Oversized Load | Rev Nick Johnstone

you can be seated for just a moment i won't make you stand thank you brother sullivan we love and appreciate he and his wife very much and i just want to say that i i absolutely love and appreciate our entire pastoral staff and i'm so thankful for them i'm thankful for their voice in our lives and uh what a what a timely word it was last wednesday night about the watchmen i needed to hear that i'm so appreciative that we have a watchman in our lives and i just want to take this moment to say thank you uh to you as fac for the warm welcome that you've given my family give yourselves a hand it's it's just the first few weeks that we were here so many people came and introduced themselves and i am so sorry you got two names to remember and i've got about three or four hundred names to remember so forgive me if i come to you and i say i'm sorry i forgot your name i mean that sincerely i forgot your name um but we are so thankful to be here and uh this is a testament to how incredible your welcome has been to us at the end of kid's quest i was was talking with pastor nolan and he said man it's just so awesome your kids have integrated into the into the kids group and i said man that's not about my kids it's about your kids and the kids here and the and the parents and those who've trained and taught their children to show themselves friendly and i just want to say thank you tonight for the warm welcome and for making us feel a part of the fac family are you glad to be a part of the kingdom of god tonight amen i don't plan to take a long time tonight but would you stand with me and open up your bibles to the book of matthew the 11th chapter and i i feel a burden in my heart tonight and i'm going to do my best with the help of the holy ghost to share it with you matthew chapter 11 and verse 28. i'm gonna read three short scriptures here and then i'll let you be verse 28 says come unto me everybody say come unto me it's an invitation come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and i will give you rest it's a promise he extends the invitation and then he says if you'll come i've got something for you verse 29 says take my yoke upon you learn of me for i am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls verse 30 he sums it up and ends the chapter by saying for my yoke is easy and my burden is light with the help of god for just a few moments i want to talk to you under this thought tonight oversized load oversized load would you put your hands in the air and ask the lord to help us right now ask him to anoint your mind to receive ask him to anoint me is his messenger tonight father in the name of jesus we are completely and totally relying upon you we cannot do anything of ourselves father we're so thankful for your presence that we feel here tonight we're thankful for the work that you've already begun to do even from the pre-service prayer father and your presence that was felt here in the room i pray right now in the name of jesus that your word would go forth i pray prepare us to receive i prepare my own heart father to receive what you have for me tonight in this room and we will give you all the praise the glory the honor in jesus name we pray amen god bless you you can be seated an oversized load if you've spent any time driving down a highway maybe as a passenger or a driver you've probably seen a truck that had some sort of piece of equipment or some sort of apparatus on it and on the back there was a yellow sign that was warning you that this was an oversized load anybody here ever seen one of those this is an oversized load i was a very perceptive child growing up and i kind of lived in the middle of nowhere so we had to drive everywhere and i would spend a lot of time in the car and looking out and as we would drive down the freeway i would pass these vehicles that were carrying oversized loads and it was always very interesting to me what they were carrying some of some of the apparatuses were unrecognizable others wear large pieces of earth-moving equipment large dozers large excavators maybe those terms don't mean anything to you but then you know there was sometimes boats large houseboats being towed behind a truck maybe uh maybe a manufactured home being pulled behind one and and and every now and then if it was a real big load they would put some pilot cars maybe in front of it or behind it and and the purpose of that was to protect you and to protect me because there's wider turns required with an oversized load and and maybe there's certain parts of the highway that they can't drive on and so they're gonna have to stop traffic to to to let that oversized load go down this certain road and i you know i it never bothered me it never scared me but i've been in the car with people who when we got up beside an oversized load they said punch it because they were so afraid of that big old d8 dozer that was just rocking in the wind on that lowboy as it was going past us or we were going past it at 70 miles an hour but an oversized load and i begin to look into this what what constitutes an oversized load who who gets to decide what an oversized load is and what an oversized load is not and and by definition and it may vary a little bit by state but by definition an oversized load or an overweight load is a load that exceeds the standard or ordinary legal size and or weight limits for a vehicle to carry on a specified portion of road or highway you see there's a there's a very important process stay with me tonight we're going somewhere with this this isn't an oversized load engineering lesson but we're going somewhere i need to lay a little foundation here for a minute there's a process a very detailed process that goes into the manufacturing design and construction of the highways that you and i drive on every single day there's a lot of thought that goes into this road that leads us to the church and the highways around here and the interstates around here that many of us use on a daily basis to commute to our jobs and to get to our homes and places of business and when they get ready to build a highway a group of engineers sit down and they will open up the ashto standards it's a it's a book thousands of pages and and in there is the standard for every highway that's going to be built and and those standards are very detailed and and and by