SPEAKER_03 0:00

Today, we're going to examine a teaching of Jesus that I think is one that, man, we owe it to ourselves to reflect on as often as possible. Like this is one of those teachings of Jesus that we should just think on often, refresh ourselves about as much as possible, look back on it on a regular basis, because he makes us a promise that the world cannot offer us. It just can't. Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. Then Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, which means let me lead you, let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. The world cannot offer us rest for our souls. Can't do it. At best, the world offers us temporary rest for our bodies, or maybe distractions. There's a lot of distractions to take our minds off of the stress. But only Jesus can offer us rest for our soul. And so he says that we should come to him when we carry heavy burdens. That he'll take those from us. And in essence, if we live connected to Jesus, we ought to be people who can live traveling light. I just got back from vacation with my family on Friday, and it was the most aggressive vacation we have ever taken as a family. It's the first time we've ever done uh airports with small children. It's never happened in my family before. We gave it a go. Don't know if we'll do it again, but we gave it a go. We had a great time. And there were some amazing moments. My my third child, Judah, uh, he turned six over vacation, which was really cool that we got to celebrate his birthday. Um it's amazing how fast time flies because he's six years old and I love him so much. We had some interesting moments. My youngest, we're just gonna say, had a gastrointestinal crisis at a theme park. Um and it's just gonna be a story for another day. Okay? It's just it's too fresh. Um, I'm not ready. It was horrible. But uh, but I love him. I love him, and you know, we're moving on. We're gonna we're gonna get through it. We're gonna you have those experiences, and you just say, I'm glad it's my child, right? Because I love my children. If it was someone else's child, I'd be like, uh, what is going on? But it was fine. It was great, I'm wonderful, slightly scarred. But we had a blast. I'll tell you what was the most amazing thing about the trip for me, though. My my wife just owned it. So she was in charge of all the packing. And there was not anything that was forgotten. There was not anything that we had too little of, there was not anything that we had too much of. And here's the crazy thing. We were gone for six days as a family, all the kids, and we had no checked baggage. That's like a mic drop moment. Like, no checked baggage whatsoever, just personal backpacks for each of us. And I'm not even talking about those backpacks that people take with them like to the mountains. I'm talking like just normal backpacks, like kids take to school, had everything that we needed, including like extra pairs of shoes. I don't know how she did it. But it was incredible. Like we traveled light. And so going through the airports, not needing to stand in those lines to check the bags, not needing to wait for the baggage claim, being able to go through the airport with hands free for children, like it was unreal. How much time, how how simple that that whole process was because my wife packed light. It is good to travel light. But in life, we don't we don't really get to do that very often. Because life doesn't work like you packing a bag and going on vacation. It would be great if it did, but it just doesn't work that way. No, life is more like if you packed your bag and then at the airport, people could just come up to you and hand you another bag and you have to carry it. Right? Like you're going to the airport, you're you're doing great, you've got your thing, and someone just goes, hey, this is now yours to carry. And you're like, I don't want to carry this. You're like, well, it's yours now. Enjoy. That's how life works. Because at any given moment in time, someone or something can hand us weight that now we somehow have to hold. And it gets heavy. Life gets heavy. There's just a there's a heaviness to the world. And there's a heaviness that we deal with, and it's amazing how fast heavy burdens can come. We all end up carrying a lot of baggage, whether we we intended to or not. I'm thinking about just our church. In the last two weeks, this is a two-week period of time. Um, we've had one staff member's spouse in the hospital, and she's doing great, by the way. We've had another staff member that had to take a trip to the hospital because of an injury. He's also doing great, don't worry. I mean, pray for him. It's his toe. Pray for Josh's toe. Hey, Josh, sorry about your toe. I was out of town, it wasn't my fault. Um I can think of four families in the last two weeks that are part of our church who have lost very close loved ones. I know of several people in our church who have had very intense diagnoses or family members that have had those. We have an awesome family that's part of our church that two weeks ago their house burned down. That's just in two weeks. And that's just the stuff that I know about. But I know that with a group this size, and especially when you add in everyone watching from home, the number of heavy burdens that we are carrying as a church, it's it's a lot of weight. And maybe you're going, okay, I'm not carrying weight like that. Nothing that heavy has happened to me recently. But maybe for you it's just the buildup of a lot of little weight. You know, it's pressure at work. And it's strain in a relationship. It's financial stress and uncertainty. It's like a to-do list at home that you cannot make a dent in because things just keep piling up, and for some reason, your uh refrigerator and your dishwasher and your oven are all having problems at the same time, and oh, there's your sink, and maybe that's