Too Heavy To Carry On | Summer In The Psalms | Pastor Derick Amsler

Go ahead and grab your seat. Grab your Bibles. You know where we are already? We are in this summer series called Summer in the Psalms. Everybody say psalms.

Tell the person next to you, happy looks good on you. Come on, let them know, Come on, happy looks good on you. Happy looks good on you. And now, in preparation for where we're about to go, look at the other person you just ignored and say, you filthy liar. Just come on, let them know.

Come on, you gotta let them know it. You gotta let them know it.

I have discovered that there are two types of people in the world. And one group I resonate well with, and the other group, I'll just be honest with you, I can't stand them. And you pray for me as I try to work through this. But I have friends that I genuinely don't understand. Like, I like them as people.

We're gonna share heaven. We'll occupy the same space. But when they tell me stories of what I'm about to tell you, it gets under my skin. And we just need for a good six months. You know what I'm talking about?

I have friends who, when they decide to go to sleep, they actually do you know what I'm talking about. They just like, hey, it's time for bed. They close their eyes, and immediately they're snoring. I had a roommate in college, just like that, we'd be cutting up, laughing. He would yawn and say, all right, brother, I'm gonna get some shut eye.

First night in college, I was just like, yeah, man, that's funny. Bro. Bro. He's out sleep. He decides to go to sleep.

He goes to sleep. My wife can be like that. In order for my wife to go to sleep, she just needs a few things. She needs a clean kitchen, you know, no dishes in the sink. She needs a clean kitchen.

She needs the bedroom to be a sobering 45 degrees, everybody housing just shivering. And then number three, she needs to make sure the kids are safe. Not necessarily in that order, but I'm just telling you, she only needs three things in order to just shut her eyes and be sound asleep. Me, on the other hand, I've got a list of things that have to happen before I'm able to fall asleep. I made a note about it primarily for my therapist.

And here's some things that I have noticed before. I need to go to sleep. I need four downward spirals. I need 13 overthinks. I need 49 replays of one conversation I had in 2009.

I need 27. I wonder what they really meant by that. I need three imaginary arguments that I'll keep having until I totally demolish them in my mind. And then I need one speech that I need to give to somebody who doesn't even know I'm mad at them. But one day they're going to figure it out when they press the wrong button.

Only after all of that am I able to start now worrying about the to do list for tomorrow. Then after that I can close my eyes and go to sleep. Anybody feel me on this? Come on. You need four to nine downward spirals before you can be a person of peace.

I realized a while back my problem really isn't an over anxious mind. My problem is an anxious soul. My problem is that my soul cannot learn how to rest because my body has been addicted to to energy hyperactivity. My nervous system is on high alert and so my body can be exhausted. My intentions are to fall asleep.

But if I don't learn how to get my soul under control, my spirit will never be at rest. Somewhere along the way I realize I'm not tired because of my schedule and I'm not tired because of people. I'm tired because I have taught my soul and trained my spirit how to never be at rest. Every June, I hear the same lies. As soon as the kids get out of school, people start lying.

People just start lying. It's gonna be a great summer. Liar. Or we say things like this, you know what I need? I just need a vacation.

Yeah, you need that and melatonin and something else. I just need a vacation. I just need some time away. I just need these kids to go back to school. I just need to see other people.

I just need. And we put all this pressure on a summer to force in us a person that we've spent the other 11 and a half months training ourselves not to be. Every June we lie. I just need to get away. Every August we hear the same frustrations from the lies we just said.

I don't know what happened. My summer was so busy. I really thought the vacation was going to help. I thought I was going to come back from vacation replenished. Just the other day my family got back from doing some ministry out of the country.

I landed, I go to the gym and I'm overhearing this conversation and this guy goes, this guy goes. The guy? Bro, how was your time away at a Cancun? Oh, it was horrible. The traffic on the way back in the airport, I'm like, bro, you're at Cancun.

How is it that we can change locations but still come back exhausted. You want to know why? Because our biggest problem was never geography. Our biggest problem is that wherever we go, we take us too. We pack ourselves.

All we do is pack the same stress, the same thoughts, the same anxiety, the same burdens from relationships, the same toxic scenarios. We pack it in the suitcase of our heart. Now we just unpack it in better climates. But have you ever discovered that wherever you go, there you are? You can outrun a location?

You can't outrun you. My biggest problem is that I take me wherever I go with me. If we don't learn how to deal with the oversized luggage in our spirit, we'll never be able to live and move and have our being as a person of rest. That's why I hope you get away this summer. I really do.