the way you preached it last night not one detail those standards can be missed once it's put into the plans and they'll go in and they'll excavate out grass and soil and and they just have dirt there and they'll come in and they'll take a probe or a machine and they'll begin to push on that dirt and they want to make sure that that dirt can hold up to the weight that's going to be put on it they want to make sure that whatever structure a builder or a contractor comes in within the next few months or years and begins to build on that subgrade can hold up to it because hear me for a moment the foundation matters yes it matters what you build on the foundation but that foundation or that road can only bridge bad subgrade for so long anybody here ever drove down an asphalt road full of potholes and they about take your tires out and knock your car out of alignment they break your shocks and and you're frustrated with it somebody put a bad building over or a good building over a bad subgrade somebody didn't go through the process of testing so once the dirt is certified yes this is this is good you can build on this then they'll come in with with sometimes multiple feet of crushed rock and aggregate and they will lay that down in lifts and they'll push it with dozers and they'll laser it in to make sure that it's perfectly level and it meets great and then they'll bring in compactors on each of those lifts and they'll roll it and roll it and vibrate it and vibrate it and then they they come in with these special testing machines and they will dig down into the surface of that rock because that same manual that tells them how many inches of rock they need under the highway also tells them what percentage of compaction that rock has to be before the asphalt could go on top of it and so there's a guy who comes out he tests it and he gives you the thumbs up and says you're good to build the road but it's not done yet somebody has to come in and lay layer upon layer upon layer of asphalt and all of these things are are again put down for a purpose and then they roll the asphalt out until it's a nice smooth road and then the guy who tested the compaction of the rock he comes back out and he drives that stick back down into the asphalt he tests the compaction of the asphalt because nobody likes driving on a road full of tire ruts but the engineers that started on that process with a set of planes brother white long before the builder was ever out there they began to engineer that road with all of the loads that would pass over it in mind they begin to do very complex calculations that just even the thought of them makes my mind explode let alone grabbing that scientific calculator that they sit in that cubicle and beat on hours a day to make sure that that road is safe for you and i to travel on you calculate how many cars a day are going to pass over that highway they calculate what the what the average weight of the vehicles are going to be by the state standard that those are so many eighty thousand pound trucks and so many six thousand pound chevy silverados and so many five thousand pound f-150s and so many three thousand pound honda civics are gonna pass over this car or this road in the process of time and we've got to make sure that it it's designed so that it can hold up to the load that it's about to carry i've had the opportunity if you can't tell to build a few highways in my life i built some airport tarmac and runway one time i was young was very young i was right out of college and had just gone to work for a contractor and we were working on some faa specifications just throw the thousands of pages of ash toe out the window they've got their own set at the faa i could not believe the layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of rock and asphalt that went in and then we came back in and put 24 more inches of hard concrete on top of that and when we got done those areas around the gates that that plane pulls up into and docks are literally sitting on feet of material that were specifically designed to hold the load sitting on top of it they do the same thing with bridges just last week i was driving across the country on a cross-country trip and i was in the back woods of south dakota i was on a two-lane road i don't know what the world google maps was thinking but i guess that was the fastest route from seattle to maryville and i'm on this two-lane julie road with no passing zones behind an oversized load the first thing i said was lord i got it you've been talking to me about this for a while i got it i know what i'm supposed to talk about next wednesday night the second thing i said was lord please pick me up and move me over this thing so that i don't have to drive 35 miles an hour all the way to wyoming but as we got into this tiny town by the sullivan this truck began to navigate it had this massive dozer on it and the tracks hung way over the outside and it had pilot cars in front or behind it and every moment that i just legally creeped my truck out there a little bit to look around and see if maybe i could get around that pilot car sweep out there and say stay in your lane young man this isn't safe got an oversized load here we wandered into this one horse town and we got ready to cross the river across the bridge and we're now we're you know we're two lanes on each side of the road so i'm thinking thank you jesus i can pass and we come up to this bridge and that pilot car whipped his car sideways in the road and he bailed out of it he grabbed himself a little stop sign paddle anybody ever seen one of those and he got out and he looked at me and he held that stop sign at me and he said you stop i don't know if he's gonna come fight me i don't know what was about to happen didn't like how i was following him and as i watched this situation unfold i i looked ahead and i saw the pilot car that was in front of him he did the same thing and that oversized load moved over to the center of that bridge and he passed over that long bridge all by himself because you see when that owner of that truck and trailer got a permit to drive an oversized load on a highway the engineers begin to look at the route and they say listen you can't go down i-90 anymore because there's bridges there that can't handle your load so you're going to need to get off on on the scenic route and when you get onto