4-9-2019

Good Morning All,

        Psalm 81:6; “I removed the burden from his shoulder.  His hands were freed from the basket"

     One of the more frequent themes of music is the plight of the working man.  Tennessee Ernie Ford sang of “Sixteen Ton.” John Fogerty sang of the “Fortunate Son.” Merle Haggard had a number of songs about the working man.  All these, and others, tell of working hard, barely hanging on, other people living off of our work; about a system that is stacked against us so that we can’t get ahead.  The plight of the man who carries a heavy burden in life, who is boned tired every night and often wakes up exhausted the next day still stiff and sore from the day before.  We often see the image of a man carrying a heavy pack on his back, all hunched over, stumbling, from the weight he bears.

    That is the image that the Psalmist wants us to have when we read this verse.  All those who labor and are heavy laden; all you who work hard every day, all of you who are totally exhausted from the demands of the day; come to me and I will give you rest.  The thing we want to remember is that this isn’t about physical labor; it is about spiritual labor.  It is about confessing our sins.

     Sin causes man to fall away from God; to even hide.  In hiding, we try and carry the burden of our sin with us in order that God will not see it.  It doesn’t work but we still try and each one of those sins are a burden.  They are a burden which we foolishly and unnecessarily carry with us.  We keep them out of sight yet we remember them every day, fearing that someone will find out and our failure will be known.

     The devil tries to convince you of this same tactic.  The guilt that we feel after we sin is the devil trying to goad us into carrying that sin with us all the time.  He is weighing us down with the burden of paying for it.  He is placing the weight of that sin squarely on our back.  He wants you to carry it so he can use that sin to try and separate you from God.  He wants you to struggle and battle all day long, get no rest at night and then tomorrow he will add some more guilt, some more weight to that pack on your back.

    To this Jesus tells us come; come if you are heavy with burden, heavy with the weight of the guilt of sin, and Jesus will give you rest.  That is what confession of sins is about.  We are not telling God anything he doesn’t know when we confess our sins.  The confession of sins is about freeing yourself from the guilt of sin.  We take these sins and say, “Father, these are burdening me down please take them from me.” This is about having the burden taken from us, by Jesus, so that we may have true rest.

Dear Father in heaven, you call us through your Son to unload our burden and to receive from you your holy rest.  We are often too slow to hear these words of comfort and we carry the burdens of guilt that rob us of your grace.  Give us strength to come to you and receive rest.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret