One of the great contrasts between Christianity & other religions is that in Christianity God is the great burden carrier for His followers - where in other religions it is the followers who seem to carry the burden of their gods.
The prophet Isaiah brings this out in the 46th chapter of his book. He writes, “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary. They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity” (46:1-2 NIV).
Bel was the Babylonian form of Baal & Nebo was the god of learning. But here’s the point – these people believed these false gods were real. They believed in them & had given their lives in service to them, but these gods could not deliver & protect their followers from being conquered by Cyrus or even protect the idols that were made to represent them. And so here are these people who have believed & followed these gods, & yet they are having to carry them as they succumb to slavery. They have become a burden, literally a heavy burden as they have to carry or haul them around with them. The people had to work for them; they had to work to carry them off into captivity so they could still worship them.
It is just the opposite with Christianity’s God. He is the 1 who constantly bears & carries us. And because this is true about our God, it helps us understand some of the things that happen to us in this life. For you see 1 of the reasons why God, who is sovereign over everything, including everything that touches you & your life & your families’ life – 1 of the reasons this sovereign God allows difficult things to invade your life is in order to prove His total faithfulness in being that great burden carrier/bearer for you. If you never had any burdens, if everything always went smoothly for you because you were a child of the King then you would never know God as the great burden carrier, would you? And so it is not out of a lack of love or out of a lack of power that God allows these things to touch your lives but it is so you can come to know & experience Him in deeper & fuller ways as you experience Him as your great burden carrier.
And this is not a lesson you learn 1 time through 1 experience & then you pass the exam & never have to learn & experience it again. No, you have to come back to it again & again & again. At least that has been my experience. And as you do, you discover to your wonder & joy that He is a faithful burden carrier, a versatile burden carrier for no burden is too extreme or too unique for Him to carry. And He is a constant burden carrier. I take that from a verse in the Psalms that I am so grateful for, 1 that I have relied on many times & have shared it on many occasions w/ ones facing a burden. It is Psalm 68:19 NASB – “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden.” Aren’t you glad for that? Are you glad that He bear you & your burdens instead of, like in Isaiah 46, you having to bear Him?
Now as we think about this theme – God, our great burden carrier, let me share with you 5 ways God does this – 5 ways He is our great burden carrier.
1. God Has Carried Our Sins!
The greatest burden we have is our sin & the reason why it is our greatest burden is 2-fold:
1. Because sin ruins our life & those we love.
2. Because it condemns us to eternal damnation.
Sin ruins lives. It destroys marriages. It breaks up families. It abuses children. It enslaves individuals. It wastes a person’s potential. It would be horrible enough if it only affected the person choosing to sin but like an epidemic – it spreads out & affects a host of others, even future generations. It is our greatest burden because it ruins lives.
It is also our greatest burden because it condemns us to eternal damnation. There is a holy God who will not allow sin in His presence. There will be a judgment as the Bible declares in Hebrews 9:27 – “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Ecclesiastes 12:14 takes it even further – “For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.” So there will be a judgment. And there is a literal hell where every single person will be sentence too if they do not have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ that evidences itself in a transformed life. I know this is not a popular message in our day, but it is the truth.
But the Good News is that our greatest burden has been dealt with by God, our great burden carrier.
We see this is numerous places throughout Scripture:
? Isaiah 53:4-6, 11 – Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, but He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him… 11As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.
Note in v.5 the contrast in the pronouns, He/Him/He and our/our/we. This prophetic verse of Jesus’ death on the cross leaves no doubt as to the substitutionary nature of His sacrifice so we can have a relationship w/ God. By His wounds we are redeemed; by His wounds we are restored into fellowship w/ our Maker. By Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, by his death on the cross for our sins we can receive forgiveness & be brought before God complete, perfect, righteous & forgiven.
? Hebrews 9:28 – Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many…
? 1 Peter 2:24 – and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wound you were healed.
Jesus assumed the responsibility of our sins. Jesus bore our iniquities in His body on that cross. Jesus did this so that we can be freed from sin & live for righteousness. Jesus suffered & died & by those fatal wounds we have healing from a sinful nature & have been made alive in Christ.
So the greatest burden the great burden Carrier bore for us was the burden of our sin which carried w/ it the judgment of God & eternal damnation. We are the ones who have sinned, & we are the ones who deserve to die. Yet it was Jesus Christ who had no sin, Jesus Christ who was spotless, w/o defect of any kind who died in our place. It is because of this substitutionary atonement that we can have a personal relationship with God.
And keep in mind He bore this burden w/o us even asking Him too. He bore it by His own initiative even though it cost Him dearly. But He did it anyway!
Wayne Grudem states in his Systematic Theology book – “When we appreciate that ‘…God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment’ (2 Peter 2:4), then we realize that God could have also chosen to save no one, just as he did with the sinful angels.”
God did not have to send Jesus. He would have been perfectly, perfectly just in judging us. Yet, He said, “Yes, I will save them” & therefore sent Jesus to die in our place & now today you have the offer of salvation before you.
And so in light of this, to use 1 of Paul’s expressions found in Romans, if He bore this greatest burden how much more can we count on Him to carry all our lesser burdens?
So God is our great burden carrier & we see that #1 in that God has carried our sins.
2. God Pledges to Carry Our Anxieties!
? 1 Peter 5:7 – “Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.”
? LB – “Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.”