the scenic route you're going to come to this town and when you get to that town you're going to come to a bridge and nobody else can be on that bridge but you because that bridge is not designed to hold the weight of your truck and all the potential cars that are going to be with you so you need to cross that by yourself if you don't do that there's going to be catastrophic damage if you don't do that some dude following you coming home to his family in tennessee might not be alive to meet them it might be floating in his truck down the river because everything's got a design and everything's designed for a load no i said earlier this is not an engineering lesson so so hang with me here god created you and i genesis chapter 2 verse 7 says and the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul i propose you tonight that more complex than the engineering and design of our highways and bridges that are designed specifically for certain weights and certain processes god put much more thought and engineering and science into you and i is human beings and he didn't just put thought into us but for the soul that i believe tonight he designed me for a specific purpose i'm not here on this earth tonight by accident god didn't place me here and just plot me out of the sky one day like a bird but but he placed me here for a purpose and he designed me to be able to carry a certain amount of weight he designed me to be able to withhold and withstand up to a certain amount of pressure you know they i don't understand the signs of all this i'm not a scientist but i i'm told that fish you know humans can't go very deep in the ocean because their lungs will just collapse and and when coming back up from scuba diving they've got to be careful how quickly they come back up because of all the atmospheric pressure in the water but yet god created a fish that they go and they come at their leisure because that's what they were created to do he didn't create you to dive to the depths of the ocean but he gave fish the skeletal and and air means to be able to do whatever it is that they want to do hear me tonight god designed you with a specific purpose in mind and he designs you with a specific load capacity in your life don't look at me and say well if brother johnstone can carry that load then i guess i can take a little more on or if pastor carpenter or pastor erickson can carry that load then maybe i can too listen god designed them for a load god designed you for a load the specific burden that they carry god gave them the design to do it the specific load that i carry god designed me to carry just ask my wife she carries way more than i do she can think about two things at the same time and talk about a third if i'm looking at my phone and she's trying to tell me something important i have to when i get done scrolling and all of a sudden all the man alarms in my brain start going off whoa whoa whoa she just said something you need to remember i have to stop scrolling and say what did you say i knew you were listening to me god didn't design me the way he designed her and god didn't design you the way he designed me he designed you specifically to carry his specific load come on reach out to the lord right now i feel the holy ghost in the house i feel like god wants to help somebody tonight i feel like somebody that walked in heavy is going to leave a little bit lighter somebody that walked in carrying a bunch of burdens god's going to lift that load tonight he's going to give you a victory you're going to leave with a bounce in your step you might have walked in heavy but you're going to walk out free jesus name jesus name i feel like oftentimes i carry things that god never intended me to carry brother jonathan i load myself up and i let other people load me up with things cares of this life cares of this world and i i just i'm like your grandmother's refrigerator just everybody walks by and puts a magnet on it before you know it you've got magnets from all over the place and it becomes a center piece of the kitchen and everybody who walks in stops and stares at where's that magnet from and i get the same way with burns i get the same way with weights i get the same way with cares of this life i just allow them to attach themselves to me and i just begin to carry them because if if i don't carry it who will that's a great question but you better check in with the lord first to make sure he designed you to carry that burden come on there's all kinds of things just read the news you can pick up all kinds of burdens just read the news you can get real heavy real fast but that's not what he called me to do he called me for a specific purpose and i find my purpose every morning in prayer father what do you want me to carry today what do i need to cast on you what do i need to let go of and what is your purpose for me today matthew chapter 6 verse 31 some of my favorite scripture verses here he said therefore take no thoughts saying what shall we eat what shall we drink wherewith all shall we be clothed for after all these things do the gentiles seek for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of these things but seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you i bet you if we took a poll tonight i handed out pieces of paper and i said i want you to write on here some of the things that you're carrying some of the the weights the heaviness the burdens the things that plague your not your mind the things that keep you awake at night because you can't stop thinking about him and you're worrying about him and and you think that by worrying about them you can fix them but god god told us in the gospels he said which of you by worrying can add a single inch to a stature why are you worrying about things why are you anxious about things that you have no control over you can't do anything about and i bet you if we did a poll and we we gave you paper and you wrote your your greatest burden your greatest weight and you put it up here most of those things would probably fall into one of these categories in matthew 6 31-33 and i'm speaking from experience so many times i carry weight so what am i going to do about this what am i going to do about that how am i going to provide for my family what am i going to do about this and how is this going to work out and god said listen that's none of your business none of those things are any of your problem i asked you to cast those things on me i ask you to seek me first let me deal with all those things let me give those things to you i carry him i don't know why it's just our human nature some of us are worse than others but in our our scripture text tonight matthew the 11th chapter i love i love context of scriptures it's easy to pull two or three scriptures out and say oh i have a shout party about it sometimes you got to read the whole chapter sometimes you got to read the chapter before you got to read the chapter after and i i love context i love the context of scripture and when you begin to look at matthew chapter 11 this this just jumped out slapped me upside the head as i began to look into these three verses matthew chapter 11 verse 1 says and it came to pass when jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples he departed things to teach and to preach in their cities now when john had heard in the prison the works of christ he sent two of his disciples and said unto him art thou he that should come or do we look for another jesus answered and said unto them go and show john again those things which you do hear and see the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached unto them and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me book ended in this chapter is john the baptist the forerunner of jesus christ sitting in prison twiddling his thumbs i don't know getting beaten maybe i don't know i tell you this he wasn't watching cable tv guarantee this he wasn't getting three square meals a day guarantee you this he wasn't in the day room lifting weights in the gymnasium playing basketball all day or rat ball or whatever they call it he was in prison he was miserable and his misery got to such a level that he got word to a couple of his disciples and he said i need you to go talk to jesus here's what i need you to ask him i need you to ask him are you the one do we look for another now you just you just have to bear with me for a few minutes tonight i i love john the baptist i love his life i love reading about it i love studying it when you go back into the gospels and you read each account of his life it's such a miraculous thing it just it almost gives you goose bumps when you read about it here you have a mother and a father who are from priestly families and priestly lineage and the scripture tells us that his mother was barren and was unable to have children and so they're up later in life but one day as his father is doing his priestly duties an angel of the lord appears unto zacharias and he says hey listen you're going to have a you're going to have a child how will i know this is gonna happen and he said listen dude i'm gabriel i'm the one who stands in the presence of god and i've been sent with a message from god this was john's beginning you fast forward a little further into the story and here's here here's mary going to visit elizabeth and the scripture says that that the moment that mary's salutation that was heard by elizabeth ears that the babe leaped within her womb and there was an automatic connection john even in his womb and at the very beginning of his formation understood what his job was i love what the writer of the gospel john said he was not the light but he was sent to bear witness of the light he understood what his purpose was i'm not here to be the christ don't look to me i'm here for a purpose in a season but he that's coming after me that's who you need to look to whoa he had a he had a ministry he had a time people leaving the towns going out into the wilderness just to hear him preach people walking between 20 and 70 miles just to be baptized of him in the jordan all these crazy things were happening i don't know if somebody would drive 70 feet to listen to me preach but this dude was like out in the wilderness in the middle of nowhere dressed up like a madman and god was using him mightily and then that day comes the scripture tells us that he's baptizing people and god's using him oh my goodness i think there's some people in the house that identify with that baptizing people in jesus name baptizing people for the remission of their sins all of a sudden he looks up behold this is he who i've been talking about this is the one i've been preaching about the one that i told you to look to this is him you talk about a moment in your life you talk about a moment your history called for that purpose you know the story he's just doing what he knew was right speaks out against the king you can't do that he gets thrown into prison and here he is in prison and he's sitting there just mulling over historians say it was probably between somewhere between a few months and up to a couple years but probably not more than a couple years that he sat there he may sit there through a couple of passovers but he's he's there he's he imagine if he's like me can i just be real for a minute if he's like me brotherly he thought back through all those moments in the river when he looked up what did i do wrong he remembered back to that that moment that that he began to preach and the the pharisees and the sadducees and the scribes and those begin to talk to him and he just out of nowhere begin to begin to say hey the axe is laid under the root of the tree and don't you dare say that you have abraham as a father because he is able of these stones to raise up children oh i don't know where that came from i felt good here he is sitting in a prison cell rehearsing all these things in his mind and then the word that comes back his best friends come trucking back into the prison what did he say what did he say did he send the keys did he talk to the guards are the guards going to let me out no john he just simply told us to tell you he built you to carry the weight that you carry he told us to remind you that the lame walk he wanted us to remind you that the blind received their sight he he wanted us to let you know john that you're going to be blessed if you don't get offended at the load that he's asked you to carry because he designed you for that low john i gotta tell you that's not a message that makes me run the aisles that's not a message that makes me want to speak in tongues and roll on the floor that's a message oh father what what did i do wrong where did i go wrong you didn't go wrong anywhere john you had a