Time to Take Out the Trash: Leaving Our Burdens with the Lord

You're listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org. Where Greg Laurie says God wants us to let go of them. Practical help coming today. What do you do when the trash can is overflowing? You empty the trash. So what do you do when your burdens are piling up? You bring them to God. The Lord tells us to cast all our cares upon Him, for He cares for us. It's like we come out of a department store with bags full of merchandise and it's hard to navigate our way through the parking lot. We drop this bag, then we drop that bag.

You might even hear the sound of broken glass. The Lord shows up with a cart and says, I'll take them from here. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out how we can leave our burdens with the Lord.

He will know what to do with them. I don't know about you, but in my house I take the trash out. And I procrastinate. I put it off.

And I don't know why. It's really not that hard. I have these big plastic trash cans with wheels and a handle on them. And all I got to do is drag them out in the front and put them there. But you know, there's something about taking out the trash that I don't really like to do. And then someone comes along and they pick up the trash. We call them the trash man. Maybe a better title would be waste management professional.

Whatever. They do their job and they do their job well. And I'm glad they do it. Because if they decide to not pick up my trash for a month, we would have a serious situation.

Right? So let me say something that might seem a little odd. But Jesus Christ is our Savior. Jesus Christ is our Lord. Jesus Christ is our God. But Jesus, in effect, wants to pick up your trash.

Let me explain that. Jesus says in Matthew 11 28, Come to Me, all you who are weary and can't carry your heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Jesus is saying, Would you please bring your cares to Me? Would you please bring your anxieties and your worries and your problems and your burdens to Me? And He says, And when you do that, I will give you rest.

I mean, that's quite a promise. And we all have cares and anxieties and worries that weigh us down. Don't we? You know the feeling. Just when you're laying your head down at night, boom! They come. What about this?

What about that? Sometimes they wake you up in the middle of the night. Sometimes you've been able to kind of give them over to the Lord and then they'll just pop back into your head again. And they trouble you. And they feel like just a lot of weight on your shoulders. And sometimes our problems are imagined. We make mountains out of molehills.

And other times our troubles are real. But whatever they are, here is what the Bible says we should do with them. Let's read 1 Peter 5 verse 6.

I am reading from the New Living Translation. So humble yourself unto the mighty hand of God and at the right time He will lift you up in honor, casting all your cares upon Him for He cares for you. Stay alert. Watch out.

Your great enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him. Be strong in your faith. And remember that your family of believers are all over the world and they're going through the same kind of suffering you are.

So if you're taking notes, here's point number one. You are not alone in your suffering. You are not alone in your suffering.

Look at verse 8 there of 1 Peter again. Remember that your family of believers all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are. I don't know why it is but it's just good to know I'm not the only one going through suffering. Right? That there is somebody else that is facing something as hard as I am facing.

Maybe even quite a bit harder than I am facing. And this is where community comes in. This is where the church comes in. Over at our church in Maui they call it ohana.

Which is the Hawaiian word for family. You know as it was already said earlier. We don't need to do this alone. Don't try to be a solo Christian.

The Bible says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. It's so wonderful when we can do that for one another. But I think there is something in us where we say well I don't want to admit I need help. And why is that? Because we are proud idiots. That's why.

That's why the Bible says humble yourself verse 6 unto the mighty hand of God and at the right time He will lift you up. I think it's maybe easier in general for women to share their hearts with other women than it is for guys to share with other guys. Am I right? Because guys oh we are guys man. We have this all sorted out. We fix stuff. That's what we do.

Well you know what? We break stuff too. And we get broken ourselves sometimes too. And we need help. We all need to humble ourselves unto the hand of God and acknowledge that we need help from other people. You know when our son Christopher was called home to heaven ten years ago it was devastating for us. And it just rocked our world. And frankly I wondered well I survived this. It is so traumatizing.

It is so hard to wrap your mind around the fact that your child is with you one day and he isn't another. And so you know the first thing I did is I reached out. You say well Greg you are a pastor. Don't you have all the answers?

Well no. Number one. And number two when the day was done I was just a father in pain. So I reached out to fellow pastors and other wonderful people I know and they were a great encouragement to me. I would just say help me. I am struggling.

I have these questions. I had questions like anyone has questions. And even though I have given the answers many times I was still needing help. And I also reached out to other people who had lost children. Because knowing that there was someone that had somehow survived this was comforting to me when I was in that first stage of it.

And so that is the whole thing. You are not alone in your suffering. I think if you just found out you had cancer your world is altered. But if you could talk to a cancer survivor and they can give you a perspective that can be very encouraging to you. And that is why for those of us who have suffered.

