Northside Church - Sydney
Dear God, If Only – Week 3: …my BURDENS were lighter
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Friends, I wonder what it was that caused Jesus to speak so passionately, so intentionally about stress and worry in his teaching, because he does. What did he know? What had he seen? As he moved among the people of his day, we know, we read about, he had compassion for the masses. He saw them as kind of lost and pressured and fatigued. It caused him to speak very forcefully about the dangers of stress and worry, the emotional and spiritual impact that stress and worry can have. We know that, well, he saw this, as I say, the lostness of the crowd. He would have been aware of some of the pressures people were under. He would have known that the occupying Roman forces brought their own brand of pressure and anxiety as they enforced the law very, very severely. Many of the people of Jesus' day, of course, were involved in agricultural pursuits, depending on the weather and the weather in those days would have been as fickle as it is today, and that brings a certain level of anxiety if your livelihoods depended on it. Of course, there was the worry and fear associated with the religion of the day, the ancient Jewish religion with its complex rules and regulations about worship, about sacrifice. Even the most penitent believer was left wondering, "Am I okay? How am I doing? All that's required of me." I mean, Jesus actually drops onto this in Luke chapter 11, verse 46. Remember this, Jesus said, "Have terrible for you teachers of the law. You put loads on people's backs." There it is, which are hard to carry, but you yourselves will not lift a finger to help them carry those loads, a reference to the hypocrisy of the leaders, but also a clear reference to the loads that were being imposed on the people in that area of religion. Realistic, complex, and for the most part, unattainable requirements to ensure conformity to the laws of God. Well, look, whatever it was that motivated Jesus to say so much about stress and worry, we are aware of the fact that in that first century community, he spoke with great conviction, with great persuasion on the topic, and much of it is here in Matthew chapter 6. What he says, "Do not be worried," that's verse 25, "why worry," that's verse 28. And then a really tough command to obey, verse 31, "Do not start worrying," has that grab you? This is Jesus, "do not start worrying." We might say, "Well, of course, it's okay for you, Jesus, they gave you the Son of God, you had amazing powers of discernment, you could foresee the future, it's okay for you to talk like that, but you know, we are mere mortals, we have struggles, we have hardships that seem to hit us with monotonous regularity, so is it any wonder we get stressed out?" We know what such a response may not move, Jesus. Really, I'm not sure if he'd be interested in that kind of whining because you see, in the context of this Matthew 6 passage, he has a few more things to say. You see, according to Jesus, worry is irreverent, how does that grab you? Because it presumes that God can't be trusted to meet our needs. He says in verse 26 of Matthew chapter 6, listen to this, "Look at the birds, they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest, put it into barns, yet your father in heaven takes care of them, aren't you worth more than many birds?" He's actually making reference to the irreverence of worry. Don't have your thought about that way. Also according to Jesus, worry is irrelevant because no matter worry can change a situation. Verse 27, "Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?" The answer is, of course, no, and when you consider the overall thrust of Jesus teaching in this passage, he's saying, worry is irresponsible because it robs us of the physical and emotional strength to get through each day. Verse 34, there it is, look at it. He says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings." It's pretty tough, isn't it, it's pretty harsh, it's pretty in your face. Well, that's Jesus, he had very strong views on this. It raises the question, why was he so forthright in his teaching about worry? Why did he labor the point so much? Of course, we have no way of knowing the exact answer to that, of course not. But we can have an informed guess, and my personal belief is this, why was Jesus so insistent in his teaching about worry and stress? Here's my personal belief, I believe he knew that we, of all the areas of the Christian life, this is an area where we in his strength can make a very significant difference in terms of how we cope. We can't do anything about our salvation, nothing at all, Bible makes that clear. We can't do anything about some miracle that may occur in our life, that's a miracle that comes from him. It's really about that, but we can do something about this area of our lives. This is one area where we can really partner with God through the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we, you and I, we have the ability to lighten our burden of worry and stress by following