The Importance of Laying Down Your Burdens

Are you carrying burdens that aren’t meant for you? This message helps us understand what it really means to give our burdens to Christ and be freed from the responsibilities we’re not meant to carry.

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About the Speaker

Joel Wolski has been a passionate follower of Christ for over 30 years and serves on the Board of Faith Chapel. He is dedicated to living and sharing a Christ-filled life. Through the years, he has also been both a student and leader in Bible studies. His greatest desire is to help others grow in their identity in Christ. Also an avid photographer, you can follow Joel on Instagram or his website.

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Exchange Your Burdens for Rest

I challenged God. And then this happened…

I want to bring you a testimony today. This is something that happened to me 15 years ago. I was at work as the production manager for a steel construction company. That means I’m the shop foreman. We had way more work than we could handle and I was told that, on a particular day, there would be cranes showing up and trucks showing up to put in the steel, and the timing was critical. There was more work to do than there was time in the day, and there was a potential huge financial cost if we didn't meet the schedule.

At this point, one slight problem was that I was arguing with God. We sometimes talk about God opening and closing doors in our lives. I was going through doors that were wide open. I thought this is such a God thing. My faith was growing, my spirituality was increasing, my love of God was increasing. Then, all of a sudden, a door was slammed shut in front of me. I didn't get it. Everything was going so right. But then it all ended. And I got mad. But it was the kind of mad when you say, “if you don't know why I'm not talking to you, I'm not going to tell you”. So, I told God, “You’ve got my soul in your hands. I trust you with that, but I don’t trust you with this day-to-day stuff”. I lost that trust. I didn't lose my salvation, didn't lose my faith, but I lost that trust.

And here I was standing in the middle of this yard surrounded by all of this steel and it was literally impossible to accomplish this job. I looked around and thought broken arrow.

There's a war movie with a scene where the American troops are being overrun by the enemy. The general looks to the right and he looks to the left, and then he calls out to the radio operator, “broken arrow!” In this scenario, “broken arrow” means that the situation is dire and we are about to be overrun. We’re all going to die. You need to contact headquarters and tell them to send everyone, all artillery, all planes, everything. If you don't, we're dead. And that's how I felt.

I was standing there, and I cried out to God, “broken arrow!” I said, “you instructed me to take your burden. So, I will. I will take your burden. You can deal with this mess!” I was daring God. I was challenging God. “You claim to be a caring, loving, all powerful God. I don't know if I believe you. I don't know if I can trust you to take care of my stress in the current moment.” But I had no options left because there was nothing that I could do to solve the problem.

God came through within an hour. My boss came out and said, “the subcontractor isn't ready for the steel, this has been delayed, this has been pushed back. So, we have an extra four days.” I almost laughed because this was unbelievable. It never works this way. Instead, I dare God to do something, then he falters, then I have someone to blame. He's not supposed to rescue me. Why would God rescue me from a mess that I made? This wasn't even a spiritual mess.

Understanding Burdens

That experience sent me on a search for understanding. God met me in that challenge, but I didn’t understand what just happened or why. What I did know is that God was waiting. I was mad at God, but he wasn't mad at me. He understood why I was mad at him and God knows my heart better than I know my heart. So, he was waiting. He was patient. In order to understand what was happening, I referenced a verse that was in the back of my mind after having read it many times over the years.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV).

That's what I was remembering. Jesus says, “I'm going to go away but I'm going to send a comforter, a counselor who will walk beside you. And he will bring things to your memory that I have told you.” This was something that God told me years before. In that moment of despair, anxiety, and panic the Holy Spirit brought this verse back to me. My crying out to God was orchestrated by God. He brought me to that point.

I was trying to understand: What is Jesus’ burden, his light burden? I looked into the scripture at the original Greek language. I don't know Greek but there are tools online that can give us insight. One of the things I discovered is that, in the New Testament, there are three Greek words that are translated into burden.

These three Greek words, meaning burden, are:

1. Baros, meaning heavy. How concerned would you be if I asked you to catch a 14-pound bowling ball? If I started to throw it at you, would you become scared about catching it because it's so heavy?

2. Ogkos, meaning unwieldy. If I toss a handful of dice to you, do you think you could catch all of them? They're not heavy, they're very light. But they're a burden because they're cumbersome and awkward.

3. Phortion, meaning responsibility; you’re carrying the burden. If I toss an egg to you, and I ask you to carry it around without breaking it, you might be able to. It's not heavy, it's not unwieldy, but it is a burden to carry everywhere and keep it from breaking.

Phortion is the burden that Jesus is talking about; a burden—a responsibility—that you're carrying. It's not heavy, it's not awkward, it's your responsibility. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says my burden—my expectation of you—is light.

Understanding Rest in Jesus

I’m going to break down these three verses and go into some of the things that I discovered.