I hope you have an amazing vacation. I just want to remind you that there are some things geography can't fix. And there are some things that Disney cannot settle. There are some things the Outer Banks cannot do for you. There are some things that a cabin in the mountains of Tennessee cannot fix.

What do you do when your soul is addicted to stress? Like I was saying, my family had some ministry opportunities over the last two weeks in London and Norway and Paris. And by the way, what God is doing worldwide is breathtaking. There is a hunger for the deep things of God and acknowledging that God. I think that we're living in a day and age where people have tried everything there is to offer, only to recognize that it's not.

It's not a. Able to provide that which it promises. But there is a name that has been proven and it has stood the test of time to bring a peace and a calm that surpasses all of our understanding and a guidance for our future, a strength for our today and hope for our tomorrows. And his name is Jesus. And so anyways, have you.

We were going over there and, you know, going. Going overseas. Like, like, like, like. We packed. We packed our suitcases coming back.

Every luggage had that. You know that orange sticker they put on your luggage? It says heavy. It just lets everybody know. These guys impulsively buy.

It's one of those. Every. Every suitcase coming back has a luggage tag. And. And of course, the luggage tag is designed so that the baggage handlers won't throw their back out by being surprised that something they're trying to lift weighs more than what their eyes told them.

Don't you wish your heart had something like that that you could just walk into work and just be like, don't mess with me. Don't mess with me. Not today. Not today, devil. Not today.

You. I will, I will lay hands on the sick and give you the five fold ministry. You know what I'm talking about. You walk into your kid's room and you just ask them to clean it up for the fifth time and they still won't do it. Don't mess with me, son.

Don't mess with me, son. I wish our heart had a luggage sign. At least it gives us a pass for our attitude. At least it lets people be aware. I need to pray for him today.

What do you do though, when your soul is over packed with stress, anxiety and over anxious nervous system? What do you do when the problems around you keep stuffing the suitcase of your day, of your mind, of your peace, to the point where you yourself become too much to carry?

I know we're in summer in the Psalms and we should talk about something positive, but let's address the issue of what keeps us from that which is positive. How do I deal with me? Practically, just to make sure we're on the same page and just to make sure that the person that you've been frustrated with actually hears this message, go ahead and look at them and say, please take notes. Come on, just let them know. Please take notes.

You're getting hard to live with. Just let them know, come on, you're getting hard to live with in Psalms 131. It's only three verses long, but I'm going to encourage our church community to actually memorize this chapter this week. It'll take you 30 seconds to read. It'll take you all a five minutes to memorize.

It's a short chapter, but I just want to remind you that some of the smallest doors in Scripture lead to some of the greatest rooms of robust theology. And so David is saying much by saying little in terms of words. But before we read Psalms 131, we have to know where Psalms 131 lives. To understand its address is to understand the narrative arc of which it is going to medicate towards us. Psalms 131 is in a collection of Psalms within the greater book of Psalms known as the Songs of Ascent, the Songs of the Climb, the Songs of the Upward journey.

Three times a year, the people of God would gather together as a big community and they would journey to Jerusalem. Now, geographically, Jerusalem is 2,500ft above sea level. So in order to go to Jerusalem, you had to climb towards Jerusalem, which is why they Call it the Ascent. In other words, it wasn't a downward easy, comfortable walk. There was.

There was some. There was some leg power to this 2500ft above sea level, many days, many, many hours. In order to give them some purpose during the journey, God gave a group of people what we call these songs or psalms. And the psalms were basically stories of their history. So the first Song of Ascent talks about betrayal and hardships and weeping, and those things affect our life and how they pack extra baggage or weight in the suitcase of our life.

And then it just kind of progresses into God's faithfulness, into freedom for God's people. Psalms 131 is in the back end of that collection of Songs of Ascent. So on the journey, the people of God would begin to sing about the faithfulness of God. Fifteen songs every day. Think of it as the Spirit Spotify playlist for the people of God.

I don't know about you, but I hate long trips. I hate journeys. Like, to me, going to Winchester is like, oh, do I have to? It's like 15 minutes away. I hate being in the car and in the journey of our life and in the ascension of our life, trying to get from where we are to where we want God to take us.

Sometimes our prayers sound like this. God, hurry and get me there. Are we there yet? God, hurry and get me there. But God doesn't just care about where you're going.

He cares about the person you are becoming while you're getting there. So here's what I wrote down in my Bible during the Songs of Ascent is I want God to hurry the journey. God wants to deepen the traveler.

So we come to the Song of Ascent, and this is the back end of their story, of everything they've been through in the faithfulness of God. And here's what David says. Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty. I do not concern myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul.

Like a winged child with his mother. Like a winged child is my soul within me. I, O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. And you can almost hear the people singing that last refrain with a smile on their face and an uplifted shout and applause on the end. To me, what is surprising is where this psalm comes from and the story of the Songs of Ascent.

But more than that, what surprises me is who wrote it. Listen to these words he's using. My heart is not proud. But this was written by a king so already that's unique. He says, I have calmed and quieted my soul.

Like a winged child is my soul within me. If anybody had a right or an excuse to live with an anxious spirit, an overactive nervous system, it would have been David. Like, I'm literally going to give you just one third of the terrible events that's happened in his life. He was overlooked by his own dad. He fought lions and bears as part of his occupation.

He spent years running for his life living in caves, on the run from the king and his men. He buried multiple children. His family was fractured. His friends betrayed him. His son took the crown from him.

He lived with regrets he could never undo. Meanwhile, I get upset if the WI FI goes out. So I'm already curious. How did a man who's been through all of that be able to say, not in theory, but as a testimony, I have learned to quiet my soul? Let's look at what he says.

The first thing he said is surprising to me. He says, my heart is not proud. My eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with things too great or too marvelous for me. Notice where he starts.

My heart is not proud. My heart is unproud. There's something in me that needs to strip my heart from prideful activity or a self perception of who I am in order for me to be a person of peace. Peace and pride never walk hand in hand. And so he says, he says, he says, my heart is not proud.

In Hebrew, this phrase, my heart is not proud isn't talking about your emotions or self perception or egotism. It's really your heart is your heart. In America, like we would say our heart is the seat of our emotions. I love you with all my heart. I'm giving somebody my heart.

In Hebrew, your heart wasn't emotional foundation. It was your inner decision maker. Which is why Solomon says, guard your heart. Guard how you process the world. Guard how you take in information.

It's going to affect your default reactions to everything. It's your decision making factor. It's almost as if David is saying, I've learned to quiet my spirit by changing my inner operating system.

I learned to not see the things I used to see them like I used to see them. What I dwell upon has changed what I allow in my spirit and to stay in my spirit. It's changed how I've allowed myself to downward spiral without getting myself under check, without confronting my anxiety inwardly. The way I process the world around me has changed the way I allow the things outside of me to Come inside of me and see state inside of me. That's changed too.

Then he says this, I do not concern myself. In a literal translation, it would say this, I no longer occupy myself with me. Isn't that interesting? I no longer occupy myself spending all my time thinking all about me and all my issues. So David is not saying I've stopped thinking.

What he's saying is I've changed the way I think and I've stopped obsessing over questions and dilemmas that are too marvelous for me. In other words, there are some things that are outside of my control. And so I give those things to God, who is still in control. Sometimes what we call anxiety is really an attempt for sovereignty.

Just gonna let it sit there till we all feel it like I felt it. Our attempt for more control is really an attempt to do God's job for him. Your shoulders are only strong enough to carry today's problems, not the journeys. That's why the Bible says his mercies are new every day. God gives you what you need today for today, and then you'll get tomorrow's strength when tomorrow arrives.

He says, I do not concern myself. I used to become anxious and fearful and stressed when things were outside of my control. So I would spend all of my time occupying my time with myself. How do I control the situation? What needs to happen?

Here's the. And here's the burden. And if they would only do this and that. There are just some things that we can't touch. There are some things that we can't change.

There are some things that only we are responsible for. For those things, do it with God's strength and God's wisdom. But everything outside of your grasp put it in God's hands. David said, I was able to quiet my mind when I was able to steady my mind on the things. What belongs to God, what belongs to me?

Then he says something that is unexpected. He says, surely you can count on this fact. Check me. I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother. Two things I want you to notice what he doesn't say.

Sometimes what is not said is just as important as what is said. Otherwise, we'll read into what he is saying with our own thoughts, not his. Listen to what he said. Two things I want you to notice. He doesn't say, my soul became quiet when my prayers were answered.

And he doesn't say, I learned to be a person of peace when life slowed down for me. Notice he doesn't say I became a person of Peace. When I came back from vacation and one week away, totally unraveled, 52 weeks of knots. He doesn't say that. He said that.

Also notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, surely God calmed and quieted my soul.

At first, that feels. Wait, what? Isn't God the One who gives peace? He does. But sometimes we can unpack the peace from the suitcase he's providing and fill up our luggage with our own anxiety.