certain principles espoused by Jesus and by doing certain things. Let me elaborate on some of these. The lightening our burdens, first of all, means choosing. Lightening our burdens means choosing. We can lighten the weight of stress and worry by choosing not to put certain things into that imaginary bag of worry that we all carry. We can choose not to put certain things in and we can choose to take certain things out. That's the power of choice we have, only got time for two of them this morning. First one is this, the past, no prizes for guessing. The past. How many people continue to worry about things that have happened in the past, allowing themselves to become anxious and uptight? One thing of things might have been different if certain people had acted in different ways. If people had treated them in another way, torturing themselves, is this you this morning? Torturing themselves over the way certain past events worked out and desperately trying to believe that in some way they, they might have been, it could have been different. And friends across nothing can change the past, nothing can change the past. All we can change is our attitude to the past, we can do that. We can erase the memories but we can't, we can't erase the memories rather. We can't erase the memories but we can minimise the malaise, in other words we can reduce the, the feelings of regret and pain. Well the Apostle Paul had many events. He had many events in his past that, that really could have hoarded him and caused him great distress. I mean his relentless persecution of the Christian church, the big one, you know, dragging people off the prison. How would you feel as the follower of Jesus with that on your conscience? And even it's pretty easy to conclude he was involved in taking people's lives. I mean, wow, that had really haunt you. But what's he saying, Philippians 3, 13, one thing I do is to forget what is behind me. And I do my best to reach what is ahead. Friends, there's no arrogance here, this is not the Apostle Paul being arrogant. He's not being casually dismissive of the past, oh well that was my other life, sorry. No, no, no, I mean, there's, there's deep regret here but, but he's highlighting that it's a conscious decision, it's a choice to move forward despite the past. We have that power. You hear a follow of Jesus? We have that power through the Holy Spirit. We can activate that power. Second area where we have the ability to choose is in those things, those areas, those things over which we have no control, no prizes for guessing that one either. In my own case, if I can't change it, if I can't influence it, if I can't stop it, I refuse to worry about it. Again, this is not arrogance. And it's certainly not some kind of naive head in the sand approach to life. I don't think. It's just a conscious realization that it's futile to worry about things that are beyond our control. Some of you have heard me talk about, talk before about my days as a parent of teenagers. You have done the teenage thing, you know, two teenagers. And all my life apart from the opening years when I was in commercial life, for the rest of my life I've had to work on Sundays. Early starts, late finishes. You've got to be physically fit for Sunday as a preacher, as a minister. And so I couldn't afford to be lying awake on a Saturday night, wondering about my kids. So I used to say to Bev, look, we've got a phone next to the bed. While everywhere in earshot of the front door, we can sleep peacefully. We live in a modern, sophisticated city. The kids carry identification. If something happens, we will get to know about it. I refuse to sort of lie awake, wondering what they're doing, where they are. I mean, short of putting one of those little anklet things on them, or getting them to ring in every half hour, which I did think of that actually. But I mean, once you're given the talk to the boyfriend, what else can you do? You know, I mean, you, dads, you want to know about the talk to the boyfriend? You come and talk to me, I'll give you that one. I mean, so, and that's in contrast to my mother. My mother, when we kids are growing up, you know, she, her lying awake and her being wide awake was commensurate with the time you got home. The later you got home, the more wide awake she was. Where have you been? What's going on? You know what time it is, yeah. I couldn't afford that, friends. So I, you know, it's just a, you've just got to trust. And you've got to believe that if something goes wrong, you'll find out about that. It won't take long. In more recent times, I think it must have been in the last 12 months, Bev and I arrived at the Gold Coast Airport on a Sunday morning, flying back after a family wedding, I think it was. And the crowds seemed a little heavier than usual, and we were told, oh, we've got some problems with our computers, and there's going to be a bit of a delay. Well, there was a delay, all right. That was the day that the Virgin, the day of the Virgin computer crash, sorry, of one of the Virgin computer crashes, I think it had several, but that was the