personal, maybe that's just me. But but that's like how my life goes sometimes. Like everything's breaking down, and I don't know how to fix any of it, and I just can't get ahead. See, even the little weight, it it adds, it adds up. And so all of us end up carrying a lot of weight. And if we're honest, sometimes it's just too much. So, what do we do when we're burdened? And and maybe we could just pause and and admit that more often than not, we are. The number one answer that I hear when I ask people how they're doing is busy. You ask someone, hey, how you doing? They're like, good, busy, really busy. I think busy might just be a nicer way to say burdened. And we kind of value that in our culture. Like I do. When someone tells me they're busy, I'm like, great, awesome. It's good to be busy. But if they said burdened, I would never say that. How you doing? Oh, burdened, awesome. That's great. It's good to carry burdens. Keep it up. But we're burdened. So what do we do when we carry heavy burdens? Let's go back to the words of Jesus. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens. Is anybody weary? Anyone carrying anything heavy today? Anyone willing to raise your hand in just a minute? Yeah, I'm kind of carrying some heavy burdens, I'm weary. Great. Come to him. All of us come to him, and he will give us rest. This is a promise. Notice the certainty in Jesus' voice. Jesus is many things. Wishy-washy is not one of them. Jesus is certain about who he is, and when he says he's going to do things, he does them. And he doesn't say, I might give you rest, I'll think about giving you rest. I have a few strategies you might try to find some rest in your life. Here's the three golden keys for having more rest. That's not what he says. He says, Come to me and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you. Because I'm humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. What that means is if you're carrying a heavy burden, Jesus didn't give it to you. Because he doesn't do that. One of the greatest misconceptions about God is that he is a burden giver, that if you surrender your life to God. And those of us in the room who are young, I know our high school students are in here today. Every last Sunday of the month, our high school students join us. It's an absolute fallacy to believe that if you give your whole life to God, he's just gonna lay heavy burdens on you. He's gonna weigh you down. It's the opposite. Jesus is not someone coming up to you saying, Hey, are you tired and stressed and burned out? Oh, here's something else to deal with. Here's another thing. Jesus is the one who comes to us and says, Hey, let me take that from you. He takes burdens. That's who God is, it's who he's always been. Proverbs 16, 3, written centuries before Jesus, says, Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. Now, when we think of the word commit, we typically think of digging down deep, working harder. We might say to someone, you're not committed enough to this. You gotta give more. That's not what the word commit here means. It's actually a Hebrew word that means to roll away. We don't use the word commit like this very often, but even in our language, sometimes we still do. If someone gets committed to a hospital, that means that the care of that person has been given over. And now it's the hospital's responsibility to take care of them. That's the kind of commitment that it's talking about here. It says, commit, roll away, give all that you have to God and watch what he does with it. You don't have to do it on your own. Psalm 55, 22 says, give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, give all your worries and cares to God. Not some, not a few. Give all of your worries and all of your cares to God, for he cares about you. The language in these verses is really interesting. The word give. It's also sometimes translated cast. You might have heard that translation before, cast your cares upon the Lord. It's saying, throw them at God. This is not saying, hey, go up to God and say, God, look, I'm I'm really sorry to ask this. I know you've got a lot going on, but if you wouldn't mind just maybe taking this one burden of mine off my shoulders, I would really appreciate it. No, no, no. It's it's like throw it at God. Dump it at God. It's like the way that a small child brings a burden to a parent. Right? They just kind of scream and yell. And it's now it's yours. It's like when a three-year-old has a gastrointestinal emergency at a theme park. That's your problem now. Right? It was their problem, now it's yours. You don't have to be polite when you ask God for help. Because he's your father. He's your father and he loves you. So throw your burdens at God. Because he cares about you, because he can take the weight. One more time. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you. Because I'm humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. A really good friend of ours about a year ago made me really mad because she talked about our church better than I've ever talked about it. Like she was able to put something about our church into words I had never used before. And as the person whose kind of job it is to talk the most, like to the church, about the church, I was like, why have I never said that? That's better than what I've ever said. She just hit the nail on the head. She said, What I love about our church is that people leave lighter. This has always been a place that's been about you being able to come in heavy and leave light. Not to come in, yeah, we can clap for that. We need that. I need that. Because let's be honest, sometimes, depending on how you've grown up in church, that's not how it goes. Sometimes it'd be the opposite of that. Like I came in feeling pretty good. I leave feeling heavy. You know? But that's not how it ever would have been to hang out with Jesus. Like no one who ever