First, I would like to go into a list of qualifications as to why I should be speaking to you:

1. Jesus loves me, and I love him.

That's it, that’s all it takes to be qualified to speak about God’s love. Seminary education would help me prepare, and it would help you to experience a well-crafted message. Experience would also help. But experience and education are not necessities for sharing your testimony. I would imagine you share the same quality (Jesus loves you and you love him) with me. That means you're just as qualified as I am to share your testimony and speak to others.

When you are in the midst of being weary, of things piling on top of you, Jesus says come. Jesus assumes that we’re already moving in a direction, and he's telling us that the direction needs to be towards him. He says come to me in the midst of your weariness, in the midst of everything piling on and I will give you rest. He doesn't say I will allow you to rest; he says I will rest you.

Isaac Newton’s first law of motion partially states that an object in motion will continue in motion, and doing the same thing, until it is acted on by an outside force. This is what Jesus is talking about. You are moving and going through life; being wearied. Jesus will do all of the work to bring you to a place of rest.

Understanding Your Role vs Jesus’ Role

Jesus is talking about us becoming tired and wearied because of more and more responsibilities being piled on us by our family, friends, employers, or religion. Jesus is talking about the expectation and responsibilities of our salvation that we take upon ourselves. Jesus is saying that he’ll bear your burden with no strings attached.

Jesus says to take his yoke. A yoke connects two to work together to share the load; he's carrying one side of the load and you're on the other, and he's asking you to walk in step with him; do what he does, go where he goes because he makes the load light.

Another way we see the Greek word is the cross beam of a scale. In this way we also measure ourselves to Christ. He is the one we are to compare ourselves to; not to our coworkers, friends, millionaires, people on TV, social influencers, or anyone else; we compare ourselves to Christ because we are yoked to him. When you do this, you will find rest; you will find a place of rest.

So often we are satisfied and content with God rescuing us from our stress, but here God is inviting us to live in his kingdom where there isn't any stress. Jesus is repeatedly calling us to come back to him. He knows we become overwhelmed and calls us back to himself.

There is a way for a single person to carry a yoke. You would take on the whole thing, trying to carry it from the middle with the weight bearing down on you from either side. Jesus already carried this yoke on his own up a hill called Calvary. We aren't meant to carry burdens on our own this way. Jesus already did that for us. His burden is to walk with him, to be like him, to measure ourselves against him.

Sometimes we fall into a trap of trying to repay God. We thank God for the free gift of grace and salvation, and then we try to show God how much we deserve that free gift by being good (reading the Bible, praying, going to church, etc.). But if we had to do that, God’s gift wouldn't be free.

I think there's something in Western culture that has crept into our theology. I say, “I own a house” but I don't own a house, I have a mortgage. That's a burden. Why? Because it has my name on it and says that I owe the bank money for this house. But that's not salvation, that's not grace. Grace is having the deed to the house, not a mortgage. It’s like Christ saying that his name is on the deed to the house and that yours is too, no strings attached, no payments due, you don't have to earn it; God has paid for it in full and you get the benefit.

The work of the Christian isn't to earn your salvation, it's to spend it. We take grace in and we spread it around. We show grace to others, we show compassion to others. We send out every good thing that has been poured into us.

This is Jesus’ call: come to me. This passage contains the essence of the gospel because it's a call to come to Jesus, to accept what he's done, to live in union with him for our eternal souls and our present existence in life.

Our coming to Christ isn't just to keep us from hell, it's to be a light to the world. This is what Jesus is calling us to: to be a light to the world. We're not offering the light of Jesus to the world when we are grumpy, irritated, angry, stressed out, or anxious.

Over the last 15 years I still feel stress at work and in my life, but I remember this event, this testimony. I’ve remembered this testimony countless times over the years. And it brings me joy because it reminds me to look to God for the answers. I look forward to it, to see how he's going to fix the next situation. Paul says where sin abounds, grace abounds more. So, when things go wrong, I can't wait to see how God works in the situation and pours out his grace.

What's your burden?

This is what Jesus is asking; bring your burden to Jesus, lay down your burden and take his.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry” (Matthew 11:28-30, NET).

What is it that you have been carrying or taking responsibility for that God wants to carry, or that Christ has already carried? Maybe there's a little part of you that is trying to show God that you deserve that free gift of grace. Don't spend your life trying to prove yourself to God. I wonder if it pains Christ when we try to keep his promise, take on the responsibility that he has already carried. He's promised us free grace. It's not cheap grace, it cost him everything. Your burden is yours, it's unique to you.

Christ is calling you to bring your burden to him, to lay down your burden and walk with him, to measure yourself against him.

So, what is that burden that you need to bring to Christ? It may take a while for God to reveal it to you. Ask God, seek God. It could be something big, something small, work related, family related. We can know that God is with us and will carry us through. We place ultimate authority in God’s hands.

Suggested Praise and Worship

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This and other sermons brought to you by Faith Chapel, an Assemblies of God church in Pleasanton, CA.