purpose you were created for a purpose and you served that purpose the scripture tells us that that that they left and and john begins to talk about jesus and he talks about him the rest of the chapter and he begins to communicate all these things and he says what went out the wilderness to see what in the world were you doing are you shaking in the wind what what what what were you doing were you looking for a man clothed in soft raiments were you looking for a prophet and then he just blows my mind by the sullivan matthew 11 11 he says verily i say unto you he's talking to a crowd of people and they're like yeah and yeah we did we went out and we saw him he was powerful yeah we went out there he's wearing crazy clothes and he's eating crazy food but man we felt goosebumps when he began to preach and we just ran into the water yeah so you're gonna go get him right you're gonna go let him out right he said among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than john the baptist then go get him if there's nobody greater than john the baptist then go get him out of prison nope nope let john know the load and the burden that you're carrying i designed you to carry it so you keep moving through i'm not going to go through all that tonight we don't have time for all i'm skipping through all that did you get to matthew chapter 11 verse 28 this is the other book he says a lot of stuff in there he reprimands him about a lot of things he said you didn't even listen to him he said it'd be better for these sinful cities over here they they'd have listened and he preached to them but you wouldn't even listen to him you're still sitting here arguing with me he was so frustrated but in verse 28 our scripture text tonight he proposes this invitation it's one of those whosoever will moments you know god doesn't force us into anything he doesn't he doesn't make us do anything we don't want to do we have a free will i get to make decisions that i want to make yes i have to suffer the consequences of decisions but i get up in the morning and i decide whether i'm going to pray or not going to pray i go throughout my day and i decide whether i'm going to read my bible or not god doesn't come down and take this and slap me upside the face with it and say hey read this i have to read it i have to desire after it i have to want to be fed by his word he gives us this invitation it's a beautiful indication invitation he says come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy in the original greek that laden isn't on there just says come unto me all you that labor and are heavy so he he addresses he extends an invitation to two specific groups of people he's talking to the laborers and he's talking to the heavy now i begin to look at this word labor and it's i tell you it's just so fitting in the day and the hour that we live in today it's where labor literally means to feel fatigue to labor or toil or to be wearied that word weary jumped out at me a little bit because i i think i've heard that that that word in scripture before and i was right it's mentioned 41 times in the word of god 41 times the word weary is mentioned and paul he in his writings he addressed two separate churches that with the same instruction and the same admonition or maybe i should say caution he said let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not jesus was extending an invitation because he knew that weariness was going to come he was extending an invitation because he knew that in the process of life and all the things that we would face fatigue was going to set in and then he says he said it again in second thessalonians chapter 3 verse 13 verse 13. he said but ye brethren be not weary in well doing he's writing to the church two different churches if it's applicable to them it's applicable to me it's easy for me to get weary it's easy for me to begin to get fatigued under the weight that i'm carrying and so the responsibility that i have as we'll look at a little further on scripture is am i carrying the weight that god intended me to carry or if i become weary under my own agenda hear me tonight have i become weary under my own plan brother johnson you just don't understand i've got to do all these things i have to do all this this has to happen this is the plan for my life and if i don't do this now when will i ever do it i don't know but check in with the lord and make sure that he's on board with your plan make sure his your plan is a part of his purpose for your life because if it is i'll give strength to the weary come on somebody if it's his plan he said i'll lift you up when you're downtrodden he said if it's my plan i'll give you grace if it's my plan you don't have to worry about where the strength is going to come from oh your strength's gone don't worry about it mine's perfect oh you're feeling weak don't worry when you're weak i'm strong as long as you're in my will and as long as you're pursuing my purpose come on somebody clap your hands of the lord right now thank him right now for his plan heavy heavy most the time those oversized loads they're overweight so they're not just putting stress on the highway but they're putting stress on the vehicle that's towing them and if it's not careful and they don't manage that weight properly and they run overloaded all the time that vehicles brakes might fail and now you've got a runaway hundred thousand pound load running down the highway taking out cars like they're bowing pins okay in the name of jesus come on talk to the lord right now in the name of jesus father you know you and you alone know what i'm able to bear you and you alone know what i'm able to carry in the name of jesus in the name of jesus you see if i if i run myself heavy all the time if i run myself overloaded with the cares of this life and listen they they can all be justifiable listen i'm just as guilty as the next i i've spent time brother sullivan mentioned that i wasn't successful in business i was just involved in business i spent a lot of time in the business world i've been by vocational all of my ministry i'll tell you listen to me young person career's not everything don't let a career get so attached to you and don't get so weighted down with career that you're so stressed out and i understand it takes money to live and i understand it takes money to buy houses and pay rent and all those