Who have lost a child. We have lost a spouse. We have had cancer and been able to overcome it.

Or whatever it is we have come through. Don't waste your pain. God allowed you to go through that for a reason.

So use that to help other people. Because the Bible says comfort with the comfort that you have been comforted with. So you are not alone in your suffering.

Number two. We need to give our burdens to God. We need to give our burdens to God. Look at verse seven. Casting all your cares upon Him for He cares for you.

The word cast here is not the normal word for throwing something. Rather it is a word that signifies a definite act of the will by which we stop worrying about something. And let God assume the responsibility for our welfare.

So it is an act. Like okay I am not going to worry about this because worry doesn't help. And I am going to put it deliberately and intentionally in the hand of God. Coming back to the statement here casting all your cares upon Him. Why?

Because He cares for you. Listen if it troubles you it concerns God. The other day one of my grandchildren was troubled about something and I was out of town so I FaceTimed her. Tell me what is going on. I wanted to hear.

It didn't seem like a big thing. But if it is a big thing to her it is really kind of a big thing to me too. And so in the same way God says, I care about you. I am concerned about you.

Why don't you cast that on me. I am asking you to do so. Hey what do you do when the trash can is overflowing? You empty the trash. So what do you do when your burdens are piling up? You bring them to God.

All right. So let's shift gears now and go over to Matthew chapter six. And we will see the next thing that we need to do. We will read a few verses together.

Matthew 6 verse 25 here is Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. This is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life whether you have enough food or drink or clothes to wear. Isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing? Well look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns. For your heavenly Father feeds them and you are far more valuable to Him than they are.

Can all of your worries add a single moment to your life? Why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies of the field.

How they grow. They don't work or make their clothing. Yet Solomon in all of his glory was not as dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow He will certainly care for you.

Why do you have such little faith? So don't worry about these things. Saying what shall we eat? What shall we drink?

What shall we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers but your heavenly Father already knows all of your needs. Very important verse. Verse 33.

Seek first the kingdom of God above everything else and His righteousness and He will give you everything you need. So don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today. So we will stop there. Powerful words from Jesus. So let's review. Number one.

We are not alone in our suffering. Number two. We should cast all our cares on God. Number three.

This is a big one. The believers should not worry. Jesus says don't worry about these things. Jesus is not saying a Christian should not think about those things or be concerned with the needs of life such as what you are going to wear, what you are going to eat or where you are going to live and things of that nature. He is not saying don't think about it. He is saying don't worry about it. In fact elsewhere in Scripture we are commended for working hard and saving and investing and so forth. So there is a place for all of that. Jesus is saying don't worry.

Verse 25. Don't worry about your life. Or a better translation. Don't have anxiety about the issues of life. Stop doing what you have already been doing. So the idea is you have been doing this and I want you to stop it.

Stop worrying. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. You know sometimes we can't always make it to church but here is the good news. Church is coming to you.

It is coming to you on your TV screen or on your tablet or your computer or even your phone. We do it every weekend and it is called Harvest at Home. We have worship. We have a message from the Word of God. If you want to find out more just go to harvest.org and join us this weekend for Harvest at Home. Well today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg is offering a helpful biblical antidote for worry.

In his message, time to take out the trash. Let's continue. Now some of us worry more by nature than others. How many of you struggle with worry and anxiety?

Raise your hand up. I wouldn't say I am a worry wart but I would say I do worry at times. And let me say something that might surprise you. To worry can actually be a sin.

You say well really? Yes because when you worry you are effectively not trusting God. In fact the word worry means to strangle or to choke. And that is exactly what worry does to you. It strangles you. It chokes you. You know worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow.

It empties today of its strength. Worry is interest paid on troubles before they are due. And so you can just worry about things that actually will never happen. I have told you before about the guy that had a problem with worry. So he hired someone to worry for him. He literally took it out on the paper and said, wanted someone to worry for me.

I will pay you well. So the guy took the job and he was bragging about this to one of his friends. He goes, I don't worry at all anymore. But he said, why? You always worried so much.

Oh I know. I hired a guy to worry for me. Hired a guy. How much do you pay the guy? $50,000 a week. Wow. You don't have that kind of money. How are you going to pay him? He said, that is for him to worry about. So you might try that.

I don't know how well it will work. You know when I was down under in Australia. I love the Aussies. They are just such great people. And they have an expression in Australia.

