The Church of Eleven22 - S02E17 - Carry One Another’s Burdens

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

One of the primary ways to love one another is to bear one another’s burdens. In this week’s devo, Pastor Joby talks about Mary, Martha and their brother, Lazarus. In John 11, we see how Jesus carries the burdens of his friends. Jesus knows Lazarus is going to die and He is going to bring Lazarus back to life, but he meets Mary and Martha where they are and bear their burden when they needed it most. He weeps with those who are weeping. We’re called to bear one another’s burdens because Jesus bore our sin on the cross. As Jesus bears your burden, are you willing and able to bear one another’s burdens? Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. – Galatians 6:2

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Howdy Church family, welcome back to our Deepen Divos. Thank you so much for the opportunity that you give me to dive into God's Word. And we take a deeper look at just one of the aspects of the text that we've covered

from the past weekend. and as you know, we're in our 17th week of the Gospel of John, and we're intersecting our study in the Gospel of John with one of the 59 one another's. And when I started this out 17 weeks ago, a part of the reason is because people were really just starting to come back to church and that kind of thing. And while for sure, we now have the opportunity for folks all over the world

to worship with us with 1122 online, and that's a great opportunity for you, if you're going to miss being in the room or you're going to be out of town or whatever. All of those things are wonderful. However, 59 times in the New Testament, we are told to one another, one another. And you can't want another, one another, one another without one another. And I want to say, way to go. Because by and large, the majority of people that were attending are back

and our online audience is about the same as our in the room audience used to be. So you know the difference. I met a guy in the gym the other day, and their family has. hasn't come back yet for medical reasons, and so that's not what we're talking about. But if you have just gotten into the habit of being lazy, I'm talking to you. Because what we're going to see here is you can't do this one another at a distance. The one we're going to talk about this week, you've got to actually be in other people's presence to do this one.

Galatian 6-2, the Apostle Paul says this, carry one another's burdens. Carry one another's burdens. I wanted to talk about that this week is because of the text that we just covered, John Chapter 11, one of my favorite events in all of the scripture, the point of this weekend was you don't have to do the things you used to do because you are not the person you used to be. The old you is dead, the new you is alive in Christ. And we were talking about the resurrection of Lazarus, that Jesus caused Lazarus out of the grave. And you'll remember this, just a quick recap. Mary and Martha send a messenger to Jesus.

The messenger shows up, says, the one that you love is sick. And then Jesus waits a couple of more days to even show up. And then he tells us the reason that he waits is for the glory of God. And the Bible specifically says Jesus loved Martha, Jesus loved Mary, Jesus loved Lazarus. So he waited. And the reason that he waited is because he knew,

He tells the disciples, Lazarus is gone to sleep, and I'm going to go wake him up. And the disciples are so dumb. And they're like, well, if he's asleep, won't he just wake up on his own? He's like, no, dummies. He's dead. And I'm going to make him not be dead anymore. But when he shows up, what I want to do is through the lens of Galatian 6-2, bear one another's burdens, I want you to see how Jesus treats the two different sisters.

Again, Galatian 6-2 says this, bear one another's burden. so fulfill the law of Christ. We're going to find out in a few weeks of the Gospel of John that Jesus is going to say to the disciples, I give you a new commandment or a new law. And then I can imagine the disciples are ready to write down this brand new law, and the new law is this. Jesus says, love one another as I have loved you.

And so what Paul says in Galatian 6-2 is one of the primary ways to fulfill that law that Christ gave us to love one another. How do you love one another? Is he just talking about the way we feel towards one another? And what Paul says is, if you want to fulfill the law of Christ, then here's how you do it. You bear one another's burdens.

So Mary and Martha, maybe I should start with Martha first, Martha and Mary, they have this burden. And the burden is that their brother has died. And they're sad and they're confused. And a part of the reason they're sad, it's obvious because his brother died. And a part of the reason they're confused is because they sent for Jesus.

And they have seen Jesus do other miracles. And yet they wonder why he didn't show up. I mean, they made a prayer request. It was a very simple prayer request. Go get Jesus, bring him here. Because surely if he shows up, he could do something about it. And then Jesus doesn't do anything about it on their timetable, but on his.

But when he shows up, I want you to see how he treats Martha and Mary. He treats them very, very differently. And the reason that he does this is because they're different human beings. They have different, like, personality types. They have different, they have different makeups. And Jesus meets them right where they are. And in so doing, he bears their burden. When he shows up, the Bible says that Martha hears about him showing up first. Now, Martha, we find out from a previous event in the scriptures that Martha is type A, she's get it done, she's like an eight or a three on the enneagram.

She is a go, go, go, go get her. Almost every single time we see Martha in the scriptures, like maybe you'll remember this. Mary and Martha are having Jesus over to the house in Bethany for like a lunch or a dinner or whatever. And when Jesus shows up, Mary just sits at the feet of Jesus and Martha is working, working, working.

And then Martha gets very aggravated with her sister Mary and goes to Jesus. And it's like, Jesus, can you help me out here? I'm working my fingers to the bone and my sister's just doing nothing and just sitting at your feet. And remember, Jesus says, Martha, Martha, Martha, what your sister is doing,

she has made the right decision because I will not always be here with you. And so, Jesus, knowing the type of person that Martha is, Martha rushes out to meet Jesus. She's type A, she's get it done. And then what he's going to do is he has this deep theological conversation to answer her questions and give her some context about why this is happening.