things that don't get so weighted down with a job and so stressed out that you're of no value in the kingdom of god any longer i've been overloaded before and god had to yank my train a little bit and say i'm pulling your oversized load permit get to me get to me offload some of that stuff i didn't intend you to carry that my wife's telling me you're all stressed out you're all stressed out why are you so short by this oh my god i got loaded up i got loaded up with the wrong things he said if you're heavy that word heavy there means to overburden to load up a vessel or an animal if you've loaded yourself listen i'm not talking about about the things that god's asked you to carry he asked john to carry a load but he created john for that load i'm not talking about the things that god's asked you to carry it it seriously it sometimes amazes me it is nothing short of amazing the loads that god has some people to bear listen i've had seasons in my life where the loads were great i've had my own family look at me and say i don't know why god's asking you to endure this i don't know why god's put this on you but i believe he's done it for a testimony to somebody else that if they're going through it god's got a purpose in it and he designed you to carry it don't crumble under the weight to receive the invitation that if you're weary and you're tired and you're feeling heavy come unto him come on pray right now i feel the holy ghost in the house i know it's just not me feeling it right now come on reach to him right now in the name of jesus in the name of jesus in the name of jesus i believe a spirit of heaviness is one of the greatest tools of the enemy in this hour the enemy wants the church to live under a spirit of heaviness he'd have you to look all around and all the things that brother sullivan talked about earlier and it starts to wear you down and i understand what it is as a parent of young children and the heaviness of how in the world am i going to raise them in this society and how in the world am i going to teach them and train them and explain to them all the smut that's going on in the world right now that's heavy stuff he said you're not alone i teach you to do that on your own i'm going to give you the grace to do it oh but the enemy loves the spirit of heaviness see if he can get the church weighted down if he can get the church in a spirit of heaviness if he can get the church heavy about society if he can get the church heavy about the economy coming into church worrying all right this morning there's going to be a recession and whose kingdom brother sullivan i'm pretty young but i've lived through a couple of recessions i can tell you god's been good to me i'm still here i'm still here if you seek first his kingdom if you put him first in all things oh sure maybe there was wasn't as much money in my bank account that year as there was the year before but i never found myself hungry i never found myself wanting my cupboards were never bare my wife never had to come to me and say honey i don't know what we're going to eat tomorrow night but i was reminded of the scripture and said i've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread he's always taking care of me i refuse to live under a spirit of heaviness about society that's what the enemy wants he wants you living under the spirit of heaviness because you know what follows heaviness oppression as soon as he gets his heavy he gets us locked down i tell you i'm a worshiper i love to worship i love to praise god i love it i love it when the spirit of god moves into this place and just man just he takes over and we begin to worship and maybe you run maybe you dance maybe you jump maybe you shout maybe you wave your hands around you do whatever you feel like doing but i love that but i tell you there's been seasons in my life where i was under such a spirit of heaviness and under such oppression i felt like i couldn't even lift my hands a work of the enemy once he locks you down for a little while so he starts with heaviness he gets you heavy you start coming into church and you got a couple pilot cars in front of you behind you oversized load did you see the gas prices did you see what the stock market did yesterday i lost so much money in the last six months i don't know if i'm ever going to retire that's a spirit of heaviness it's here is he your provider is he your supplier is he in control of your life come on that heaviness on you then he gets you oppressed and once he gets you locked down he takes away your praise the next thing that comes is depression and if he can get you depressed he can just about snuff you out of the kingdom i i tell you what i preached for many years to many precious people of god i prayed over people that were battling depression and i'd exercise authority in the name of jesus but the sullivan rebuked the spirit of depression a few years ago i found myself i didn't understand what was going on anymore i i i didn't go to the doctor diagnose anything but i woke up one day after a few years and i realized that i was battling depression couldn't get out of bed in the mornings i i that's not me i get up at the crack of dawn and i love to get my day started before my kids get up before my wife gets up i love to get all the important stuff done get my prayer done get my bible reading done so i'm not trying to read my bible somebody's asking me you know for a cup of milk or some cheerios or whatever i like to focus when i'm praying and so i like to get that stuff done early and and now i'm the alarm clock's going off and i've had snooze snooze snooze snooze and i'm going what's wrong with me what's wrong it's got to be exercise so i start exercising oh it's got to be nutrition i didn't realize i was living under a spirit of depression but when i began to follow the trail back it started with the spirit of heaviness the things that i was going through and things that i was allowing to attach themselves to me that i had no business carrying i i needed instead of letting them go and casting them on the lord i was spending time sitting around mulling them over and thinking about them and letting them attach themselves to me and letting them sink their claws into me i love what isaiah said about this there's hope isaiah 61 1-3 he said the spirit of the lord is upon me because the lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto me he has sent me to bind up the broken heart to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the lord and the day of vengeance of our god to comfort all that mourn to a point unto them that mourn in zion to give unto them beauty for ashes the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they might be called trees of righteousness the planting of the lord that he might be glorified hear me tonight god wants your heaviness he just he wasn't doesn't just want to take it though he wants to give you a garment of praise he wants to lighten your load so that when you come into the house of god you've got to liberty to lift up your voice you've got a liberty to lift your hands and you if you feel like moving your feet a little bit it maybe it's been a while since you felt like doing that but when you take that garment of praise on it nothing can hold you down but here's this promise that i'm hurrying here's his promise bring your weariness bring your heaviness to me and not only will it give me a garment of praise but he said i will give you rest i love rest i love food you can't tell i love food i mean i love food i'm a foodie i love food but you know what i like more than food sleep i love to sleep i love i'm not i'm that guy i no offense to all you my head hits the pillow at night i fall asleep you go to bed to go to sleep right you don't go to bed lay there all night and think about things i lay my head on that pillow i'm out i love to sleep my favorite time tonight's bedtime favorite time in the morning's breakfast because i get to eat sleep and eat i think god knew what he was doing but he said i will give you rest i started looking at this because in verse 28 29 the word rest is mentioned twice and as i started to look at i realized that while the translators used the same use the word rest twice it's not the same word but this word rest in verse 28 literally means to cause or permit one to cease from any movement or labor in order to recover and collect his strength god said if you're heavy if you're weary if you've been laboring and you just you need help he said get to me he said i don't just got rest for you he says but i've got the kind of rest that i'm just going to set you aside for a moment and i'm just going to pour my spirit into you you see that's his plan for rest isaiah wrote about it in chapter 40 verse 28 he said hast thou not know hast thou not heard that hast thou not heard that the everlasting god the lord the creator of the ends of the earth he fainteth not neither is he weary there is no searching of his understanding he giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might he increases their strength even the youth they have to sleep they shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall but they that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength and he didn't stop there he said they're going to mound up with wings i'm going to give them wings and they're not just going to run anymore but they're going to fly i'm going to lift them up above their troubles and then they're going to run and they're going to not be weary and they shall walk and not faint hear me tonight that's god's strength it's been a long time since this boy ran but even in my prime i had limitations brother sullivan i've never ran and not fainted i've hit the wall how many times but he said i've got strength for the church i've got strength from my body he said in chapter 28 in verse 11 with stammering lips stammering lips and another tongue he said i'm gonna speak to this people to whom he said this is the rest this power of the holy ghost this spending time in my prayer closet praying in the spirit this is the rest wherewith i'm gonna cause the weary to rest listen if you're tired in your spirit tonight if you're weary in your spirit tonight if you're living under a spirit of heaviness can i encourage you to lift your hands toward heaven and begin to fellowship the spirit of god if you're a spirit-filled believer you ought to let the holy ghost begin to be prayed through you right now because he said this is the rest wherewith i would pause the weary to rest come on it's not in another grande frappuccino it's not in a double triple quadruple shot americano but he said if you'll get in the presence of god and you begin to pray in the holy ghost that's my rest listen i know what it is to just just to get here on wednesday night and be tired in your body the work week's been hard the school week's been hard and you're just trying to get here you're trying to talk yourself in on the way home from work are we even going to go tonight are we going to make it tonight are we just going to watch online and then you get here and you power through it and you come into the the into the building you get into your pew and someone begins to strike a chord and the music begins to play and all of a sudden you begin to lift your hands and next thing you know the spirit of god begins to move and that tiredness is just gone that tiredness just seems to begin to drift away here something happens in the presence of god he said that's my rest that's my rest next thing you know service is over and you're enjoying fellowship with the body of christ he said that's my rest god is my witness i can't tell you how many how many midweek services i've left in my 41 years of life where i i came in tired but i left energized because i spent time fellowshipping the father and you can't fellowship the father without your strength being renewed verse 29 and i'm coming to a close musicians can come he tells us why he gives us the answers to why we become weary in labor and we live in heaviness 29 says take my yoke upon you and learn of me my dear sister in the back there's got a picture of a yoke because if you were born after 1970 you probably think i'm talking about an egg strong tower that's a yoke pastor hammond says don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers that's what he's talking about that went over like a lead balloon who's in your who's in your yoke he said take my yoke upon you you can throw the next picture up there who's in your yoke tonight take my yoke upon you you see i have a decision to make every morning when i get up am i going to take on my yoke and my burdens and all the things that i'm concerned about or am i going to get up in the morning leave that