came to Jesus heavy walked away discouraged, or it was some giant burden that they now had to bear. In fact, one of Jesus' greatest criticisms, most direct criticisms to the Pharisees, to the religious leaders of his day, he said to them once, You hypocrites, you put burdens on people and don't lift a finger to help. It was audacious to Jesus to watch the people who claim to represent God lay heavy burdens on people's shoulders and then not help them with it. They simply said, Do better, do more. And Jesus never did that. He says, Come to me, let me take it. So we have an opportunity this morning to do some business with God, to leave a little bit lighter. Because we're all carrying baggage. Now, that same friend who said that they love the fact that our church is a place where people leave lighter made another astute observation. She said that, you know, a lot of us, the baggage that we carry, it's pretty obvious. Because it's like we're carrying just like a laundry pile and it's spilling out everywhere, or maybe it's in a trash bag at best, but it's it's like people can see it. It's like, oh yeah, that's something that you need to deal with. Some of us, though, are really good at carrying baggage. Like we organize our baggage. We have it very well sorted and compartmentalized. We might even pack our baggage in really nice luggage, and to the rest of the world, they go, wow, you're doing great, but it's still baggage. It's still weight that we have to carry that maybe we're not meant to. And so, what if today, right now, like now, we could discern whatever weight we're carrying that we're not meant to, and leave it here. And leave it lighter. What does it mean to really give it to God? To let it go? What does that look like? How could that happen right now? Sometimes there's those those phrases that we use sometimes in church that like we all kind of nod our heads, like, what does that actually look like? Like, give it to God. Yeah, how how? How do I give it to God? Do I write him a letter? Like, what is there a form I fill out? Tell me. But I I just I just want us to focus on one word. And in a moment, I'm gonna invite some people on stage. We're gonna pray together for a little bit. And actually, like I said, have a chance to do some business with the Lord. Sometimes on Sundays we talk about the ways we can grow, and then it's like, all right, now leave and do that. But I think it's important sometimes that we just like do it now. It's like going to the gym. You could go to the gym and just look at all the equipment and make a mental checklist of like the things you're gonna do later, like later on will work out that. Or you could just, I don't know, exercise when you're there and knock it out then, right? We can do that sometimes, but but we're about to step into an opportunity to surrender. And how many of us could admit that it's hard to surrender? Like, I'll admit. It's hard, it's hard to surrender because to give it to God means you've got to let go. What that means is that for some of us, there's burdens that we're carrying that, if we're really honest, we're kind of culpable in the fact that we're carrying it because we've sort of chosen to hang on to it and we kind of hate it, but also kind of like it. And maybe it's a burden you've been carrying for so long that it's become part of your identity, part of who you are. It's like your cross to bear. But even Jesus needed someone to help him carry his cross. He didn't hold on to that. He got off that cross pretty fast. So maybe as we pray, there's burdens that God brings to your mind that you've been carrying for a long time, and letting it go is kind of scary because you've almost identified yourself as the person who carries this burden. And what if that burden was gone? You'd have to be someone else. Maybe be the person that you're meant to be. That can be scary. Surrender means recognizing when you just you can't. I hate saying I can't. I hate it. Because I'm wired to want to believe that I can do just about whatever I want to do. But there's things I can't do. There are things that you can't do that we cannot do. They're just bigger than us. And sometimes we have burdens, situations, where we've done all we can do and it hasn't worked. And we just can't. And what we have to do is have the humility to go, God, I can't. I have nothing to offer this situation, so I just have to leave it in your hands, Lord, and I'm not gonna do anything else, I'm not gonna touch it until you change something. But I need you to change something, I need you to do something, and once you do it, once you change it, I'll happily jump back in. But I just can't. But you can. There's nothing that God can't do. There's nothing that's impossible with God. But surrender means having the humility to recognize when we're in that situation with burdens that we just can't carry. Sometimes there's burdens that we have to carry to a certain degree. We can't just lay it aside. So on our trip in the airport, uh, my youngest son, the one with the gastrointestinal issues, um, he also developed this really interesting um, I've never heard of this before. It's called selective paralysis. And what selective paralysis is, is that it's really interesting. What it means is that in an airport, when you see an escalator or a moving sidewalk, you can run because you love it. But when there's not an escalator or a moving sidewalk, your legs stop working and you sit on the ground and say, I can't walk. And your dad, who in the moment wants to parent you and like get that out of you, recognizes now's not the time because we're in an airport and it's moving, and so you just have to pick that up, and that's extra weight that you weren't expecting to carry, but you gotta carry it because it's your child. Look, the simple truth is, by the way, I love my son. He's awesome. He and I are gonna be so close. I get to go through