This sermon uses the biblical story of Jacob's journey to Egypt to illustrate how God helps individuals carry their burdens, not by removing them, but by providing support and strength through His presence and divine intervention, transforming "weight" into "wings."
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I feel like we might fly away today if we really get ahold of that,
really start singing about that. High-five your neighbor and say,
"He's that good…and then some." You don't even know what I'm praising him for. If you did,
you'd praise him with me. If you did, you'd get up here higher. If you did, you might
start jumping. You might start leaping. It's all right. Get that cardio in. Get that gratitude in.
[Worship]
Let everything that has breath… Let everything that's out of breath from
jumping… Jump a little more and praise the Lord! Come on, Riverwalk! You know you want to do it.
Come on, Uptown! I need 50 jumpers at Blakeney! I need somebody in your living
room! Give your calf muscles a workout and get up on your feet and give God…
This is it right here. Bless heaven! Come on. Clap those hands like you love Jesus!
I'm going right to my message. The Spirit of the Lord is in this place. I'm going
right to my message. The Spirit of the Lord is in this place. Chains
are going to break today because the Spirit of the Lord is in this place.
The anointing destroys the yoke. The Spirit of the Lord is in this place.
I'm so glad I listened to the Lord. Last night, he told me to get a little extra sleep because y'all
were going to be ready today. I'm so glad I did. I was in bed at 8:20 p.m. getting ready for y'all,
and that's an hour earlier than my normal bedtime. (And now I'm stalling to catch my breath from
jumping.) Tell your neighbor, "I'm glad you're breathing." Tell them, "I'm glad you brushed
your teeth." We have a good time in church. I said, "We have a good time in church." It doesn't
mean we're not going through rough patches in our lives, but we have a good time in church.
I welcome you here today. All of our guests, all of our eFam, all of our church family, welcome
today. I'm so glad you're here. I accidentally started preaching a sermon series a few weeks ago,
and I've been talking to you about when God calls your name. I was trying to figure out what to call
the series, and finally, in my fourth week, the Lord told me what to call it. It's called Called.
That's what it's called.
Tell your neighbor, "I'm called." Called a lot of different things by a lot of different people,
I'm sure. Did you enjoy last week when I was talking about "Martha, Martha"? How many of
you felt seen when I was showing Holly be pulled apart by the demands of life?
How many of you preached the message back to yourself a little bit throughout the
week when you felt yourself pulled here and pulled there?
And just reminded yourself that being present in the moment that God has given you is always the
priority. Presence is the priority, even when your plan changes, even when your problems are
overwhelming. Let's see. We've done "Moses, Moses." We did "Simon, Simon." These are the
ones I've preached so far, different people in the Bible that God called their name, not once,
but twice, just right there together. "Moses, Moses." "Simon, Simon." "Martha, Martha."
Today is "Jacob, Jacob." Genesis, chapter 45. As many sermons as you've heard me preach on Jacob,
I've never preached from this passage. Genesis, chapter 45, verse 25,
and then we'll go all the way to chapter 46, verse 5. You say, "That's a lot of Scripture." Well,
I'm making up for all the Bible reading days you skipped this week. I'm doing you a favor.
Now, hear the Word of the Lord. The Lord has a word for you today. I've been pacing
back and forth waiting for you to get here. I'm so thankful for the way he speaks. Now,
a little bit of background. The children of Jacob have gone to Egypt,
and they found out not only is there food in Egypt while there's a famine in Canaan where
they live but that their brother Joseph, who they betrayed years earlier, is in command.
He has promised them, "If you will come back and bring our father Jacob, I'll take care
of you. Everything you did to me is not going to be held against you. I have moved past it,
and I'll take care of you." So, with this message, they arrive to Jacob who, remember,
22 years earlier, was told that his son was dead, or led to believe that his son was dead,
when, in fact, it wasn't true. He'd been pushed in a pit, but he wasn't dead.
He was sold into slavery, but he wasn't dead. He was falsely accused years later and went to
prison, but he wasn't dead. Tell your neighbor, "Somehow I'm still here." Just tell them,
"Somehow I'm still here. That's why I'm praising him." Now we pick up
the narrative in Genesis 45:25. "So they…" The brothers of Joseph, the sons of Jacob.
"So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob.
And they told him, 'Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.'
And his heart became numb…" Isn't that unexpected? He gets the greatest news he
could ever hope to receive, and instead of his heart being happy, his heart goes numb.
Now, after his heart goes numb, the writer gives us a little bit of an explanation as to why he was
unable to receive this good report. It said, "…for he did not believe them. But when they
told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that
Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said,
'It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.'"