laying beside the bed and slip into his yoke you see when i'm in his yoke we're pulling together when i'm in my yoke all by myself and nobody's with me or maybe that co-worker that i complain to yeah he's going to help me yeah i dump all my problems on him he's real spiritual you know you're going to tell me what dr phil said or doctor i said to do about my problems that's the guy i want my yoke and i pull that yolk around in life oh it's so heavy it's so heavy i don't know what i'm going to do about this i can barely survive i don't know if i can live very many more days like this i'm probably just going to fall apart whose yoke are you in he said take my yoke upon you and learn of me for i am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest for your souls now in the first rest verse 28 he said i'm gonna give you rest he's talking about those he's talking about two separate people here he's talking about the first phase of recovery when i come in and i'm just i'm i'm done i'm i'm being kind of liking it to a car i'm getting towed to the shop they've hooked up to me and they're towing me to the auto repair store because i can't i can't go any further that's verse 28 he said i'm going to give you us get in here this is a 9-1-1 emergency we got to get you in the triage unit you've been carrying too much weight you're you're a detriment to those around you you've been complaining to people you you've been poisoning people around you about god because you're complaining about you know well you ought to come to my church my goodness uh i don't know how in the world i'm going to do this or i'm going to do that but this rest he said you got to find this one how do i find his rest well i only find his rest when i find his yoke and i only find his yoke when i find myself in prayer every morning before my day starts or as my day progresses saying okay lord here i am i'm a vessel of yours father what do you need me to pray about today what's going on in the world today what's going on in my family that you know about all my family problems you know about all my family drama what do you need from me today you know what that rest means an intermission anybody here know what an intermission is ever been to a concert or a show and they stop it for a minute have an intermission everybody just gets to get up and go out hey how are you nice i see you you don't get buy some memorabilia see when i'm in his yoke it's a different type of load it's the load that he designed me to carry and he never ever intends for me to carry it on my own he says let's carry it together come on you're not alone tonight you're only alone if you're in your own yoke but if you're in his yoke i know that was a picture of a couple of oxen up there but if you could picture yourself in his yoke it's you and jesus and you're pulling together you can stand with me i pray this scripture every morning first peter chapter 5 and verse 7. he says casting all your care upon him for he careth for you that word care there literally means anxieties you live in a world that is so full of anxiety i'd venture to say there's probably precious people of god tonight who are living under the victimhood of anxiety seems like anybody who goes to the doctor nowadays a little stressed out or a little under the under the weather they want to give them anti-anxiety pills and he didn't want you to carry that stuff he said cast it that word cast there is the same word if you were casting a fishing pole or throwing a rock he said cast it not sure how i'm gonna pay my bills not sure what i'm going to do about my health not sure what i'm going to do about my backslidden child not sure what i'm going to do about my kids or i'm trying to raise and raise them in the things i've got and once you're done casting all of your cares once you're done casting all of your anxieties he says now getting my yoke and let's walk together today and let's have a light day let's have a day of praise let's have a day of worship let's have a day of thanksgiving i'm sorry i've kept you a long time tonight it's eight minutes tonight they're gonna lead us in a song for a moment i wonder if you're if you're physically capable would you come to the front tonight and would you bring your burdens with you if there's if there's things that the lord's convicted you about while i've been talking tonight things that you've been carrying maybe some anxieties maybe some cares there might even be things that are keeping you awake at night some of you may not be sleeping well can i can i beg you to receive the invitation of the father tonight please please he says come unto me come on cast your cares on me let me care about those things if he's your provider let him let him care let him figure out how in the world he's going to provide for you if he's truly your provider let him figure out a way if he's truly your waymaker let him figure out a way if he's truly your healer let him figure out a way cast it on him right now come on that's it i hear people all over the building casting right now and once you get down once you get done casting i want you to get in the spirit and i want you again to pray in the holy ghost for a few minutes here as they begin to sing let the holy ghost begin to flow through you and get that rest get that refreshing i cast it on you right now jesus you never intended me to carry this forgive me for carrying it forgive me father for carrying this load around forgive me for living under anxiety forgive me for living under heaviness forgive me tonight i'm casting it on you oh yes oh yes that's beautiful come on i feel a spirit of praise coming into the house right now i feel that spirit of heaviness beginning to lift even right now hipaa toro if you've got nothing to cast pray for the person beside you if you're done casting and you're done praising come on pray for the person beside you pray that god would lift them pray that god would give them a relief right now pray that god would lift that burden off of them as they cast it on him stop worrying about the future young adults stop worrying about the future strong tower he's got in his hands you don't have to carry that weight right now just getting his yoke he'll lead you just walk with him he'll lead you he'll put you in the right career he'll put you at the right school he'll put you in the right university just get in his yo