this phase with all of my boys when they're about three or four, and it's a great phase. We get to iron things out. And my number one rule with this phase is that if you fight me, I will win. Like, it's just it's done. So don't. Same kind of thing works with God. But anyway, um, you know, sometimes there's situations that are burdens that, guys, we just don't have the ability to put it down. Because we're enmeshed with it, it's a relationship that we can't avoid, it's a situation that we have responsibility in. And we can't simply just go, oh. I couldn't just like leave him behind at the airport, like, oh, I got three more. I can't do that. You know? I have to pick it up. But what you don't have to do is carry it alone. And so sometimes surrendering means surrendering control of a situation to God where you're still involved, you're still hands-on, but you're not the one who's deciding the way it's going. Where you say to the Lord, I've done it my way, my way clearly has some flaws, some holes. Now I'm gonna do it your way. So, Lord, I'm holding this, but you tell me where to put it, you tell me where to move it, you tell me what to do. It becomes like a team lift type scenario where God's carrying it with you and He's in control, and you're just moving with Him. It's amazing sometimes how something that's incredibly heavy and cumbersome to lift by yourself is incredibly easy to lift with someone else. Especially if that someone is God. But it's all about surrender. It's surrendering control and authority, it's surrendering to a point of humility where you recognize what you can't do, and it's surrendering what maybe you don't want to surrender because it's become part of how you see yourself. It's tough, but it's powerful. And so here's what I'd like us to do. Um, I asked some friends about two or three days ago if they would begin to pray about some potential burdens that might be shared in the room. And if those of you who I asked to do that wouldn't mind coming up right now, that would just be amazing, unless none of you showed up to church, and then I'm in a little bit of trouble. Um but of course you did. And so uh each of these people are people many of you will recognize, um, but if you don't, they're just people that are are. Right now. Why is it a specific word in your hair? We have to get a hundred people. God knows exactly what you're doing. And this is personal time for you and him. Now, for some of you, this is like this is like riding a bike, you pray a lot. You've done this before. And you're like, okay, I've got to shift it as well. For some of us. For some of us. This is new. It might be a little odd. Because maybe you're someone who's never really liked praying intensely before. Like, number one, you don't have to. But give it a try. Just focus on the Lord. Have an open heart and an open mind. And just ask him. Lord, what do you have for me? What burden do you want to bring to my mind that I need to let go of? And give me the courage to surrender it right here and right now. So, uh, Fred, if you wouldn't mind starting, and uh the rest of us, just let's just go down the line from there. Okay? Let's pray.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

And the reality that our brothers and sisters are under a fierce attack. But as you continually promise in your word, though in our army surround us, we can find our peace and our courage in you. So we pray for courage for our brothers and sisters. That they would be protected, that those who are fleeing would be welcomed into homes in other nations, and those who are remaining would stand firm for the country and their home that they love. And Lord, we have no ability to change the hearts of those who are attacking them. But you do change hearts. And we pray you would change the heart of Putin and the Russian leaders who are leading this invasion. Oh Lord, we pray have mercy. So many, many times in your word, we have a condition. And then the word reports about God. Oh Father, we pray that that would now be the conclusion of this horror. But God. Work out your purposes, we pray. Redeem this crisis and bring peace, healing, and hope to the Ukraine and to this world. Knit our hearts together with our brothers and sisters that we might stand with them in prayer as we put our trust in you. In the holy name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

The Lord gave me a scripture, He says He wants to bestow on you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of a joy, meaning instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of despair. They will call you oaks of righteousness, a planning of the Lord for the display of his displendor. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and we will sup with him and he with me. Father, we uh I just come before you in the name of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, friend, we need you. Father, let our hearts not be like couches where everybody sits, but let our hearts be like thrones where you alone sit. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we pull down everything that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God. And Father, we just lose freedom. Freedom from the weight that we carry. We pull it down in the name of Jesus Christ. And Father, you have given us authority, legal authority, according to your word. That if we ask the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, that you will do it. And so, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we pull it down, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ. We lose freedom, Lord, from every bondage and every chain. Let it be broken right now in the name of Jesus Christ. And Father, let you alone be God and God above all. Father, surround them. Surround them with your love and your protection, Father. Speak to them, Lord. Hold them in your arms, Lord. You want us to sit with you, Father, have to call them away during the day, Father. Call them away in the night hours to sit with you, Lord, that they might soak in your presence and that they might know you, that they feel comfortable to call on you and tell you anything that's on their hearts, Lord. Father, we thank you that you're faithful, you're kind, and you're good. And that you feel forced, no one can be against us. They can try, but you are God and you win. And so, Father, I thank you that your hands are upon them. I thank you that freedom is in this place, Lord God. That a freedom they've never known, Lord, that's gonna invade their lives this day, Lord God. And that you alone will be God in every moment of their lives. I give you honor and glory and praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