Now chapter 46, verse 1. "So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came
to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to
Israel in visions of the night and said, 'Jacob, Jacob.' And he said, 'Here I am.'"
That's presence. "Here am I." "Then he said, 'I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to
go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you
to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.'" The
one you said goodbye to is going to be the one who says goodbye to you in your dying breath.
The final verse I want to read to you before we preach… "Then Jacob set out
from Beersheba. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives,
in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him." The prophetic word I've been assigned
to preach to you today may come across, on the surface, as very simple, but it is really the
deepest belief you could ever hold, and it is this: The Lord Will Lighten Your Load.
I know you had a lot on your mind even coming in today, but the Lord will lighten your load.
I know sometimes people take advantage of you because you're available to them,
but the Lord will lighten your load. I know you've done some bad things in your life,
and you feel kind of guilty about them, but the Lord will lighten your load.
I know you're trying to make a plan right now, and stuff keeps moving, and stuff keeps shifting,
and people keep moving, and people keep shifting, but the Lord will lighten your
load. I know you're stubborn and you don't like to ask for a lot of help, but the Lord
will lighten your load. I know your shoulders are tense. You really need a massage today,
but I'm going to give you a message today instead. The Lord will lighten your load.
Turn around and tell 12 people, "The Lord will lighten your load." Put it in the chat. "The Lord
will lighten your load." Put it right there in the chat. "The Lord will lighten your load." And you
may be seated. You can rest for the rest of the message. The Lord will lighten your load. Now, I
have a love/hate relationship with simple sayings like that. "The Lord will lighten your load."
On one hand, I think that the highest degree of clarity in communication is simplicity. So,
really, for me, the art of studying the Scripture is to simplify the Scripture,
to find one message in the Scripture that we can all take, whether we're 12
or whether we're 82 or whether, like Jacob here in this passage, we are 130 years old.
Did you know Jacob was 130 years old when the Lord told him, "Get up and go to a place
300 miles away, a place you've never been in, a place that you will not recognize,
a place that you will not fit into, a place that you will be tempted to reject. But I'm sending you
to Egypt because there's a famine where you are, and you have to move." Jacob is 130 years old.
As we step into this moment of Jacob's life… I gave a little bit of this away. I intended to
save it so I could tell the story and keep you in suspense. He is really on
the verge of one of the greatest moments he has ever experienced. In just a few weeks,
he will be reunited with his son, the son that he mourned for 22 years. But you can't exactly
call it a happy moment for Jacob either, can you? Because as we saw in the Scripture that I read,
sometimes you get good news, but you can't take it in because of what you've been through.
Sometimes you can't receive truth because the truth has to work its way through the trauma.
Sometimes you can hear something that actually is factual,
but your frustration or your pain or your failure will take you into
a moment where even though you hear the truth, even though you hear the word,
and even though it's something you desire to believe, unbelief does not unwind automatically.
Through a process of coming before the Lord and spending time with the Lord and putting
yourself in environments like this… Go ahead and give yourself a hand for coming to church today,
by the way. I learned to look at it differently. I used to think,
"I don't have time to go to church" if I was busy.
Now I've learned that when I'm really busy, I don't have time to not come to church,
because I need to be in a place where my heart is not numb. I need to be in a place where I can
be known by God and accepted by him. So, you wouldn't exactly call this moment in
Jacob's life happy, would you? He has lost two decades plus two years with his son,
and he's kind of suspicious that his boys were the ones who were up to it. And he's right.
But at the same time, there is a hope for him that "Maybe, just maybe, I'm going to see Joseph. I'm
going to see Joseph. This is better than going to Disneyland, y'all. I'm going to see Joseph.
I've been told that Joseph has secured a spot for me in Goshen, and I'm going to
live off the fat of the land as the father of Joseph, who has risen through all adversities.
Like a fruitful vine, he climbed over every wall. They shot their arrows at him,
but Joseph's hand remained steady. I'm going to see Joseph." At least he hopes. But here is
the lesson from Jacob's response to the news that Joseph may be alive. When you've been really hurt,
it is hard to keep hoping. When you have been really hurt, it is hard to keep hoping.
I promise you I won't depress you the whole message, but I just don't
want to bring you in like this is some glorious reunion and reconciliation,
because if we oversimplify and we make it a cliché ("The Lord will lighten your load"),
then what happens when three hours from now you get some bad news? Or what happens when you get
to work tomorrow and your boss did not get my sermon title that the Lord wanted to lighten
your load? "Didn't you get the memo? The man of God said the Lord would lighten my load."