And it is the expression, no worries mate. So if you ask them a question. Excuse me. Can I get directions to this place? Why are you just going over here and right over there? Then they say, thank you. They say, no worries mate.

By the way they never said, throw another shrimp on the barbie. Right. Or that is not a knife. This is a knife. Right. It is a line from Crocodile Dundee. Forget it. Very dated reference.

How many of you got it though? You got it. Whoa. Ok. Wow.

Crocodile Dundee fans here. But that is the whole point. No worries. So Jesus is saying, don't worry about these things. You know we worry so much about what people think of us. What do people think of me?

You would not worry so much about what people think of you if you realized how rarely they do. Hate to break that to you. So he is telling us, don't worry. It comes down to this. We need to trust in the providence of God. What is the providence of God? I have no idea.

I just like the way it sounds. No. The providence of God or the sovereignty of God simply means that God is in control. So either God allows it or God does it.

He either allows it or He does it. So either that thing you are dealing with God did that or God allowed that thing for some reason we may not understand in the moment. But God is in control of all things and there is no accidents in our lives and nothing touches us that does not first pass through His loving hand.

So God is in control. So Jesus now illustrates. Some understand Jesus did most of His teaching outdoors. He wasn't in a sanctuary like this. He did speak in a synagogue on occasion. But mostly He was out and about with His disciples.

He spent a lot of time by the water there at the Sea of Galilee and so He would use things that were happening around them as illustrations. And He says, well look at the birds. Look at those birds over there. He is basically pointing out birds don't worry.

Why should we? I have a bird feeder in front of my kitchen and I fill it with seed and I like to watch the birds come and eat. They usually come in the morning. I have little tiny lattes out there for them. They really like those. You know they hold them in their little bird and then drink it. It is so cute.

I have to take a picture of it sometime but post it for you to look at. But I watch the birds and I don't see birds get stressed out. You know I have never seen a bird taking a Valium or something like that. You know they go in. They get their seed. They take off.

Right? Those are the little birds and they know I keep my feeder filled with seed. Then there are those other birds out there that take whatever they want whenever they want. I call them seagulls. The only thing worse than a cat is a seagull. Okay? We could somehow find a way to get all the seagulls to carry off all the cats.

They could take the kale while they are at it. No I am kidding. I say these. I don't even mean this but I say these things and people think I hate all these things and I don't. Well maybe I do. I am not really sure. I know I don't like seagulls because they are thieving birds.

Right? But they will come down. They will grab their food. So the point is the birds get their food. The birds gather their food but they don't worry about it. There is an old poem about birds I read a long time ago. Said the robin to the sparrow. Friend I would really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and worry so. Said the sparrow to the robin. Friend I think that it must be that they have no heavenly father such as cares for you and me.

And I know it is sweet isn't it? So birds don't worry. Why should we? Flowers don't worry.

Why should we? Verse 28. Why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow.

They don't work or make their clothing. Yet Solomon in all of his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. So Jesus is saying look at the flowers. You know you have seen the countryside sprayed with beautiful flowers. And so Jesus is saying look at all of these flowers. And look at how beautiful they are. Solomon in all of his glory wasn't as beautiful as these flowers.

Solomon dressed in his royal robes sitting on his luxurious throne of gold did not have the beauty as the flowers that were out there for people to see. And really what Jesus is pointing out is we should not be obsessed with the outward. He is not saying we shouldn't think about the outward.

He is saying don't be obsessed with it. Some people are obsessed with the way that they look. They are obsessed with. We live in a selfie culture. Don't we? And now we have all of these filters on our phones and you know these apps you can get. You can make yourself thinner and change your whole appearance so it is really not even you.

And we sometimes want to carry that over into real life. And did you know that 16 billion dollars is spent every year on cosmetic surgery. 16 billion dollars. And that is Newport Beach alone.

How many of you live in Newport Beach? Sorry it is just actually a fact. No that is nationwide.

That is nationwide. And I am not against that. Well sometimes I am. You know sometimes you go really?

You wanted that? I don't know. You know are you sure? But you know we are so concerned about our outward appearance and so Jesus is saying don't be obsessed with that. Yes think about it.

Ok now let me flip that around. Some people should be a lot more concerned with their outward appearance. You know you want to keep your body in the best physical shape that you can. The Bible says bodily exercise profits little but godliness is profitable for all things.

But it does say it profits a little. So it is not like let's just all become obese out of shape and read our Bibles. That is one extreme. And then the other extreme is well let's just work out constantly and not have any time for God and just be all we care about is our appearance. We have got to find the balance in between.

