Cast It Off
Scriptures: Psalm 55:22; Matthew 11:28-30
Introduction
When I was growing up, there were times when my father and I would play catch. Sometimes He would throw the ball hard and if I caught it wrong it would really sting in my hand. Now when the ball was in my hand, I would try throwing it different ways. Sometimes I would try and put a spin on the ball or just try and throw it as hard as my dad was throwing to me. When my father had the ball, all I could do was wait and see how he would throw it before I knew what my response (and my ability to catch it) would be. I want you to keep this mental picture in mind as we walk through the message this morning.
I. Accepting The Burdens
When my father had the ball, he was in full control of the ball. Only he could decide how he would throw it. There was nothing I could do, beyond crying out and asking him to throw it softer, that would impact what he decided to do. This is similar to what happens with us when problems arise. All of us if we continue to live, will one day have a problem (a burden). It may come out of no where. You did not plan for it, you did not seek it (actually sometimes we do seek burdens but that is a sermon for another time) and sometimes you have no idea that it is even developing. All of a sudden, like my father throwing the ball to me, we see it coming, often very fast and aimed straight at us.
When my father would throw the ball to me, based on how hard he threw it, I had several choices that I had to make almost instantly. I could try and catch the ball right and it hit perfectly in the pocket of the glove; I could duck and miss the ball altogether possibly losing the ball or I could try and catch the ball regardless of if it hit the pocket or not. This is similar to how we “accept” our problems, or the problems of others. Lets look at each one.
• Catch the ball right. In the natural, if I catch the ball right it would hit directly into the pocket with no immediate pain to my hand. All is well right? Not really for now that I have the ball, I must do something with it. When problems arise, sometimes they may seem small and it appears that we have “caught it” just right so there is no pain. However, just like the ball, the problem is still there and you must do something with it. What do you do?
• Duck and miss the ball. If I chose to not even try and catch the ball by ducking out of the way, there would be no pain to my hand if I caught it wrong. However, there could be other repercussions if I lost my father’s ball because I refused to catch it. Either way, I would be dealing with something. When we are dealing with our problems, unlike with the ball, we cannot duck and see if the problem misses us. Most of our problems are targeted towards us like a heat-seeking missile. We cannot dodge them, hide from them or stick our heads in the sand thinking they will miss us altogether. When your problems do not miss you, what do you do?
• Catch the ball – hoping it is caught right. This is the situation where I found myself often. I did not want to disappoint my father by ducking from the ball so I would catch that ball even if I caught it wrong causing my hand to sting. I held out hope that it would fall neatly into the pocket of the glove, but there were many times when this did not happen. The same happens with the problems we face. We hope that when they arise that we are steadfast and ready to handle them, because they hit neatly in the pocket of the glove. But there are many times when this does not happen and the problems are not caught neatly and they do hurt. As with the ball, regardless of how well you caught it, now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?
As with that ball being thrown to me by my father, problems will continue to come our way. Whether you catch them neatly in your glove or you try and duck from them, the problems will come and they must be dealt with. The question remains, what do we do once we have the ball? When you are playing catch, if you keep the ball the game is over. The whole purpose of the game is to throw the ball back and forth between the individuals. In life, when we are dealing with problems, there are times when we do past them back and forth, but there always come a time when we must deal with them. This brings us to me in my analogy of playing catch with my father. My father has thrown the ball and now I am in possession of the ball. Remember, when my father had the ball he was in control. He could do with it as he pleased. That responsibility has now been shifted to me for I am in control of the ball. It was in my possession and I had to decide what to do.
II. Casting The Burdens
I could call the game and tell my father I was tired or I could throw the ball back. If I chose to throw the ball back, I could decide to throw a curve ball, straight ball, fast or slow ball. Everything was basically up to me until I released the ball. This is what each of us face when we are dealing with problems (burdens). While the burdens remain in our care, we are responsible for them. It is up to us to decide what to do with them. There are some problems that we can fix easily, but there are others that we really carry around sometimes for a lifetime before we release them, if we release them at all.
