Everyone has a "backpack" on their journey. How heavy is yours? How can you lighten it to increase the enjoyment of your journey?
Chadron Bible Church Podcast
Packing Light - Selected Scriptures (The Journey of Life)
(soft music) - Welcome to Shadron Burian Church, where we wanna have deep roots in Christ and in God's Word so that we will bear fruit for God. Helping others to follow Jesus as well. Find us at Shadron Burian.org or on other platforms under Shadron Burian. Thanks for joining us. (soft music) (soft music) We have been looking at in our series here, called The Journey of Life. We've been looking at life as a journey, but like a backpacking journey, like a backpacking trip. And in the world of backpacking, do we have any backpackers here? Anybody who goes out into the backpacking, is there a backpacking person here? No, I know there's one or two out there. You're just not raising your hand 'cause you don't want me to pick on you. But when you're a backpacker, right, the key to enjoying the trip is packing light. Actually there's a word in the backpacking community, like it's called ultra light. Like you want to buy the ultra light gear because if you pack light, then you can increase your enjoyment of the trip. No one wants to carry around this big, heavy backpack or more weight than they should. You know, we're talking about the tent, the sleeping bag, your cookware, your meals, all of that you're carrying on your back as you're hiking for several days, overnight in the wilderness. It's a big thing. But one of the things you don't want to do is you don't want to over, you don't want to push it, right? You don't want to carry more than you can handle. If you carry too much in your pack, you're going to be miserable. It's going to weigh you down. You're not going to enjoy what you went out there to do in the first place. And so you want to try to keep your pack light. Well, just like in backpacking, everyone here has a backpack, whether you realize it or not. Everybody has a backpack. It's an invisible backpack, but it does show. And a lot of times it shows on the expression in our faces. Some people's backpack is light and wonderfully light. But some people's backpack is heavier than others. And our backpacks can sort of be heavier light depending on the season we're in or whatever. But we want to aim to keep our backpacks light. Earlier this year, I was out at the state park. It's near my house. And thank God for that place. But I was out there and I was journaling. Actually, I was at a picnic table out there. And this guy walked by. He's actually jogged by and he had a massive black backpack on his back. And I just went kind of like with the eagle, with the crows on his back that I've shared. I went, "Lord, is that a picture of my soul too?" This guy that's jogging down the road with this really heavy black backpack. I don't know if he was training for the Navy seals or what, but he looked miserable. And I thought, "Lord, don't let that be me. "Don't let that be my life with my backpack." And I journaled that. And the next day in the book I was reading, I read a chapter and you know what it said? It said, "Lighten." And it talked about all of us having a backpack. I could not believe it. It was a God thing. We all have a backpack and my question to you this morning is how heavy is your backpack? And how can you lighten it to increase the enjoyment of your life's journey? If we're gonna experience God, we're gonna have that abundant life he talks about. We've gotta take inventory of what's in our backpack and keep it light. That's what we wanna talk about today. So we keep our backpack light so we can live well. We can finish well. And we're gonna talk about this in two ways, two veins. Number one is to pack light spiritually speaking. We're talking about keeping your soul free. There's a song that I like. It's called "Awake My Soul." This guy speaking to his soul, he's trying to get it to wake up and he says, "Your soul, you must keep totally free." Keep your soul free to keep it alive. And one of the verses for this, one of my favorite verses is first Peter 5'7. First Peter 5'7, it's up there on the screen. Or if you wanna turn to it, you probably don't because you got it memorized, right? Cast all your anxieties, worries, cares, we might say. Cast them on him. For he cares for you. Cast your anxieties on him, for he cares for you. And you know, I used to read that verse right there and I would see the casting side of things. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. But I never really thought about the second half much until recently. The reason why he wants us to cast our anxieties on him is because he cares for us. That's the reason why. You got cares about your humanity. He cares about what you're carrying. And he doesn't want you carrying anxieties and worries and cares that you have no business carrying. That you don't need to carry. In the backpacking world, a man will generally carry around 30, 35 pounds. Any more than that, your trip gets miserable. Most guys, what can you carry on your back? Maybe 50 pounds, 70 pounds. I don't know, the young studs can probably carry 100 pounds. I used to put three bags of feet on my shoulder, you know, when I worked at the feed store and I'd carry them out to a car. That was when I was 18. I would not do that now. That's about as much as we can carry. How much can God carry? Someone said the world, how about the universe? If you have a friend, let's say you go on a backpacking journey and you have a friend who can carry an unlimited amount of resources and not get tired. Are you not going to share that with that person? Why would you even carry a backpack to begin with if that friend has unlimited capacities to carry the loan? We're finite. Let's, God is saying in this verse, cast your, take the things out of your backpack and put them in mind. Put them in my backpack. I'll carry them for you. What a caring God we have, huh? He cares about us. He cares about how we're doing. There's a Jordan Janssen song that come out how maybe it was a year ago, but he says this. I think we can relate to it with what we're talking about here. He says, you can let go. You don't have to do it all on your own. You can let go. Don't do it all on your own. Heaven only knows what you've been holding onto. The point is like, don't hold onto it. Let it go. Give it to God. I have an old Bible instructor who taught me this principle of just taking things and putting them in God's hands. He was telling us once about how at the school there where I went to school, the Bible school, there was a really rebellious student there who was causing a ton of division in that school body and he addressed it himself and he tried to stop it himself. And then it got to the point where he just said, Lord, I'm out of options, like he's not listening, Lord, you take him. And he said, I picture what it is in my mind that's causing me anxieties or whatever it is. And I actually, in my mind, I'll give it over to him and I'll picture it going right into his hands. And that principle has stuck with me ever, ever since. I mean, I apply it all the time. Sometimes like daily, it's kind of a daily thing for me. I start out my day and there's the to-do list, right? And by noon, sometimes my to-do list is just stacking up. It gets even longer, right? And so I'll take that pause. I'll just pause and say, Lord, I just put all of this in your hands. I give everyone, I give everything to you 'cause I can't carry this. There's no way. Someone asked me two years ago, said, how do you do it? Like, how do you carry church leadership, like that sort of responsibility, that sort of weight? And then how do you carry like a, you know, your family, your wife and four kids and all that responsibility there? And I said, that's easy, I don't. I don't do this on my own. I keep constantly, whenever I sense too much building up in my pack, I cast it onto him. I think that's what God's saying here. Cast your anxieties on him. He cares for you, you cannot do it on your own. You simply can't. So take that prodigal child that you have. Give them to him. Take that anxiety you have about the bank statement and give it to him. Take that, whatever it is in your life that's causing you anxiety and just give it to him because as we go through life, that pack just fills up and it fills up and it fills up. So, I lose a loved one, the pack gets heavier. I sense a physical malady in my body, right? I need to go to the doctor, obviously. The pack fills up. I go to the gas pump, I go to the grocery store, I sense the inflation and the tight budget. The pack fills up. Keep taking those things out of the pack and give them to him. Just keep giving it back over to him. One of the things that I think is totally unnecessary for us this morning, almost totally unnecessary, that gets into our pack, that we don't need to carry, that generations before us never carried was like, it was world tragedies in global news, national news even in some ways. You get on the news right now, your pack will start filling up really quickly. There was a shooting here, there was a flood here. There was a war here and you start to carry the weight of the world, as if you're God. Generations before us, before all this technology stuff, they did not carry that sort of weight, but we are. And I think it's unnecessary. So, I really have limited my intake of media in general. I just don't want that on my mind. I want my mind, my heart on God as much as possible. I don't know about you, but I got enough worries of my own, with my family and my little circle of the world and my church. I don't need the worries in Asia. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of things out there that's gonna weigh me down that I just can't do nothing about. So why bother? And maybe that sounds cold, but when you're going through the wilderness, you're in survival mode, you're packing light, right? If you don't pack light, you won't survive the wilderness. This is what we talked about yesterday. So keep your soul free, give it all to God. Some of the things though, here's the thing. Most things, everything give to God, but some things will require our action to pack light. So you think about conflict, right? Conflict and relationships. That can require some action on our part. Matthew 5-4, Jesus said, hey, if you got a wrong against this brother over here, Jesus says, don't bring your sacrifice to the altar. Go get right with your brother and then bring your sacrifice. Otherwise, I'm not gonna accept that. First Peter 3-7, God says, husbands, you ain't treating your wife right, you can't expect God to hear your prayers. There's gonna be a barrier there. Yes, you're a child of God, yes, you're forgiven, but your communication, your intimacy with God, there's a barrier and you need to go, get right with your wife before you come and pray. How about Ephesians 4-26-27? Don't let the sun go down on your anger, don't give the enemy a foothold in your life. So if you have conflict somewhere, there's angry with someone, there's a blowup somewhere, Paul says, keep short accounts with people. Don't let that pack build up. But don't let the conflict build up in your pack. Keep short accounts because otherwise, you'll let the devil into your life and the darkness, the discouragement, the hatred, all these anti-Christian virtues will start piling up in your life and in your soul and you won't be free. And I put an insert in your bulletin with a little devotional on that. That's one of the things that I wanna address pretty much every year, this need to forgive and reconcile where we can. I'm convinced there's some relationships that we'll just never be able to reconcile in this life. I mean, sometimes that forgiveness won't go two ways, but we can forgive and we can attempt reconciliation. Romans 12-18 says, as far as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men. So you do your part, right? While you stand praying, forgive. Before you bring your requests to him. But the second way we, oh, the second way we can take action as well is just with sin. Hebrews 12-1, if you wanna turn there, it's not on the screen. Hebrews 12-1, read, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. So if we're in this journey, this marathon that we're in, this race, sin, and some of these things we've been talking about can be like a ball and chain on our feet, holding us back, keeping us from running this race well. And so this is where even sin in our lives is gonna heavy, make our pack heavier than it should be. And we gotta confess it, we gotta repent of it, we gotta go to God with that. That takes action on our part, doesn't it? Confession, repentance. If I'm not dealing with the sin in my life, my pack is gonna be heavier than it needs to be. So that's something else to think about. Let's then look at the second way that we can keep our pack light, and that's physically. Keep pack light physically. What I mean by that is to keep your living space free. The place where you live, where you operate, day-to-day, day-to-day, and most of this information actually comes from our study on hurry earlier this year in one of my small groups, it was actually the only part of the study that I was tempted to skip, because it was so strange. It is a strange kind of teaching. You don't hear a lot about it in America, I'll tell you that. But this is actually the part of the study that stuck the most for the people in our small group, and it was this idea of just decluttering your life, physically speaking. Keep your living space free and uncluttered can help you follow Jesus. Later all physical stuff, when you're backpacking, can weigh you down. Later all physical stuff in our lives can weigh us down, keep us from following Jesus. That was the case with the rich young ruler. I've seen junk, I've seen clutter cause problems in relationships. You know, the husband telling his wife, she's got way too much junk in the basement, and the wife's saying, "All your junk's just outside, out in the yard, "and in the garage, you got more junk than me, "and it's bigger junk." You know, but it can cause frustrations in relationships. I've had older folks tell me that they wish they would have dealt with their stuff before they got to the age where they couldn't anymore. Like age crept up on me, and I have this stuff, and I don't know what to do with it, and I kinda feel guilty because now my kids have to deal with it, and those are the only kids getting angry because now they have to deal with it. Stuff can create conflict. And so it is really something to think about. And work with in our lives. Jesus, you know, 25% of his teaching, they say, was on money and materialism. 