Sometimes when you carry a burden, it gets so heavy and it consumes you. And you can't function and you can't think and it affects you physically. God wants to do healings, physical healings, because the burden has so consumed you that it's affected you in physical ways. One of the scriptures that the Lord gave me to share with you, it's a little unusual until I unpack it for you. And it's the scripture of the man who has an infirmity for 38 years, and he keeps going to the pool of Bethesda, but he can't get anybody to help him, he can't get anybody to make this work so he can get into this swirl of water and get healed. So for 38 years, this guy has been suffering with this. And some of you have been holding on to these burdens for so long that it's affecting you physically. And the Lord is calling you today to rise up in the name of Jesus and be healed and delivered from this burden that you're carrying. So this man has this infirmity for 38 years, and I thought, well, Lord, that's a little unusual. Why would you say 38 years? You could have just said a long time. So I looked up biblically what the numbers mean. Three is the number for resurrection. Eight is the number for new birth. And he said to this man, stand up and walk, and today the Lord is calling you to stand up and walk and receive your healing emotionally, physically, every way that it has affected you, whom the sun sets free is free indeed. And the Lord today is saying, This is your day to rise up and say, In the name of Jesus, I'm not carrying this burden anymore. I give it to you, Lord, and be free in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen and amen.

SPEAKER_06 32:30

Let's pray together. Father, we come before you, and the burden I feel like that we need to lay down next is the burden of being your own shepherd. I'm gonna pray this in personal terms, but if the shoe fits here, and it probably should fit for most of us, we are not your own shepherd. I'm not the master of my own destiny. I'm not the one in charge of everything. That is you, Jesus. Jesus, we become come before you right now and claim that you are our shepherd. And because of you, we don't lack anything. And you make us to lie down and rest in pastures that are green and things that are true, like it have been spoken right now. You lead us beside waters that are calm and deep and good, and you restore our soul. That's your job, not ours. And the reason that you do that is not because of anything that we've done, not because we deserve it, but because of your name, you do it. Because you and I are joined together, and we declare your name, and for the sake of that name, you're gonna lead us in the ways that are right. And even if the ways that we go through are through the valley of the shadow of death, we don't actually have to be afraid because you're with us. And if you're with us, then every guide that you make to us, your rod and your staff, it's a comfort to us. Because every choice that you make for us is good, and you take us through it, and even right in the middle of whatever is difficult for us right now, even if it's in the presence of our enemies and all of us are attacked, even if we can admit it or not, there's enemies everywhere, and right there, you can make a table for us to restore us, even in the middle of what is so difficult right now. And you can fill our cups and not just enough for us, but like overflowing so we can be a blessing to those that are around us. And you anoint our head with oil, and because of you, goodness and mercy and loving kindness and faithfulness are going to follow us every day of our life because you are with us. Jesus, it's your job to guide our lives. We repent of doing that ourselves. You are good and you are great. Do your job, we know you will. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

I also am going to pray in personal terms. So, God, we just come before you, Father. Lord, those of us that have a heavy heart, God, those of us that are dealing with grief, Father, Lord, I just ask that you take that from us. Lord, I ask that you heal our broken hearts, God. Lord, that you're with us, that we feel you, that we tangibly feel you walking with us, Father. So Lord, every time that our hearts are saddened, God, I ask that you bring us joy. And Father, every time we don't understand, I ask that you bring us understanding. And Lord, anytime, any time that we're lonely, God, I ask that we feel you, that we feel your presence. So, Father, I know in your word it tells us you will never leave us or forsake us. God, I hold on to that. I hold on to those words because I know that you're with me through this, that you're walking with me. So, God, I thank you. I thank you for healing my broken heart and others that have broken hearts, God. I thank you for that. I thank you for being with us. You're a good, good God. And God, I'm gonna stand with that. I'm gonna stand that you're good in all circumstances, Father. Thank you, God.