Well, they are not the Lord, and they may put more on you. Isn't that a dumb cliché,
by the way, when we say, "The Lord will never put more on you than you can bear"? The Bible
doesn't say that. Read the Bible. Stop quoting what you heard from your grandma
without checking it against the Bible. She was approximating what she heard one time,
but the Bible says that no temptation has overtaken you and God will give you
a way of escape. It doesn't say that God won't put more on you than you can bear.
He most certainly will put more on you than you can bear so you won't get confused and think
you're him. That's actually God's job security, to call you to do things you can't do without him,
so you won't get there and be without him and think you can do it. I need the
Lord in my life. I need the Lord, and I have an "every six days" reminder when I
come preach to you. And do you know that my favorite thing to do that does not involve
my family is to be up here and share the Word of the Lord with you? It really is.
But, if you were to ask me two hours before I get up here, "Are you excited to preach?" I
would have a difficult time, if you hooked me up to a lie detector, just saying a straight "Yes,"
because I am excited, but (and please don't tell all the Pharisees that
want to quote a Scripture verse at me when they hear this) I'm also anxious.
I know the Bible says, "Don't be anxious," but that was Paul. He's
farther along than I am. I'm anxious. I'm anxious, will I say it right? I'm anxious,
will you hear it right? I'm anxious, will I leave the best part out? I'm anxious,
will I say something that is not exactly correct and maybe lead you astray?
Even when I preach about this kind of message, let me tell you what makes me anxious. I'm
scared that you will hear that Jacob went to Egypt and use it as an excuse to run away from
something hard in your life, because people will even take a phrase that you preach on
with a good intention, like, "The Lord said to Jacob, 'Don't be afraid to go to Egypt…'"
They will somehow translate that into the Lord saying, "Quit your accounting job, even though
you have four mouths to feed, and open a coffee shop because you like coffee." But maybe what the
Lord is really saying is, "Drink more coffee and keep accounting, because you've got a whole family
to feed, and those kids need to go to college." So I'm worried about all of that. I'm worried about
"Will it be boring?" I'm worried about "Will I say too much, say too little?" I'm just being honest.
I came up with a way to explain it, and I thought it might help you. Now,
this is a trademarked word. This word belongs to me, but you can borrow it
for the situations in your life where you feel excited but you also feel anxious. From now on,
we call that "anxcited." You got anything in your life that you feel that way about today? So,
if you ever ask me before I preach, "How do you feel?" I'm going to tell you, "I'm anxcited."
You'll say, "Pastor Steven, anxcited ain't a word." And I'll say, "It may not be a word, but it
is a reality." The fact is if I focus on getting it wrong, I'm going to feel completely paralyzed.
If I focus on pleasing people, I'm going to feel completely paralyzed. If I focus on not leaving
anything out, I'm going to stand up here like I'm performing for you, but this ain't Vegas. If
I focus on feeding you what God gave me for what you're going through in your life, I'm excited.
So, I want you to understand that both options are always available. I can be anxious. I can
be excited. I'm like Jacob sometimes. I can't really name how I feel. I can't really name
the season I'm in. On one hand, I'm really happy to be in front of you. I'm really thrilled with
the prospect of being a vessel for God to use, and on the other hand, I'm terrified. And don't
look at me judgmentally, because you don't like to give speeches or hear your own voice either.
So I'm excited. I'm anxious. I'm anxcited. I don't know how to spell that, but I certainly know what
it feels like. I'm anxcited. And I believe there's somebody in the room today that feels
that way about this season of your life. "I'm anxcited." Tell your neighbor, "I'm anxcited."
"I'm kind of shaky in it, but I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm kind of
relieved that things are changing, and I'm kind of terrified that things will never be the same."
"I'm kind of feeling a sense of adventure in my life because I got fired,
and I'm also watching my bank account, and it's running the wrong way from abundance.
It's moving in the wrong direction. So, I'm kind of excited to have free time, but I'm
kind of not excited. I'm a little anxious about having less money, because now I'm stretched,
and I'm stretching toward something I didn't expect. In this season of my life, I'm anxcited."
Somebody asked me recently, "What do you and Holly feel about being
empty nesters soon?" I said, "Soon? Abbey is 14. Why are you trying to
run her out of the house? She just started wearing makeup. Give me a few more years."
I'm anxcited about my kids growing up. I'm anxcited about releasing them into the world.
I'm anxcited about being in Charlotte. Some of you just moved here in the last month.
Some of you moved here to be a part of this church. How do you feel about