big one, 10 hours from the Gold Coast Airport to the front door of our home in North Ride. And I watched that day unfold as we sat in the terminal there at the Gold Coast, and I saw the different ways in which people handle that sort of scenario. A lot of people are getting very stressed, very worked up, pushing in the lines, going up to the counter, demanding like, what do you know, what do you want to do, you know? So we just casually, you know, just go advise the team, look, I'm not going to make it back tonight, somebody else had to do my little bit, fortunately I wasn't preaching. That's a beauty of iPhones, I guess you can do a lot of work, make a lot of calls, have a few coffees, have a little, I'm not uninhibited about sleeping in a terminal. Looks terrible, but I don't care. Nobody I knew was around as far as I could see, except Beth, who'd moved quite a way away, a long way away, but you know, like, what can you do? You can pound the counter, you can say, I demand that, like, you just got to go with the inevitable, because you can't control it. There is nothing you can do about that situation, so why give it the energy of stress? We've got to move on, here's something else, lightning in the burdens means resisting. Friends, it means resisting the temptation to worry about things that haven't happened yet. It's resisting the temptation to worry about things that haven't happened yet and probably won't. Jesus makes a direct reference to this point in verse 34, have a listen to it, here it is. We mentioned it a moment ago. Do not worry about tomorrow, it will have enough worries of its own, there is no need to add to the trouble each day brings. And people question the relevance of the Bible in the 21st century, gosh, that's psychology 101 when it comes to stress management, you know, keep the focus on today right here, right now. And the problem is we all have vivid imaginations or most of us, and you combine that with a propensity to contemplate worst case scenarios, and all of a sudden we find ourselves being convinced about the negative outcome of that interview, or of that meeting, or of that event, or of that conversation, whereas the preferred action is to channel that energy into preparation and planning to minimize any chance of things going wrong, just to re-channel the energy and really rather than worry, I don't think this is going to go so well, get into, you know, preparing so it won't go badly, get out of it. Well, there's so much more we could say about that, but we must move on. Lightning means disclosing. You know, friends, we do ourselves and those close to us, a great disservice, a great disservice when we refuse to talk about the things that are causing us to be stressed and worried. For me, I've proved this so many times in my life. For me, there are very few blessings in life greater than being part of a church that takes seriously the teachings of Jesus expressed by Paul in Galatians 6, verse 2. Don't need to remind you of that, Galatians 6, verse 2, help carry one another's burdens. And in this way, you will obey the law of Christ, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Being in a church, being in a connection group, as we heard from the fielders, having close trusted friends, not sharing your problems with everybody, but having close trusted friends who can share with you spirit to spirit, it's an amazing and transforming way of lightening the load. You proved that so many of you with the relationships you have in this church and a good church will do that for you. I'm not suggesting that church has the sort of the edge on empathy and compassion, not suggesting that for one moment, but I do know that I mix in circles where if you answer the question, "How are you doing?" in any other way, other than, "Fine, fantastic." You won't always get the hearing you need. As soon as you start to say, "You know what, have you got a little while?" I'm really struggling. You know what? I love to, but I'm just, "Whoa, I'll catch you next time." I mean, a lot of people don't have the confidence or the capacity or the inclination to talk at that level. In the church of Jesus Christ where we are getting input into his compassion, his understanding, his listening here, there's a greater chance that more and more people are going to be the kind of people who say, "You know what, I'll be pleased to talk with you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share your burden. Let's see if we can work on this together. We'll pray about it together." Wow, that's fair when another's burdens. It's about disclosing. Lightening the load means seeking. Friends of pivotal verse in Matthew 6 is verse 33. This is the verse that provides the key to stress management from a Christian perspective. And there were some Jesus Christ himself. Look at what he says, verse 33, "Seek first the kingdom of God." The good news Bible says, "Be concerned about everything else with the kingdom of God and what he requires of you." Now that's the sort of faith orientation. That's the sort of commitment and devotion that enabled David to write, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." It enabled the writer of the Hebrews to say, "Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end." It enabled Paul to write, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." That's the faith perspective. That's the key. First, get in touch with God, get that relationship right and see the difference that it makes. Well, here's the final point, lead so naturally from the last one. Lightening the load means relaxing. Relaxing in the joy and the freedom of a close and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. It means relaxing and to emphasize this point, we need to turn to another of Jesus' sayings away from this passage. This one is found in Luke chapter, Matthew, the Matthew chapter 11, Matthew chapter 11 and verses 28 to 30. You know this so well, but you can't have a message on stress without reading these words from Jesus. Come to me, all you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Get my yoke and put it on you and learn from me because I'm gentle and humble in spirit and you will find rest for the yoke I will give you is easy and the load I will put on you is light. The yoke I will put on you is easy and the load I'll give you is light. Friends, I've got a question and it's a serious question this morning. As a Christian, how many of your loads over the years have been light loads? How many of your loads would you say are piece of cake? Whatever. Got through that okay. How many of those would you, I mean, what's Jesus getting out here? I mean, the fact is that you and I, depending on how far you've journeyed in life, have had some incredibly heavy loads of grief and loss and pain and disappointment and turbulence. What's Jesus getting at? What does he infer that his burdens are light? Is this a con? The answer of course, if you know anything about agriculture, which I don't know much, but I know enough to know that the answer lies in the ease and the comfort with which the yoke, that neck collar arrangement, is put on the animal that's doing the pulling. I mean, any type of yoke can carry a light load. It does be a farmer to know that. Any type of yoke can carry a light load. I mean, it may be a poor fit. It may have all kinds of blemishes, might have the zine faults, but it doesn't matter because the load is light, you just get that thing on and just, that's not a problem. You try pulling a heavy load with that type of yoke and it will chafe and strain more and more than likely injure the animal. On the other hand, a yoke that fits snugly, a yoke that is free of spurs and sharp edges, that will enable the animal to press into it with all its strength and even the heaviest load can be pulled with relative ease. It's what Jesus is talking about when he says, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Friends, the power of that imagery lies not in the weight of the burden. It may still be very heavy. So the power of this imagery lies not in the weight of the burden, but it lies in the comfort of the yoke, the extent to which we can be relaxed at peace as we bear the burden. Wow. Isn't that an amazing truth when it comes to casting our cares on him? Doesn't that make sense of that passage? Isn't that a reassuring confirmation that it is possible? It really is possible to lighten our burdens in 2012. Those words of Jesus again, what do you say? Be concerned about everything else with a kingdom of God and with what he requires of you and he will provide you with all the other things. Not necessarily all the things we want, that's not been my experience, but certainly provide us with the things we need to get through anything, anything. Wow. Some of the stories of this church alone, stories of dozens of people I've worked with over the years of ministry, I'm just staggered, staggered by people can get through when the fit in Jesus Christ is snug, comfortable because they know they're seeking first the kingdom of God. They're not perfect, haven't got all together, but it's an orientation of the heart. It's a daily conscious decision, God, I want to be your man, Lord, I want to be your woman. Jesus, I want to bring honor to you today. That prayer I've mentioned many times, look, what are you up to today? I'd like to be part of it. May I? That kind of in touchness with God through the Holy Spirit, it's amazing. When they yoke is right and it fits right, you can pull any load. That's about all got time for in 20 minutes today, friend, but they're the basics. There's the basics. If you're worried and stressed, please, that's not how God wants you to be. We're not designed for excessive stress and worry. We're designed by God for a much more flowing life, and the doctors among us will tell us the price we pay for stress and worry. Up to 70% of people in our hospitals and all sorts of diseases can be traced back to excessive stress and worry. No wonder Jesus had so much to say about it. No wonder he put such a priority on it. Work on it, get it right, whichever those steps is most relevant for you. the action this week. Let's join in press, shall we?