So God could be giving us something that we spend all of our time rejecting because we want to be in charge of our suitcase. God says, cast your cares upon me. I don't know about you, but sometimes I will cast my cares on God and I immediately take it back. Lord, you can have this. Now, if I could just help you with a couple of things and if you could just talk to them about this and if you just give me an opportunity to say it to their face.

And I'm getting revved up over the very thing that I just said that I surrender to God. Listen, it's unique. He doesn't say, God gives me peace. He says, I have calmed and quieted my soul.

What does David mean, think about a frightened child? When we were on this airplane this past week, that there was major turbulence, like something I've never felt before, you know, and like, I'm pretty confident in my relationship with God. I know where I stand. But it was one of those things, it was so bad. Just in case God, if there's anything in me, oh, Lord, like, it was bad turbulence.

They're coming over and they're giving warnings and all this stuff on the airplane. And I'm sitting next to Kade, he's my nine year old. And I see him looking up at me, see him looking at me, and I'm just like, hey, buddy, it's gonna be okay. And inside I'm like, oh. And the what is interesting is, and this went on for like 15 minutes, his he would look up at me and as long as I was okay, he was okay.

And I thought to myself, he's borrowing my courage until it becomes his. He's borrowing my strength until he believes it for himself.

I know you know this, but let me just remind myself out loud. There are people responding to life based upon the way they see me respond to mine. Your kids are learning to respond to situations based upon the way they see you respond to dilemmas and challenges. David is saying, I have calmed and quieted my soul because. Because I have learned to stay with God.

Physics has an interesting word that the medical community and neuroscience adopted as their own. So it in. So it lives in all three veins. It's called entrainment. It's where an external rhythm has the ability to change the rhythm of something weaker.

So cardiology, maybe, maybe a heart is in afib and it's tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Well, they'll introduce. Is a machine like a pacemaker that actually provides a stronger, more consistent rhythm. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And this external rhythm affects and influences the internal rhythm.

Isn't that interesting? Something becomes steady because it was exposed to something long enough that was stronger than itself. David is saying, when my soul is in afib, I have to remind myself peace does not come through perfection. Peace comes through getting around something that is bigger than I, stronger than I, more consistent than I. If I could get near the presence of God and the heart of God and the peace of God, I can borrow his courage until it becomes my own.

I can borrow his peace until it surpasses all my understanding. I can borrow his joy and his faithfulness. No wonder, though weeping endures for a night, joy comes in the morning because I have learned to unleash, unpack the suitcases of my stress and just lean into the entrainment of my spirit. As I put my head on the chest of God and listen to his heartbeat, he says, like a weaned child is my soul. That's interesting and oddly specific.

Like, why do we know that the child is weaned? Right? And yet there's no wasted words in scripture. So think about this. Like a weaned child is my soul.

A child that is nursing goes to its mother because it needs something. So the relationship is built upon somebody receiving, somebody giving. But a weaned child will crawl into its mother's lap not because it just needs food, but because it needs someone.

Notice this. The child doesn't need the mother less as it gets older. It needs the mother differently. Spiritual growth and spiritual formation isn't when you don't need God anymore. It isn't when you know so much about God that you don't need daily time in his presence.

It's not, oh, I love God, so I don't need the church. No, you don't need God less the more you grow closer to God. You just need God differently. The most shallow form of relationships are the relationships built upon somebody just wanting something. David is saying, my soul was filled with anxiety and stress when I only went to God for things that I need.

Now, the Bible says to cast our cares upon God, that's good. We need to give God our burden. So pray for miracles. Bring your request to God. The Bible tells us to do that.

But the shallowest relationship there is on the planet are those who just are in a relationship for the transaction. I noticed this about myself a while back. I was keeping a prayer journal. Somebody challenged me. How do you know?

And how can you recall the faithfulness of God in your life if you forget the faithfulness and the miracles that God performed in your life? So every day, just write down your prayers and at the end of the year, go back and look at how your prayers have matured or changed or the answers of prayer. So I tried that for like a month and I noticed this. This is embarrassing, so don't tell anybody, but the way I was praying was stressing me out. I'm like trying to go to prayer to relieve anxiety.

But the way I was talking about my situation was causing more anxiety in me. God, if you don't do this, this is what's gonna happen. And, oh, God, you gotta do this.

David would say, your problem isn't your problems. The problem is that you are a nursing infant still crawling on the lap of God just because you need something and you forgot how to wean yourself from this relationship. Just where I need a transactional moment with him into just learning the. The entrainment of my spirit. Let me hear your heartbeat, God.

God, what's on your heart that I should be praying about?