25%, it tells me I don't talk enough about money up here. No, but he talked about money and materialism a lot because he understood it could be a real stumbling block to following Jesus in our lives. (silence) He understood that we try to find life in our stuff. Our culture will tell us that if you want life, if you wanna be happy, what do you need to do? You gotta buy this next thing. You gotta trade in your iPhone. I don't even know where we're at right now on iPhones. Some of you need to trade in your iPhone 6S for the iPhone 20. You know what I'm saying? Some of you gotta trade in your grandma keys from 1991 for the next cyber truck. And actually they'll just tell you, hey, you gotta trade up to the next year because this one's got LED lights, and the last year's model doesn't. But it's always saying to us. It's always propagandizing us saying, if you don't have this, if you don't have this, and you need it, you need it, you won't be happy. So the message of our culture is accumulate, accumulate, accumulate in order to find life. And Jesus' message was the exact opposite. He said, right there at Luke 1215. I'm gonna turn there, and there's more to it that I wanna share. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. So here we are, we're arguing about the family inheritance. Nothing new under the sun, right? And he says this. He says, beware, watch out. Be on your guard against every form of greed for not even when one has an abundance, does his life consist of his possessions? Life is not found in an abundance of possessions. But that's what the world is constantly telling us. And if you don't believe it, look at some of these statistics. Families, overall, have gotten smaller, and homes have gotten three times larger. I bet families have gotten three times smaller. 20% of the people have no room in their garage for one car. 32% have only room for one car, and they're two car. Garage. You can't get your car in your garage because it's so full. There's 7.3% of storage space for every American. We could put every American in our storage space with 7.3 square feet. That is wild. There's money in the storage unit business today, right? The average American has 15,000 in credit card debt on things they don't need, but they want. And they're shackled by it. They don't find life in it. What happens is it starts to own them. The more you own, the more it owns you and you're a slave to the lender, right? I have my own stories like that. Going way back. Now, when I was on the railroad, I became a Christian. Railroaders, some of the higher paying blue-collar jobs in alliance, and I was a single man. I didn't have any rent, any crazy bills. And I went out after a couple of years, bought me that big fancy truck. I had a truck that was so tall you'd rip your jeans getting into it. I ripped several pairs of jeans getting into it. But I was not going to start a forest fire out on public land, right? I'm on the forest service land. Big fancy truck, but I didn't own it, the bank owned it. I couldn't afford it, really. It was a mortgage for me, personally. And then I had that motorcycle. That black, Arlenness, Victory Vegas, eight ball with the black swept pipes that pounded the ground. Man, my ear still rings from those pipes. That bike would put my dad's Harley to shame. My dad's Harley, I drive it today still, and it feels like a clunker compared to that thing. But I didn't own that thing either, the bank owned it. And when I became a Christian, I realized reading Proverbs mainly that if I was going to follow Jesus, if I was going to go to the mission field, if I was going to be a pastor, if I was going to be here this morning right now, preaching God's word, I had to ditch those things. Because I could not quit my job because I had to pay for those things. I was terrified of losing my job all the time because there's a lot of layoffs on the railroad. And I was afraid that I had to sell them all at once and be really embarrassed, right, when I did get laid off. Things can hold us back from following Jesus. It's stuff, junk, clutter. And Matthew 419, sorry, Matthew, I'm going with Mark, actually. Mark 419, Jesus says, "The worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things can enter into our lives and choke the word, making us unfruitful." So things, living for things, living for possessions can make us unfruitful as Christians. That's the parable of the sower. In Matthew 19, he says, "Sell your possessions, give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven." Matthew 620, he says, "Don't store up treasures on earth, store up treasure in heaven, where moth and mice and thieves aren't." I think we all know what it's like to buy something and immediately realize, oh man, you know, just time is getting to it, right? Your value is just going down, but if you invest in eternity, the value just keeps going up. So you're investing versus kind of blowing your money here on earth kind of thing. He says, "You cannot serve God and money. You can't serve two masters. You can serve God or money." He says, "It's more blessed to give than it is to receive." I mean, I could go on and on because there was so much about Jesus' teaching related to money and possessions, but that's just a taste of what he said. And I think we read this, these sayings of Jesus, these teachings of Jesus, and we go, "Well, you know, we justify what we have because it's just so foreign to us." But at the end of the day, you cannot read what Jesus taught and say that God just wants me to accumulate more and more and receive more and more. I think as far as a head change, he would want us to know that a life of giving is happier than a life of getting. As far as a heart change, we should feel less inclined to accumulate new things and more inclined to practice generosity. He's not saying there's anything wrong with having nice things or beautiful things. He's just saying, "Look, you think about it. Think about what you're finding life in." As far as a life change, we should limit our possessions and obligations to the point that we're free to live joyfully with Jesus following his call in our lives. We leverage our time, our money, our talents, and possessions towards what matters most. Less inclined to accumulate more inclined to give so that we can freely follow Jesus. As far as some practical ways to apply those practical ways to lighten, to simplify, to declutter our living space, how about these here that I have listed? Unsubscribing from unnecessary emails and subscriptions. Those are kind of a virtual, physical thing right there. You probably have more than one email account. I'm guessing. You've got a hot mail, a Gmail, a Yahoo. And you have hundreds of unanswered emails, probably, maybe. Clean it up. I've done that. I've unsubscribed from so many things this year. It's not even funny. In my inbox, if you go look at it right now, I bet there's three emails in it. It's nice. I like it. It takes some work, though, to keep up on it. But a lot of things I just unsubscribed from. I'm like, "I just keep deleting these week after week after week. Why do I even have them?" Or these things that come in the mail. I need to work on that myself. But how about deleting unnecessary apps and notifications on your phone? Turn off notifications, put it on grayscale mode. There's apps. I don't know how many apps I've deleted, too. And how freeing it is. I need apps that are just kind of robbing you of life. Or just distractions. They don't need to be there. How about cleaning out your desk, your car, your closet, your basement, or your garage? Remember, stuff. If our living space is cluttered, generally our soul, I think it's going to have an effect on our soul. Our soul might be cluttered. If you go into my office now, you will see two things on the wall. Hardly anything in my desk. And it's not because I'm leaving or anything. I don't plan on it. But I have a pair of antlers on the wall because I've got to have a pair of antlers. And then I have a clock. And that's it. I used to have several things on my office wall. And I cleaned it up, painted it, simplified it. Thanks to the Deacons for putting new carpet in recently. You guys did an awesome job. Same thing with that window back there. It was just getting used this morning. Parents with kids. But I feel like I can think more clearly in there just because there's less distractions. It's a clean office space. Maybe, you know, earlier this year after going through the study and simplifying our lives, we went through our kitchen and we just went, you know, do we need five of the same exact Pyrex pans that we've had these since we got married? Five of the exact same dish. And we never used one, maybe. A few times a year. So we got rid of several Pyrex dishes. We looked at our salt and pepper shakers and we went, do we really need two? Do we need one on our kitchen table and one by our stove? This one here, it's stripped anyway so you can't get it on tight. Do we really need two? So that's what we've been asking ourselves. Do we need this? Do we really need two? And I ended up taking truckloads to the dump. I filled up my truck two and a half times. Just took it to the dump. I cleared off 40 hangers of clothes. You don't have to be as extreme as me. I'm pretty good at throwing stuff away. But 40 hangers in my closet I said here I gave them to a friend who will take them to Indonesia and give them to Christians over there and they're nice clothes. I just don't wear them. I freed up three drawers in my, whatever it is, my dresser. Three drawers I don't even use anymore, they're just empty. You really need that one sock that doesn't have a match. You know what I'm saying? Clean it out, man, you don't need it. Life is so good when things are simplified. How about considering buying fewer but better items? Fewer better items and so you don't have to buy as many times. You don't have to buy as many of them maybe or with my kids' birthdays. Like we told people don't give them a bunch of little plastic dolls and stuff like that. Get them a ticket to the state park pool, a summer pass or something big instead of a bunch of little small things. Something that'll last. That's a good thought. How about you get used to giving things away, selling things that you just don't need. There's one rule that we use now and then and it's like if it hasn't been used in two years, time to get in time to let it go, that works with a lot of things, especially with the kids' stuff. Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Do you need to buy the jet ski to ride it twice a year or can you rent it? Rent the jet ski. And then you can cultivate a deep appreciation for creation and simple pleasures in life. Simple pleasures, coffee, sunsets, a walk in the park, you know, whatever. Simple pleasures, a home-cooked meal. How about this? How about instead of rushing through a meal to get to the next thing to the TV? How about you just make the whole evening about cooking a really good home-cooked meal and you enjoy it and then you linger at the table for conversation? Not that. That's an idea, right? The other day, talking about creation there, we took our kids down to the farm and it took them to the first place I ever saw fireflies. And they were still there after all these years. There was a ton of them. And my daughter's running out there before I knew it. She had one in her hands, right? These little bugs with a light on her butt. And she couldn't believe it. God made a bug with a light on its butt. And she's walking down the dirt road with her arms out saying this is so magical. It was pretty cool. And then we got a quilt out and we laid it out on one of the high places on the farm and on the high on the hill. And we just looked up at the stars. No city lights around. And it was awesome. We had a good time. You can cultivate a deep appreciation for creation. Linkinclusion, I want to read this quote with you. This is from Tim Bulke. You've heard me quote him a lot this year. But he says as I think about what it takes to experience all that we were intended to experience in this life. And consider how we can live on mission ready to follow this mysterious God wherever he may take us. Traveling light is critical. The lighter our load, the more easily we can react, shift, respond and change directions as needed. Keep things simple. Keep your load light. Get rid of what you don't need. Shake off the extra spiritual baggage. Life is too short to carry any extra spiritual, physical or emotional baggage. I want to do my best to lean into the issues that need to be faced then, then casting everything else aside, taking only the most critical things with me on the journey. I also read a quote from A.W. Tozer this week who said, "If the church is going to move forward, they've got to get rid of their baggage." Physical, spiritual, emotional baggage. As the worship team comes up, I want to invite you guys to pray with me right here and right now to apply the message right now in prayer. Taking at least the spiritual baggage to him, the things that are weighing down our pack right now, and I've prayed for God to reveal those things to you because we all have them. We all walked in here with burdens this morning and God is saying, "Give those to me." So let's take a moment just to do that. Let's get with God in our hearts. Think about what it is in your life right now that's weighing you down. God is saying, "I don't think you need that in your pack right now." Put it in my pack. You can't carry it. I don't want you to carry it because I care for you and you are carrying this thing and you've got to let it go. Maybe it's more than one thing. Maybe it's several things. Maybe it is that prodigal son. Maybe it's that aging parent. Maybe it's this dress on the bank account, the wallet. Maybe it's quite literally junk getting in between you and your spouse. You and your children. Now let's take these things to the Lord right here right now in prayer. Lord, I'm so thankful that we have you as our God. As our backpacking partner in life. The infinite one who can carry the weight of the universe and the weight of the world's cares. I'm thankful we don't have a partner that we need to share the load with. Well, I'll take the tent pegs. You take the tent canvas. I'll take the food. You take the pot. No, you, the cookware. Lord, you say to cast all these things on you. The infinite one who's capable of carrying it all without ever getting tired. So whatever's going on in our lives right now, we take this opportunity. We picture it in our minds and we just put it in your hands. And we trust you with it. And if it comes up tomorrow, again, Lord, help us just to put it back in your hands. But really, help us right now to come away from here with a sense of freedom and a lightness to our spirits that is tangible almost. That it shows on our faces that we walk out of here with our eyes brighter and our spirits lifted and our hearts encouraged. Because we have a God who's not just with us when we die and go to heaven, but he's right here right now and we can experience him. And he makes a change in our lives. Some of our packs are so heavy, Lord, and you don't intend for it to be that way. Help us to know when our packs are getting heavy and when we need to put that, take it out of ours and put it into yours. And we thank you for being our God and our partner in this journey. In Jesus' name, amen. [MUSIC]