So I had to decide what to do with the ball that was in my possession. Of course in the game of catch with my father I would throw the ball back to him and we would do this until we both grew tired. In life, we do not often find ourselves being able to throw the problem back to the source. We must deal with it. So what do we do? Psalm 55:22 tells us what we should do. Look at what it says:
Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” NAS
Another translation says “Commit your problems to the Lord and He will uphold you…” Regardless of how you read this, the thought is the same – we are to cast our burdens, our problems, our hurts, our frustrations, anything hindering us “to” the Lord. It is our responsibility to do something with our burdens. We can keep them or we can hand them off to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This would be the equivalent of having a third person in my game of catch with my father. My father would throw the ball to me and I would in turn throw it to the third person, not back at my father. What happens now is that the responsibility of the ball shifts from me to that third person. This is what the Scripture is telling us to do – shift the responsibility. Jesus is able to handle all of our cares, but He cannot force us to turn them over to Him. David said in this scripture that we should throw our burdens upon the Lord and He will uphold or sustain us. What this means is that once we release the problems, Jesus takes over and not only does He handle the problem, He takes care of us also. Finally David says that the Lord will never “allow the righteous to be shaken”. In other words we are set. Because Jesus is more than able to handle all of our problems, when they come upon us, we are not shaken – but we must choose.
When we cast our burdens to Jesus, they do not magically disappear – they still must be dealt with. What changes is the amount of energy we put into worrying over the problem. We can stop playing the scenarios about “what if” and just know that whatever happens we will be okay. I went through something this week where I really had to turn it over. Have you ever had something happen that angered you to the point that you lost sleep? I had that experience this week. But during the time I was not sleeping, I was praying and through the prayers I was able to start the process of casting it to Jesus. Did the situation disappear, no it did not, but my responses changed. To cast our burdens on the Lord is to allow Him to help us with the situation – we are not standing or fighting alone.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Jesus said that all that are weary and heavy-laden should come to Him and He will give us rest. How could He give us rest? By taking the burdens that we are carrying from us and carrying them Himself. He is asking us to make a trade with Him. He will take our burdens and we will take His yoke for His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If you think about this as a picture, a yoke was like a harness placed over animals that worked in plowing or hauling. The yoke allowed them to pull the plow or wagon. The heavier the load the animal was hauling, the heavier the yoke would become. What Jesus was saying is that His yoke is easy because His burdens are light. This could be compared to an ox pulling an empty wagon -–with nothing in the wagon, the burden is light. Jesus said He has plenty of room to take on our burdens. He would trade ours for His.
What was His yoke? Learning and entering service which produces rest. Let me explain it this way. When you start a new job, you work extremely hard to learn the proper way in which to do the job. Once you learn the proper way, you get into the groove of the job. Where before everything was new to you and you were spending a lot of time learning the job, now that you know and understand the job, you accomplish the job fully in less time. You get the job done but it does not take as long because you know what you are doing. Where you were once stressed starting out, you now have peace because you know what you are doing.
Jesus wants us to learn of Him, enter His service and receive rest. How will we receive rest? Because we learn a new way to operate. If you have ever carried around a burden, you know that it zaps your energy. It seems like you can’t concentrate on anything else until the burden is removed. You do not sleep well even though you are tired which adds more weight to the burden. It becomes a continuous cycle.
When we begin to learn of Christ and His ways, we begin to turn our burdens over to Him, knowing that He will take care of them and us. When we truly accomplish this, rest will come because we are not concentrating on the burdens because someone else is handling them. We experience something similar on our jobs. We have several things we are working on when someone offers to take something off our plate. We give it to the person because we know they are able to handle the job assignment. We now breathe a little easier knowing that there is one less thing we have to be concerned about. We spend no time thinking about it anymore.
When we take our burdens to the Lord, we leave them there – we cease to worry about them. Although the problem still exists, we turn it over. When we turn it over to Christ, we await directions as to how we should proceed in dealing with it. We do not have to figure it out, just wait on guidance from above.
Conclusion
Do you have the ball? Are you wondering what to do with it? Do not throw it back to the one whom threw it to you; throw it to the third person, Jesus. May God bless and keep you.