To be strong as much as we can physically and in the best shape that we can be in. But understanding that God determines the length of our days. Pastor Greg Laurie with some important perspective today from his salt and light series. In a message called time to take out the trash. And there is more to come here on a new beginning including a closing comment from Pastor Greg in just a few moments. If you missed any part of what Pastor Greg presented today you can log in for an instant replay at harvest.org or use our harvest app.

Just look for the study called time to take out the trash. Pastor Greg when we hear objections to the faith how do we know if they really are stuck on a particular fact or idea and they are in search of an explanation. Or if they really don't even want to talk about religion and are just in search of an exit from the conversation. Well you know that is a hard question to answer because sometimes people will hide behind so called intellectual arguments.

But they really want you to talk to them. I will use myself as an illustration. When I was a kid I used to hang around by the pier in Newport Beach. I was going the wrong direction in life. I was on drugs.

I was empty. And I saw these Christians walking around handing out little booklets. And I really wanted one of them to engage me but I had this tough guy facade that they apparently went for. And they would walk by me and just look at me for a moment and just give me this little booklet and walk off. No one would talk to me.

I was literally saying would someone please talk to me. So I never threw any of these things away. I went home and I had a drawer that was sort of like my God drawer if you will. Every piece of religious literature I was given went in this drawer. So I had gospel tracts, information from the Watchtower Society, things that Mormons wrote, Hare Krishna writings. You name it.

It was in there. And every now and then I would pull this little drawer out, dump it on my bed, and I would try to make sense of it. And really I wanted answers but I needed someone to engage me and tell me.

Well listen, I've got a resource for you that's going to help you tell people more about your faith and engage them in a way that will answer those intellectual questions but also point them to Jesus Christ. It's called Person of Interest written by J. Warner Wallace. What I love about this book, Jim, is you've illustrated it. You're a graphic designer and almost every page has an illustration of some kind. So it really breaks it down in an understandable way. It's called Person of Interest, Why Jesus Still Matters in a World That Rejects the Bible. And you described it to me as a kid's book for an adult.

Elaborate on that. Yeah, the idea is I think we have become such visual learners and such visual consumers of media that all of us are trying to figure out ways that how do we, and in kids' books I love them because they are about 50-50 text to illustration. So I've written a few kids' books now.

So now I was thinking when I was writing this book, I'm just no longer satisfied even as an adult with not being able to see the case. If I can make this visual, like if I tell you what, 82% of these scientists in the 15th century were Christians. Well, if I showed you every one of them in a collection, you're going to go, wow, that's really powerful.

I need to see it. So the numbers don't mean as much as actually seeing the faces of all the scientists. So we wanted to be able to provide something like a kid. And again, what we're doing is like you always say, sometimes the Bible's hard. There are places in the Bible that need someone to translate them for us. I mean to make them accessible to us. That's what you do so well. We're trying to do something similar here, difficult concepts.

How do we throw them in a way that people can catch them? Well, if you want to get a copy of this, we're going to send it to you for your gift of any size. Whatever you send, we'll use to continue our ministry here on the radio through A New Beginning. And the title of this book again is Person of Interest, written by former detective J. Warner Wallace. You'll get so much out of this book personally, but also what a powerful tool in helping you share the Lord with others.

Through the convincing text and the practical illustrations, they'll begin to see the uniqueness of Christ and His plan of salvation. And we'll send you this brand new book, Person of Interest, to thank you for partnering with us so A New Beginning can continue coming your way each day. It's only through listener support that that's possible. So please contact us today at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24-hour phone number, 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. Well, next time, Pastor Greg brings more insights from his message, Time to Take Out the Trash. Just a moment ago, he commented that we shouldn't worry about how long we'll live.

That's ultimately determined by God. He closes with this comment. I've told you before about the TV show I saw. It was a news program and they had a guy who had made it well past 100. They said we're going to reveal the secret to his longevity.

So I had to wait until the end. The old codger comes on, takes the news camera folks and the reporter down to the market and showed him his secret. And he ate a hot dog every day. And he showed him this is the hot dog I eat.

It wasn't like Hebrew National. It was like the cheap hot dog. The cheap one, like made out of rat tails. By the way, those taste the best, don't you think?

I do. No kale allowed there. So here's the guy, you know, he's working out low fat diet drops dead on a jog.

And here's the guy that eats a hot dog every day, making it past 100. Go figure. So don't worry about it. That's the point. Your days are numbered and ordered by the Lord. This is the day, the day when life begins.