we are God's children. But so many of we do not correctly deal with our burdens. We take our burdens with us, we carry them we hold on to them. But that is not what Christ wants for us. He wants to give us rest from our burdens. The problem is as soon as we leave the church we pick up our burdens and start to carry them again. But Christ is willing to carry all of our burdens for us, yet so many find it hard to give them to him. When I was praying about this message I took a break and got on FB. It was there I noticed so many Christians are carrying our burdens during the week and are posting their burdens on FB and not taking them to the cross.

Matthew 11:28

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentile and humble at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.¡

There are just two words from this passage I would like to focus on today.

Burden and rest.

Actually the original text states all [ye] who labor and who are heavy laden. The Greek word used for heavy laden is - phortizo

for-tid'-zo which literally means to load up, like they would load cargo on a ship or would load up goods on a donkey. So in the first part of this text, our Lord is addressing how he knows we 'load up' burdens upon ourselves. So what burdens do we 'load up on'? Although there are many things we load upon ourselves in our spiritual life, I would like to share just four of them with you tonight.

Worry. We worry about money, we worry about our jobs, we worry about our loved ones, we worry about relationships, we worry about our health. Sometimes we even worry about worrying. Do any of you do that? Our Lord told us not to worry, but for many of us, that is a hard command to follow. In my ministry many have told me that Jesus just does not understand how hard life is. He does not understand their problems...Things are so different now. He is God and I'm just me. Some of us try to tell the one that created us that He just doesn't understand... ? God became flesh for a reason. God himself knows exactly what it is like to be human. God knows all the problems we face because he to faced them. And what happened? The Apostle John quoted Jesus specifically to address this John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.¡± The biggest problem with worry. I guarantee you if you are worrying, you are not praying. Satan loves us to worry because he knows it is nothing more than not truly trusting God. He knows that if we continue to worry about our lives, it further divides us from God. Instead, we are carrying them ourselves. And when we worry, we are not truly leaving our burdens at the cross and this creates doubt.

Doubt is another burden that he is willing to take from us and yet we hold on to it. Sometimes we listen to the world (Which is controlled by Satan for now) instead of listening to God. We believe our doubts and doubt our beliefs. When we have doubts we not only doubt ourselves, but we are also doubting God's promises and His word. Doubt can effect anyone. Remember Peter? Peter himself had heard the voice of God. Can you imagine actually hearing God's voice? Peter suffered from doubt at least 2 times in the bible. *****We all know the story of Peter wanting to get out of the boat and meet Jesus who was walking on the water. Matthew 14:22-33 When he first stepped out of the boat he had faith. Then he started to think, then came the doubt. How can I do this, I am human, this is not possible. And when He started to doubt, like many of us, he started to sink. But then he did a very wise thing that we all should take example from. He reached out to Jesus. When we cry out to Jesus, he catches us by the hand and raises us above the seemingly impossible surroundings. That is EXACTLY what we should do every time we suffer with doubt.