The only other place this word “casting” is used is in the Gospel of Luke where the disciples threw or cast their coats on the colt for Jesus to ride on during His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. So the word literally means “to throw upon” or “place upon.” So we are instructed to literally take our anxieties & cares & throw them upon or place them upon the Lord.
Albert Barnes – “If we suffer heavy trials; if we lose our friends, health, or property; if we have arduous and responsible duties to perform; if we feel that we have no strength, and are in danger of being crushed by what is laid upon us, we may go and cast all upon the Lord; that, we may look to Him for grace and strength, and feel assured that He will enable us to sustain all that is laid upon us. The relief in the case will be as real, and as full of consolation, as if He took the burden and bore it Himself. He will enable us to bear with ease what we supposed we could never have done.”
What worries does God aim to take from our backs & carry for us? Every kind! All of them!
When George Muller was asked how he could be so calm in the middle of a hectic day w/ so many uncertainties in the orphanage, he answered something like, “I rolled 60 things onto the Lord this morning in prayer.” When Hudson Taylor was told about the missionaries in his charge being in trouble, he was heard soon afterward whistling his favorite hymn, “Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting in the Joy of What Thou Art.”
The reason why we can do this with confidence is because He cares for us. If He cares for a single sparrow when it falls to the ground – a sparrow who has no eternal spirit; a sparrow whom He did not die for – what does that imply about His care & concern for you.
Sometimes when in the midst of anxious situations, we simply need to stop & state the truth to ourselves. If He cares for the birds of the air & the grass of the field, are you not worth much more than these? He is only their Creator, but He is your Father & Savior.
As our great burden carrier, He will carry our anxieties, but you must cast them, place them upon Him.
3. God Pledges to Carry Our Burdens!
? Psalm 55:22 – Cast your burdens on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be shakened.”
The word for “burden” here is “lot” or “that which is given”. What is your lot in life today? What has providence brought you? In the end, this is of the Lord. And He will carry it for you. It is not meant to crush you or carry you away. It is meant to test your trust & dependence on God to carry it for you.
For Amy Carmichael the “lot” was singleness. There were several chances to marry, but each time she heard the inner voice of the Lord saying, “No.” She handed this over to the Lord & He carried it for her & made her tremendously fruitful & full of joy. The impact she made for the kingdom of God was tremendous. The souls which were rescued & brought to Christ through her ministry continues to go on. Her reward in Heaven far, far outweighs any “lost” she may have endured through singleness.
What is your lot in life or your lot for right now? What are you going to do about it? You have a great burden carrier who wants you to give it to Him & allow Him to carry it & to sustain you, even sustain you w/ joy. What are you doing to do w/ it?
4. God Pledges to Carry the Cause of Justice for Us!
? 1 Peter 2:23 – …and while being reviled, He [Jesus] did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.
You will experience injustice many, many times throughout your life whether it is in business or on your job or in a relationship or friendship or in some legal procedure or in a host of other ways. It is going to happen.
I get so weary of hearing, “It’s not fair!” Of course, it’s not fair. We live in a fallen, sinful world full of sinners. Life’s not going to be fair.
It wasn’t fair to Jesus, who was the only perfect person to ever live. If it wasn’t fair to him, how can you expect it to always be fair for you? Injustice happens. I don’t like it, but don’t be surprised when it comes.
The question is: what are you going to do about it? Are you going to complain & bemoan it? Are you going to become resentful & bitter & angry? What are you going to do or better yet what should you do?
Answer: you follow the example of Jesus when he faced unjust situations, w/ the cross being the biggest injustice in history.
And what did Jesus do? He kept entrusting himself & his situation into the Father’s hands.
? Entrusting – “to hand over for someone to keep.”
Jesus handled the wrongs done to Him by repeatedly handing them over to the Father to keep & deal with. He kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. And He will deal w/ it – either now or in the live to come. And just so you know - nothing escapes His notice. God misses nothing.
Romans 12:19 says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord.” God will manage our cause. Leave it to Him. Prepare to be treated unjustly, whether it is someone breaking in front of you in line or bearing false witness against or whatever. But entrust it to Him & allow Him to carry out His justice in His way in His time. He wants to carry the cause of justice for you instead of you working so hard by yourself to see that it is carried out.
5. God Pledges to Carry You – All Your Life!
This brings us back to the passage we started with. Before we read vv.1-2; let’s now read vv.3-4…
? Isaiah 46:3-4 - Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, you who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you.
Please take notice of the personal pronoun “I” & how many times it is used. 6 times He says, “I” to emphasize His personal involvement in their lives.
He will carry you all your life – from birth to death. The Christian life, if understood & lived properly, is a life of being carried from beginning to end. And I’m sure I could go around to all of you 80 & above & that would be your testimony. I know it is for my parents who turn 85 this year. He is the great burden carrier all through your life, to that moment when you take your last breath & even then He is the One who carries you, carries you His home & into His joy.
So in conclusion: come to Him, all who labor & are heavy laden, & He will give us rest. He will carry us through for He is the great burden carrier.
1. God Has Carried Our Sins!
2. God Pledges to Carry Our Anxieties!
3. God Pledges to Carry Our Burdens!
4. God Pledges to Carry the Cause of Justice for Us!
5. God Pledges to Carry You – All Your Life!
“Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burdens.”
Cares Chorus
I cast all my cares upon You,
I lay all of my burdens down at Your feet.
And anytime that I don’t know what to do,
I will cast all my cares upon You.