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Lord, it's hard to release our burdens without releasing control, to trust you, to know that tomorrow is in your hands. And so I just pray that we would release control, that we would recognize that it's never been up to us, that our our children's future isn't up to us, the future of our marriage isn't up to us, the future of our finances isn't up to us. Lord, when we when we release these burdens, we give you control of them. And we give you control of our life. And so, Lord, I pray right now that any anxiety that's come from trying to control the future, that we would just cast that off and give it to you. Whether it's anxiety about our kids or our relationships or our families or our finances or our jobs, our careers, our studies, whatever we've been trying to control, we we hand it over to you and we trust you with it. We trust you with our hearts. Loosen our grip. Whether it has been grief or political situations, or whether it's something with our families, or something deep down inside, whether it's our own sin and if we're honest with ourselves, we we just like it. I pray that you would loosen our grip, that we'd be able to hand it off to you, and that you could take us somewhere that we couldn't go when we are carrying so much. Lord, we trust you with the control of our future.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Father, I lift up the burdens that we feel about our past. Specifically, Lord, the the unmet expectations where we find ourselves in places that if we're honest, we just we always thought we'd be in a better place than we are. We always assumed that we would have more figured out, that we would have accomplished more, that we would have more to show for our work. For those of us, Lord, who carry the burden of feeling like a failure because we're not where we thought we would be. Lord, that we would realize that with you every single moment is a fresh start, every single day with you is a new beginning. Your word says that your mercies are new every morning. Lord, you make all things new. And even if, Lord, we've we've messed up opportunities or missed opportunities or even squandered blessings that you've given us in the past, and we carry guilt and shame because of that. We can lay every bit of our guilt, every bit of our shame, every ounce of feelings of failure that we have, we can lay it all at your feet. We can look you in the eye, and you don't look at us with disappointment. You do not regret giving your entire life for us. You simply take us by the hand and you walk us into the next season that you have for us, Lord. That we would be filled with hope that with you we can always start fresh, that we can always move forward closer to your will for our lives. So, Lord, help us let go of the burden of unmet expectations or disappointment in our past and look forward to the future that you've already written for us. Pray this in your name, Jesus. Hey guys, thank you very, very much. Thank you guys to get that way. I appreciate you guys. So, just to sum up, in the last few minutes, we talked about the burdens that we feel for things happening in the world, the burdens that we carry physically, sorrow, grief, trying to do it our way, the burdens that we encounter when we're trying to be our own shepherd, or if we're honest, sometimes even our own God. The burden of anxiety about a future that we can't control, the burdens about our feelings of the past. And look, like I said, there's lots of burdens that probably didn't get mentioned, but whatever you're dealing with, the Lord knows it. So what I what I'd like us to do, we have a few minutes left, is I'd like us to just spend four more minutes in prayer. And this is an opportunity, and I'm I'm serious about this, for you to leave something here. And when you walk out of those doors, you can say in your heart, it's gone. I'm not taking this with me anymore. I've left it at the feet of Jesus, it's his now. Come to me, all of you who carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Whatever burden you're dealing with, whatever comes to your mind, or whatever comes to your mind in the next few moments, this is an opportunity to present it as an offering to God. We may wonder why God would ever want an offering like our pain and our frustration and our grief and our worry, our regret, our shame, our sin. But he just tells us to give us what we've got, and sometimes that's all we've got. So tie a bow around it right now, as you pray in your heart, give it to God, leave it here. Let's spend a few minutes just giving it all away. I've asked Matt if he would actually lead us in a song, and it's not a song, maybe you can sing it if you want to, but it's more something just to sort of lead our thoughts and our minds as we as we wrap this up. So let's wrap it up.

SPEAKER_07 42:53

Come out of sadness from wherever you be. Come broken hard skill to give. Come for the save over setting. How nice you are, and there's hope for the hopeless, and all those who stray come sit at the table, and come taste the grace. There's rest for the weary, rest that indoors. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can kill. So lay down your lay down your shame. Oh lift up your hands. So lay down your lay down your height. Come as you are Come as you are falling his own. Come as you are, and there's joy for the morning. Oh sinner, be still. Earth has no sorrow, heaven can't heal. Earth has no sorrow, heaven can't heal. So lay down your good and lay down your shame. All who are good lift up your soul. Oh you're not too far. Oh lay down your heart, and lay down your heart, become as you are. Oh come as you are, become as you are.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

So the biggest challenge about laying burdens down is not picking them back up again. Don't be surprised if you and your heart today said I'm dropping it. Don't be surprised if later today, later this week, there's an opportunity to pick it back up. Don't do it.