He says her, I am the resurrection in the life. And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that my brother will be resurrected in the last day. And he's like, no, I don't think you understand. I am the resurrection. That to come to me is more important than even life. And in so doing, because he has all of these questions, and in so doing he is bearing her burden because he is receiving her questions and and and then he is

responding to her questions with the truth now when he comes to mary after the conversation with martha she sends message to mary and mary finds out that jesus is here and then jesus comes out and she's just overwhelmed with grief and if you look at jesus's conversation with mary he he almost says nothing. She asked the same question, why didn't you come? If you'd have been here, my brother would still be alive. And then the Bible says that Jesus, seeing her weeping, I guess he puts his arm around her, and then the shortest verse in the Bible, and Jesus wept. Now, here's a question that you've got to ask. Okay, if you, if you read your Bible, take it seriously, why does Jesus cry? I mean, we talked about this this weekend, but I just want to

bring it back up. He's already told the disciples that the reason that he's waiting is because he knows that Lazarus is going to die, and the reason that he's going when he goes is to bring Lazarus back from the dead. So why then is Jesus crying with Mary, even though he knows in what? 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 20 minutes? How long do you wait? I have no idea, but he waited some amount of time, and then he knows he's going to go to the tomb and he's going to say, Lazarus come forth. and then Lazarus ain't going to be dead anymore. And everybody's going to be super happy and excited. So why in that moment is Jesus crying?

And here's why I think. Because he is bearing her burden. To bear one another's burdens means I take the thing that is weighing you down and I get up under that thing with you. That the Bible says in the book of Romans that we are to weep with those who weep. I think we'll go over this in a couple of weeks, by the way. that we are to weep with those who weep. In our current culture, you know what we love to do,

especially with these things on Twitter, is when somebody is in pain, what we have a tendency to do is first blame. And the Bible says, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Before we ever do anything like that, first we must weep with those who weep. And in so doing what Jesus is doing, even though he knows how this thing is going to end,

he is taking some of her burden, and he is putting himself up under that burden with her. Again, with Martha, he's answering her deep theological questions, and with Mary, he's just putting his arm around her, and when it's time to cry, he just cries. Because I can tell you, sometimes Christians can say the dumbest things, and instead of saying something dumb, sometimes we just need to bear one another's burdens.

Listen, I feel this pressure all the time. As a pastor, I've been doing this for 26 years or something crazy like that. And there are so many times, walking to the hospital room and the loved one of somebody that I love has passed away and somebody asked this question, why? Why? And there's so many times that Christians can just have the dumbest response. And oftentimes what we're trying to do is be right. And what Jesus does, even though he's always,

right, even though he always speaks truth. Instead of being right, you know what Jesus does in this moment with Mary, he just, he just chooses to be there, to just bear with her burdens. And then, and then he goes to the graveside or to the tomb where he's in, and the sisters warn him, hey, you know, Lord, he stinketh. He's been there for four days. And a part of the reason I think he waited four days is there was, there was kind of Jewish folklore that if you were dead for only two days you weren't all the way dead. Your soul was still kind of hanging around. This is a biblical idea at all. This is just kind of folklore in that time. And so I think Jesus waited to after three days so that everybody know that he's good and dead. And then he calls Lazarus, come forth. And if you're paying attention

in the sermon, I said maybe the reason he had to call out his name is because if he stood in the graveyard and said, come forth, then all the dead people would have come. But he says, Lazarus, come forth. And then he tells him, take off your grave clothes. In the ESV, though, it says this. unbind him. Unbind him. And again, we talked about it. The reason that he was to take off his grave clothes is because he's alive. And so a living man doesn't need to wear dead man clothes.

But again, into the SV, when he says unbind him, what he's insinuating there is that he cannot do this for himself. So now, after Jesus has walked through this pain with Martha and with Mary, and he chooses to bear their burden, not just fix the situation immediately, but first walk through it with them. Now they are equipped to bear their brother's burdens, because their brother can't take the grave clothes off by himself.

They need to help him do it. So let me ask you this. As Jesus bears your burden, are you willing and able, and are you there to bear one another's burdens? And the reason, the reason that we are called to bear one another's burdens, burdens is because Jesus Christ bore the burden of our sin on the cross. So the moment. Now again, we are not talking about enabling one another.

What we are talking about is when your brother or when your sister has a weight on them that seemingly is too much for them to bear, emotionally, physically, spiritually, relationally, what we are called to do is get right down beside them, put our arm around them, and help carry that weight with them. Why? Because there was a weight on our life that was too much for us to bear. It was the weight of the penalty of our own sin.

And at the cross of Jesus Christ, Jesus bore our burden. He put it on his shoulders. He carried it to Gagatha, the place that he was nailed to the tree. And in love, He took what was not his fault, our sin, and he made it his responsibility. And what we are called to do is to take something that's not our fault, some problem, issue that

somebody else is going through, and we take it on as a help to them because of what Christ is done to help us. Church of 1122, may we bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you, and we, praise you, Lord, for the ministry of just showing up, for the ministry of incarnation, for the ministry of just being there, to wrap our arms around our brothers and sisters. And if any part of the body hurts, that we hurt with them. If any part of the body weeps, we weep with them. So that when it is time to rejoice, we can rejoice with them. Jesus, we thank you and we praise you that even now, through your body, through the church, you put your arm around us. and you weep with us and you rejoice with us and you bore our burden at the cross and so

God as we experience that grace pour down on us may we do the same to those that are around us God may we bear one another's burdens and so fulfill your commandment to love one another just as you have loved us we pray this in Jesus name amen thank you for joining us for deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit co-e-22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today

helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.