This morning’s sermon looked at the idea that ‘the only weight we need to carry is the weight of God’s glory.’ So often, we carry unnecessary burdens and weights which God never intended us to carry. Matt 11:28-30 reminds us that God’s yoke is easy and His burden is light, so we need to lay down the weights we carry. It’s not His intention that we are overloaded like a backpacking tourist:
Often the burdens we carry are those of worry, anxiety, fear, guilt and shame. Worry can easily consume our every waking moment, and is only resolved when we realise that God is our loving Father who cares for our daily needs and is able to provide for us. Anxiety is less specific, dwelling on hypothetical ‘What if…?’ scenarios where God’s grace cannot be found. Prov 3:25-26 reminds us that we need not fear sudden disaster, for God is with us; Ps 112:4 reminds us that even in darkness, God’s light shines for us to help us. When we are anxious, we have to choose to pray (see Phil 4:6-7), and God promises us His perfect peace.
Fear often arises from two false beliefs: the first, that God is not able to deliver us from situations (which is amply disproved by the Bible’s narratives of God’s miraculous interventions and deliverance) and secondly, that God does not love us enough or care enough to help us when we face difficulties. We strive for independence because we are not sure God is trustworthy, but that quickly leads us to chains which keep us bound, for we are simply not able to deal with every difficulty ourselves. Trust and love are the only things which dispel fear. (Ps 56:3, 1 John 4:18)
True guilt comes when we are convicted of our sin and leads us to repentance (2 Cor 7:10). As such , it is helpful, for we have all sinned and need the forgiveness only God can offer. (Rom 3:23, Rom 5:1-2). True guilt leads us towards God for forgiveness and salvation and focuses on the root issue of how our relationship with God is damaged every time we sin. False guilt, however, never feels that repentance is enough and leads us away from God because we believe the barrier to Him is insurmountable and that we are unworthy to be His children, so we continue to hide from God. We need to understand the power of the gospel: that we are forgiven, restored, accepted, welcomed before the throne of God (see Eph 1:4-6, Heb 4:16) and that our service arises from the acceptance we have already received, rather than from any desire to earn that acceptance. The enemy seeks to burden us with false guilt, telling us an awareness of sin is a sign of spiritual maturity, but God assures us that confession and repentance are our pathways to forgiveness (1 John 1:9); we do not have to live with a constant sense of guilt and shame which weigh us down.