David says, my soul became at peace when I learned what is actually my responsibility and what is in God's control. I've learned to be a person at peace when I've learned to synchronize my heart with his, my passions with his, my perspective with his. Growing in our faith is not needing God less. It's needing to learn God differently. David surrenders what is outside of his control.

Notice then how he ends this short song of ascent. David suddenly switches the subject, as he often does. He's talking about something, he's in a rhythm, and then whoop, he goes over here. He's talking about himself, he's talking about his peace. He's talking about clarity of mind.

He's talking about his own spiritual formation and growing. And then out of nowhere, he says, verse 3. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord. From this time forth and forevermore, David has learned that a soul at rest becomes a place where other people can breathe. Last week our our friend Ben Comer spoke and a want to borrow his third point?

Your rest is for the rest of them. God gives you rest not just for your benefit, but for the benefit of the rooms in which you walk into. A benefit for the relationships that engulf your presence. God gives you the spirit of rest so that you can bring rest into anxious environments as well. Psalms 84 says, as they pass through the valley of Baca, baca is a.

Is a Hebrew word that is associated with deep mourning, sorrow, pain, hurt, bitterness. As they walk through a valley of that, they make it a place of springs. You know what's interesting is when I was reading this this week, a commentary on it, it says that nobody's been able to locate the Valley of Baca. And I thought, well, that's interesting. Everybody I know knows where Baca is.

We've drove from it to get here. Some of us were going to go back to it tomorrow morning at work. We all know where the Valley of Baca is, but notice what it says. They didn't excuse the valley. They didn't defend the valley.

They didn't use the valley to reshape their identity. This is why I am. It just says they made it place of spring because that's what a quiet soul learns to do for their benefit. And to everybody else who's in the valley of Baca as well. It walks into anxious places and it brings peace because it knows it doesn't need to stir up more drama.

It walks into angry places of hostility. And it doesn't multiply the irritation by giving voice to the frustration. It just speaks on whatever is true, good, holy, praiseworthy. The Bible says, think about those things. Why are we to think about them?

So we will say them and exhibit them. It doesn't walk into fearful places and add stress. It walks into fearful places and reminds people the faithfulness of God. Your rest isn't just for your peace. It's for the rest of them.

And so, as a recap, I'll throw it on the screen. Verse 1. This is the journey to the pathway of peace. We surrender. Lay down the weight you were never meant to carry.

What's heavy on your heart that is outside of your control. Give it to God tonight and go to bed. Verse 2. Synchronization. This is where we synchronize our heart and our mind with the pathway of God's presence and peace.

Your soul learns a different rhythm when it stays close to God. Verse 3. Then we share it. What God has done in your life needs to bring hope to those around you so God can do for them what he's done for you. So let me close like this.

Maybe You've spent years of carrying the pains of life, the weight of life. The Runway of your airplane is marked by the Valley of Baca. Stressed out, vengeful, bitter, anxious, overwhelmed, Addicted to hurry, addicted to busy. Because somewhere in your busyness you find your identity. That you're busy brings you value.

You don't need all that. What if this was a summer where we actually became a people of peace because we learned how to manage what is heavy in our life differently. Notice this. David always wore the weight of the crown that didn't go away. He just learned how to carry the weight differently.

I don't have a formula to make your problem problems go away. The Bible gives us the faithfulness of God to manage the problems of our life differently. What if God could use the weight not to crush you, but to build strength within you? You can't pray. God, increase my capacity comfortably.

Those two things don't go well together. God wants to increase your capacity. God wants to bring you blessing. But blessings and burden weigh the same. More of this comes, more of that.

The prayer isn't God, make it go away. The prayer is, God help me steward it well. So the Bible says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. And Jesus says, I this person will. It's a promise give.

It's a free gift you is personally to you. Rest in peace. So Lord, in a way that only you can, we cast our cares upon you. For we know that you care for us. Lord, I pray that this summer that we will not be looking for vacation and time away to do what it was never designed to do.

But we would enjoy those moments as an overflow of the person that you have strengthened us to become a person of peace, Lord. So whether we are getting away or we're staying home, Lord, I pray that you would use this weekend to set people free from anxiety, stress, burnout, bitterness, resentment, avengable, the spirit. These things that weigh us down. Let us see you, let us see ourselves. The situation, like the songs of ascent, deepen the traveler, but put a song in our spirit.

We're trying to get to where you are, but the road can be long and the weight can be heavy at times. So with the mighty hand of God, carry what is too big for us, manage what is outside of our control and give us peace in the midst of our steps. Simply stated, we breathe because we trust you in Jesus mighty name. And everybody said, come on. Amen.

Amen.